November 8, 2003. Two more days, and I will be going home. Two days ago, I arrived by Euskotren from Donostia/San Sebastian to Bilbao, and until then I still felt a woman on a mission, and kept my home- (read: children-)sickness in check.. It begun descending on me yesterday. Very slowly at the beginning, hardly noticeable, until it was already too late and it hurt. That little, invisible knife was now cutting deep, and then the anesthesia was injected into my being in the form of excitement, and impatience, expectation... Just two more days, then to London: Oh, no! One more day to stop me from being with my beloved! I must make myself busy even though I know now nothing will pull me in. It will be all the time just the thought of landing in Phoenix, Arizona.
Will I remember all that happened? Possibly not. Does it matter? Possibly not. But now, now I do want to remember everything, all the people, landscapes passed, colors, every single moment, because it all mattered. It did. An unusually incredible journey. Physically, and spiritually; really, on all levels of my being. Not to forget, but then I know I will remember all I should. Writing will help remember and re-live and relieve.
A few days earlier:
Santiago de Compostela. I am fed up with being with pilgrims, being surrounded by pilgrims, going out for not-so-good-but-not-so-expensive-either supper with pilgrims. Tonight, Saturday, I am going to eat where
I choose to eat. Good. Very good. Very good thinking. Yes. Good, very good food. Not pilgrim fodder. Good Spanish food.
I would love some Pulpo Gallego con tinto y pan Gallego. Octopus along with red wine and local bread. Yumm.
I walked for about one and a half hours around the Old City/Casco Viejo, outside of it in the direction I originally came from from the Camino, back, around the othere side of Casco Viejo. Nothing. But I did manage to avoid most of the other pilgrims (except one Japanese couple in search of Manolo's, the pilgrims' feeding grounds; I suppose they were expected by the others already there).
At long last, it is late enough for a Spanish supper in a restaurant I found earlier, but found it closed: El Assesino (!?!). Yes, it is opened, and I am the first guest tonight. It is still too early for the locals. The sign over the entrance to this unusually named restaurant pictures a girls chasing a rooster with a cleaver. How lovely!
Walls of the restaurant are literally covered with pictures of famous patrons enjoying their good El Assesino meals and company. And then - another guest, a conversation, a wonderful woman who does not shy away from a conversation with a stranger at another table. Instantaneously we become old friends.*
*(Today, in 2010, we are still good old friends.)
O Pino. Another two days earlier. No, just one night before.
I walked through that wonderfully and mysteriously green purple brown secretive heathery Galician countryside. I pushed myself to walk just a little further in the rain, I hoped I would find a nice hotel this time. Just for myself, nice and warm. Please, no more pilgrims! Well, if it is meant to be, it will be. Boletus edulis, otherwise known as porcinis, that I found and picked, I gave to two little, old Galician ladies, who were out collecting last of the chestnut for the winter. Or for sale. Ladies, walking arm in arm, offered some of the chetsnuts to me in exchange for the lovely mushrooms. I thanked, however - I was so fed up with eating raw chestnuts, and felt I did not have good prospects of finding a place to roast or boil them first. I gave them all those beauties anyway, and wished them a lovely meal.
A little further on the path, I met a wolf from Berlin. No, no, it was just his name. Wolf. A young man from Berlin. I met him in the mountains a few days earlier. A very tall, tired Wolf, with his front tooth missing. Braving the Camino because he decided so or so was decided for him up in the stars. On passing him, we exchanged few words ("It is not easy for me to walk", said he), and I went on my way. Green moss hugging the stones making up the wall dividing the path from the woods on both sides, mud and rocks underfoot roots of the trees and water pouring from heaven on us washing our sins away, our inhibitions, our fears. I left Wolf there, standing in the rain, supporting himself on his pilgrim's staff, waiting for the mood to change for the rain to stop for the spirit of the forest to move him from his spot or for inspiration.
I left the forest with all its Galician mysteries behind, and entered back into the realm of people, not leprechauns. And there it was: a lovely hotel. Inexpensive. Warm. Hospitable. With food,a grand room for me with a huge bed and with wonderful colors, with working heating, and as much hot water as the soul would ever need. A soul is a wonderful thing that needs care and loving, especially being cared for and loved by itself.
So here I am, the yellows and the reds of the room around me. It still rains outside, and I can feel so good and secure and warm inside my being every time it rains and I am inside a warm room. Indescribably good and safe, it feels almost like a certain kind of love that gives you a sure protection from anything and anyone under any circumstances.
