Mission Accomplished

Day 43 - Santiago de Compostela - Mission Accomplished - Five hundred miles walked.

Trust in Allah, but tie your camel. Muslim adage


Economists are famous for never agreeing with on another. A friend used to say that if you line up one hundred economists in a row, that not a one of them will agree with one another on any given question. That being said, studies which seek to answer the age old question regarding any positive correlation between making more money and increasing happiness are still regularly conducted. A recent study run by University of Warwick's Eugenio Proto and University of Minnesota's Aldo Rustichini, published in the journal PLOS ONE, has not only come up with a conclusion that indicates that there seems to not be a positive correlation between the two, but that, in fact, there is even a hard number for the salary which one should seek if one desires to be happy. The number is $36,000 US dollars (adjusted per country depending on local purchasing power) per year. Their research has discovered that satisfaction does continue to rise to a "bliss point" of $36,000, and then begins to decline, according to data drawn from the World Values Survey.


It is four-forty am. It is a fine time to write. Often it is between two-thirty and five in the morning that I write. Hard to find time during the day anymore. Need the better part of two hours to get a post done; where does that come in the day? Up in the morning usually a half hour before T, get some in before it is time to leave the albergue and start walking, something that is now changed since ending our walk. Then we have Ben walking until a check into an albergue, shower, wash clothes, find a store, ready for dinner. Often I have found some time around this transition. After dinner some time can be found, but we have found many friends along the path and have spent time with them.




Now we are visiting with Rob from breakfast in the dining room of the hotel in the morning to dinner and hanging out at night, talking until we are too tired to do so anymore, it is hard to yank time away, to say, now finally having the ability to interact with him after so many years.


So the night country is where there is quiet, undisturbed time to process, to write, to read. Oft times it is the only time when the rest of my world slows down, melts away enough, for peace to settle over me and thus to make a place where creativity and clarity can take up residence and get anything done. Try at times during the day to get off to the side, go outside, for example, to get time to write. Commonly, before my muse has yet to alight upon my shoulder, I am joined by another soul. I speak here not of ephemera but of true bodies of substance, people. My son knows fairly well to leave me to my traveling office space. Others, however, do not.


This tendency to be interrupted in my attempts to find a bubble of reverie has become greater, more or less proportionally, with each step that we have taken towards the final burial place of Saint James. Teo and I have tended to collect around us a fair sized complement of comrades as we have walked. This phenomenon is, ......, what we desire, has just about no drawbacks to it; one that does present itself, however, is this pattern of people seeing me sitting outside typing on my iPad, come on over to share consciousness, to hang, thus spilling away, unintentionally as it is, my accumulating bowl of creative juices. (As a side note, during my composition of this portion of this post about being interrupted, I wasm in fact, interrupted two times by two different people, for a total of about one hour-not that I did not enjoy their company)




Given that we carry everything that we have with us on our backs, the choices that we have when we decide what to put on in the evening is frightfully limited. Given that I have one set of walking clothes and one set of not walking clothes, I switch from the one, each day after we have finished walking, to the other. Day time wear is an olive green, fast drying, poly-something t-shirt and olive green, fast drying, zip off, cargo pants. Night time wear is a black, cotton, Gap t-shirt, black, stretchy, sweat pants/athletic wear pants. After taking a nap yesterday afternoon I was getting dressed again, joking with T about my choice of clothes. "Hmm, what to wear. What to wear?" We both cracked up as we suited up once more in the same exact top, pants, socks that we have every day for six and a half weeks now. It is practical, to be sure, but so audaciously, rhythmically monotonous as to be bizarre.


Spent some more time hanging with the Martins today. Nice guys. A funny episode. Das Martin says to us, as we are standing in the courtyard inside the interior four walls of the. Monasteries Martin Piniero, the twelfth century building in which we are currently housed (the courtyard concept being a Moorish innovation, keep the women inside and occupied, think TV!?). He says to us, "Sometimes the sun is in your eyes," raises his hand out straight, elbow locked, hand flattened, "and the wind is blowing in your eyes, and then you have an itch under your nose," he uses his free hand, two fingers, to scratch directly beneath his nose, suddenly we get it-heil Hitler! The four of us, Tdog, the Martins, and I, all bust out laughing. A candid moment to be sure.




In short order now I will return to my life in Washington state. Will fly from Madrid to Seattle one week from today. My feelings about returning are mixed. It seems that one of the best parts of going on vacation is coming home. True. But for fourteen years now being in Ellensburg has been not really what I have chosen; I live there because my kids have lived there. Sure it has been my choice, I could have lived elsewhere, could have been apart from them. But to me that was never an option. Today things are different. Today I am soon to be moving overseas.


It is August in my mind and it is hot and it is dusty as I walk the horizontal, undulating system of trails that cut into the side of the irrigation ditch along my father's property in the Kittitas Valley. My arms stretch out from my sides as though I am playing airplane, the soft lobes of the three toothed sagebrush flopping and caressing against my skin. The dust that fills the cow trails is an inch deep, more in places, and it is almost white, and fine as gypsum powder. From high on the side of the bank of the ditch the view across the valley extends for maybe twenty mile to the ridges of the foothills of the Cascade range on the northern rim. The brightness of the late summer sun bleaches the scene, everything I see, into the look of a twenty year old photograph exposed too long to the light, blanched, a bit faded. The colors all shift along the spectrum, turning whites a bit yellow, greens a strange orangish hue.


My job is to walk these trails, along the one until it branches into the one below, the sage in places as tall as my head, find the red brown heifers at the end of the ten acre field, count them and their young, account for them all, report back, the final chore of the day. The smell of the dust, poofing up in small clouds from my feet, mixes an acrid coating onto the pungent, ripe, sharpness of the sage, bruised and opened by the sides and the palms of my hands. In some ways the sensation is like flying underwater, moving as though lucid dreaming through the sea grass and the kelp beds, parting, swaying as I push forward through them.




So as I return to the states now it is with a mindset quite different from any that I have ever experienced before. I return now to tie up loose ends, to make some adjustments to my houses, my rentals, help my two boys to be properly set up for their futures, finalize my divorce, arrange for my job teaching across the ocean, say my goodbyes, head off to watch the sun rise and set from yet another corner of the globe. Much inside of me churns and courses, twists, clenches and releases. It is a bit like going to the dentist to get an aching tooth pulled. Hurts, need to get through it-then in a big whoosh things improve tremendously.


Things are not right, have not been right for a long time. My natural auras, energies have become jammed up some years back. Feel too much maligned by too many people, people I used to respect and admire wildly, people who clearly disapprove of how I prioritize my life, my values, but who, while whispering criticisms to others around me, refuse to speak to me, to honor my requests for connection and for explanation. No man is an island unto himself, and yet if others insulate you from them, what else really can you be? I have held on to my life, to who I feel like I have been supposed to be, for a number of years longer than I have wanted to. For others' sake. For my boys mostly. For my most recent wife. Like holding a too hot mug of tea out of the microwave; didn't know it would be so hard to hold, but having removed it from the oven, half way to the table, past the zero point, hurts too much, but dropping it is not an option, going forward now is the quickest, best option. I believe that now I can see how this plays out.




There is not much longer to go now. Haven't much in the ways of friends left in the states. On the outside of my family. My boys are men now, will be best served now if I set them up with cheap housing in some of my rental units, get out of their way. Can not really stand back, look at my life and say with any honesty or a straight face that I have good advice to give them about how a human progresses with their life in the proper, healthiest manner. No, my time in my hometown is over done. It is my time to attune my inner compass, close my eyes, and migrate. I think that I can keep a hold of the hot mug until I reach the table. Sure it hurts, but what did T.E. Lawrence say about the 'trick' of not making it hurt when he slowly closed his thumb and forefinger about the burning match, extinguishing the flame? "The trick," he said, "is not minding that it hurts."


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Location:Rúa Catalina Poniente,Fisterra,Spain

Trail's End

Wake up the final morning, aiming to hit the trail by eight thirty so that we can get to the plaza in front of the Cathedrál, meet Rob by the middle of the three Christmas trees, by three thirty. Sitting on terrace of the albergue, our LAST albergue, having a smoke, sucking down my instant coffee swill, finishing waking up. Hardly know how to feel as we finish this thing up. Think back to what my Uncle José said to me when we met him for dinner way, way back six weeks hence at the Cervezeria Alemana. Said that God is whatever you feel right now. If you feel hungry, that is God. If you feel angry, horny, sad-that is God. Have thought a lot about that in the intervening days. I mean, if that is true, and frankly it sounds as good an idea as any I've come up with, then what does it mean if I do not know how I feel right now? Or what to feel right now.


