Apparently pilgrim garb is a dead giveaway in these parts that you are not native to the fashion capital of the world. I'm going to blame my footwear for the lack of respect I engendered today (although I suppose it could have been any part of my outfit that screamed "I need to do laundry!"). Given the choice between completely spent hiking shoes and soap-scum coated shower thongs, I opted for the hiking shoes, so I could do some serious walking and honor my pilgrim spirit.
Nobody in Paris cares about my pilgrim spirit. I'm pretty sure people were scowling at me from high atop stilettos as I cruised past them on the cobblestones. I imagined that one of them might even be the pilgrim I scorned on the trail for her high-heels and pack mule. Fortunately I have experience with this fashion inferiority complex. Manhattan doesn't have much tolerance for Patagonia-clad Vermonters (even if it is in modest shades of black), and I have been scorned there too.
Feeling a little feisty as I strolled through Galeries Lafayette, I decided to slowly and intently examine every diamond in the De Beers collection (most of which were worth more than my house), just daring them to shoo me away. To their credit, no one asked me to leave (although no one rushed over to help me either). Since I wasn't fooling anyone, I figured I'd stop posing as a Parisian and go back to being a tourist. I pulled out my camera and proceeded to take pictures of the store.
It only seemed fitting that I ended my visit to Paris' landmark department store with a trip to the basement which was completely filled with shoes in every shape, size and color. The women I saw down there were giddy with excitement. The very few men I spotted looked like they had been sentenced to husband hell. I smiled, realizing I couldn't even afford a shoelace in that place, and skedaddled before someone could judge me for my shoes.
Now, three days removed from the Camino with some dear friends and Portuguese sunshine behind us, I have some time to reflect on the serious (I'm reluctant to say "spiritual") side of our adventure.
Our final day on the trail was a whirlwind. We had opted to sleep 20km outside of Santiago, which meant that we had a lot of early hiking to do in order to make sure we made it to the cathedral and got a seat before the start of the Pilgrims' Mass at noon. My alarm went off at 4:00 a.m. - the earliest wake up call of our entire trek. Somehow we managed to bumble our way out of bed and out the door into the darkness without any complete meltdowns. I think we were all running on adrenalin at that point - knowing the end (and a soft bed) were in sight. The trail quickly turned off the well-lit street and into a forest where we found ourselves guided by the spotlights of our headlamps in what were very creepy surroundings. There were no other pilgrims on the trail at this point, which was unusual, so we kept questioning whether we had lost the trail in the dark. Eventually, after about 30 minutes, a small group of pilgrims joined us coming from another direction. We were delighted to have another dim light to follow in the dark.
After two hours of spooky walking in and out of wooded forests, the sun peeked over the horizon, and we started to see more pilgrims joining the route from tent sites along the way. That's when I started to get sad. I realized that this whole adventure was coming to an end. I was used to the routine of getting up and walking. I liked the exercise, the fresh air, the conversations with my kids, and even the monotony - the endless thinking time that walking the Camino provides.
To be able to completely disconnect from the "real world" for an entire month is a gift. To rely on your own two feet to travel across a country feels like an accomplishment. The kids and I had talked about the fact that we had not been in a moving vehicle of any kind for thirty days. We were completely dependent on our ability to walk somewhere for anything we wanted or needed. At times (like when I didn't plan ahead well enough for bank stops) it was challenging and impacted our choices. We didn't always have multiple food options and had to make do with the alternatives available in the towns where we found ourselves at mealtimes. We couldn't choose our lodging based on entertainment options. We couldn't count on finding warm showers (or even a bed) at the end of each day. Every morning represented a fresh start and a new adventure. We left behind the security of our hostel and moved forward into the next stage not knowing where we would end up at nightfall or where we would be sleeping. It could have been unsettling, but, instead, I always felt like the Camino would take care of us at the end of the day. As we climbed the final hill before we would catch our first glimpse of the city of Santiago down below, I felt wistful and immensely grateful for this experience.
We headed down our last steep hill and walked the final 5 km into Santiago. We walked together. Foster slowed down; Brianna and Nolan sped up. The countryside changed to suburbs. We posed with the Santiago city sign, and we set our sights on the cathedral. Once we entered the medieval portion of the city, we could sense that the finish line was near, and I think we all wondered what it would feel like to finally get there. The kids had been asking me for days if I would cry. I had said, "probably," because I'm just like that. We didn't even make it to the cathedral before the tears started flowing. As we rounded a corner in the city, we walked right into our favorite group of Croatian pilgrims with whom we had crossed paths multiple times throughout the month. We had assumed that we had seen the last of them, because they were trying to make it Santiago in time for the festival of St. James. We took some photos and said some tearful hellos and goodbyes, and then we headed around the corner for our first glimpse of the cathedral.
