Of Eros and Earth

The last few days have been a whirlwind…

Even before arriving in Santiago, I felt an overwhelming sense of emotion. I walked alongside Miquel, who noticed my unusual silence and proceeded to ask me a multitude of questions in Spanish, hoping to preoccupy my busy mind with language practice, as we had been doing for the last four days. I kept my answers short…talking was difficult. My mind was racing as I counted the remaining kilometers in my head. I thought of all that I experienced, all those hundreds of miles I had walked, carrying this heavy Deuter pack that felt like a limb now. I had trudged through mud, skipped in the sunshine, laughed in the rain, made everlasting friendships with strangers, and learned to embrace surprises, my slow pace, and the kindness of others. I felt this kind of anxiety start to well up in me, thinking of all the ways it could have been different, all the shoulds, coulds, what ifs. But if I had to do it all over again, I don’t think I would do it any differently, because then I wouldn’t have met all the wonderful people I’ve shared this journey with.
Pretty soon my eyes couldn’t help but fill with tears, and they streamed down my face and down my neck. I continued to walk, breathing heavy sobs. Miquel occasionally glanced over to me, saying nothing. Just witnessing, holding space for me. It felt so good. It felt so good to release, to let the tears fall, to let my breath fog my glasses, to breathe and walk through chest- rattling sobs.
Then I started to laugh, and he laughed with me.
He said, “It is best to cry, with a smile.”
I thanked him, and shed a few more tears.
“Save some tears for Santiago!” He said, winking.

*****

This Camino has taught me to embrace surprises, and turn them into adventures.
We checked into a hostel called Cafe/Bar Forest. Everything seemed to be okay on the outside. Erik had a room to himself on the second floor, and Miquel, Jordi, Delta, Reagan, Jess and I all shared the top floor in three rooms of two.
We spent the day getting our Compostelas (cheering as each person approached the front desk, promptly getting shushed….) attending pilgrims mass in the cathedral, which was amazing, and saying our goodbyes to Delta and Erik (who was leaving early the next morning).
That night, however…

Jess and I lay in our beds in our private room. I started reading a sample of a cheesy but pleasing romance novel on my kindle, and Jess was on her phone. We would occasionally exchange comments along the lines of, “I can’t believe we made it to Santiago.” and “I’m going to miss everyone so much.”
After a long period of silence, Jess leapt up out of bed, exclaiming, “Oh my GOD what is that?? Casey, come here!”
I sprang out of bed, alarmed. She directed my gaze towards her pillow, where we saw a small insect scurrying across the sheets.
I had the impulse to quickly snap a picture so we could identify what it was, then proceeded to remove it with a cloth and put it in the toilet.
Upon further research we discovered it was what we had feared: bedbugs.
We stripped the beds of their sheets, checking the mattresses and the headboards for more bugs. Then we woke up the rest of our group (on both floors) and discovered that nearly all of our beds were infested. At first our group of men wouldn’t believe us. We had awoken Jordi and Miquel from their sleep to check their sheets, but Jordi kept crawling back into bed and passing out, until he discovered a bedbug underneath his blanket. Reagan was the same way- he was a bit disoriented when we awoke him, and proceeded to tell us, “no, I don’t have bedbugs, YOU’RE a bed bug…grumblegrumble…” until he found one on his pillow inches away from his face.
We dumped all of our sheets in the hallway, and hung our backpacks and other belongings up away from the floor. At this point it was 1:30am, and Jess and I decided it was safest to sleep on our bare mattresses in our rain gear.
Just shortly after locking the door for the night and tucking myself into fetal position on the hard mattress, Jess and I heard someone come up the stairs, walk around the pile of sheets on the floor, and turn our door handle without knocking or saying anything. When they discovered the door was locked, they retreated back down the stairs. Maybe it was Erik? We texted him.
It was no one that we knew.
At 3am, I woke up dizzy and disoriented to the sound of a repetitive, persistent knocking sound that seemed to be coming from the floor, though I couldn’t tell for sure where it was coming from. Everything was pitch black, and I couldn’t see anything, so I just laid there, in a half-asleep daze.
At 6am, Erik came to our door to say goodbye. His taxi was waiting outside. He handed Jess and I his leftover tea bags, goat cheese, and his half empty pack of cigarettes. “I’m done with these for good.” he promised. He gave us both big hugs, and left a trail of strong cologne behind him as he closed the door. Jess and I exchanged melancholy, exhausted sighs before crashing back to sleep.
At 10am we woke up to Reagan knocking on our door, asking us to come to breakfast and then to a second pilgrim’s mass. We decided it would be best to try to find a different place to stay for our second night in Santiago. After watching the beautiful botofumiera, we serendipitously stumbled upon someone who owned a flat for an inexpensive night’s rent. The number of the flat was 22 (our group’s lucky number).
We returned to hostel Forest and packed our bags. As me, Reagan, and Jess walked downstairs, we heard the sounds of angry screams and cries. Miquel had informed the landlady of what had happened, and she became absolutely furious. She tried to blame us for the bedbug infestation, and threatened to call the cops. Because I had taken a photo of the bug, she directed most of her anger towards me. She was worried that I would post the picture on the Internet or write a bad review. I tried to explain that we meant no harm, and no disrespect. But this discussion was no longer about safety and hygiene, it was about pride. I felt my heart sinking and my adrenaline levels rising as she screamed straight in my face, feeling droplets of angry spit hit my cheeks. I directed my attention towards my breath.