Does that mean that God is confused? Does it mean simply that, as Ram Dass says, it is just an 'I don't know moment'? That the 'I don't know mind' is a good place to be? Like the Rumi quote from yesterday's blog, just another visitor to my house, another guest to great cheerily at the door, to usher in, to welcome until he should feel it is time to leave? Is God then an awareness, an opening to and of the universe that I can perceive? Perhaps my highest state is one in which I work on my awareness, allow what transpires around me to come in through my five senses, allow it to just be, to not resist, not resent, but just to recognize, greet, welcome, allow, give a warm hug to it when it leaves, await the next coming phenomenon, event, utterance, emotion.




I joke with Teo, "What the hell are we gonna do every day from nine in the morning until five in the evening?" Told him that we will have to inform my buddy, Rob, whom we are meeting for three days here in Santiago that we have planned a twenty kilometer walk around the city each day! It will be interesting to see just how easily we will return to a much more sedentary and more 'regular' life.


They say that it is hard to see the forest whilst amongst the trees. Right now it feels difficult to extract great feelings, inspired words about what all of this walking, this trek across a country, means. The journey has been, is, and I feel sure that it shall always remain, a perfect metaphor of itself. A passage. The traveling of a long, arduous, beautiful path. So it is that with my son I have passed over a five hundred mile slice of this earth, and with him also we have moved through and across miles of internal spaces, perhaps thousands of them. Both together and certainly each of us individually. While I can not yet say what inside of me has changed or how, I believe that there are now many, many places inside that have transformed into new versions of themselves. What existed before as grey, unmoving chrysalis is now tangerine winged butterfly, gossamer wings still wet, unfolding. Understandings yet rising behind the silhouette of horizon, the shape and kind still as yet undechipherble. More deep knowledge than known fact. More emotional tone than moment defined.




My internal compass has rotated. My true north having on its axis shifted, triangulating, re calibrating onto the new placement of the magnetic points of interest, of intuition, of desire. With these awakenings come the necessity for action in my external world, a mandate from my internal self to fundamentally alter the course and direction of my physical body. I believe most fully that now, having been, to borrow the metaphor of a great man, to the mountain top, that I can not return to the lower regions of the valleys below. And so forward now I must go, onward to a new and different future, the future that has, previously unbeknownst to me, been waiting for me, smiling, at peace, sitting patiently just out of sight around the bend.

Sort of hard to not feel somewhat anticlimactic, like the end of a terrifically good weekend, or a carnival ride. Does one line up again, get in the queue of pilgrims, do the ride again? Does one incorporate the time spent walking, thinking, doing, being, into the manner in which one moves forward? Does one just continue to breathe? In all cases, for all of us who have shared this time together, there are no certainties, no 'must be's, no shared mandates. As surely as we are all now changed, so surely this experience has affected each and every one of us differently. As the lines on the back of the scallop shell all converge into one point, the symbol of the many different pilgrimage routes into Santiago de Compostela, so now we shall all move from this one important moment in our lives outward towards the many different places where our lives and our hearts will take us.




So, we walk today with earnestness and with a soft and certain pleasure, closing the final distance into the Plaza of the Cathedrál in SdC. Rob's plane lands at the airport in SdC at two o'clock. He should deplane, get a cab or bus, get to the plaza around three, perhaps we can even get there about the same time he does, not make him wait. And so we have a good final day of walking, Dwayne, Teo and I. Ankles are hurting again, drop an ibuprofen, take some breaks, the sun actually warmer, brighter than any other day this week; crazy enough, as we have progressed into the 'marine climate' of Galicia and deeper into the wet part of the year, our days have become, inexplicably (to all but Dwayne, his hotline to The Lord firmly in place...and by this point a heretic of my nature begins to have small doubts....), warmer, less windy, brighter, more cloudless.


Our smiles become broader as we take a final ten minute break, some six klicks from city center, SdC still out of sight behind the last hill, then take the final plunge in. Hit the outskirts, joking, I am singing the song "Stumbling In," our spirits high. It is about one forty-five now, Rob's plane does not even touch down for another fifteen minutes and we are about forty minutes, maybe thirty, from our meeting spot. Stop to photograph a statue of a Templar Knight in as all park, keep walking, up the sidewalk along a decently busy street, heading straight for the Cathedrál some two and a half klicks before us.




Suddenly, in one of those strange, disorienting moments in life where your brain sees and hears but doesn't quite know how to make sense of that which it takes on, I hear someone up ahead yell, "Hey, Ellensburg!" Simultaneously I look about a block and a half in front of us, see a figure standing on the sidewalk, arms stretched out crucifix style, walking slowly towards us. My very first thoughts are, it is a caminero, of course, but which one? The Martins? Then my brain tells me, they don't know about Ellensburg, none of them do....klick, klick whir klick...Rob! It must be Rob...whose plane has not yet landed?


And so it is. Mi amigo buenissimo, Robert Lynam, his plane a half hour early, having spotted Dwayne's 'bright orange coat' that he both read about and saw a pic of in my blog, the three of us, our backs turned to the street, taking a pic of the statue, he on a bus to the center of town. Said he saw the coat, something about it seemed familiar, remembered what he saw and read, turned his head and thought he saw me, asked the bus driver to stop at the next stop, and viola!


A grand and magical reunion it became, even in retrospect, even as we embraced and laughed, all of us, at the odd and singular happening that brought us together here in this place that marks the end of the Camino. We walked the rest of the way together, checked into the wonderful hotel adjacent to the Cathedrál from where we shall spend three nights revelling in our friendship and in the warm bath feeling of having completed our overland journey across the Iberian Peninsula.




Not a terrible night, no. Went out on the town with good friends. Rob. Teo. The Martins. Dwayne. Had dinner at a döner kebab joint. With the boys. It was grande. Hummus, fries, beer, salad, a calzone sort of thing. Get this, dear reader, and I s*#t you not, what is served when I ask for pita to accompany the hummus is, drum roll please, tortilla. No, not am omelette of egg and potato, which is what the Spanish call tortilla, but, and this is the only time in two months in Spain that I have seen them at all, Mexican, flour tortillas, warmed, folded into quarters! We had good conversations, much laughter. Dropped some euros and then went out for a few hours of carousing the bars. Dwayne, not a drinking man headed back after dinner. Teo, Rob, the Martins, and I found a small taverna to throw down a couple of rounds of tequila chupitos, chased by a couple botellas de cerveza. Met a nice German fellow of about my age, named Klaus. Having lived in the US a few times as well as Australia, Klaus has impeccable English, and is a warm, sensible, genuine guy.


Standing in the doorway of the place having a smoke, Klaus, some other caminero whose name I never got, and a cute, red headed, Irish caminero by the name of Susan. She was fairly lit, cheeks a bright shade of vermillion, and she sort of locked into me with her eyes, then decided quite quickly that I looked exactly some a famous movie star. It was obvious from the start that the other men with her, especially the rather sycophantic, black troubadour hat wearing guy with the thin mustache, wispy chin beard, were her pack of hounds, having already caught her scent. She was asking them as she laughed, rocked back and forth in her alcohol stupor, 'C'mon, you know, the really famous guy...what's his name?" I believed already that I knew who she was thinking of, but let her do her thing, grinning at her, waiting. "A REALLY famous movie!" She blurted, throwing her long, strawberry colored, rather curly hair back over her head. The guys sort of look back and forth from her to me and back, a tennis match in full volley.


"I know!" Finally. "Iron Man. He's Iron Man!"


"Robert Downey, Jr." I inform her. "Yah, Robert Downey, Jr.," she emits in her darling Irish brogue. She smiles at me, takes two steps to me, kisses me, hugs me, kisses me some more, holds me, my face buried in the wildness of her hair. The solid feel of a woman's body, small, full, warm. And it felt good, both her complimenting me and her physical ministrations. She pulls her head back, smiles big, pecks me on the lips, then releases and moves back to her spot, the two men attending to her like personal aides to the Queen a bit aghast, believing, I suppose, that she had now demonstrated final proof of her drunkenness. Upon waltzing back inside on my cushion of air, each and every one of my compadres, having witnessed it all through the taverna's glass front, cheers me on, the Martins, having tease me earlier about being 'too old' to have any chances as they do, a bit in awe. Score one to nothing for Los Americanos.




Rob and Tdog split and went home after maybe four bars and three hours, while the Martins and I hit a couple more. They left for their place around one o'clock, and I wandered about a bit, finally settling into a bar that had Klaus, Susan, and the sycophantic duo that trailed and surrounded her closely. It is not my way to trail after women, preferring instead the hit and run technique. Come close enough to meet, engage in a brief, hopefully intriguing contact, and then move away. If they come around to follow up, they are usually hooked, if not, not. Drunk as she was, her attendants clinging just about literally to her clothing, I can't say what may have been. I hooked up with klaus, who bought me a probably very much not needed beer, went out front, got into one of the better conversations of my time here.


