Day 20: Sarria - Portomarin

Day in one word: new

It's a strange word to have pop up over and over on day 20, four days from the end. Today I took a picture next to the 100 km marker and started watching the numbers get smaller and smaller (down to 88 today). But the word "new" was petty persistent in my thoughts, in the weird way the Galician earth sparkled in the rain. There are tons of new people who started the camino today since Sarria is the last major city you can start from and still earn a Compostela (the certificate of completion, basically an indulgence if you're Catholic. I can't wait to show my 8th graders mine). Several of the other "oldies" made faces and outright said how they didn't like all these newbies whose feet don't hurt and who fly down the path and take all the good beds. However, I found their enthusiasm refreshing. There is something about watching someone starting something new for them that re-inspires me to love again what I loved at first.

The big new thing in my life is that I've been adopted into a camino family, and it hasn't been easy or as fun, to be honest. Remember the one I followed in the awful rain? Victor (Mexico) and Ana (Spain) basically function like the mom and dad, Valentina (Italy) is practically the first-born daughter, followed by the three sons Jesus-Marie, Nacho, and Fernando (all Spain). I laughed a lot today when Nacho and Fernando sang Jesus-Marie awake. Gyeong-Sun (Korea) and I are the two slight oddballs because the others need to translate into English for us all the time, but Gyeong-Sun is a core member, and it's clear the others love her. I still feel extremely awkward, not understanding every conversation, not being a part of decisions but being included, and feeling as if maybe I forced myself onto them. I keep battling the emotions of not quite belonging and the thoughts of maybe they don't really want me - even though they haven't done or said anything to support those doubts. In fact, quite the opposite with the hugs and cheek kisses and inclusion. Where are my questions coming from?

I've decided it's really hard to be new. I wonder if this is a little what adopted children might feel as they try to navigate life in a new family, trying to learn the inside jokes and so forth. I wonder if that is how new people in God's family feel like. The impression I am left with today is wondering how well I do at welcoming them into the family? Do I dole out hugs like Ana, smile a lot like Nacho, buy gifts like Gyeong-Sun, cook like Jesus-Marie, plan routes and hostels like Victor, take car of laundry like Valentina, or just be present like Fernando? What is my contribution?

Day 19: Triacastelo - Sarria

Day in one word: tears

Today was everything yesterday was not. It was still darkish when I left, but as the day wore on, I walked through sun-slanted forest groves glimpsing mist-tinted mountains in the distance and vibrant green knolls in between. Sometime during the night, I was transported to Middle Earth!

The others from the group I joined last night took an alternate route past Samos today in order to see an old monastery. My original plan had been to join them, but last night, while trying to pop what I assumed was a new, rain-induced blister, Fernando (Spain), a part-time medic, told me he thought it both looked and smelled unusual. Of course, everyone was asked to weigh in on this, and a huge discussion in Spanish took place while everyone inspected my disgusting foot, the end of which of was translated to me as, "Yes, it's infected." So, I had to forego Samos today to come straight to Sarria and locate the hospital.

It was actually nice to walk by myself, though it was hard to think of anything but my infected blister. I tried to distract myself with music and my memorization project, but worries about how to check myself into a Spanish hospital and what I would do if they told me I couldn't walk anymore and antibiotic pills crowded into my mind. The emotions of it all were getting to me; I had to stop, sit on a stone wall for a while, and cry it up to God before I could continue. (Actually, I'm pretty proud I got all the way to Day 19 for the first tears!)

Since Sarria is only 18 km from Triacastelo, I was there by 10:30 and quickly found the hospital. It could not have gone better, thanks to some helpful receptionists and nurses. The blister was reopened, cleaned, pronounced free from infection (woohoo!), and rebandaged. I cried again, this time thanking Jesus for his goodness to me, even though my feet are still so gross. It's going to take more than 10 pedicures to fix these bad boys.

