Now that i’ve had a week home and have had time to let my Camino experiences settle there are a few points that continue to surface.

Overall i enjoyed the expansive experience of wandering quietly across Spain at a pace set only for me. Unintentionally clearing an identity that connected me to home showed up early. My guess is so that i did not “impose” my world views, my opinions, my ideas upon this experience. The results allowing me to become porous and able to absorb as much of the Camino as possible. Of course one cannot erase themselves completely but as Frances James, The Planet Walker, showed with his years of silence, i was going to choose to listen first and see where i ended up. When i was asked the typical, “where are you from?” I always answered, “you mean in Life?” That either ended the conversation or lead us to deeper, more engaged conversations. This served me well and living in this anonymity was really interesting but one can only stay there for so long because the Camino Frances is a busy place and people get to know you.

What surprised me was this un-attachment to identity. This was kind of new for me. We are so quickly prescribed labels in our day to day lives at home and clearly i wanted to feel what life might be like without all the labels, if even for a moment. I was simply a woman walking. Nothing else to define me. Other than the fact that I walked at a pace far slower that every single person i met … except one. Coincidently, we were also the only two who spotted the baby rabbits on the side of the road, the foxes, the snails in trees, the rainbows, the pink moons, the port-a-pottie on the side of the road, etc… etc…

I did arrive in Spain with one certainty - this was a pilgrimage for me. A walk meant to learn from, a walk to better connect with myself, and a walk to observe the world i’d be walking through. I was hoping this journey might provide some guidance as to what i should be present to as i enter this next stage of life. Surprisingly, this Camino showed me more of what i did not want as opposed to what i did want. I did not expect clarity to show up that way. This was revealed through the conversations i engaged in over 22 days.

One of the beautiful elements of walking the Camino and travel in general is the speed at which a conversation can become very personal, very vulnerable, if you have chosen your conversation partner well. There is not the luxury of time, thank goodness, to wade through small talk to get to the more interesting content. I was drawn to the ones who were eager to get to the textured and rich interaction just below the surface. The part of the conversation where connections are truly forged.

Almost immediately individuals would respond to my question of what brings them to the Camino and from there the walk, the rhythms of our footfalls, the eagerness to share a moment of reprieve from silence and their own thoughts, would weave us through personal philosophies, foot care, advice on good albergues, etc…etc… Some overshared very quickly and some let the crumbs drop slowly, building a sense of that person each time you happened to be in stride walking down the road.

Due to my deliberate pace i would usually be overtaken around 8am. I always made a point to walk out the door of the hostel by 7am with hopes of finding a café in the next town for a coffee and croissant by 9-9:30am. The morning serenade of song birds was an absolute joy and the moon as a companion for the first two hours was my daily highlight. Each morning i tip-toed out of the hostel trying not to wake those still asleep. Mornings was often when the best sleep finally sunk in after getting through nights of unharmonious snoring. Slipping out into the darkness was so freeing. Just me and the path, the rhythm of my pack shifting as i walk, my footfalls echoing in the quiet streets until the way turned to gravel and i walked out into the expanding countryside. My preference was to walk on the edges of the path or the centre where grass tufts softened underfoot and gravel wouldn’t spit up into the back of my shoes. Weaving from side to side trying to find the way of most comfort. Focus wavered between watching my feet and to the horizon, back and forth. The ratio of time spent between varied on the terrain.

I can understand why people try to find walking partners throughout the day. The silence and vast landscapes can feel daunting. Some may experience extreme boredom but this is exactly the time, the space when my mind would create ways of getting through without turning to distractions like music, podcasts, and audio books. Many walkers kept a constant stream of audible stimulation preventing them from ever feeling bored. This was always a telling time. Early on i would tap or squeeze my thumbs to each finger tip in time with my footsteps, creating ‘songs’ or tunes in my head. Sometimes i would just count to 100 over and over again. Later on i would start laying out fictional stories about the pilgrims who passed. What their lives were like at home, how the Camino might change them, how their new found friends would impact their lives after they went home. A few times i burst out laughing, greatly entertaining. And eventually, after 5 days, i didn’t have to provide any form of stimulation. The peace simply settled into my body.

The further along i got on the path the busier it became. Many Europeans walk the Camino in sections, doing 2 weeks here, 2 weeks there, inserting these walks into their allotted holiday time. The closer you get to Santiago the more people “jump on”. Even at this time of year it was becoming a bit too crowded for my liking. I had chosen this time of year with hopes that there would still be space for silence. Staying in the municipal albergue monasteries did help some. They are the most basic of accommodation and were also the most interesting, in my opinion. Communal kitchens, dorm beds, and almost always attached to old, beautiful churches. Nothing like 9Euros for a bed! Those spaces also attract different pilgrims. They are not walking for comfort.

Albergue municipal de peregrinos de Cluny, Sahagún

I had also come across a number of hikers that had walked this particular Camino over and over again. They were interesting. These individuals, at least the few that i met, were not usually spiritual or religious but had a particular purpose. One simply walked every time his weight was getting too much. He was using it as a sort of weight loss plan. He was from EU so didn’t have too far to come. He kept up with his work on line and it was more like a working holiday with lots of walking. Another was on his fifth time walking the same route and shared that he had a gap between his job in the winter and living elsewhere during the summers. He used the walk as a “cheap” holiday in Europe to fill the space between. He also liked to spew his ideologies along the Camino in the form of Fuck Trudeau/Fuck Mark Carney stickers. I carefully placed my Slow the Folk Down stickers over top. Truly a moment of understanding that everyone’s Camino was different. I really had to work on tampering the judgement that day. I did get there though.

I did not leave Edmonton with a specific intention or goal to be attained. I went with a curiosity as to what i might learn by such an experience. Something had to be gained, to be earned. Things would be shed, no? As i think on it, now when i’m not ‘in it’ and the dust has settled, the blisters are just thick scabs on my feet now, i realize it worked as a Reset Button. It was a disruption inserted into the middle of my life, to crack open a space for me to quietly walk through, that resembles nothing of home life. It was a bare experience, the barest, to observe where the riches reside and where the darkness hides. To embrace all of it and bring it home, tucked into a backpack of 12 lbs. To integrate as much as possible because this experience has no falsities or mistruths. It gave me an experience designed only for me….by me. A micro life, lived in 23 days, entirely made up of ingredients to be gathered by walking the Camino. And these ingredients, these seeds were to be brought home to plant and nurture. These items, these lessons are what i went to find, so as to bring some clarity around the kind of life i want to live moving forward. Did it do that? I think so. But the two lessons that will always stick with me are - life’s pace is meant to be slow and savoured, ……. and that one should always… drink…. more… water.

Lessons from the Camino Frances

Culture is the Salt of Life