For an hour probably, we discussed American policies, how Germans, all eighteen million of them, are rooting for us to get our shit together, are very fearful of the damaging ripple effects of our continuing to implode; implored me to not flee my native land, but rather to stay and organize against the small minded, fearful politics of the right; what it means to have walked the Camino; his time spent studying and living in the US; the sad state of every attempt in the US to have what all the other countries have-healthcare-something that puzzles every foreigner, especially those who are not up to speed with the growing power of influence of the corporations in US domestic politics; the 'sixty year alliance' between the US and Germany and how the Germans could not understand Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, therefore declining to send troops; that while most Germans think of Americas as ego centric, arrogant people, I am a 'good guy,' and he really likes me.


Around three I pack it in. Give Klaus a strong handshake, look again to see if Susan is yet free of her hound dogs, see them huddled close around her, fawning. Call it a night, find my way home. In the Cathedrál now, awaiting the pilgrim mass to begin. The final step in our epic journey. They file in now, seat themselves around us. The priest taking his place at the altar. The retablo behind him huge, gilded, ornate beyond imagining. The small shuffles of feet, the muffled hush of voices lowered. My caminero posse around me, the Martins, Teo, Dwayne, Klaus, Rob. In the small now all are fitted inside themselves, digesting the size and the scope of what has been and of what now shall be. It is a moment that certainly no one here will forget.




Pilgrims stream behind the retablo, walking down a flight of stairs to the sepulcher of Santiago, Saint Iago, Saint James. They touch his grave, hug it, pay homage to the man in whose remembrance we have all walked these hundreds of miles. Soon now it will start. Not, as Churchill most famously said, the beginning of the end, but, rather, the end of the beginning.


At about eight-thirty this morning, at the buffet breakfast downstairs that comes with the room, Susan comes in, trailing her two attendants, joins Klaus, who has already joined us all at a long table. She looks at me, grins, says "Good morning, Robert."


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Location:Rúa do Val de Deus,Santiago de Compostela,Spain

May You Always Find a Road

Day 41- Ribadiso do Baixo to Arca de Pino - 22.5 kilometers - 20 klicks to go! THE GUEST HOUSE This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes. because each has been sent as a guide from beyond. -- Jelaluddin Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks


On October 23, 1940, Adolfo Hitler rode his personal train to the edge of the Spanish border and met with the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco. The reason for the visit was to attempt to convince Franco to align his state and it's resources with Nazi Germany and their goal to subdue the rest of the world underneath the hob nailed boots of the Nazi regime. Franco, wanting to do so but aware that years of civil war had undermined the strength and abilities of the Spanish nation, told the Fuhrer that he had nothing in any material way for support. In the end, all Franco could do to offer his pledge of support was to change the time zone of his country to that of Nazi Germany, moving the nation's clocks forward one hour to match that of Berlin. Even today, then, the clocks that tick in Spain are set not to those in the British Isles directly to their north but to places such as Poland and Hungary, far to the east. I have been having the strangest dreams recently. Vivid. Colorful. Emotionally acute. Entirely memorable. Karen is in too many of them. Last night it was me distressed that, after my kicking her to the curb, she was jumping around playing on top of a few tables with a gal friend or two, having fun, beaming like she does. I am upset that she is urging me to go play, because she is supposed to be, in my mind, sad, destroyed by my rejection of her. Then I am rifling through three small handbags of hers, looking for proof of her lack of fidelity, find only mementos on my love for her instead, notes I had written her, photos.



Writing this now on Thanksgiving Day, 8:30 am, listening to Sting's I'm So Happy I Can't Stop Crying. Feel some really heavy weights dropping onto me right now. Been soldiering on, marching, keeping somewhat ahead of the shadow beasts paralleling my course, slinking from tree to tree, hill to hill, not but some hundred meters to either side of the trail. Most days it is a bit easier to keep my eyes forward, to look at the spaces where my feet need to go, searching ahead for the next landmark, the next place I will go. Some days it is more difficult. Some days my eyes, my mind, drift off to the sides, glance behind, attempt to focus into those dappled, dark spots amidst the mountain oaks, attempting to discern the murky shapes scurrying from shadow to shadow.


Thanksgiving Day. One of those uncomfortably juxtaposed concepts of a holiday; certainly so much to be thankful for, undoubtedly, undeniably. Yet the suffocating blanket of existential dread, the heaviness of the dark matter, all of that unaccounted for weight of the universe that is finding its place here on my shoulders, compounds the difficulty of walking so many miles each day. Feel strong but alone. Have my son here and that is fulfilling. But in terms of peers, a someone to belong with, a place to come home to and to be known and to share my fears and my finest moments, to plan with. That I do not have any longer. The weight of that vacuum is immense on this day of thanks.


On the verge of accomplishment, of completing this quest, it is incompleteness that lurks in my hollow spots, that swings like a pack of raucous, vandalizing monkeys from outcrop to outcrop, screeching, throwing rocks through the mirrors of my internal views.

We three decided to take a break in a medium sized town, found a store, bought some orange juice, headed for a sunny spot in a small, corner plaza. Dwayne went across the street to sit on the sun warmed, stone ledge of a restaurant's exterior wall adjacent to the sidewalk. Teo and I sat on the steps of a ten foo tall concrete cross planted at the top of a three tiered concrete block in the center of the small plaza. Teo and I had been deep in talk about some concerns of his regarding housing and friends, and Dwayne had been sort of doing his thing so as to allow us our time to talk.




We had been in these places for perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes when who walks suddenly in front of is with a big, "They're they are!" Carrying their guitars across their backs like rifles, grinning, "Los Martines!" Teo and I shout more or less in harmony, The Martins. It was a golden reunion, trading greetings, barbs, handshakes, we eventually sat back down, the Martins taking seats opposite us, on a bench maybe four meters away. T and I gave them the rest of our orange juice and a small bag of peanuts. Martin walked off the the nearby store, while Das Martin rubbed cream on the sore tendons of his lower shins.


Talk of how much further we had to go today, where would we be staying, was casually traded back and forth. Martin returned shortly, hands out polvorones, small discs of a sweet variety, close to Russian tea cakes in flavor, but smoother, less dry, wrapped smartly in white and blue wrapping like hard candies. For about twenty more minutes we sat in the late November sun talking, lusting over the cold pizza that they had from their previous night's dinner. The rub on that is that, number one, pizza is Teo's, Dwayne's, and my favorite food; two, it looked like real pizza, not parchment thin stuff that Teo and I have been complaining about since our arrival in the Iberian Peninsula; three, they said it was really cheap, six euros per pie; four, I saw a fairly official ,almost municipally originated, sign for 'pizzeria' upon our arrival at the town, ignored by my two compatriots, who assured me that we would find better the next day, for Thanksgiving.


So, there is now another running joke between the The Martins, or, Los Martines, as we call the pair, and us, about pizza, how they got the good stuff and we did not. We now, at Teo's urging, have begun to call them Martin, the slightly taller, thinner blonde one with the slight mustache and chin beard, and Das Martin, the slightly shorter, slightly burlier of the two, who wears the U-boat looking cap.


At day's end we all five stayed in the same albergue in the same small assed town, maybe population thirty, and we all, after getting our beds set up, showering, headed about a kilometer back up the road we walked in on to find a bar/restaurante to get a thanksgiving meal. No folks, not a meal like that. No. We had a thin, disappointing broth soup. Then we ordered different segundos, bisteak with papas fritas, empanadas de puerco, ensalada. Drank beer. Had a riotous good time. In the end,Dwayne and I split the fifty euros for everyone's' meals, tried to introduce The Martins to the concept of Thanksgiving. You know, the first year when the English settlers came to America, found themselves out of food, starving, and were rescued by the local, native peoples, who we then promptly exterminated when we felt strong. They got it, we all roared, told more stories around a fire crackling in an open hearth, and then headed back down the hill for bed. Cold beds.




Teo and I found a thin blanket for each of ourselves at the front desk, but the heat in the place was, while functional, thin like the broth we had for cena, dinner. We slept in our clothes, socks, caps, me wrapping my polar tech vest around my arm so that I could comfortably stick my arm under my pillow and out the other side, under my head. One of those nights where you feel more awake than asleep, eyeballing the cracks around the windows, under the doors, hoping for first light. Keeping foremost in our minds, 'this is the second to last night we will spend in an albergue, and what are the odds that tomorrow will be as bad as tonight?


And so, morning finally came. We upped and outed ourselves by nine, hit the road and walked. Our last day of walking before our day's destination was Santiago de Compostela itself. And what a day it was! Sunny, almost warm, me walking in only my t-shirt most of the day, Dwayne taking off his outer coat for the first time since we began walking together, Teo in his long sleeve, black poly-whatever shirt only. Despite the dire warnings of terrible, snow covered roads, rain, wind, cloud covers cold, we have literally had better and better weather every day since O'Cebreiro. Dwayne, the religious man that he is, intercepted and redirected all of our hallelujahs, sending them, loudly and proudly, to his lord: "Ya'll already know I asked for this."