Day 18: O Cebreiro - Triacastelo

Day in one word: misery

I'd been looking forward to the town of Triacastelo for a while. If one castle makes me happy, imagine what three would do. However castles were about the furthest thing from my mind upon entering, which is a good thing since I couldn't see them anyway. Let me explain.

When I woke up this morning, it was to the sound of thunder and pouring rain. I tried to waste a little time in starting, but there was nothing for it. I had to leave the albergue and head out into it. It always sounds so romantic and carefree to walk on clouds, but let me tell you, it's another story to walk IN clouds. My shoes and socks were soaked through in the first ten minutes. The rain was coming down in sheets which the wind picked up and pelted into the right side of my body repetitively until it got through my poncho and backpack cover. Then we crossed a pass, and it renewed its efforts on the left side of my body. I don't even know why I bothered with the poncho. Except that it was red and kept cars from hitting me in the cloud.

I tried negotiating with God to make the rain stop but then remembered that he's not necessarily the negotiating type. So instead it became an exercise in thanking him. "Thank you that the grass is so green and that it's not too cold and that I don't have to worry about my chapped lips today and that I know a hot shower is waiting for me." I alternated that with praying I wouldn't get new blisters from my soaked socks (which he seems to have answered). But the blessing of the day is really in the fact that nothing loves company more than misery. Right from the beginning, I began following a large group of people that contained one person I knew, who also seemed to know where he was going. It turns out that group was already something of a camino family, and they've invited me to join them in an albergue room, doing laundry, and cooking dinner together tonight. Don't know what this is yet, but I'm grateful. And finally dry.

Day. 17: Villafranca del Bierzo - O Cebreiro

Day in one word: support

Today's walk started off with 22 km in a ravine and ended at 28 on top of a mountain, so you know there was a lot of climbing in between. I actually really don't mind the uphills; it's the downs that bother me. I had to laugh though because in the last town in the ravine, there were advertisements to go up to O Cebreiro on horseback. Tempting ... but I much preferred the support of my walking poles.

The word "support" was much on my mind today, too, as I thought about Elizabeth (and no, it wasn't because I listened to the entire soundtrack of Elisabeth: Das Musical, though I did, and it majorly helped pass the time, by the way). I know I wouldn't be here today walking in Spain if it hadn't been for her enthusiastic exclamations last November of "Let's walk the camino!" To which I was always compelled to reply with equal exuberance, "Okay!" Despite the nasty Swiss alp that took her out of the running (we should only ski in the Austrian Alps from here on out), she was the impetus for this crazy undertaking. I miss her daily.

And that got me thinking of all the people who have supported and are continuing to do so on a daily basis - family, colleagues, supporters, friends of friends of friends who patiently answered all of questions and who "like" my photos. I don't walk alone, even if there isn't another person in sight. How true that echoes my BFA life as well. People have been praying, giving, encouraging, and helping make that work possible for over five years now. Wow. Once again, my camino is mirroring real life and revealing to me how blessed I am. My new friend Luisa (Brazil) and I were just discussin that fact last night.

So this post is for you, Elizabeth, Mom & Dad Chaucer, and everyone else: THANK YOU for supporting me in absolutely every way. I tried to list many of you by name in my thanks to God during the 6 km hike straight up. Know that I love you all!

Day 16: Ponferrada - Villafranca del Bierzo

Day in one word: dance (verb)

The word was going to be "gray" because that was my morning. Gray asphalt under gray skies to match my gray mood. I don't know why I was down other than the fact that my emotions like to mess with me sometimes. I was discouraged that the new friends I'm making in this second half are very temporary (e.g. my two super sweet roommates last night both have medical injuries so they're taking a day off; cute boy David with whom I hit it off right away keeps walking ahead; etc.), and for some reason the distance I have left to cover still feels so big. Plus, I knew everyone at home would be spending the day barbecuing and watching fireworks, and I just wanted a Coke. Not a Coke Zero; the real one with all the sugar.