“Breathe, Casey, just breathe.”

Eventually she told us all to leave. I was sad to walk away, leaving her upset. I felt very overwhelmed, with mixed feelings of guilt and frustration. This was the first time I felt like I had created a burden on someone on the Camino, though we were trying to do the right thing. Her husband had died recently, and I’m sure a lot of her anger was directed at the cruelty of the world than at pilgrims and bedbugs. She was clearly in pain, and that’s why I felt so awful afterwards.

After settling into our new hostel and checking the beds and our bodies and backpacks frantically for bugs, we all split up for a walk around the town to clear our minds.
Jess and I went to an Ayurvedic cafe and had the most nourishing meal with a freshly made smoothie. I felt elated- I’m so amazed what fresh, homemade food can do to one’s spirit.

We reunited with Miquel and Jordi and Reagan to continue our walk. Miquel wanted to find souvenirs for his grandchildren.
At some point he pulled me aside and told me that Jess and I couldn’t come with him to Barcelona after all. His mother-in-law’s illness had worsened, and it wouldn’t be a good time to have us stay with him.

Realizing that this was really sad and changed our plans for the upcoming week, Jess and I quickly tried to come up with a game plan for the next six days before reuniting with the rest of the class in Santiago by the 12th.
“What about the Camino Inglés?” she said.
At first, just looking at the amount of kilometers from Ferrol back to Santiago, divided the amount of days we had, we calculated the average distance per day: 22km.
Veinte dos.
We rushed into Reagan’s room: “Wanna walk the Ingles?!” He was originally going to walk to Finisterre…but one can’t ignore magic.

And right there, we made a plan.

This morning we woke up early and said our goodbyes to Miquel and Jordi, who headed back to Barcelona.  I will miss Miquel, a compassionate and clever man who has taught me so much about language and friendship, and Jordi, a passionate and sensitive soul, who sings loudly at restaurants and gets overly exuberant over futbol, never afraid to live life as fully as it’s meant to be.

After two crazy days in Santiago, I found myself with a new pilgrims’ credential and a ticket to Ferrol.
It felt so strange to be on a bus, watching trees and signposts go by within seconds, covering distance that would normally take us days of walking. Jess and I hadn’t taken a bus since our time in London.

Today was probably one of the hardest days for me, physically and emotionally. I felt sick to my stomach as soon as we got off the bus, not just from motion sickness. Throughout the walking day I had to stop periodically to rest and go to the bathroom…I think I’m dealing with food poisoning, or something of the sort.
But I am so happy to be on the road again. It feels so good to be walking. It was a routine I was going to miss! I understand why people walk the Camino repeatedly, or choose to walk more routes after their first. It is a rhythm that feels good to groove to, so healing and so grounding.
I felt that there was still much to learn for me, I had to keep going. The Camino Inglés is much less popular than the Frances, with fewer sleeping and eating options, and large stretches without many resources. However, so far it has been very pretty and quite peaceful. It’s a refreshing break from the increasingly crowded 100km of the Frances. We’re staying in the municipal in Neda tonight, and there is only about ten pilgrims here.

I’m so happy to be here with both Reagan and Jess. I felt like my time with Reagan was not finished yet- he feels like an older brother to me. Both of them are such wonderful friends, who have both nurtured me and pushed me to my limits today.
Today about one kilometer from the municipal Albergue, there was a playground with a swing attached to a long wire extending several meters. The swing was a short chain with a small rubber disk at the end for sitting on. It was similar in structure to a zip line.
The swing was a bit high for me, even when standing on the launching point, a mound of dirt at the start. I would have to jump, holding onto the chain (that was slippery from the day’s rain) and wrap my legs around it so I could rest my seat upon the disk. Jess and Reagan did it without hesitation- but for some reason I couldn’t get myself to do it. I was so scared.
“Casey, do it! It’s a children’s toy!!” Reagan said, laughing. “You’re a grown woman who just walked five hundred miles, but you’re afraid to get on a child’s swing??”

I laughed. I started to go, but I lost faith and my hands slipped. “I can’t do it I can’t do it I can’t do it!” I said, giggling, but then a knot formed in my throat. I was really tired. I felt sick. I didn’t want to fall in the mud. I wanted to cry.
“Casey, just do it! It’s so fun!” said Jess. “You can totally do it! You can’t think about it too much, you’ll psych yourself out!”

I stared at the chain, thinking about the rope swings in the Evergreen forest that I leapt for, and nearly fell off of. Tears welled up in my eyes.
“I can’t do it I can’t do it I can’t do it” I sobbed, giggling and crying simultaneously.
Jess and Reagan cheered me on like devoted parents. “Yes you can!” They came and joined me on the mound, and promised to catch me if I fell.
I didn’t believe in myself in that moment. I believed in them. I trusted that they had my back.
And I made it! I grabbed onto the slippery chain and swung full speed ahead. It felt liberating. I felt like a child again.

That’s what my Camino had to teach me these last few days: trust, and take the leap.