Teo and I find ourselves, more and more, as persons in a life raft do, talking of food as we walk, having both lost about a solid twenty pounds over the last eight hundred klicks, and eating so much less than we normally do, talk of food becomes the norm. At one point I say to T, "do you ever find yourself eating food alone?" He sort of looks askance at me, huh? "You know," I continue. "Do you ever eat a cookie all in one bite?" He gets it now, laughing. "Right!?" He says, cracking up, catching my parody of the 'problem drinking signs. "Do you eat just to get nourishment from the food?" We both giggle, keep walking, shake our heads at our new eating patterns, calculating that, like most days, what we ate the previous day would account for about two thirds of any one meal we would usually consume in our 'normal' lives back home.



We strode into our final pueblo, Arca do Pino, at about four-thirty, found a nice, modern albergue for ten euros each, set our beds, took our showers, readied to go out for pizza, having spotted a place on the way in that had the word, 'pizzeria' printed in the sign on its awning. On the way to dinner the subject of Teo's favorite book, a Louis Lamour classic called The walking Drum, came up. Teo explained to Dwayne about his desire to get a tattoo that wrote out his favorite saying, Yol bulson, Gaelic for, 'May you always find a road.' Illuminating further, Tdog explained what the premise of the book is. Lamour writes mostly western books, Teo says, and I don't really like western books, I live a western book,' he says, referring to life in Ellensburg. I got a terrific chuckle from that, understanding really fully what he was trying to express.


We get to the pizza place, enter, order, one pizza each, and an ensalada mixta to split. I get a cerveza grande, and we wait. There is gay talk, stories from the road, hopes for the morrow and our triumphant entrance into the city that has become something larger than itself in our minds over the last five hundred miles that we have walked, these long, tiring, often painful six weeks of trekking across a nation. We are inside, seated, just beginning our feast, and, looking into the window, the darkness outside causing the reflected, well lit images of the inside to be all that I can see, when I see Los Martines standing, I think, behind me. I look behind, do not see them, look back, realize that they are in fact outside, and we point to the food, beckon them inside. They come.


The Martins join us, having just hit the tienda, on their return to their albergue, a slightly cheaper one than the one that we have located. We entice them into a slice of pizza, Das Martin, dead panning, saying, "Jah, but it is so small, so much less cheese than the one we had yesterday." We all laugh, Dwayne shaking his head, watching us poke each other about the pizzas, our various smatterings of good fortune. For an hour we all joke, make fun of our cultures, connect. They are really good guys, sincere, friendly, present.


At one point, for some reason or another, I end up pulling out the knife that I always carry, a small drop point hunter, deer antler handle, in a black leather sheath. The knife was designed by me, hand pounded, forged, put together by a great friend, Jim Wernex, who custom makes knives in the workshop behind his house back in Ellensburg. Teo pulls out a knife he bought in Burgos, says, "This knife is good for cutting chorizo, cheese, bread, wood, anything! I paid two hundred and twenty euros for it." Das Martin, ever the straight man of the two, pulls out a plastic handled, duct tape wrapped knife with a roundish headed blade, says, "I paid nine euros for this knife. It is good for spreading Nutella." Looks at us, unsmiling, for a moment, until every one of us busts out laughing. A good night once again.


I reflect upon the Rumi quote that begins this piece. It is helpful. To me, at this place, with many, many low feelings walking across the threshold of my front door at regular intervals over the course of each and every day. Pity. Discomfort. Loneliness. Shame. Anger. Momentary awarenesses. Not really such unexpected visitors. Entertain them all? Really? Entertain? Difficult enough to allow in, to not bar my door. But come in they do. Like water flowing, swirling, eddying in and around, they come. I try. I try to meet them, laughing, try to invite them in. But often and many they are foul. Foul looking with their crooked smirks, their gap toothed, fanged grins. Often rude, demanding guests they prove to be. But I have been raised well. I shall and I do treat them, as best I am able, as worthy guests, as beings who are different but not less than, as entities present to clear out room for my next stage, my newest self. And I shall be that new self, that new version of who I think I am.


Undaunted I shall usher these ill feeling guests, pass them through the house that is me, through the doorways, the small rooms, the grand gardens. Unshaken I shall stand before them, in control, the master of the mansion, the land owner atop his own hill. Their visits shall be counted, shall be noted, their time here acknowledged. Yet even as they shall pass through and away, so shall I, in their diminishment, note the arrival and the coming of the new. The mirth. The confidence. The sureness and the glee.


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Location:Avenida de la Iglesia,O Pedrouzo,Spain

How Much For a Room?

Day 38 Sarria to Portomarin - 23 kilometers- 97.5 kilometers to Santiago de Compostela

"It is easy to be holy on the mountain top, not so easy in the city."
Anon


Teo and I ended up spending two nights in Sarria. Last rest day of the five hundred mile walk. The owner of the bar/restaurante/hostal charged us fifteen euros per person per night for a room with two beds in it. We hadn't any heat in it on the first night and it was difficultly cold. Gonna guess it was under fifty degrees, maybe forty-five in our room. The two blankets on each of our beds were not enough. Made jokes that the produce, cheese, sandwich meat that we had bought would not in any way spoil.




My mother's second husband came into our lives not long after my biological parents divorced. I was five years old. My brothers, Leone, six, the eldest, Marco eight. Garry Fleming was a large, loquacious black man. While the marriage between he and my mom lasts officially probably three years or less, he was in and out of our home for another two or three years and he still was quite present in our lives for another four or five at least after that. I have not spoken to Garry now for probably eight years. His affect on my life was and continues to be profound.


Garry was a shining, proud, handsome man. Loud, ebullient, gregarious, intense, loving. He taught my mother how to cook, how to raise a family. He was as much a father to me for those many years as my true father was. Many of the ways that I am today are so deeply embedded in his being that it becomes painful in all of the sublime, beautiful ways to even think on. I strongly believe that his love and his paternal affections for my brothers and I, especially during those mysterious, ghostly, first years of the dissolution of our core family, helped to heal the ugly, primal, purple bruising of our little souls. A powerful man, physically, emotionally, his stalwart personality, at least from our unsteady perches, gave us a certainty that our world, our mother, our home, was entirely safe from any intrusions that could in any way injure us. This allowed us, in my opinion any how, to feel safe again, to re grow the confidence and the sureness in our still forming understandings of the so recently shattered, fire bombed communities of our inner worlds. For this I can never really know how to repay him, how to thank him, to honor him. Perhaps here I can begin to try. He was an often profane man, swearing good naturedly, grabbing us, telling off colored jokes. He was also a stern disciplinarian-not in any way overly so, but he set boundaries, taught us the correct ways of doing chores, listening to our mom, etc., and one did not cross those lines without an expectation of his response. He was a minister at the time that he and my mother met. Then a community organizer. He was the type of man that, upon meeting, one did not forget. Like my biological father, my step-father was completely larger than life, both almost caricatures of a man's man, if you know what I mean.




As a child my mom, brothers and Garry and I would always go to his family home in Galesburg, Illinois, for Thanksgiving. We grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and the drive down was always snowy, cold, long enough to be a road trip, but not so long as to be buredensome. His mother, Dor, was a sweetie. His step-father, John Loveless was kind of a creep, used to hit his mom, kind of too cool for rules, but treated us well, drinking every afternoon into evening in his postal delivery uniform at the dining room table. His half-brother, Greg, was usually there. Funny, a bit jive, but fun to hang with. Garry's cousins, Goose, Michael, and Wally Gator, a riot when they all got together, some rowdy midwestern black folk, drinking, telling big stories, tall tales perhaps, but entertaining. Getting red eyed, laughing louder as the night wore on. They too were always really good to us, considered us full family.


Thanksgivings there were always a riot. Garry's Aunt sue, who grew up in a house next to Carl Sandburg, he of the "Chicago, city of big shoulders' fame, used to baby sit her on his front porch. She would cook possum, squirrel, coon, while preparing collard greens, beans, cornbread. Garry too cooked soul food for us in our home, his home, as we grew. The rich, buttery smell of ham hocks and navy beans pouring sweetly through the house. God he can cook. Still prepares these when we visit. God bless you for your love, and for the nutrition, poured into our little hearts and bodies. Thank you for your energy and your patience and your kind treatment of our mother and ourselves.


My brothers and I grew up as people of color, although our skin tone, and my blonde hair and blue eyes, marked us as not so. And me, this skinny white looking kid with the funny Mexican name. Story of my life. Too brown for the white kids, too white for the brown kids. Except when we lived in Madison, and with Garry and his family.




A fifty something Japanese woman that we have walked on and off with over the last week plus of our journey, Atsuko, also stayed at the hostal we were in. She told us to call her Ate, her nickname. I told her to call me Peb. She and I diced that Tchan was a good nickname for Teo, as the suffix 'chan' means something like 'dear' or 'small' in Japanese. For example, I have a friend in Japan who goes by the name Kachan; his given name is Katsuyuki, but his mother prefers that he go by her pet name for him.


