Future Prospects

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“I think you would make a great hospitalero!” Alaina continued to pump me up as we made our way up a small grass path along the hillside. In our conversation, we had fallen a bit behind the group of pilgrims marching to catch the sunset over Vega’s beach.

“That would be incredible! My Spanish is a bit lacking but it would be amazing to be here in Asturias, by the ocean and mountains, meeting all the people that pass through.” I did my best to keep up while still concealing my gimpiness. The three course meal that Alaina and fellow host Theresa had just fed us didnt help my speed much either.

“Leave me your email in the morning, and I will tell Marina about you. She would love to have you, I’m sure.”

That afternoon, on my way down into Vega from the countryside, I had been joking to myself. “Dude, you’ll probably get there, to the only albergue for the next fifteen k, and that bitch’ll be full!” I said to no-one but myself, laughing aloud. After nother forty-something day under a cloudless sky, I had lost a few of my marbles.

Sure enough, I limped my way to the stoop of Albergue Tu Casa to find a little white sign hanging from the railing.

“COMPLETO.
FULL.”

“Full?” I asked the women on the porch (who turned out to be Alaina and Theresa) and they nodded. I stood in the middle of the street and fell into a fit of laughter, and the two women joined, enjoying the spectacle of the sun-baked, fluffy-headed, damn-near-disabled pilgrim loosing his last grips on sanity.

After a while of giggling and rambling incoherently to each other, they welcomed me onto the porch, and sat me down in front of a pitcher of cold lemon-water.

“Maybe we have…’emergency bed”…” one of them said.

“Yes…’emergency bed”.

“If you let me, I will sleep right here.” I direct my finger down to the warm taracotta tiles, and they both laugh as if I had just told a funny joke.

The emergency bed turned out to be just another top bunk, only without a ladder and a mattress that was ever-so-slightly less comfy than the others. They usually didnt offer it out, but they did to me.

“I am trying to get my own albergue. I have done the paperwork, I will know if I get it later this week.” Alaina told me as we sat with Theresa and my fellow pilgrims on a little patch of grass overlooking the beach.
“If I get it, I could surely use your help.”

I have been checking my email twice a day since I left Vega, and today I recieved something worth reading:
“hola August
I hear nice words about your presence here…
Tell me at what time you want be hospitaliero…
Your heart will know the right moment… This year or next?

Abrazos fuerte
Marina the guardian of ‘tu casa'”

The email reads like it had been spit out by Google Translate, but thats alright. Abrazos Fuerte translates to strong hugs, and ones from someone I am yet to meet.

On El Camino, every day holds so many opportunities. You will meet warm people, recieve beautiful charity, make unique friends, and maybe be given a new opportunity much bigger than yourself.

An Incandescent Farewell

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My grandfather recently paid me a visit, which was unexpected seeing as how he has been dead for almost four years.

Bill Stevenson’s company was an acquired taste, like an old, dry whisky. He had been quoted many times shouting things like “NO! Not twelve inches, more like a foot!” His front door was to be left perfectly adjar as to allow the correct amount of airflow (which was never much) but not to obstruct his view of the driveway from HIS chair. Tucked beside him in that chair was his chrome plated, locked, loaded, ready to go Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum. Every once in a while he would remind one of his usual guests that should any rapscallious punks or ambitious lawmen walk through that door, he would be sufficiently prepared.

From that chair, HIS chair, he had everything he needed. To his right was his coffee (a running brew of unknown age), all manner of pens, notepads, a flashlight, one of these and one of those. Sitting perfectly arranged on the base of his lamp were each of his teeth that had fallen out, root and all, in the past several years. Periodically, a lucky grandchild would be shown the four, yellow momentos, followed by a flash of a gummy grin and the one tooth that still held on. He would laugh from his belly as the youngest of us scattered, later to be reeled in by promises of Reeses Cups or maybe a Milky Way.

When a younger me wanted money for a new video game, I went to Poppop. He would put me to work, the amount of which we would both stiffly negotiate, mowing the lawn, stacking wood, or using an old badminton racket to dispatch resident bumblebees.

