"Inner peace comes after the war within."
Graffiti written inside of an underpass along the Camino. We shot out of Viana this am about ten. Teo going like a bullet from a gun. Did my best to keep up. Must have made almost eight klicks the first hour! Whew! At some point today I said to him that he could go at his own pace, but it'd knock me out of the marathon to sprint with him. He replied, 'I guess I need to slow down and you need to not take short cuts" (a reference to my wanting to cut across fields, etc., which he always frowns upon!). I responded, 'Shit, man, I guess this 'journey' really IS a metaphor. You always in a hurry. Me always looking for the path of least resistance.'
Am sitting on the balcony of our newest albergue, El Cántaro, in the small town, population about 2500, Navarette. Got in about 4:00, Teo amped to follow his beloved futbol club, Chelsea, at 5:00. He is doing that now. We are doing the recommended stages one off now. So that we did a half stage into Viana, and are now walking full stages of 23-30 klicks per day, ending some place about half way between the suggested places, thus getting cheaper and more empty albergues. Tonight it is El Cántaro, a very clean, empty bedroom about twenty by ten feet in area, with five wooden, new bunk beds, all empty except for our two bottom bunks next to one another. We showered, hand washed the double pair (thin, moisture wicking liner socks, and outer, heavier socks to prevent blisters), underpants and hiking t-shirts in the bathroom sink and hung them up on the clothes lines on the balcony.
This awesome mural above is on the side of a parking lot in the capital city of the Communidad La Rioja, another of Spain's Autonomous Communities, set up under the Constitution of 1978, designating the 17 Spanish Provinces as separate but tied together states in order to allow a surer preservation of the regional cultural differences. The stamps on the man's body represent the stamps that we, as peregrinos, get in our perigrino passport, called Credenciales, to prove that we have walked the walk, to get our certificate of completion, the Compostela, upon reaching Santiago de Compostela twenty six or so days from now. Each albergue, and many restaurants or other sundry locations, have them.
We crossed the Ebro river today. The following is from Wikipedia: 'In antiquity, the Ebro was used as the dividing line between Roman (north) and Carthaginian (south) expansions after the First Punic War (264-241 BC). The river Ebro in 1938 was the starting ground of one of the most famous Republican offensives of the Spanish Civil War. Known as the Battle of the Ebro, the offensive ended in defeat for the Republican forces.'
We trekked the three klicks or so through Logroño, passing the Parliment building, a fascinating mix of the original, three story or so straight up blonde, stone wall built in 1686, with an irregular, stepped top, parts obviously having been destroyed years ago. A full story plus of a modern top floor merges with the uneven stone edges, some four feet higher than the rest, of the original stone.
Below stands Teo Fiann standing against the tall ass defensive walls of the Iglesias de San Pedro in Viana, where we stayed last night. It is the beginning of our trek to Mibar to watch El Classico!
I want to speak to you briefly, dear reader, about any discrepancies that you may have noticed in the stated distances travelled and/or the amount of remaining kilometers to go. Put simply, you may notice that they don't always add up. All I can say, speaking for both Teo and myself, is, 'Join the crowd!' The maps, and even the two different guide books which we have, and the signs around and between towns, areGod awful in there similarity one to the other. We will see a sign, por ejemplo, stating 7,5 (in Europe a comma is used in numbers where we use a period, and visa versa) to such and such town. Thirty minutes later a new sign, and often they are both official Camino signs, precisely similar in paint color, font, etc., 7,9 kilometers, to the same such and such town! The stated kilometers remaining to Santiago also will often be posted and we both look at it, look at our books, add up what we've walked, shake our heads, and say, 'No fucking way!' When I give distances, especially what we have left to cover, it is, let's just say, an estimate!
My head is in a better place today. Feeling more whole, less fractured. Keeping my brain in the here and now as best I can, and that varies tremendously, wanting nothing more than to drift backwards and moan, or slide forwards and hope. Of course neither will heal me. Neither will fix a God damned thing. The thirty thousand steps each day are what are doing it for me, they are my here and now. Each step one more piece of the now, each second of walking the elixir that is curing what ails me.
I have walked most of the short way to the store now, stopped in an outrageously gorgeous Plaza in front of the local Church, La Iglesias Parochial de Santa Maria, which I will try to post tomorrow. I have yet to comprehend how to post the photos I want to, being that I'm not a fourteen hear old, and that using this blogspot site is new to me! A moment to stop, slow down a bit, try to keep all of my shit together, try to focus on the task at hand, hoping, in the words of some unknown thinker, that time wounds all heels! Okay, perhaps I have, for the moment at least, regained my sense of humor.