Ate is a funny, goofy sort. Her English is okay, maybe a three out of ten. She walked about the last half of the way into Sarria with us, has been walking since St. Jean. She asked us how much we paid to stay in this same hostal. "Thirty euros for both of us, together." She looked puzzled in that overly exaggerated, Japanese way, head cocked, eyes askance. "I pay thirty euros myself," she says. "Why?" I didn't know, of course, what to say. "Maybe because you have heat?"


It is kind of strange why it is that the subject of my step-father, Garry, popped into my heart this past day. Sitting out in the sun, writing, yesterday am, two German guys, maybe twenty-two or so, began talking with me. Martin and Martin. I know, right? Good guys, both carrying guitars, been walking since the French coast. Good English skills, especially Martin. Gotcha. The blonde haired one, more elvish featured, blue eyes, sharp nose, bit taller than Martin. Martin II, we will call him, is a bit burlier, but by German standards, so maybe five eleven, maybe hundred eighty five or ninety pounds. Both look fairly young, Martin II brownish hair with a tint of red, wispish beard and mustache, cap like a German WW II u-boat sailor




We are situated at the top of a long set of old, stone stairs, perhaps five meters wide, rising a good Fourteen to twenty meters, maybe forty, fifty big steps strung out over a horizontal distance of thirty meters. The Camino comes up these steps as it passes through Sarria, this town. The place Teo and I are renting a room in is here at the intersection of this stairway and the street that it flattens out onto. While we are talking, maybe over an hour, Teo comes out, we four get on well. Camineros continue to walk up through here, looking for albergues usually. We greet them, the welcoming committee now.


Next thing I know there is a particularly unusual site, a black Caminero in a bright orange jacket, trekking gear, who appears at the top of the steps. Now it is not that most of the black pilgrims are not wearing bright orange that makes him unusual-no-it is that in almost forty days and almost six hundred kilometers of walking he is the very first black person that I have seen.Given that Americans have not started showing up on the Way until the movie, The Way, came out two years back, and given that hiking, skiing, golfing, are not much given to having blacks participate in them, it is not surprising to me to not see blacks here. But it surely was surprising to meet Dwayne.


After more or less doing a double take, I heard him express happiness in hearing some serious English, American English at that, being spoken, invited him to join us. Now Dwayne is a talker. I know this because, well, it takes one to know one! He is also a man of Christ. Now this I do not say, as the aforementioned on phrase on talkers, because I am one, because I am not. Dwayne wears his love of Christ Jesus proudly and loudly. He is a genuine man, a gentle man, an intelligent man, a good man. Those characteristics became obvious five minutes in.


A woman Caminero walked up the stairs that Dwayne already knew. She began talking to the two Martins, who were off to one side now as Dwayne and T and I were getting to know one another. He said 'Hey," to her as she began to walk on. He introduced himself to the Martins, found out hat they were German, and busted out a loud, "Oh, okay, so she's your HOMEgirl!" To which the Martins both, not understanding the colloquialism, said, "Huh?" Teo and I cracked up hardcore, fist bumping, giggling.




Dwayne hit it off with Tdog and I in the first moments. What's the saying, "You know your friends in the first moment you meet them more than you'll know an acquaintance in a thousand years." We were friends instantly. He immediately reminded me of my step-dad. So much so that it was a bit peculiar. Thought he must be from the heartland, the Midwest, where Garry was reared. He said, surprisingly, that he was Delaware. Fifty three, though I thought he was my age, Dwayne shares so many characteristics with Garry that it kept making me shake my head. Both of them say, for instance, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no," when they are making an emphatic disagreement. Both make the sound, "Mm-mmm-mmm," as in, "You don't EVEN know." Both have a clear, precise, well educated use of the English language, well educated. Both of them have that big eyed, "Son, I EVEN playin'!" look on their face at times. It turbid out later that Dwayne was raised in St. Louis.


Although at ten thirty in the morning T and I had not had many thoughts about what we would do to pass the day away, we talked with the Martins and then with Dwayne until the sun slid behind the buildings in the late afternoon, sitting at a table in front of the bar/restaurant below our hostal, sliding the table over every so often to stay in the heat of the sun.


Ate left that morning, and we wished her well, told her that maybe we would see her in the plaza in front of the Cathedrál in Santiago. A bit later I made an arrangement with the somewhat unkempt but friendly enough owner of our establishment to grab the heater out of Ate's ex room and move it into our own. T and I, judging from the type of guy that this owner seemed to be, decided that he probably just sort of charged people whatever he figured he could get out of them. Funny that he charged Ate, the Japanese female, more than he charged us. We felt good about paying the low end price.


My confidence is returning. I spend little time sulking, missing my life, embracing instead my life. Cocky almost, my old self. Younger. Down maybe twenty pounds from when I started this crazy march, stronger in all ways, smiling, talking fast, bright eyed, catching the eyes of women more often than I can't remember when. More likely to sing to myself, to dance by myself when alone in a room, making my plans for my life, damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.




Spending time with Dwayne brightened me. Teo really connects with him, he even said this to me. He said, "He's not aggressive. I like that about him. I feel like I connect with him." I left them alone at times so that they could do their thing, give Big T another adult to listen to, confide in. Dwayne is a youth minister, he teaches classes to youth, tries to teach them about life, about marriage, about how to change the oil in a car, how to balance their checkbook, how to do their laundry. He has written a few books, his most recent one is on marriage, a nut that he, after four failed ones, is still trying to crack. Teo connected with him on this subject. Given that T and his girl, Veronica, have been together for two years now and that T has converted to Catholicism in the last year, Dwayne's views, also a Catholic, are of particular interest to him. I went and smoked a few cigarettes, wrote, allowed T to talk freely in front of Dwayne without feeling like he would have to real anything to me that he may not want to.


The three of us went to dinner together at a decent restaurant. We had a terrific time. I bought a couple of appetizers for us, croquetas de casera y quiexo de Gallega along with pan and a jarra (pitcher) de sangria. Talk flowed smoothly, easily, filling the space of our table warmly, comfortably. Teo and I split a chuleta de ternera, a veal chop. This bad boy looked like a brontosaurus steak from the Flinstones, 800 grams, the better part of two pounds. It was the kind of place where the Server brought out the raw slab of raw meat, two inches thick, showed it to us for our approval and for our arousal. We had it cooked rare. And it can still chilled in the center, blood red. The server cut it from the bone, any canine's wet dream, then cut two chunks and placed one on each of our plates. Time to dig in!


Some hour later, about two and a half hours after we entered the establishment, we got up and waddled ourselves out the door, the two blocks to the stairs, up them, parted company with Dwayne after making arrangements for getting together in the am, and parted company.




The next morning we arose, me taking a hot soak in the tub, writing, reading, T doing his thing in bed. We moved downstairs, had the tostada, butter, jam, and cafe con leche that came included for our fifteen euros per person. Met Dwayne there, talked, readied our packs, walked out to hit the trail. A well made, full color pictures and all sandwich board had been set out front by the unkempt looking owner. The name of his hostal was printed on it, as was the price 'por persona:' $12 euros each.


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Location:Camiño Proelo,Portomarín,Spain

No Regrets

Day 36 - O'Cebreiro to Tricastella - 18.5 kilometers - 120 kms to Santiago de Compostela The following list of the most common regrets that people express upon their deathbed is taken from a posting on Facebook (thank you for doing so, Dr. Dan Beck). It was compiled by a hospice nurse Bronnie Ware.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
This was the most common regret of all. When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard. This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. Often they would not truly realize the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. 5. I wish that I had let myself be happier. This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realize until the end that happiness is a choice.


After a good day of walking, great weather, fully in Galicia now, loving the small pueblos, the new spellings of place names and common words, seeing the letter X used in place of J, the 'ei' replacing the 'ie' of Castillian Spanish (like Portugese), hearing music that I has only up til now associated with Ireland, we arrived in Tricastella. Tricastella is named such because there once stood three castles overlooking this town. None still exist. During the construction of the Cathedrál in Santiago, pilgrims customarily carried as much limestone as they could carry from the nearby quarry to the limestone kiln in Casteñeda, almost one hundred kilometers away, to be used in the multi generation construction of this historic church, built directly upon the site where the body of James the apostle, Santiago in the Spanish parlance, was discovered.


After locating an eight euro per night albergue, getting our own bunk filled room to ourselves once again, we headed out to a local bar, Xacobelo, the Gallega word for Santiago. We started to watch a soccer match between Real Madrid, one of the powerhouses of Spanish League fútbol, and ...., were having a drink, when Ignacio, a super nice, handsome, smallish, forty something year old from Madrid, who we had met a couple of times in the last couple of days, came in, and sat down with us. Ignacio is walking only the last seven stages of the Camino, not being able to take more time from his job. He and Teo hit it off immediately with the match on TV; Ignacio, like every other Europeo that we have met, was totally surprised with T's knowledge of the game. "How do you know so much about fútbol?" He asked, like the rest of the Europeos pretty much all do.