After an exceptionally good night's sleep, I got up to my last day on the Camino before reaching the dreamed of Cathedral of Santiago. I walked over the hill where once a Queen made Santiago's followers plow the black earth with the help of an untamed and very wild and unfriendly ox. In exchange, they were allowed to bury the body of the Apostle on her land. So the legend goes. And now gigantically tall eucalyptus trees cover most of that land almost all the way to Santiago. But even though it is not an oak nor pine, the undergrowth there is still full of things we love: ferns, moss, and fungi. Boletus, slimy caps, saffron milk caps. Galicia is a paradise for us. Food falls on one's head - does this not make a paradise? Walnuts, chestnuts, and underfoot a gourmet's feast of edible mushrooms! What more is there that is hidden from the eyes of the uninitiated in the art of foraging? Galicians are poor and hardworking people, but for us their land IS paradise.
A woman met pushing herself, plowing with her feed through mud and rain, carrying a freshly baked loaf of bread to her daughter working at the cowshed of a pigsty, sharing a piece of that still warm wonder with a passing pilgrim. A girl at a bar bringing crepes and roasted chestnuts at no extra charge to a pilgrim to have with her glass of wine and coffee. Telling her she should not leave her backpack outside, because there are lots of people who are not honest and steal. A bottle of young wine, served with chestnuts and figs, opened especially for a passing pilgrim at a bodega amid vineyards, shared with friends old and new. Golden colors of autumn, green of leprechauns, yellow of sunshine, and blue of rain, gray of rain, white of rain and fog. A paradise.
Deep in the eucalyptus forest, a middle-aged man passes me saying Buenos Dias. I turn my head away while answering with my Buenos Dias - the feeling was not good. I do not want to look into his eyes. Just a bit further up the path, there is a young girl, seems to be waiting for me. She seems, without saying anything, to want to walk close to me through the woods, without invading my walking freedom. And so we walk,until we leave the forest behind for good. I met her, Chelsea from San Francisco, again at the end of our walk, in Santiago, when at our pilgrims' last supper but not before death, really after a kind of death we all came out of.
It seems all the pilgrims end their first day in Santiago at the same restaurant that thrives on serving them cena de peregrino 365 days a year, year in and year out. A meeting place: you come there to meet all the people you met on the Way and have not seen for weeks sometimes. Another such place is of course the cathedral. A night before - if it is warm enough, I suppose - pilgrims come to keep a vigil until the cathedral opens in the morning. Time filled with a song and musci and talking talking talking meeting friends one made along the Camino and catchinglittle naps, drinking wine good Spanish wine.
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Our table ended up sitting over 20 pilgrims; other tables were taken over by pilgrims, too. Food was plenty if not outstanding, the company made for all that up. At our table alone sat Brazilians, Catalonians, Italians, French, Australians, New Zealanders, Germans, Japanese, Americans, Austrians, Argentinians, Norwegians, like twelve apostles twelve different nationalities what a beautiful variety of human beings colorful weather-beaten not caring about our differences but our humanity. Will we still be like that tomorrow after tomorrow in a week a month a year? In different settings, in the lives we all will go back to? I think we will. Here will be the true meaning of the maxim"'travels educate", true meaning of what is The Pilgrimage.
Those who begun in St.Jean-Pied-de-Port, or wherever, full of prejudices, will go back to their homes less filled with them. A case in pint: Robin. A nice Englishman in his early fifties, an English high-school teacher who quit his job because he hates dealing with arrogant and stupid teenagers. Lived 10 years in New Jersey with his African American wife and a daughter, divorced, lived 10 years with his French girlfriend in France, now his current, English girlfriend told him off until he loses 20 pounds, quits smoking, and finds himself a job. So here he came, to walk the Camino as a way to lose weight. Hates French, all Irish are just born liars and actors, born into it, they cannot help it, poor souls, he would love to live in Wales but Welsh will burn his English house down surely his first night there, and Europe will soon have a Union-wide state religion, Islam. Along the Way, he did begin opening up to other options and opinions, changed his attitude a bit, even stopped being afraid of sharing meals by hand from the same plate, even with Irish. Did not lose his 20 pounds (oh, heavenly Spanish food!), did not quit smoking entirely, figured finding a job is not all that hard really, and decided that his girlfriend is but his lover, and started rethinking his own opinions on everything he could think of, excluding his repulsion to what he calls a Catholic taste. And excluding his derogatory opinion of an exceptionally nice hospitalero at a hostel in Vega de Valcarce, based solely on a suspicion of that man's being gay. Beginning of changes taking hold, though.
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