The first time I wanted to take a girl on a date, he gave me a hundred dollar bill and told told me to bring back the change.
Any time I called him for a ride from school or here or there, he would be on his way, provided I listened quietly to NPR or Rush Limbaugh.

A good dirty joke (honestly they weren’t particularly good, but they WERE dirty) could send him into a coughing fit. The fiasco was more often than not punctuated by hocking a large, green mass unapologetically into his perfectly positioned waste bin. As the years passed, green became brown, and brown became red.

Bill had put down the bottle, cold turkey, several years ago, and he was proud to tell you. In this case, his family was always proud to listen. He did, however, smoke at least a pack of special miniature cigars a day. He ate less and less, and rarely left his chair, leaving him ever more skinny. He would not set foot in a doctor’s office, and didn’t agree to let a family friend examine him until there was no denying his fate. When his days shortened and visitors became more frequent, no one was surprised.

One morning around Easter I woke to a missed call and text from my uncle. “Dad’s gone. Tell your mother.”
So I slid out of bed, walked softly to the other end of the house, and went to stand beside my mother’s bed. I passed on the message, and watched as she rolled over, curling around her pillow and burying her face in the linen. I didn’t stay to mourn with her, I just went to bed. I did not mourn him at his funeral either, which was a blur of the same sad Waylon Jennings and Hank Williams songs on repeat.

Four years later, we met one last time.

I was watching cyan water undulate in and out of small tidepools of rock and sand. The tide was almost glowing in the noon day sun, which warmed the sand below my feet. He was sitting above the reaches of the tranquil, ever-lapsing waves, with his small bookshelf perfectly organized to his right, where it belonged.

“August…”

I had been mindlessly doodling with chalk on a tabletop, and hadn’t noticed him.

“August. Do you think… Could you give me a hug?” His tone was patient, less abrasive than I remembered. This was a Bill who had surely been humbled upon meeting his maker.

I stood to grant his simple request, meeting him within reach of the tide. His embrace was boney and warm. His tattered flannel still smelled of stale tobacco.

I heard myself battling a sob, having seen this man for an intangible farewell. My whimpering, the beach, and my grandfather were engulfed in incandescent light.

Waking in a train station albergue, my eyes were already swimming. I laid amongst the combating snores of frenchman and thanked the Camino for making me miss my grandfather.

Taking the High Road

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“Este camino es NO BUENO.”

The pear shaped hospitalero repeated her warning for the third time. Her Vienna-Sausage-like finger tapped heavily on the crudely scaled map, again and again on the mountain route. She insisted that her guests use the new Camino, which tentatively followed a small highway around the base of tomorrow’s mountains. The old Camino followed the spine of a mountain ridge, aggressively up out of town, arcing over Asturian farmland, and quickly descended back to civilization about twenty kilometers later.

The raw flesh on my toes and the consistent throbbing of my feet said that maybe tomorrow’s 40k would be better done without a mountain in the middle

I nodded with a stiff neck, pushing a polite smile and agreeing to go her way.

“Si, si, vale, claro. Nuevo Camino.”

I can admit with no shame whatsoever that I lied.

The next morning I fought my way up the trails of crumbling limestone, closed in by invasive eucalyptus forest on both sides. An hour in, I was sweating for the first time in 600 kilometers. Perhaps the plump woman and her persistent finger were right.

Eventually the forest gave way, and I emerged shirtless and in shorts high above the surrounding country. To my left and right the earth fell away and in front of me it only rose.

Standing with my face towards the sun, I threw back my arms and head.

“WAAAAAAYYYOOOOUUUUUUUU!”

My howl was returned to me by the mountains, and soon the local farm dogs joined my comotion.

I pushed on up the ridge, gaining ever more altitude, following a path of shifty rock. Far below, between mountains and sea, the N-630-something highway slithered along. Most of my companions from the previous evening had taken that way. Surely they were congested by the hot pavement, and ever wary of lorries and little hatchbacks threatening to mow them down. The pavement also makes for some considerably tired pies.