Soon, the both of the talking current coaching decisions on players, trades, the liklihood of one player or another making their national team's starting lineup, I drifted outside with my iPad to write, have two smokes, enjoy the night air. Upon returning inside, I saw three Galegos that I recognized from our walk. They, like Ignacio, only doing the last week of the Camino, and they assertively invited me to sit down for a drink. They were seated near the front door, out of sight of T and Ignacio. I acquiesced. Soon, after they insisted that I have a second drink, wouldn't hear of me paying for it, a Cuba libre, I was deep into my interaction, assuming that T and Ignacio had plenty to talk about.


One of the guys, Alfredo, was the natural leader. Intense, eyes aflame, voice loud, full of Iberian, Galician, passion. We talked the crisis; his job, running a grocery store that he owns, how he makes big bucks selling turón, a holiday chocolate treat; the Spanish Civil War and Francisco Franco, how no one but the U.S. and Mussolini supported him, how under Franco these guys grew up in homes without heat, electricity, indoor plumbing; the Roman buildings, bridges, irrigation systems still extant; the cost of living, salaries, in the states vs. Spain; how the Germans think that all the Spanish, in their resentment towards the Spanish about their desire to join the European Union, all take siesta, pretty much do not work, want a free ride; the weather-how, as Galegos, they all know that most every November, at this time, there is usually six inches of nieve, snow, on the ground; how my Spanish is more Mexicano than Castellano-Mexicans say 'horita,' to mean 'right now,' something that I have been doing. Mostly it was Alfredo talking, the other two often disagreeing with him, causing him to pause, stretch his arms out wide, roll his eyes, make some baritone noise, scoff.


Every time that these gentlemen desired another Cuba libre, and this happened more than three or four times in the two plus hours that we visited, they would call for the bartender, raising their hands high into the air, calling, "Pepe!" The bartender would answer, "My name is not 'Pepe, it's (don't remember), but they continued, undeterred. They were gregarious, warm, engaging, interested, vivacious.




We three talked about so many things! Alfredo the most assertive of the three, like Joel in Burgos, hitting my arm with his extended fingers every so often, grabbing, almost literally, my attention, animated, assertive, in his España kind of way, talking more or less incessantly, regardless (or irregardless, if you prefer, both words, like flammable and inflammable, meaning exactly the same thing) of who I may be focusing my language penetrating radar on, talking rapidly in Spanish. My language ability jumping up maybe two notches; two, maybe three horas of intense, fascinating, illuminating language practice. At one point, deep into Cuba Libre number three, I told them that I thanked them for the ability for me to practice my 'oidos' (ears), 'lengua' (tongue), cabeza (mind), and hígado (liver!)!

As it turns out, after two plus hours of separation, the men I was talking with refused to allow me to buy a round, and Ignacio, the gentle, beautiful man that T was talking to refused to allow him to pay for his dinner, his wine. Finally, at ten minutes to eleven, the hour that our albergue closed its doors, T came to get me, we left, half ran the four blocks back, got inside, where no one was guarding the door. We traded a story or two, brushed our teeth, and turned in.


The list of regrets posted at the head of this piece has huge meaning for me. It was perhaps ten years ago that I realized that the average age of death and the average age of retirement were just too darned close together for me to feel any longer comfortable pursuing the conventional career route; this gap is about seven years long, allowing the average American male five to seven years, his oldest, most infirm, to see the world, enjoy his family, self-actualize. Soon after this understanding occurred to me, I began to make plans to change my life, to create for myself a way of living that would allow me to actually see the universe around me, to make relationships with other humans, to spend my time with my children, not just to work. I mean what is the benefit exactly of working? If the answer is the obvious one, to make money to live, then why not use less money so that one can spend less time working? The pull of consumerism, the new phone, the best clothes, cars, etc., just insure that we stay invested in the money making game, our 'career.'


In my family, and perhaps amongst many of my friends, I can not really know or say with any exactitude, I feel, and perhaps wrongly, that I am viewed as a lazy, un disciplined lout who would simply rather not work and who uses his brain to create these unconventional arguments, as I am currently dragging you through, to justify, rationalize, If you will, my lack of will power to get up early each day and hit the office, suck it up, do the time like the rest of the good producers, good citizens do. Well, dear reader, you will have to decide for yourself if the chicken comes, in this instance, before the egg, if these syllables that I spit out have any meaning or if they are just the relatively meaningless spittle of a man with no desire to work hard.

One of most fascinating parts of the whole syndrome related to persons continuing to pursue the 'career path' despite their understanding that the trade of their fifty hour weeks, their missing their own children's' childhoods to please their boss, to maybe increase their pay by three percent per annum, is that people know that they CAN get off the treadmill and change their lives, but they don't do it anyway. The term that I believe applies is called 'learned helplessness.' Experiments were done with dogs during, I believe, the 1950s, in which dogs were placed in four by four foot cages that had metal floors. The floors had electricity run through them at certain time intervals. The electricity freaked the dogs out, and they tried, at first, to move away, ran into the edge of he cage, skirted around, whined, howled. Soon though, after repeated shockings, the animals stopped trying to evade the aversive stimuli; they stopped whining even, sitting on their haunches, panting, their will crushed, acquiescing to their fate.


The really interesting part is that, when the experimenters opened the cafe door, allowing the dogs to move freely into the attached cage that did not have the electric shock running through the floor, the dogs, when the electricity was turned on, did not even try to remove themselves from it. They had learned that there was nothing that they could do, they were inured to their circumstance, used to it, no longer seeking other options. The cage was open but they stayed in it, in constant discomfort and pain, anyway. Learned helplessness. This is the term that I feel best describes workers in the modern workplace.


Stories abound of persons who, more and more, change their lives substantially, radically, leaving the conventional workplace to downsize, go off grid, travel, change their value system, in order to increase their quality of life (by which I mean happiness and wellness index, not number of cars or number of zeroes in their bank account). We all read these stories, or see them on TV. Yet why it is that most of us think that it can only be others and not us who do this is a solid mystery to me. It is not a luck thing, or an IQ thing, or a family money thing. It is a desire and a clear headed decision making thing. We can all do it, but when the door to our cage opens, we no longer have the capacity to recognize it and we stay, seated, panting, our body's nervous system frying away.


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Location:Rúa Escaleira Maior,Sarria,Spain

Cold Crepes, Cold Heart

Day 36 - O'Cebriro a Tricastella - 22 kilometers down - 138 kilometers to Santiago de Compostela


The worst thing that happens to most people, the greatest damage that they suffer, is being forced by their parents, most often through threats, humiliation, punishment, to become who their parents want them to be, not who they manifest naturally to be. A paraphrase of the central thesis in the book The Curse of the Gifted Child


Good day of walking. Not so much because of our feet being in better shape than they have been since maybe the first week out. Not even so much because we climb hills now like machinas, no need to stop for breath or tired muscles-fifteen hundred feet up affecting us now like two hundred foot climbs did a month ago. No, today we give thanks for one of the sunniest days, least windy days that we have experienced on this adventure. The temperature is low, thirty degrees Fahrenheit or below all day, watching for the patches of ice all along the way, passing snow, that dropped here some three days past, still coalesced, still solid in the shady parts of the Way. Everyone has told us that upon entering Galician soil we would hit moisture, and, despite not having proper, waterproof, foot gear, we are ready for it. When others inquire about our plan for stopping our feet from the wet and cold, we pull a plastic, shopping bag from our pack, hold it up, point to it!


So far, so good. Our luck with the weather is astronomically good. Most probably it shall not last. And yet, as each day passes, I say to my erstwhile, absolutely intrepid companion, my son, Teo, "We dodged another bullet. Only (this number moves slowly down towards zero, today being, like the number of estapos, stages, to go) six left in the gun." Climate change? Unusual good fortune? The universe smiling in harmony with us? We expect yucky weather to sock us in the mouth really, really soon. Yet as each day passes, we feel more confident in our ability to endure any inclement weather for the potentially smaller number of days that we can possibly get it.




Spent last night in a municipal albergue in O'Cebreiro, at the very top of a tall, maybe four thousand plus foot, hill. Fog, cold, the smell of wood smoke rife, mixing with the low clouds churning through the spaces between the cut stone buildings, swirling cotton candy like about us, passing away towards the east. The place was fairly packed with camineros, more than we have seen, by a factor of more than ten, in any albergue we have stayed in for weeks.


