Elevation: 30,000 Feet

A look back at the Camino

Hurtling through the atmosphere from Miami to my home in Anchorage, breathing slowly and methodically up and down my spine, I recalled my experience on the Camino de Santiago, savoring each detail. About 300,000 people walk each year as an act of faith, for personal reasons, or as a time of reflection. It had been on my bucket list for decades, for all those reasons. And if I got fitter or stronger for my trouble, I would say Yes!

The Camino really requires only two other things; walking shoes and getting to Spain. The way is marked in yellow arrows on placards, buildings, trees, stones, the ground. It’s impossible to get lost.

During my walk, I was surprised to discover how much anger I still held, despite 15 years in AA and a multitude of inventories and amends. And when I finally released the resentments, in the middle of a wood, I felt how to be free of it for the first time since childhood, and of the underlying fear. I felt more me than at any other time in my life.

Then something baffling and wondrous happened.

Of course, I wanted to hold onto all of it.

A bit of flight turbulence. I closed my eyes. Time to search for answers to necessary questions:

Did I need to go to Spain to find power in body; ease and clarity in mind?

Is that to be found only on the Camino? Or, might I go on pilgrimages where I lived, taking one or two days a week to do nothing but walk and reflect?

And why on earth did long walking lead to that power and insight?

God, as I understood Him, was NOT bound by architecture, any more than geography.

I wanted to relive my experiences on the Way. Or forge a new path, however tenuous or painstaking.

The Camino de Santiago de Compostela

Shards of light pierces the leafy green tunnel, and beyond, shone a brilliant blue sky.

My legs pump strong and rhythmic—soldierly—as I carefully monitor my body. Gone the scratchy throat, the knee pain, the muscle aches and background tiredness.

The first day of walking the Camino de Santiago, as seriously undertrained as I was, had me focused only on walking, on letting my body do all that it could.

The second morning was excruciating, but within an hour of slow walking, my muscles warmed, fear subsided, and my legs with that wonderful rhythm took over.

Each day was easier, smoother, stronger. Thirty years of wishing for this, and I could hardly believe I was here at last.

After five miles, on this fifth day, my body feels almost foreign—pump pump pumping—wanting to continue, without a break, needing to walk.

I am happy walking; happy and free.

I’m happier still for my light and flat pack. I travel proudly now only with essentials—pilgrim passport, driver’s license, cash, an empty water bottle if my throat demands it, sunscreen in case the sun turns fierce, one third roll of toilet paper, just in case. I pity the pilgrims with large packs on their backs.

I had discarded much over the last week – protein bars, electrolyte liquid, peanuts, hand sanitizer, wallet. I trained without a backpack and cursed much of the first day, trekking up and down mountains for fourteen miles, too heavily laden like a mule.

My husband Robert had carried an even heavier pack before he fell ill that first evening. And now he awaits me each evening at our next hotel.

Nothing I can do for him now. I keep walking, deliberately bringing my mind to the present, where it stays. This mental switch is new, and smoothly effective. It feels like victory.

Walking, I realize, I may be building new connections; desirable switches and relays in my psyche—body, brain and spirit.

Focusing solely on my body and its journey, not fretting about Robert or his health, nor family, friends or finances, I am fully aware of a thrumming energy flowing through me.

As I’ve shed thinking of my little daily concerns, like the items in my backpack, I can see and think about other new and astounding things.

This energetic flow is coming out from me and blending into my fellow pilgrims, the countryside, the skies. And just now, apparently, into new parts of my brain, lighting them up.

Usually I’m doubtful, anxious and fearful, though I’ve done my utmost to cover it up. I’m also restless, irritable and discontented. But not today. Today just is, as am I.

Today this path, that is being traveled by pilgrims, contains a silence and a stillness to it. When the walkers pass and say, “Buen Camino,” there is a quiet, a near reverence in the saying of it, “May Your Way be Good.” Can they feel the energy, too?

I feel my body strengthen every few steps, my mind settling, more confident and peaceful.

It’s like another me is being fashioned here, by walking, by nature, by the Way—one that sees more, understands more.

Each mile makes me look forward to another; each day walking has made me want to walk another day. This is completely unexpected.

I feel carried along by this new me, this new Her, in me. I marvel like a five-year-old and break into a huge grin. Is this Her happiness seeping into me? I’d happily keep walking forever to hold onto this feeling.