So it's a good thing the day didn't end after just a morning. I stopped in a bar that had Wifi and scooped up some encouragement from Facebook as well as a small Milka bar (always good medicine), and when I emerged, the sun was shining. The rest of the trek into Villafranca II went to a different tune.

When I stopped at some vineyards for lunch, I saw the two biggest butterflies to date prancing around each other and through the air, swooping up and down, enraptured in an obvious dance with each other. Thats's when I changed my word for the day. Sometimes life's dance is a slow waltz in gray, and sometimes it's a Riverdance on a rainbow. There are days when I expertly get through the dance and other times I'm fumbling with two left feet because it's new to me or I just plain don't like it. But the constant is that I always know the one who's leading me (props to Kate's Matins talk). He is sure footed and sees not just this dance but all of them until the end. I'll stick with him, no matter the color of the sky.

All right then, I'm off to find a Coke Zero.

Day 15: Foncebadon - Ponferrada

Day in one word: crosses

I've already noted how crosses are everywhere on this trip, God's reminder of just how much he loved on me when he sent his son. Yesterday, there was a chain-linked fence where people had taken two sticks of all shapes and sizes and threaded them into the fence to look like crosses. Over and over again; there were over a thousand symbols of the lengths God was willing to love.

Probably the most famous cross on the camino is the Cruz Ferro in the Cantabrian Mountains, and true to tradition, I've been carrying my own "rock" for many kilometers now to leave at the foot of this cross. Only I didn't carry a rock. I chose a pottery shard. It's lighter, of course (heehee), but more importantly to me is all the symbolism I've come to attach to pottery, especially a la Romans 9. Pilgrims want the rock they leave at Cruz Ferro to represent a burden or something they want to let go of, but nothing like that had come to mind, so I wanted the shard to represent all of me - small, fragmented, vulnerable, not made for honorable use but yet still designed with purpose by the Maker.

It was early and still dawning when I arrived, but I found a quiet, little corner to meditate on Philippians 2 before adding my little pottery piece to the ginormous pile. Leaving myself at the foot of the cross. It was simple but beautiful, and I moved on singing "Oh the Wonderful Cross" in my head while I passed many more crosses and soaked in the Alpine experience of cowbells, Alm pathways, and distant stunning mountain vistas. (Words fail me to describe how happy my heart was and how badly I wanted the morning to last forever. Kristi will know.) Sadly, my little phone camera couldn't quite capture it all. The Brazilian in front of me with his XLRPFJQ something something mega super zoom 7 billion extra lens focus camera probably did. :-P

P. S. Thank you to all who have been praying for my feet. I'm down to only two Compeeds per foot and am happy to report that today I walked relatively pain free for all 27 km! My pace has definitely increased, and I don't cringe on rocky downhill paths anymore. Hallelujah!

Day 14: Astorga - Foncebadon

Day in one word: smell

It was so weird to be the first person up and out of the albergue here. And my pace seems to have improved overnight. I don't know if it really has or if the people here farther along the camino walk more slowly.

There was a light drizzle throughout much of the day, which helped heighten some of the smells along the way. A bush of yellow flowers I didn't recognize wwas so pungent yet gentle and airy; it was a fragrance my Nana would've bottled if she could have and worn well, too. The damp red earth took me back to Mrs. Loop's ceramics room, and the branches of pine that squeezed out the path at times and grazed my face reminded me of exploring the forests of Landskron. Shockingly, one of the best smells of the day was the mangy dog who kept me company for the last five km of today's walk, which was the steep ascent into the Cantabrian Mountains. He seriously stuck next to me as if I owned him and was a quiet, gentle thing. The winning scent of the day, however, is easy to to identify: the hot chocolate I ordered to to warm me up and that was basically a liquified chocolate bar in a cup. A little taste of heaven.

I'm staying at the hippie albergue of the town and wishing I'd chosen the convent instead, but apparently all three albergues have an infestation of mold in the showers and flies in the rooms. Oh well. Tomorrow morning, it's on to the famous Cruz Ferro, where I will leave my "burden."