It is odd, because when we first arrived here, maybe two hours before sunset, we noticed the Celtic music, the Celtic motifs, the selling of perigrino walking sticks and scallop shells, postcards; after a few moments of trying to calculate why there might be so much of this trade here, commerce oriented more towards the walker in their early stages than to those of us who gave been walking for almost seven hundred kilometers, it came to us: many persons who haven't either the time or the ability to walk from St. Jean or from Roncesvalles, begin here.




To complete the Camino, officially I mean, to get ones Compostela, the certificate of completion, one must traverse at least one hundred klicks of the Way. O'Cebreiro is located at about the highest point, and it is, as they say, well mostly, all downhill from here. It us also an incredibly, unbelievably picaresque, dream-like place of only fifty year round citizens, like a small movie set for Braveheart. So people are dropped off here by car or taxi or bus to do their Camino. Which also explains why so many of the camineros sleeping in the albergue last night were unfamiliar to us both. By now we recognize most of the pilgrims that we walk with, all of us having passed each other by and by for a month now, a prolonged game of leap frog.


The albergue is fairly packed, thirty or so camineros sleeping in bunk beds spread out across the floor of a big room, maybe forty by twenty five feet across. People go to sleep at various times, but the doors close at ten pm. A lot of the pilgrims, especially the Spanish, come in at the last minute, speak and laugh at full volume, talk loudly to each other in their beds across half the room, despite the many obviously sleeping pilgrims between. In their baritone voices, they speak raucously, machismo pushing through their voices. The kinds of guys who, if not already your friend, you pretty much can't stand right off the bat. And the place smells of the sour, nose puckering odor of the bodies and unwashed clothes of those who have indeed already been walking, ours, no doubt, included. Snoring, heavy breathing, assorted strange night noises fill the dark, emergency exit lit, space. One wakes often, turns over, hopes for the light of morning, prays for easy sleep to come.


Finally it does. And we get our things together, me going to fill a junior sized Nalgene with hot tap water for my instant coffee to expand the diameter of my veins, increase my blood pressure, heart rate, and vacate the place, hallways now reeking softly of the smell of the many who are emptying their bowels in their regular morning ritual, three W.C.s (wash closets, usually a small, separate room from the sink and it shower of the bathroom itself) for the massed perigrinos to share, cattle like, patiently, following one another into the small three by three, spaces. We head for a local bar, the same one we had pulpo and vino tinto in the eve before, to order cafe con leches and to avail ourselves of their restrooms.




As we trekked through a very little town, German Shepard mixed dogs roaming freely, lazing in the sun along the Calle Mayor, or Calle Camino Santiago, as two out of the three Main Streets in these teeny towns of fifty or less are named, an elderly woman off to the left, against the far corner of maybe the last building in town, says to us, 'Quierias algo para comer?" Walks slowly towards us, plate of what looked like Spanish tortilla (meaning a circular egg and potato dish) held in one hand, a large shaker filled with what I assumed was salt in the other. I began to slowly, move towards her, Teo not so much. 'Eren ustedes Alemanes? (Are you guys Germans? Which we often get).


"No, señora, somos Americanos." I reply, smiling back at her. It becomes clearer now what she is holding on the plate. Maybe five or six crepes, stacked tightly the one on top of the other.


"Quieres pancakes?" She calls them, sprinkling now what is obviously sugar on top of the first one, then folding it into fourths, handing it to me. "No, gracias," T says, sunglasses on, looking a bit dour. My unfriendly son, I'm thinking, not yet alive enough to connect and accept others' graciousness. Wow,I think, these people take assisting the pilgrim on their journey to Santiago very seriously. I must also give back, aide her in her desire to serve, interact with her, throw some warmth back. Teo, not so much, staring off to the right a bit. Yet he too, after I, takes the second one, begins absently looking off to the side, to eat it. They are, like the air temperature, cold, sweet, chewy.


"Quieres un otro?" Sprinkling again, folding, handing it to me, although the first is only maybe one third consumed. I am bubbly with newfound glee at this woman, nearing the end of her earthbound time, devoting herself to making the passing of others' time here, their journey, more pleasant.


She spits out some rapid fire Spanish, the look in her eyes, on her face changing, I key on the word 'donativo.' Her countenance takes on characteristics that, thinking back on it, were quite crow-like, eyes now inquiring, searching, hands closer, palm up. Ohhhhh, click, I get it. The ebullience and mirth of the goodness in the world drained out like air from a punctured tire, quick like. Then, mid bite, sort of stop chewing the crepe in my mouth, ask Teo to grab the coin purse in my backpack. Now I get the indifferent, semi-ticked off look on his face that I had not quite picked up on so far-he saw this little con coming, me, the pie in the sky, give everyone the benefit of the doubt, la la land specialist not even a little bit.




I honestly was just about foggy with this blow to my unrealistic view of things, of this woman, as she looks totally business now, me pulling some coins out, she asking if I didn't have bills, wasn't there more, taking mine, asking Teo, who says "No, señora," looks away, head shaking slightly, 'my dad got taken again' look on his face. I began walking away with my son, she still looking the old crone now, displeased with her haul, me holding one and a half crepes in my hand, my son embarrassed for me, by me.


"Oh, wow,". I say. "I really thought she was just some kind lady trying to help us out." My son shakes his head. "Guess it's like with that lady and the little wooden elephant in Plaza Santa Anna, huh?" "Yep," he says. "Maybe," says I, "we should have like, I dunno, some key word that you can use when these things happen, cuz you see it coming and I don't." "How about the word, 'No!" We both laughed, albeit mine a bit sheepish.


"Those crepes," Tdog says, cracking up, "were as cold as that woman's heart."




The church in O'Cebreiro, la Iglesia de Santa Maria Real, is not only the oldest church directly related to the Camino, dating to the ninth century, but it is one of the earliest buildings along the Way period. Mass is still held here every evening, as is the case with many of the churches along the Way.


I think about that passage above from The Curse of the Gifted Child, think it is so very true. Think that it keeps therapists the world over in serious money. Right? Especially psychoanalysts: what's the old joke, "So," throw in the crazy German accent, "how long have you felt this way about your mother?" Or the new joke, "They say a Freudian slip is when you you say one thing, but you mean your mother." Hey, folks, I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your servers well.


I think that Sigmund Freud, despite his cocaine addiction and his fondness for over sexualizing teenaged girls, did in fact contribute some major understandings to modern psychology. One is the notion that most of, or at least many of, the afflictions that humans suffer as they progress into their lives, stem from the types and qualities of the interactions that they had with their parents as children, adolescents. The other is that repressed things surface in gross and distorted ways. I like to use the metaphor for the latter as the Whack-a-Mole game that you can play at the fair. You know the one, right? You hit the mole that pops up, then when you whack it down, another one pops up over here, whack that one, it pops up again someplace else.


It's like people have children but they expect that their children will be a certain way, will want and value things different than they actually do, allowing the child to manifest as the child wants is not acceptable to so many. The hyperbolic example being the child who is gay, the father who simply will not allow it. The irresistible force meeting the immovable object. The father, up-line, stronger, crushes something inside the child, causes the child to repress their instincts, their own understanding of who they are. The result, distortion, pain, self loathing, therapy, unhappiness. Parents force their children to play the piano, learn French, attend math camp, not have sex, not drink alcohol. Well, let's face it folks, first off these are things for you, not your kids. Secondly, letting your children know that your disapproval of their predilections is so great that it will cause a huge and angry rift and potential punishments if they pursue them, really only promotes dishonesty within your relationship. You set the rules, the children learn them, and then, as we all do, circumvent them. At which point you no longer get to be as involved and when they get in bad places you are no longer a resource for them, a safe place.




Ram Dass has wisdom on this topic that I find useful. Trying to change the nature of another person, being frustrated, disappointed, mad, when they do not, is a silly waste of energy and it is destructive as well. Like being upset that it is raining outside. He would say that one should not try to make an oak tree into a maple tree. It is what it is. We are what we are. As the child of parents who often disapprove of my choices, having been raised in a home where both of my siblings and I learned to be dishonest in order to keep the peace, I strongly urge any parents to consider that while we may not approve of the choices of our children, our spouses, even of ourselves, there can be much peace found in just saying, 'so be it.' Education, love, support-these are the places to strive to put one's energies. Our children also are intelligent, they also can come to the right place; often we simply do not take the same paths to reach them, and our patience, tolerance perhaps are required to allow them to get there on their own and to keep us as parents available to them as they do.


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Location:Rúa Escaleira Maior,Sarria,Spain

Rolling Hills of Galicia

Day 35 - Trabadelo to O'Cebreiro - 23 kilometers - 160 kilometers to Santiago


Sitting outside of a small bar/restaurante, smoking, T is inside. We just consumed some amazing, delightful comestibles. Pulpo de Galega, Galician octopus, boiled, served over potatoes, 'distend' with pimiento (paprika) and slathered in olive oil. With pan, bread. And two bottles of vino tinto, claro, of course. We have walked up the last big hill of the Camino Frances, the way up and into O'Cebriero, a thousand foot climb over about eight klicks, maybe five miles. We dressed in our wet gear this morning before leaving, having been given warnings about snow having fallen here yesterday, and the forecast calling for more today. Yet, the gods be blessed, we had only sun and little wind, even as we climbed.