The further I pressed into the sky, the more often I found myself looking in either direction, and smiling for no reason in particular.

The last of a persistent morning dew clung to the sagebrush lining the trail. Each little droplet refracted a tiny rainbow up at me. In a soft breeze, needles of white pines tickled each other. This thought made me giggle aloud.

“It’s quite a unique view up there. I would stay for a while.”

A gruffy man with a longbow in his passenger seat and a dog in the back had stopped along the road to advise me to change my course. Apparently a local farmer had added a few fletchas of his own to keep pilgrims away from his fields. The route led down the road to the main highway. I was pointed up a logging road, a steep one.

Before advancing I made sure to cross off the grumpy farmer’s arrows with a tube of red lipstick that Anne Dominguez left in my bag. (Sorry Anne, you’ll thank me later.)

Again, up, for another hour, up up up.

When I finally reached the pinnacle of the ridge, I took the man’s advice. I don’t usually take breaks, but here it was mandatory. To East and West the coast was written like sloppy handwriting; from beaches to walls of cliffs. Silent little waves continuously reappeared, from nothing, to breaking whitewater, into sand. The gummy bears in my sack of nuts were just icing on the mountaintop.

When in doubt, take the high road. When you get there, let rip your best mountain call, and give in to the urge to stay awhile.

Folding Pants

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Whether I realize it or not, I pass empty judgments of just about everyone I meet.

On my way to a cafe this morning, I fancied my deduction that the posse of uniformed schoolboys strutting ahead of me were a certain variety of angsty, up-to-no-good punks. One of them blasted repetitive trap music, the kind that rang sour in my ears, from a speaker in his hand. They all had the same haircut; clean on the sides, long and saturated with gel on the top, combed to the side. This would surely be enough to convict them of their punkery in a court of law.

Every time a slightly-past-middle-aged man in a cafe approaches the little digital slot machines that are apparently everywhere, I figure the man has a habit, and is quite familiar with this particular machine.

Detective work well done.

At the beginning of this school year, my best friend Garrett and I befriended a character. We met Joe in Evergreen’s bouldering gym. We were both very new there, but as months passed we learned that Joe was a regular. The first day we met him, Joe sported a pair of amusingly tight climbing pants, with giant brown patches on the thighs and knees and a bright red patch across the ass. Thus we dubbed him Joe the Pants. Never just Joe, always Joe the Pants, sometimes even just The Pants.

He climbed far better than Garrett or I.
“Try this!” he would mutter, punctuated by his signature giggle, before hanging impossibly from two fingers on one hand, and launching his heavy frame into the air to the next nearly-nonexistent hold, and hanging on effortlessly. Routes set and signed by Joe the Pants were seldom worth trying.

Sometimes Joe the Pants would fall off the face of the earth for weeks at a time. Folks who had been closer with him would tell us that Joe the Pants had been “dealing with some stuff”.

Figures. Who isn’t?

He would eventually reemerge in the gym, and tell some far fetched tale of how he had lost his phone learning to surf on the coast in the dead of November. For a stretch of about a month, he suffered from four cracked ribs. We saw him in the gym climbing more often that month than any time before or after.

Garrett and I had deduced that Joe the Pants was an A-Grade badass, worthy of our admiration.

The man was an enigma.

Ask someone if they knew Joe, and their reaction was more or less the same.

“Joe!? I love Joe”.

Sometimes they would tell some crazy story about how they had watched him eat a whole pack of cold hotdogs when they were climbing in Leavenworth or maybe how he had fallen twenty feet from a tree and risen unscathed.

Garrett and I fantasized about climbing the clock tower on campus, but would always laugh and remind ourselves that it was a task better left for Joe the Pants. Once he called Garrett at 2am to invite him to do just that, but Garrett had been asleep.