From there it was a whirlwind. We checked in at the Pilgrim Office and received our official certificates of completion. We checked into a cushy apartment and left our bags so we could head to the cathedral. We ate churros and drank thick hot chocolate to celebrate our arrival, and, at last, we made it to the cathedral in time to watch the amazing botafumeiro,filled with smoking incense, fly through the rafters at the end of the 10:00 mass. Then, we quickly moved into the pews as the seats were vacated to ensure that we had a place to sit for the Pilgrims' mass at noon. Nolan promptly fell asleep on my lap. Brianna and Foster waited out the hour as all true pilgrims should - playing on their iPods. At noon, the Pilgrims' mass began in Spanish. Nolan continued to sleep as I pushed him aside to alternately stand and sit as required. I joked with Foster and Brianna about how all of these people had just finished walking 500 miles and couldn't they just let us remain seated for the full hour. Before we knew it, the incense burner was swinging again, and our long-awaited appointment with the cathedral was over. There was nothing left to do but reflect and celebrate.
We ate lunch. We ate ice cream. We shopped for souvenirs. We showered. We did laundry. The city of Santiago is a happy place. Day after day it welcomes thousands of pilgrims who are just completing the trek of a lifetime. The party never stops. Music, entertainment, and celebrations were everywhere. It was exciting to just watch the scene from above through our apartment window as groups of pilgrims streamed into the plaza catching their first glimpse of the cathedral. Brianna's pure joy upon exiting the shower and drying her hair with a fluffy, white towel was contagious. "This towel is literally squeaking in my hair! It's so clean!" And, with that, we transitioned back to the real world.
We headed for Portugal for two days of blissful rest and relaxation with friends we hadn't seen in a decade. It was just what we needed at the end of a long, hot, dirty journey to bring us out of our pilgrim shells. As we drove south into Portugal, rolling along at 100 km per hour, we calculated how long it would have taken us to walk the distance we had just covered. The 160 km we covered in less than two hours would have taken us five days on foot. It was an abrupt end to our month of self-reliance.
In the end, it is both "self-reliance" and "interdependence" that defined the Camino for me. Despite whatever I may have come to the Camino anticipating that I might achieve, I realized, in the end, that the experience was not about achievement at all. Santiago de Compostela was the destination, but the real lessons were in the journey. At one time, I thought this journey along a flat path across northern Spain would bring closure to the unpredictable roller-coaster of life events that have defined my existence for the past few years. However, it did not take too long for me to figure out that the Camino is not flat. It climbs and descends - sometimes gradually and sometimes abruptly - like life. I quickly realized that closure was just the beginning, and that this walk of self-reflection was really more about moving forward and walking with intention through both the ups and the downs. It was about continuing to live my dreams and pursuing my passion for travel. It was about showing my children that they are capable of achieving anything that they set their minds to - no matter how insurmountable the challenge may appear. In these somewhat predictable ways, the Camino taught us all lessons of self-reliance.
However, it was the path's unanticipated lessons about interdependence that sweetly slipped in to our daily journeys that pleased the mother in me the most. I spent an entire month just walking with my children. It was, indeed, a gift. Sometimes we walked separately, and sometimes we walked together. Sometimes we had easy conversations, and sometimes we annoyed each other. For me, the most satisfying parts of each day were when I witnessed my kids taking care of each other - dropping back to chat, holding a pack while someone shed a layer, sharing an ear bud, adjusting a rain cover, or pulling out a water bottle. As much as I sought, through this journey, to reassure my children of my own strength, I was privileged to witness their perseverance and their connections to each other. Nothing is more satisfying to me than the assurance that they will take care of each other on life's journey long after I no longer walk the path with them.
"After weeks on the road, listening to a language you don't understand, using a currency whose value you don't comprehend, walking down streets you've never walked down before, you discover that your old 'I,' along with everything you ever learned, is absolutely no use at all in the face of those new challenges, and you begin to realize that, buried deep in your unconscious mind, there is someone much more interesting and adventurous and more open to the world and to new experiences."
-Paolo Coelho
Travel on my children. Buen Camino!
