A Lot of Effort for a Walk

I left London on some shitty British Airways plane from the Gatwick airport that reeks of cologne and salted pretzels at 6:40 a.m. Bordeaux was warm and sunny and a great relief to the Washington-like weather that I found in London. I hopped a bus from the airport to the train station and fumbled through a few apologies and phrases I had looked up on the bus ride until I found a very kind women who spoke english. My train was cancelled. Ugh. Problem solving without a night of sleep under my belt is not my strong suit. I resisted the urge to take a terrible nap on a bench in the station and went to the nearby Albergue Juessen, checked in and took a terrible nap on the couch in the common room there instead.

Treating myself to cafe au lait and a decadent croissant seemed like the right move. On the walk to a cafe, I noticed something and I don`t know if this is true of France in general, but Bordeaux is a sexy place. I mean the people, they are really sexy. There are several universities there, so it makes sense that there would be a large popular of young attractive folks who dress to impress. But the people in Bordeaux apparently think differently about aging. Every single person looked more fashionable and confident than I would on a date. I felt woefully underdressed and exhausted by the time I got back to the hostel from falling in love every stranger I walked passed.

I took the previous day’s ticket to the train station and hoped the nation-wide rail workers strike would speak for itself and I would not have to explain why I had the wrong ticket. I don’t speak French. And that’s about all I can explain in French. I asked the only train conductor I could find who spoke some english where I was supposed to sit and he responded sternly, “No seat. You can get on the train. No seat.” I waited for everyone else to board and snuck into and empty seat and kept my head down. I was relieved in Bayonne to see a bunch of other people with trekking packs with shells dangling from the back. I followed the herd of them onto the bus for Saint Jean Pied de Port and again boarded a bus with the wrong ticket and was again relieved to not explain myself.

Saint Jean Pied de Port was what I imagined southern France would look like. Nestled in a lush valley, the features seemed too perfect. The small river that bisects the town under the old missionary building seemed too quaint. The streets too narrow and the cobblestones too askew. The air intuitively felt warmer than it should have been and the fields looked to green to be grass.

At six a.m. I realized the difference between a pilgrimage and a vacation. I could easily lounge in a town like Saint Jean Pied de Port for weeks; running the hilly country roads, drinking wine and walking through the picturesque mountains. My alarm went off at six though and gravity felt stronger than normal having slept only three of the last five nights, this was the moment on vacation where I would void whatever brilliant plans I had made for the day and throw my phone across the room and sleep until it was too warm to stay in bed. I washed my face and repacked my bag in the half dark and set off south by myself up a steep narrow road towards Orisson and eventually Roncevalles. I felt no ceremony in my first steps towards Santiago.

The air was sweet with spring bloom and manure and the occasional diesel from cars that abruptly passed by, sucking up the dark world in a wedge of high beams and spitting it back out in accentuated blackness. The mountains cloaked the sun and the immense backdrop of the crisp moon brightened long before the orange sphere of the sun crested the rounded ridges jutting up in the east. Up the steep hill the from the town the night mixed with the yellow sliver that was the temptation of day and from the vantage I could see how the slopes warped the fields and the sparse rows of trees and slanted fence posts outlined the crooked pastures with horses stooped head over barbed wire and sheep asleep against feed posts or under old carts used to haul hay now left for the weather.

I reached Orisson, 8 km up the road and about 800 m of elevation, by eight thirty. All the bus rides and flight itineraries and train schedules of the past few days stressed me out, compounded with the fact that I speak hardly any Spainish and even less French left me feeling entirely inadecquet. But here, walking uphill by myself in the morning darkness, passing other pilgrims with overloaded packs who had never walked 27 km in a day and certainly not 27 km up and over a mountain range with a pack on, I could feel confidence in my body. The cumulative disorientation of the previous six days of ocean and time zone hopping, sleepless nights, rapid changes in climate and language and culture, and the beginning of a Pilgrimage relaxed as the hills rapidly rose, my heart rate steadied and my feet and breath shortened to match the tilt of the mountain.

I walked by myself for the first 15 km. The narrow country road wound past farms near Saint Jean, and then ventured out into sage brush hills and crested the foothills of the Pyrenees and snaked atop the ridges headlong into the wind towards the peaks themselves. I ran into a German woman named Julia who I had sat next to on the bus into Saint Jean the night before and we ended up walking with two Italians, Simone and Sara. By the time we reached the highest point of the Camino in the Pyrenees the four of us had formed a makeshift group and my hands were too cold to zip my wind breaker and there was snow melting in the north facing ditches.