The last time Joe the Pants disappeared, he left promising to return with all his climbing gear, easily a grand worth, to give to Garrett for us to use. He never explained why. Garrett and I manufactured an explanation: Joe the Pants was getting rid of extra weight so that he could move into a van and travel the country, or escape to a distant beach to bum on cyan waves for the next two decades. We admired his supposed spirit of adventure, and spoke frequently of living the same way. Garrett recently sent me an email saying that when he “grew up”, he wanted to be just like Joe the Pants. No one else understood but he knew I would.

I learned via a photo of ropes, quickdraws, webbing and cams laid for display on the dormitory floor that Joe the Pants-a-Clause had paid Garrett a visit after I had come to Spain.

This morning my phone buzzed me into consciousness. Joe the Pants was dead. He had had an infection in his blood, and had probably known for a while.

It is very likely that he wasn’t the reckless, wild, walking adventure that Garrett and I had determined to be the foundation of his character. He was running out of time, that was all.

Those “punk” kids were on their way to school in their uniforms, pants pressed and ties straight. Who gives a shit what kind of music they listen to.

The bald guy at the slot machine had just bought a cup of coffee, and probably just dropped his disposable change in, taking a silly chance.

Turns out I’m the punk kid with a bad habit.

Warm People and Cold Rain

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Just as hastily as my paella had been assembled it’s plate, I had left it, ten bucks folded neatly and tucked beneath the edge of a chipped porcelain corner. The Euro note was more than sufficient to cover the meal, and I hoped it was sufficient to pay for my waste. The overdone rice and juvenile prawns had failed to hold my attention as thunder had begun to growl beyond the horizon. As I quietly slipped out of the Basque watering-hole, I imagined the insult that the just-barely-kind-enough waitress would suffer. She’d likely snatch the plate from the table, scoffing at the other pilgrims I had left in my wake, and proceed to complain about the incompetence of foreigners to the heavy men at the bar who had been shamelessly staring at me since my arrival. I got around the block as quickly as I could.

Thunderstorms had always been a highlight of summers near the Gulf coast. Energetic cumulonimbus clouds had brought me to press my nose to the window of a car or home. More often than not, I left shelter far behind. Warm, dry safety of the indoors was exchanged for a shivering, windblown exposure.

“What on Earth were you doing out there?” my mother would ask upon my dripping return.

“I wanted to feel the storm!” my reply was always charged with enthusiasm.

Back to the albergue I raced, my eyes wide and turned above the tops of ravena palms that lined Pobeña’s streets. Reaching the stoop, I settled in for a brilliant plasmic display alongside a pair of gypsy-esque women.

The storm moved closer, and one of the gypsies rose, and soon returned with her boots, raincoat, and a covered ukulele.
“‘’Vant to go for a ‘valk?”

“Yes.” Of course I did.

Sockless in my sneakers, bare in my shorts, rain coursing down the back of my neck, I followed the German Gypsy woman up the side of the nearest mountain. Her hair was shaved close to her head on both sides, and wrapped in a blue scarf. Her thin cotton pants, already soaked, swayed with each step and looked similar to trousers in which one might find a clown (I later learned that she had just recently left a circus to come to Spain.)

“I come dis vay to see know nature.” She calls back me, referring to the Northern Camino.

“Well you’re about to see some serious shit.” I say to myself, pushing our pace toward the mountaintop.

Following a hedge of brush to the hillcrest. The not-so-distant beach of La Arena struggled to be seen through the downpour. With each crash of thunder we would both jump, and grin toothily at each other, glad that we had evaded yet another strike.

Julia (or in German: Eulia) had zero reservations in telling me about herself. She had left home at 15, bounced between housing cooperatives and collectives for several years, and still managed to become the German equivalent of a social worker. Eventually, she left for the circus, favoring clownhood and trapeze. Twice Julia married, never for love, instead she said, to “Fuck the system”. She had helped an African man gain citizenship, and had done the same for a woman to whom I assume she is still married.

Having both grown tired of rocking on our heels in soping pasture, we scaled an old, drooping walnut tree whose branches were sufficient for more storytelling.

