But this walking thing is tough. It starts with a little hot spot on the left baby toe and then the stride is altered unconsciously to compensate. Next, sharp pains begin shooting up through the left calf and soon enough there is an awareness of aching knees, tight stomach, tired arms and even dry eyes and a too tight ponytail. This is the moment when one becomes a human metronome..
St James is chatting again, telling everyone that they will soon feel better if only they would walk over to his house for a visit. The camino calls out to broken people and while most people know that they walk the camino with broken hearts, there are those of us who like to say that we are whole and well. We are simply having an adventure. But our own pain mirrors that of the blisters on our feet; they hurt horribly for the first few steps each morning but once we get moving the pain fades to numbness.. we no longer feel a thing.. that is until we find ourselves at the end of each day picking our feet and draining our wounds, figuratively and literally speaking.
Yesterday, I spent a part of my afternoon getting lectured in spanish by a tiny woman in a small neighborhood pharmacy."Show me your feet now," she said. I sat down and as I pulled off the wrapping around my baby toe, a little boy who also happened to be in the pharmacy leaned over for a look. "Blehk!!" he shouted as he gleefully looked closer. As my angel pharmacist doused my foot with antiseptic and tightly wrapped my festering toe, she asked with resignation.. "you are walking tomorrow aren´t you?" St. James has become my magnet.
This week has been difficult. I cried in Burgos, leaning against a wall with my head to my knees. My thoughts had scattered and doubts had crept in. "What do I think I am doing here.. I should just go home. I am not equipt for this." But even as I thought these things St James spoke up, calling me a sissy. (He can really be a bastard sometimes!) "Lift your head and stand up," he said. "Stop trying to see me through your camera lens, stop listening for me in your Ipod, stop trying to drown me out in conversations with others, stop crying over the blisters on your heart and feet.. FEEL!! Then you will know you are alive!" So with a pushy Jim shouting encouragement, I put one foot in front of the other.. one step closer..
However, the walking is perhaps the easiest part of the camino. Each day we are born with the sunrise, mature with the wheat, fall in and out of love with others and ourselves, and die by the sunset, hoping that the new days incarnation will be stronger and wiser. I came to the camino with an open heart, but I didn´t realise just how much I had to learn. People trust, walk together and share their entire lives stories, yet at the end of the day may not even know eachother´s names. And people can come to the camino, creating an entirely different version of themselves.
Isabelle is absolutely beautiful. I would hate her if I didn´t love her so much. When she is walking, she has her hair up and covered giving her a childlike appearance, but when she lets her long dark hair fall down past her shoulders, she is stunning. She is tall and thin yet walks with freakish strength and speed. And she has huge expressive eyes radiating kindness. We talk together like children as neither of us can communicate very well in the other's language, but even so, I felt instantly comfortable in her presence. So, it was with great empathy that I watched her eyes well up and her face crumble. I wanted to help but though we might try, we cannot slay our friends´ dragons. We can only hold our friends when their dragons slay them. Nico held Isabelle as she buried her face into his shoulder to cry.
I had been walking with Isabelle, Nico and Michel for a few days, days that I had truly treasured. We celebrated Isabelles´s birthday in a village courtyard, creeping too late into the chapel to sleep, but giggling like schoolkids far into the night. But as I mentioned above..each day we live new lives. Michel, a Quebec man with dark hair peppering grey and bright blue eyes, told Isabelle that after walking a 1000 kilometers together, he needed time to walk alone. She struggled to understand why. In the meantime, I learned that someone who I trusted was actually someone I should have guarded myself against. Nico, an attractive tall frenchman with clear eyes and lightbrown hair, said that he was walking away from a broken marriage and a job change and talked often of his beautiful little girl with lovely golden curls. But though Nico may have been trying to learn to heal, he had a weakness for women and hadn't yet learned how to protect those who would come to care for him. The camino calls out to broken people though...even those who continue to break others..
"Really," I think with aching feet, "Another F$%&ing wheat field!?!?!?" I hear James laughing. I am halfway there.
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| Even Jesus gets pooped on sometimes.. |