For many people, the walk from Saint Jean to Roncevalles is their first major trek over mountains and tests their spirit and dedication to pilgrimage. I was very tired by the time we descended into the valley, but I was relieved to finally rely on my body to travel and in an unexpected way, I felt at home in the massive albergue that evening.

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Leaving Earth

There was a group of twenty middle school kids, shepherded by chaperons, urgently cascading through the departures section at Seatac. All of them were wearing sharp, sky blue sports Jackets and half the girls were crying. Red faced and wiping their noses with their sleeves, they made for a very sad, hurried procession. I watched with amusement as they passed a newly reunited couple kissing and swooning over each other. I always wear a quiet smile in airports; my own way of opting out of the stressful atmosphere fellow travellers succumb to.

The sun set by the time we reached the state-size ice shards of the Canadian Atlantic. It wavered on the horizon before in fell–a filament glowing orange and burning out in the frosted glass bulb of the accelerated night–and cast one long, cherry-orange reel on the clouds as if there were a forest ridge burning beneath. This was not a night in the bodily sense, the body does not cycle with the sun when you take your feet off the ground for nine hours and race against the spin of the world.

I didn’t sleep two out of the first three nights on this trip. I missed my first night when I left Seattle at two in the afternoon and reached London at seven in the morning, nine hours later. Two nights later I stayed out at a Pub with a local running club until it was time for me to pack up and catch a train back to the Gatwick Airport. I do not do well without sleep and at several points on my walk to Victoria Station the simple motion of walking made me feel like I was in an elevator that had just started moving. The train station that was supposed to be my point of departure was closed and after wandering the circumference in a very sleepy haze I ran into two other people with bags and a 3-in-the-morning-confused look about them. Together we asked a rather smug English security guard what the deal was and he explained that the station was closed and that the ‘transfer’ indication on our tickets meant that we ought to fuck off and find our own damn ways to the Blackfriar Station. I am still fairly certain that is not what it meant but three a.m. is a poor time to get into a shouting match with a security guard through a locked gate. The two other travellers and I caught an Uber to the next open station and I listened to a podcast about the modern day bootlegging Pappy Van Winkle Whiskey on the train ride.

In London Gatwick, the hall that passengers must follow to reach the departure gates takes a long arcing detour through the heart of a shopping mall. I found this mandatory tour of sexy posters and weaponized perfume to be a surprising new dimension to capitalism. Not surprising that it exists, but surprising that I had never been forced by security checkpoints to peruse a store.

Planes always dissociate our bodies from our minds and our souls. Despite their shopping mall aesthetic, airports often feel like a mix between a funeral and a wedding, and it is not altogether unexpected to see a parade of crying school kids weeping in their blue blazers shuffle passed a couple in blissful reunion. We intuitively know, before we ever pass through TSA, that we are beginning something entirely new and that the inevitable result will be our bodies leaving earth.

The Puddles here are bloody nice.

I am writing this from Gare St. Jean in Bordeaux and on the train to Bayonne.