She had no money, and been several times harassed by the French authorities as she attempted to hitchhike her way into Spain. Things never improved when patrolmen spotted the patch on the back of her ukulele that read the German equivalent of “Fuck the Police Forever”. Her second night on her Way, she had almost been swept away in her tent when she made camp well inside the flood zone of a growing river. Each tale was punctuated with laughter that shook our roost, dislodging plump drops of water from the canopy above.

After maybe two hours, my sneakers had filled with water, and my stomach cursed me for leaving my rice half-eaten in that musky bar. Light fading and lightning striking ever closer, I suggested that we begin our descent. Julia smiled in agreement, and thanked me with a smile that may have been a hug in better weather.

Ramshackle-dinner ended up being a few hasty handfuls of dried fruits and nuts from the fat sack that I lugged in my pack. Anne D. had brought back my leftovers. I tucked the container amongst Julia’s things, remembering she didn’t have money for food the next day.

Even on the very fringe of society, like Juila’s hitchhiking, stick-it-to-the-man lifestyle, there are remarkable and warm people; especially along El Camino.

The Facelessness of Love

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At certain times of our lives, we may find that the thought of certain concepts; pain, fear, loss, success, or love, bring to mind very specific images.   Over time, we begin to associate two mutually exclusive things always with each other.
Often times, when I think of love, a specific face comes to mind. It is a bright one, and it often warms my from within. But there comes a time when Love and that face that we associate so often with love are no longer related. They grow beneath different suns, and evolve far apart as our lives progress.

But here we learn, or remember for the first time in a long time, that love has no face. Ask most people what love is, and you will probably watch them squirm as they attempt to assemble a reasonable definition. Love has no face. It lives within all things, can be produced from nothing, and belongs to no one. It flows through the ether of the universe freely, and it is always in abundance for those who can facilitate it. Love has no face. It has no identity. Love is all things, and all things can love, and can be loved. The loss of one love is not a loss, merely a change, from one recipient of attention to another. Not a loss, but a change. To ‘loose’ a love is only an opportunity to find love elsewhere; all around, flowing constantly from inumerable directions, and radiating from a location deep within that has no origin.

In the past, this reality has presented itself to me under sparkling sunlight, adjascent and immersed in glittering oceans, and amongst the company of snow-covered monoliths. Some of the most tumultous periods of my life have seen themselves settled in these settings. The sharpest pains have been quelled in the company of myself, and the green grasses of mountain meadows.
Walking through the countrysides of Basque and Riojan Spain has reiterated said truths. In these past weeks, when the heart and soul has been under great stress, forced to face painful truths, and devoured by unfamiliar pain, I take to my feet. Whether beneath frigid rain, biting wind, or glowing sun; walking has helped. Many mornings I have left a small, sleeping city, feeling as though only a few steps would bring me to crumble under the weight of my own thoughts. I walk slow at first, absorbed, swimming, drowning. By the edge of the city my legs are ready, and I drive myself into the countryside. Unimportant is the number of fellow pilgrims on the trail at any given time, because I am in good company. In what first seems to be solitide, I remember my companions along any trail. The beautiful trees that hum in a cold wind, and the symphonic songbirds that call them home are familiar friends, even this far from home. The rolling hills, lush in a thriving emerald green, sometimes brings a smile to my face, especially when the morning dew sparkles like distant stars. Some days I am lucky enough to be reminded that Mother Sun always watches over me, and to her I can confess all my fears and throbbing pain. As I walk, I remember that I need not be distressed as to whether a river of love flows between myself and a single other transient being, because love is not in shortage. I love the ground that holds my weight. I love all that is green and brown, trees and grass and earth, and especially the vibrant gifts that are flowers. I so deeply love the birds that serenade us as we wake or walk or drift off to sleep in the grass. I remember that These things, these places, remind me of how much love I have to give, and then I remember that I too love myself. I remember how silly it is to allow myself to hurt for something that cannot be touched, and that those wounds heal as soon as I tell them to.
The ever-present tempest of love that we occupy is sometimes so easy to forget. Never feel as though you are deprived of love, because you need not recieve or give it. Love always. Love infinitely.