Uh oh. Soon I’d need to stop. The path swerves gently and an old stone building appears. Next to it, an open-air café. With a bathroom.

Thank you! I send the thought up to the sky.

I complete my business, drink cool water from a clay pitcher, and look around the open yard and check in; it’s crammed with backpackers and I’m not yet hungry. My legs decide for me.

My legs follow the path that winds into a tunnel of eucalyptus. I feel safe inside a cocoon of living green.

Tossing away my question about whether I should have bought a snack, and only focusing only on the leaf-strewn path ahead, I feel a vibration rush forward, along the contours of the path, and into the unknown future. The vibrating is also inside me.

Stopping cautiously to look behind me, the energy opens up something like a rearview mirror, which lets me peer back to where I left the open air cafe. I can “see” the cafe and backpackers in my mind. Wierd.

As my feet move on the path forward again, I feel competent, almost as if I can sense what’s coming next, from the future, from the universe. It will be safe, and friendly.

And so I feel connected to the past, and to the unknown future, both. Anchored. And continuous.

Scooting back down into my body, the tang of eucalyptus smells refreshing. The sap is rising like springtime, in this body now foreign and yet familiar.

The thought arises: Discard resentments. I search inside my breast for any hurt, inside my throat for any bitterness—then name them, one by one.

Each name, I throw up into the sky: My drunk father, my absent mother, bad former loves, a money entanglement.

The vibrating current carries each name up, up and away, millstones around my neck breaking free as they rise. Each one floats above the green hills before dissipating into a clear blue sky.

I feel a hundred pounds lighter, though my clothes are only moderately looser.

The Catholic Church’s sexual abuses. Still??? I turned this item over in my mind like a stone: After I’d studied biology in college, I veered away from my childhood faith. I’d reported in Boston a short while as church lawyers kept the criminality of certain priests a secret. (Until they didn’t.) I’d lived in Alaska, where some of the worst predators attacked about 95% of entire villages.

I’d chosen to believe the explanation that the clergy had tried to protect the faith of their congregations by keeping a few bad actors from wrecking everything.

The alternative was vile—that priests were considered more valuable than their collective victims.

I send up the residual bitterness catching at my throat about their motives, and doubts about the sufficiency of reparations into the lightheared current of energy. Only this time I call it back a bit, churning it by moving it back and forth—as if deep cleaning it—before finally releasing it as I continue to walk.

Above my pay grade, I think, smiling in mirth. That feels about right. Walking is taking the sting out of my past grievances.

I enter another leafy tunnel. If not mine, then who’s? I pondered the question. The answer comes. Well… God’s. Obviously!

I walk out to a crisp sky blue with a lemon yellow sun. The energy is stronger, has been getting stronger, as I get lighter.

A few steps later I ask timidly, Is this you?

I walk on, waiting, patient, expectant. Awe just around the bend. 

A ripple in the energy, like a chuckle.

I ask hopefully, shyly, “Can we talk?”  More ground under my feet, legs pumping, blood coursing, breath coming harder.

At least I can talk to myself. I chuckle because I’m usually good company. Then I laugh at my inside joke.

Just then, three nuns and a priest pass me on the right. “Buen Camino,” they say quietly. I watch their retreating backs, rosaries swinging with their strides. I feel nothing. Except peace.

Suddenly, “What do you think we’ve been doing?

I keep walking, on high alert. I want more. But there is no more.

When I stop to drink water at a way station, I see nothing but packaged snacks that repel me. But I will soon be hungry. As I stand drinking more water, I hear, “There’s a cafe one kilometer up the road.”

It’s perfect, under a green awning, with woods just beyond. Only three others. I wait for my meal of Spanish omelette and coffee with milk. It’s delicious. I feel joy.

The rest of the day continues in similar fashion, and the next day, my last walking: What I need suddenly appears just as I need it.

Early afternoon of the last day, my body is weakening after five miles. I want to keep going, but I want to honor my body, too.

On my iphone, FindMy shows two friends a mile ahead, resting. Waiting for me? Robert is somewhere behind me, planning to taxi to the Santiago Cathedral. I walk on, unwilling to give up just yet.

But I feel my body fighting something, likely Robert’s illness. I reach a highway and it feels like the end.

I call Robert, who says, “I’m in a cab. Talk to the driver.”

After I tell the driver where I am, he answers, “It’s on my way. I’ll be there in three minutes.”

We leave the cab two miles from the Cathedral and walk in. Together. Victorious.