This probably isn’t fair, and people can certainly say worse things about any city in the USA, but I didn’t love London. My snap judgement sense is that half of Londoners would perish within the month if you cut off the city’s supply of fish breading, fryer oil and shitty toast. Inversely, the same half would probably live to see their late sixties if you took away their cigarettes. I wonder if it is just the result of collective vitamin D defficiency as it is in Seattle, but the inhabitants of these two cities have a very similar ‘fuck off and mind your own business’ attitude (although here I suppose it would be ‘piss off`)
Plastic bags of bland vegetables aside, the city is beautiful: all old churches and quaint winding streets, comically exhuberant palaces for royalty and (this is coming from a Washingtonian) an absolutely striking amount of puddles on the sidewalk. Seriously, do London city planners engineer the sidewalks to hold water? It’s amazing. The parks here are splendid and I could really get used to the centuries old churches and garden squares that nestle in the middle of quiet, rich neighborhoods.
The second day I was there I wandered over to Hyde park and was impressed by the restraint and taste that went into the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. This is the country that (from the outside at least) appears to go into mass hysteria everytime new royalty is concieved and that still puts silent guards in ridiculous hats outside the Queen’s house (the extravagant Buckingham Palace), yet in honour of the death of a beloved member of royalty, they constructed an incredibly reserved fountain. It is a circular ring of cement canal that is not more than a dozen and a half meters in diameter and is perched on a slight hill. Water bubbles up from the top of the hill and swirls down both sides, meets in a quiet surf at the bottom, and drians into the lake near by. I ate my lunch of bread, cheese, tomatoes and basil next to the sound of the ripples in a light English drizzle.
I met up with a local running club on Tuesday (4/3/18) at the Marquis of Wellington, a pub near the Tower Bridge. They had an exceptional turn out of 40 or more people and split into groups based on pace. I went with the first group (the slow one) but darted off ahead with a group of guys who run a 10k instead of a 5k. We ran the whole way along the Thames, crossing over the Tower Bridge and winding southwest on the foot path that follows the water until we reached Westminster Abbey and the scaffolding that Brits currently call Big Ben then crossed back over and ran the way back on the South side of the river, all the while weaving through an endless stream of distracted tourists with selfy sticks and ice cream licking children.
A chap called Milo went out really fast and I gave him a hundred meter gap in the first kilometer but kept him in sight so I would get the details of the route. I pulled up beside him in front of the Tower of London and we chatted the rest of the way, interrupted only by quick jukes around tourists, wonky cobblestones and puddles (good god, so many puddles, it hadn’t even rained all day for Christsake). I was nervous about how my body would feel given that I had missed so much sleep and had only eaten one meal with vegetables in it in the last three days. Sure enough the first 5k felt pretty rough, which I did not tell Milo, but by the Westminster Bridge I felt great and ended up pushing the pace on Milo towards the end. I was not wearing a watch but we ran about a 45 minute 10k if what Milo said was accurate.
Brits apparently do not mind running in backpacks. I saw countless runners in full running garb–men and women in tights and bright shoes and DriFit race shirts–with backpacks on. I don’t get it, but I did find it amusing to follow behind them and watch the hipnotic sway of their packs.
Back at the pub a friendly couple (Lisa and Jason) offered me a seat and Lisa bought me two beers. We chatted about running, life in London, the Camino and their own travels in the States. Lisa had been all over the U.S. and wants to go back to New York and wants to see Chicago.
I caught a train back to the Astor Victoria Hostel where I showered in the tiny closet with lukewarm water and ate dinner in the basement kitchen while the folks who worked in the Hostel played beer pong. Two Aussie guys were getting pretty rowdy singing American Pop songs from the 90s and dancing. A girl from the States came in and sat next to me. Katie was from Vermont and was cute but not such a pleasure to talk to. She’s a student studying creative writing with a minor in international partying. She seemed like she was nineteen and could not fathom why I would want to walk (and not at least take a donkey if not a car) across Spain. I went up the six flights of stairs and backed my bag and took a really shitty nap from 1:30 a.m. to 2:30 on a couch downstairs with Shrek playing on a projector in the background, and then took a very groggy walk to the Victoria Station.
As with most cities, people do not care about you. If there was ever a time when you could go out to a bar and meet people, it was not during my adult life. I was glad I brought my running shoes and I was glad that I met Lisa and Jason and Milo.

Different Ways

I shouldn’t have sat in the back of the bus. Not the bus that rolls through the congested heart of Tacoma. The rebel in me made me do it, my fondness for all those years of public school buses chauffeuring shady acquaintances with rubberband slingshots and spit balls and dirty jokes made me do it, made me huck my bag in the furthest back corner of an empty bus and slouch-sprawl across the two and a half seats by the window. There was a reason that my shady friends in school sheltered in the ass-most seats of all those yellow buses: the seats of a bus act like a filter for civil expectations and etiquette, with the foremost seats skimming all of those upstanding members of society that really feel at home around authority, the middle seats catching those who simply want to keep their heads down, so by the time you pass the second wheel well all signs of calm and decency have been extracted and your left with the passenger equivalent of garbage juice that leaks from the corners of torn bags. I leaned against the rearmost window and counted the liquor stores.

A tall gentleman in his twenties boarded at the Tacoma Dome alongside a raucous group of highschoolers. The tall man and one of the highschoolers were each playing different rap songs that were both about getting high out of the speakers on their phones, they sat next to each other. Beside me. In the way back. The man pulled out what I suppose could be construed as a stylish leather fanny pack (although one must assume that this person would not have used the term fanny pack). From it he produced a Swisher and a quaint bag of ground riefer. Bathed in the noxious sweet and pungent aroma of the Swisher and the weed, and bobbing his head to one of the dueling songs, he deftly split, extracted, replaced, rolled and licked a blunt into creation. I smirk at the temptation to ask him if he is also starting a Pilgrimage on this bus.