Pain, Pride, and Puppies

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The future does not exist, nor does the past. All we have is the present moment, this exact space in time and in the cosmos. Everything else is just a thought. Humans are unique in their ability to become slaves to thoughts and ideas that are not grounded in reality; that have no place in the present moment. We worry and fear things that we cannot touch. Stress from deadlines in the workplace and pain in out personal relationships dries the lush fruit that can be here and now, into something dull and stale. I am no exception to this truth, but in the past several days, El Camino has been far too flavorful for the mind to wander for than more than a few moments.

My first day on my Camino was baptized in pouring rain. The moody violet sky had no intention of welcoming myself and my fellow pilgrims warmly. I set out not alone, but in the company an Argentine named Daniel. Working our way through the cobbled streets of old Irún, we chipped away at the linguistic barrier between us. He spoke little English, and my conversational Spanish usually only yields a bus ticket or glass of wine. Nonetheless, I learned that he was a lawyer, father of two, and was recently divorced. Later in the day when he told me that he had spent time outdoors to ”find himself”, I couldn’t help but think that he might fit in pretty well at Evergreen. We worked our way onto the hillcrest, battling the typhoon like wind, biting rain, and even a momentary barrage of hail. It began with a sudden clap of thunder, and immediately we were bombarded by thousands of icy pellets, sent by the furiously whipping wind. We ran for cover under a small bridge, shielding our faces, sacrificing our hands. When we set out soon after over piles of balled ice, my hands were covered in countless small red welts; my first battlescars of El Camino.

In the same day, having become lost, were joined by a small black and white dog named Wayuu. He followed us eagerly, up and over the hills of Irún, always laying in wait on one side of a fork in the trail, showing us the way. He must have accompanied us very far from his home that day, because for over ten kilometers, from Irún to the ferry at San Pablo, he was by our side.

Arriving in San Sebastian, we found no beds in which to rest out tired bones. Thoroughly whipped by the wind and having walked across the whole city, we had few remaining options. We had managed to reserve the last two beds in the next town of Orio. At over ten kilometers away, the distance would be breaking after an already long day. Our only option, it seemed, was to take the bus. Wet, tired, and hungry, I did not think once about what taking the bus on day one meant for my pilgrimage. The whole ride, I was lost in the damp countryside and river along which we wound. We arrived at our home for the night. We were led by blaze yellow arrows down and around a farmhouse, to a door that led into the cellar. Inside were near twenty bunks, dimly lit and crammed close together. Daniel spoke with the owner too rapidly for me to follow. He told me that this was not where we would be staying. After having our credeniáls stamped, we were received by an old plump woman, who graciously led us into her beautiful hilltop farm house. The albergue had been full, so this lovely neighbour had offered to put us up in a guest room of her house. Our first experience of incredible love and charity on the camino came in the form of soft beds, a closet full of blankets, and a delicious three course meal.

The next two days took us out along the slithering coast line, past some of Spain’s longest beaches. By the afternoon we had turned from the coast to the lush rolling hills of the countryside. Brilliant green pastures had been squared off all over the bubble like geography of the campo. Gorgeous as it was, the continuous cycle of rise into the country and descent to the coast was taking its toll. A tendon in my right knee was becoming quite inflamed, and El Camino did not become less dynamic as the day continued.

By the next morning, waking in the second story of a train station in Deba, I had decided to take a break. I would walk the five kilometers to the next town, and rest for the day, perhaps two. As we began our way, the pain became impossible to ignore. My limp was impossible to ignore, making the ascents both physically and mentally taxing. Coming to a panoramically positioned church, it dawned upon me that the town I had elected to stay in was behind my group and I, far off the marked Camino. I would have to walk the severe, seventeen kilometers to the stage finish. I began to lose sight of my way. I scourned myself for not having trained more. I focused almost solely on the pain, like a knife’s blade jammed into my knee. I wanted to be home, or far away from this mountain.