I' d enjoy sharing with you what I am carrying on my back across Spain. Here's the list- iPad; rain pants and top ( good jacket ); pack rain protector; Moleskin; small scissors; coffee-instant; Knife (Wernex brand!); two pair liner sock two pair walking socks; one pair evening socks; three pair underwear, not cotton; zip off hiking pants; short sleeved button shirt; quick dry t shirt; black cotton t-shirt; knit cap; micro fiber towel; prescription sunglasses; nalgene; broad brimmed fold up hat to keep rain off face n glasses; line for hanging drying clothes; Dr. Bronner's for body n clothes; gaiters; headlamp n batteries; toilet paper in ziplock; extra ziplock bags; European electrical adapter; electric splitter (put three plugs into one outlet); spork; tupperware box, about two inches deep, six by six, for carrying sundry items such as leftover food, half cut onions or tomatoes for sandwiches, butter, cheese, lunch, etc.; duct tape wrapped around my nalgene; toiletry kit with basic first aid, small sewing kit, tweezers; down pillow, cuz that's how this kid rolls...! ; wallet; passport; tobacco n papers; extra Bic lighters; small plastic water bottle like you buy bottled water in for flask, mixing coffee, etc.; coin purse (here they have one and two Euro coins; Credenciales; writing pens; small pill bottle with ibuprofen.
Just went out to buy a few items for eating, found a side spot in the wonderfully lit, yellow, soft, underwater glow of the European street lights to write down a few things and a seventy four year old Spanish woman came up, asked if I was a Caminero, thought. I was from Inglaterra, Great Britain, and boy did we talk! She told me all about her nervous stomach and how tai chi helps her relax enough to get food down, how Spanish women, especially from Logroño, are, and each time she would put her hands over her breasts, pull them forward to puff her chest/breasts out, put a stern look on her face and make a sound sort of like, 'Hmph!"
We both talked of failed marriages, me two of them, how to deal with it, she even offered her phone for me to call my buddy, Pat, back in the states. Congrats, Pat, you are the selected lifeline. I didn't want to use her phone, stuffed neatly inside of a Hello Kitty case!, but appreciated the gesture enough to fight back a tear or two. I sat there focusing on hearing and understanding her Spanish, marveling in the depth of our conversation there in front of that magnificent Iglesia.
Told her about my adventure here with Teo. She talked of how the Americans don't speak Spanish,stay sort of separate, but she really loves France, the French, and Northern Italy! Her cousin, whom she is so obviously proud of that she told me perhaps three times, 'es un veterinero de caballos, in Englaterra' and is 'muy bueno.' A thin woman with tastefully set and coifed light brown hair, a purple fleece jacket, a pink scarf wrapped around her neck, glasses, long, thin nostrils you may be able to put the end of your thumb in. Her voice not loud, but more that of a forty or fifty year old, sure, engaging.
We two sitting on the stone bench/wall that surrounds the courtyard in front of the Iglesia. A chill wind picked up, we both agreeing that it had just happened, she standing then to get off of the cold stone, me putting my hands in my pockets, shivering now both because of the cold and because of my fears and my loneliness. Lots of hand gestures. Lots of interpersonal warmth to assuage all of my shivers, and a magical, cross cultural, unexpected connection. And all in Spanish! Guess my language skills are improving. Under the swimmy, glowing lights of the plaza, the water spouting in a small fountain, pouring each of four directions around an ornate, central column, out of the mouths of fish, it were as though some needed apparition had come to me out of a knowing of the bits of gravel and of glass that rest heavy in my breast. 'Gracias, Señora,' I told her as we had a bit of a formal parting, half bowing, shaking hands for a long moment, 'muchas gracias por todos de tu sentimentos.' Maybe it was Santa Maria herself, La Iglesia's patron saint, come to this broken peregrino in his time of need, to aid him in his slouching towards Santiago to be born.
When we parted I started briefly to cry. Partly due to her compassion and interest in a wayward Caminero like me, and in the random perfection of the meeting, the truth in it, her concern for me, her reaching out across that space between us to touch me; partly out of some strange and haunting sense of being lost, of losing such a friend as I am in the process of; partly of a 'what the fuck am I doing?' sort of feeling. I got it together pretty quick like, figuring that the ocean of salt waster inside will cone out when it needs to, but right now I need strength and a bit of hardness. Last year was the year of tears; this one will be the year of moving beyond, of readying, preparing for the next stage of my life.
I wandered, looking for the store that the landlady of El Cántaro told me of, but after some time began to just search, found some ten year old boy in a yellow futbol shirt, asked directions, found the store. I got some sliced ham, cheese, for tomorrow's lunch, a box of mixed juice to kill the urge for sugar-T and I have had no candy or chips yet, determined to keep up our fifty sit ups and fifty push ups each day, determined to keep walking and shrinking-a tomato and two bananas. $4.50 Euros. Bringing my total spent for the day to $16.00 Euros, a day that will shrink not just my waistline, but my daily average costs as well!
Laying in bed now, T woke me as I was snoring. Decided to do some stuff on my tablet to let him get back to sleep deeply. The silence here at 2:50 am is total. Laying on this bottom bunk in front of the soft glow of my iPad typing, thinking. Got an email from Karen, as she is helping to take care of some of my things around my place, turning off outside spigots for the season, depositing stray checks, etc. The note short, courteous, distant. Distance and quiet is what flows in me right now, a clean, cool liquid, not the hot, coursing of my daily life at home with its insanity, with its pounding and it's romantic discontents. I think back to the easily scrawled words on the side of the concrete wall, 'Inner peace comes after the war within.' While the war yet is waging, perhaps a small battle has been won.
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