We entered Galicia today, the last of Spain's Autonomous Communities that the Camino passes through on its way to Santiago de Compostela. We have walked four hundred mikes now, and we have one hundred to go. Our spirits are high, our legs repairing; we are prepared now for the final assault, the final estapo, stage, of our journey to complete our quest. Here in Galicia, a land settled a couple of thousand years previously by the Celtic-Iberian peoples, it is remarkable to note the similarities to the other areas settled by the Celts-Western Ireland for example, the place that Teo will go in twenty days when I return to the US. They play Celtic music here, their own form of bagpipes blaring, Celtic knots in stone on the sides of buildings, a strange juxtaposition with what I have come to think of Spain as.


Sitting outside, my body temperature lowering quickly in the night time air, the fog (clouds?) blow by rapidly, smelling of wood fire smoke. Could it be the smoke itself that I see? But no, they mix, swirl, roll together in the same dance that they have performed all of these chilly nights for twenty, thirty centuries now. The buildings in this town of fifty people, O'Cebreiro, made all of stacked stone, every one. Even the municipal albergue, where we sleep tonight in a dorm room, bunk beds, sleeping forty, made of stone. Thus one, in fact, being only the second place since our beginning day in Roncesvalles, that provides no blankets. Fine for pretty much all peregrinos, who customarily travel with their own Saco, sleeping bag, but not as good for Tdog and me, given that we have none. Luckily the beds are pushed close together and in this way we can snuggle and we will sleep in double layers of clothes, hats and socks and gloves on, using the provided bottom sheet, and that of the empty beds above us, as covers. Things are getting colder. We get that. We are too close to be turned around now.


The atmosphere of this little Shangra La, this appearing out of the blinding sun and mist of the mountains village, is as of now most filled, like the Jack the Ripper versions of London that I grew up watching on TV. Figures appear, enter the scene, disappear again into the white smoke. Phantoms. A dream land of twisted shapes, dreams.


Speaking of dreams. It is fascinating how the brain works. Down deep beyond the reach of the conscious mind. I am one of those people who is awake much of the night, turning, moving, rearranging. My mind racing, fixated, obsessed. These last few weeks it is a blonde haired, wondrously blue eyed Alemana that I tend to think of when I am laying awake at night, rearranging my arms around my pillow, rolling my legs up or around, into the new and proper position. Yet when in dreamland my inner, deeper mind takes over. So that, for example, upon re embarking from Morpheus' realm this morning, maybe an hour before I arose, the movie playing in my head was not that of the being that I am pulled toward, but rather the one that I am running from.




The movie runs like this: I arrive home again from my travels, at my home that is not the one I recognize, yet within the context of this clip I know it to be home. K is there and hyper, friendly, her manners those that she so often uses after she so often strays, overly smily, her green eyes a glint, smile effervescent, effusive, contagious. She does not physically entice, but rather, in her carefully evolved and perfect fashion, accompanies me to the spot that she has arranged for me to sleep. 'Here,' she tells me, 'I have provided this for you, a safe place for you to be,' guides me through a farm like scene, to some shed, the light bright as though mid day, into the edge of a shed like structure, it on our right as we approach, lifts a flap of some kind, a blanket perhaps, a sheet, and shows me the place of my bed, the lower four feet of a partitioned space, a small hovel, knowing how and what I do, what I like. Grinning, her making-up face, her don't-you-want-to-be-with-me vibe.


This is how I awaken this morning, at eight. Yet from four to five-thirty am I am already awake, unable to sleep. I am writing, composing a letter to Julia. She has stated some obvious obstacles to any possible ability to our becoming close. The basics. The ones that fourteen year olds get but that, for reasons I have yet to grasp, escape me on the first pass through. Woe but that my family members could fill you in, and yet, try as I might, the obvious stopping points never come to me until after they are useful to me in any helpful way. Therein lies the problem.


My waking mind goes other places, seeks succor and solace and comfort in some one place, while my lower, reptilian brain directs itself, and therefore, undeniably, me, back to the predominate fixation, that which I know far, far too well. An illusion? A trick. A sleight of hand intended to distract in one direction while the real heart of the con is being achieved somewhere else. The reveal. And there it is-I am both magician and audience. I run the game and I am the mark at the same time. I cheat myself out of the option of running the course properly and then I make myself pay up at the end. A win-win situation for certain. But who, dear reader, is really winning? Who is footing the bill?


We checked out three different bars tonight. Three of the four that O'Cebeiro has to offer. Got a couple of cervezas in one, the telenovelas blaring, the local running the place mostly interested in taking to his friend who came in to hang. And another, also containing the bar keep, a fifty something hear old, and two of his pals. We did order a plato of queso de Galego y miel, soft, creamy cheese the consistency of ricotta, drizzled over with honey, a basket of hearty, brownish, square pieces of bread. It was delicious. We enjoyed it wholeheartedly, then paid up and left for our final stop of the night.


We returned to the establishment that we first visited upon our arrival some few hours before. Unable to get wi-fi any place, no bars or restaurants carrying it, we knew that it existed in the hotel part, upstairs. Because we did not want to spend fifty euros for the night, preferring the six that it would cost each of us to stay in a bunk in the municipal albergue, the bartender would not concede to giving us the password.As luck would have it, when we returned there, defeated in our attempts to secure internet access anywhere else, three Australians, a man, his wife, and her sister, who had already checked into the place, people we had met a few times along The Way, gave us the password.


Here we ordered a bottela de vino tinto de la Casa, dos copas, y un orden de pulpo de Galega, the above mentioned delicacy, paid homage to our electronic vices, and indulged. Seated next to the glass fronted wood stove, a rustic tone in the air, we supped and visited Bo with each other and with other friends, new and old. The octopus came, supple, hot, piled upon the underlying boiled potato pieces, and we drank the cold, dark red wine, shared the tender, purple and white pieces of fruit from the sea, spiced with salt, pepper and paprika, stabbed the small chubs of perfectly cooked potato, swabbed up the juices, the olive oil, with the dense yet fresh bread, listened to the various languages of the twenty or so persons gathered within the small confines of the bar, and thanked our good fortunes for the most excellent place in this wide universe that we had been blessed with partaking in.


I wrote back to Julia, acquiescing to her more rational, more complete understanding of the vibe between us. Acknowledging my own minuscule amount of filtering between what sounds great and what should be. She the German, practical in these ways, me the Latin, a bubbling over of potential paths, of magical thinking. I Skyped my mother. Teo arranged a using of two time share units that I own in Sunriver for MLK weekend, the recreational director for nine of his friends, three nights to spend upon his first few days back in country, with his girl, Veronica, with his best friend, a guy I pretty much consider my son, Dominic, and others, Josiah and his wife, Paige. Posted a blog. Started a new one. Checked my stats, almost twelve hundred page views in thirty five days.


And now I write to you from a crowded, bunk bed filled room of almost forty people, some snoring, or, as the Europeans call it, either mistakenly or because it actually sounds, onomatopoetically speaking, more correct, 'snorkeling' or 'snorking,' soft breathing all around, a communal rest fest. These co habitations are somewhat of a riot in the morning, as camineros rise at various times from fie to seven thirty, rustling and packing their things in the complete dark, some with head lamps, going to and from the few aseos, bathrooms, back into the room, drifting away to hit the trail T and I have developed the strategy of trying to be the last to rise, sleeping longer in this way and having less competition for the showers and toilets as well.


From where we sit now, seven twenty kilometer stages from Santiago, eight days to get there, Teo and I seem perfectly poised to snatch this one outright, to accomplish our goal of walking the Camino Frances. My feet have some soreness around my ankles each morning and a bit each time we start up again from a break,but I only ingest about three three hundred milligram ibuprofen each day now and anticipate taking none at all within three days. T is still taking three six hundred ones each day, but given that he has now gone, for the first time in some six or eight days without a serious tendon problem something that at one time you could both feel and actually hear, a crackling sound like static on the radio, coming from his left lower shins, he is close to good now as well. No, we are cracking this thing open, having our way with it now.


And inside I continue to refocus my mind from the myriad ugly scenes that play over and over in the backs of my eyelids when I sleep at night to more peaceful, peace filled visions. The deep hurt of the betrayals, the unending lies, the grief at the loss of the most present aspect of my world for these many shining years, seeping out like the tainted fluid of a ruptured blister, the skin on top ready to be pulled, the soft, new skin below already hardening, preparing to replace the old and to mark simply the most recent place that I have endured the friction of the rubbing together of my being with the unyielding, abrasive skin of another.


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Location:Avenida de Castilla,Triacastela,Spain