As I receded into my thoughts, I came to a junction in the trail. Only one path was marked, turning abruptly down to the coast, toward terracotta rooftops hidden in the forest foliage. The straight path had no marking in sight. I was genuinely unsure which path to take. and in that moment, I was overtaken my a great wave. An unconscious flood of emotion took me, and a great grin drew itself from within. How wonderful was this, to be lost in the north of Spain? What adventure, not to know the path to the next town, hundreds of years old, or the glistening Atlantic? I was here, facing challenges of “The Way”: Pain and Navigation and my own thoughts. In that moment I became aware of my surroundings. The constant whisper of the ocean breeze in the treetops, accompanied by a bright, ceaseless symphony of birdsong, crescendo after crescendo, the likes of which I had never known. The scent of blooming spring filled my lungs, and I was here in the middle of it all, facing down a dilemma standing between myself and my goal. No longer lost in my path, I walked on, lost in every present moment. That is adventure; awareness so powerful that it holds your mind and spirit captive.

I walked the next seventeen kilometers in pain, but smiling the whole way. I lost my toxic state of mind in that forest. The next day I planned to be short in stead of my folly in the country. And yet again, I was challenged. Reaching the town of Munitibar, we learned that the local albergue was closed for months. While I wanted to walk on with friends that had become like family, I knew that my knee, now knees, would only worsen. To my dismay, I hobbled my way to the bus stop, humbled. It was somewhat humiliating, waiting for the bus, in a town where pilgrims are frequent, with that white shell dangling from my pack. But to walk another ten kilometers would not see me healed. If I was to avoid injuring myself further, I had to leave my pride at that bus stop. It was my pride that had gotten me there, charging up and down trails, hard when I should have rested.

I have taken a day off from my Camino. The other pilgrims with whom I had formed an incredibly close family in a matter of days, have walked on. My Camino however, has only just begun. I will see you all on the Francés.

Ages Passing in Hours

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My eight hour train through the Spanish north country passed by mostly in flashes, brief clips captured on an old film camera. Unfamiliar country roared past as I fell in and out of consciousness.

A small, simple cabin, built by hand from clay and stone, the sand on which it sat. A single wooden door and wooden windows, hanging askew in their warped frames, enduring the vast expanse of frozen hilltops.

 Distant mountain peaks, sloping ever so softly into the hills, and eventually valleys below. Gently they marry with the earth, as if painted by the stroke of a very lazy painter.
Flat, green pastures, iron colored soil, diligently tilled and squared off for seasons more wet than this one.

Many cities made only of ten-ish story apartment buildings, a sore capitalist thumb poking from the masetta. No doubt, erected around factories that had quickly gone under durring the last decade of financal turbulence. They all seemed like ghost towns. No padestrians, one or two parked cars for every hundred dwellings.

The series illustrated a country’s desperate scramble to consume and expand. From huts to agriculture, cities and collapse.

And then there was the Basque country. Sensible homes, and clean streets clashed with abandoned warehouses and graffiti “Independence!” or “Basque Country” scrawled in technicolor handwriting in a language that has no anscestor in Europe, Asia, or Elsewhere.

Nestled away in this confusion of identity is Albuergue de Peregrinos de Irún. A converted appartment building boasting over fifty beds, and two incredibly friendly hospitaleros.

This evening, I made my way into their office and presented my stiff, unsoiled credencial. The one who spoke very broken English flashed a smile up at me as he opened the blank folds, and proceded to stamp the first page with a blue scallop shell. I had a very hard time hiding the fact that something had gotten into my eyes, glassing them over and threatening to spill over my cheeks.

My stench was washed away by their hospitality, and their incredibly hot shower. My belly was filled by a pair of French pilgrims, who had made too much dinner and shared my dispair of finding food on Good Friday. From the back of my pack now dangles a virgin white concha, a scallop shell. It hangs as a reminder that a pilgrim gives thanks, as I intend to, and to pass forth the spirit of this pilgrimage, as others already have to me with food, kindness, and welcome.