"I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor than a sleepy and permanent plant. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time." Jack London
Skipping a day forward, having difficulty keeping up with a blog entry each and every day. Between being too tired at night to write much, falling asleep not long after ten, and difficulty finding wifi in many of the pueblos that we stop in. Am writing this now laying in a bed in Sahagún, a city of one hundred and seventy thousand, in a nice hostal room, a double, private, hotel room basically, bathtub and all. Man did we have a crazy last thirty six hours. Fucking Menno!
We left our ghost hostel the day before, walked all day, got in twenty three or four kilometers, fairly uneventful. Feet healing still on both of us, the infection in T's right foot almost entirely gone now, but still putting Neosporin and a band aid on it to be sure. My ankle is still stiff and still I don't walk normally, but getting pretty close. We are now half way through the Camino Frances. We are getting a good daily rhythm again after the whole foot ordeal, after sitting on our asses in Burgos for four days, after starting out from Burgos with ten klicks and building. Now we have a twenty four and then, yesterday, a twenty eight klick day.
About the London quote. Is this idea that he expresses a fanciful notion,a chimera, a nonstarter in terms of any real conversation that one could have with any interst or intention of engaging in for any purpose of changing one's own way of living? Or is it simply a semi-humorous intellectual exercise that smacks only of mental masturbation, an argument only useful for sharpening one's debate skills, never meant to be taken seriously?My guess, my supposition is that very human over the age of sixteen is aware that persons ranking the latter stages of their lives suffer regrets in this area. That most people die regretting that they spent less time with their children and/or family, that they spent too much time at work, that they did not live their life, to a greater degree than they did, more in accordance with the tenets of Jack London's above stated decree.
Folks, I'm here to tell you, no to implore you, take a look at your life, do an overlay of your value system with your current and immediately projectable lifestyle, and ascertain whether or not you believe that upon reaching your end, you will be satisfied that you budgeted your time properly. Is it more important for you, in short hand, to have a newer automobile or a bigger, newer house, or to see your kid play a t-ball game? I am not being hyperbolic in any sense at all. What do you believe in? Do your current practices demonstrate this to your children? Or are you role modeling and perpetuating the fiction of the American dream for your children; the notion that more things is more valuable than more time spent establishing and maintaining relationships, or exploring this world. In the final analysis I feel that more people would be much more heathy in every respect if they devoted their life more to doing and to being and not to having.
We stopped for lunch in a small pueblo, had a couple glasses of wine, bocadillos, split a chocolate croissant. Two days in a row of gorgeous, brightly shining, sunny days with a dome of azure overhead making the greens, yellows, oranges, browns of the flat Meseta farm land light up in all of its autumn glory. By the end of the day two days ago, we were both really fatigued, our feet sore, Teo reading aloud to me from his book as we stumble, limp over the last hill and into Calzadillas de Los Hermnillas. We see a small figure at the bottom of the hill, just this side of entering the small hamlet. Hear a shout, recognition sets in along with gigantic grins, "It's Menno!" T looks at me, we make eye contact, laugh. "Fucking Menno!" I say. We close the hundred, less, meters between us, big abrazos fuertes (strong hugs).
Find an albergue, then the local bar/restaurant. Two showers as Menno and I split a bottle of wine, catch up. T joins us and we sit at a table with two Spaniards, an Italian man from Torino, a French guy who has walked from Brittany, a Hungarian woman who works the albergue, and a French woman who joins us late. It is a good pilgrim's meal. Nothing spectacular, but friendly, interactive, laughing company. Have another couple smokes with Menno afterwards, another glass of wine outside at a table, but it's pretty cold. And it is dark now, and there is a ten pm curfew at this albergue.
Get to bed early, try to write, too fatigued from the hobbling and just crash hard. Teo sleeps close, both on lower bunks near to one another, which is good. He wakes me a few times during the night to get me to stop snoring, which is good because I hate nothing more than to annoy other sleeping, or trying to be sleeping, perigrinos. "Hey, Boss,' he whispers loud enough to wake me. "Hmm?," I mutter, mostly still sleeping, "Okay." I roll onto my stomach. It is pretty cold, we are the only two of about seven, who do not have our own sleeping bags. We get one blanket each, so T and I sleep in our evening clothes, socks. It is the kind of night where you can tell when the blanket is not tucked down around you properly because you feel the cold coming in.
Sleep is good, solid, one of the best and least restless since I have left Madrid. We wake early and the other camineros have all hit the trail by the time I get up at seven to shower. T is in bed, doing internet stuff when I am done, and this is about when Menno gets up and he too showers. We go back to the bar/restaurant for cafe con leche and T and I have a small bit of bread, split up a bit of chorizo, finishing up the food that we have to carry. We hit the trail at about nine thirty.
It is both a fun and a long day of walking. We get in about 26 kilometers, spending a second day in a row beneath a cloudless, lapis lazuli heaven, a white, hot sun, maybe an upper sixty to low seventies air temp. Conversation is excellent; there is an easy dynamic, comfortable, amongst us three. At twenty-two, Menno is closer in age to Teo, but like Teo is also precocious, behaving, thinking, more like a thirty year old. He is from Leiden in the Netherlands. We all three joke, tease, self-disclose equally to the other two, a sort of isosceles triangle of energy distribution.
At one point we are taking a fifteen minute break, getting water bottles refilled at one of the fuentes (fountains) that are stationed at semi-regular intervals along the entire route, maybe you find one every four to seven kilometers, mostly in the pueblos that we trek through, but plenty interspersed between as well. Surely the topic of food was, if you will, on the table, and one of us again brings up the annoying fact that the pilgrim's menus are usually served with, believe it or not, French fries. Of course they are referred to as patatas fritas so that they sound, you know, gourmet or somehow traditional or regional. None of us came all this way to sample the traditional, regional French fries of Northern Spain. In fact we try every time we eat in a taverna, or restaurante, or albergue, to eat off of their local menu, often meeting with a shake of the head, 'No, señor, solo el menú perigrino." Seriously, even the restaurantes not catering to the camineros serve fries with fried eggs (huevos rotas), croquetas, empanadas for breakfast.
Menno says, "I feel like Spain is a country of little kids. French fries with every meal, bunk beds, toast and butter and jam for breakfast." We busted up. It is true about the breakfast. The albergues or other establishments along the route serve what is called a 'desayuno grande' for two to three euros. This includes one café con leche, some two to four small pieces of toasted baguette, a pad of butter, and usually one or two little packets of jam. We get this only if hard pressed. Quite honestly, the desayuno grande is neither a desayuno nor is it grande.
Teo says, "I feel like Spain is an 'almost' country." "Whadda ya mean?" I query. "Well, it's like they almost have wifi, but not quite (a reference to spotty or often non-existent access). Or their street signs, they almost have them, but not quite. Heat in the buildings, showers, they almost work, but then when you finish showering, somehow, there's always about a quarter inch of water on the floor of the bathroom. I mean you can't even figure out where it comes from."
We walked about twenty-six or seven kilometers, a good day's haul. While that in and of itself was a really good thing, good talking, laughter, relationship building, the stop that we made in the small community of San Nícolas de Real Camino has jumped up into the top three events of my time in Spain. Gotta share. Sorry that once again this tale centers around food...my bad. Well, after having a tad bit of bread and splitting a packet of orange marmalade, and five slices of chorizo, each piece equivalent to a very thin slice of salami sized pepperoni, before beginning our day, Teo and I had become quite hungry after marching ten plus klicks, decided to stop in the next pueblo we came across for a sit down lunch. Menno too was more than ready for lunch, and at about six foot and maybe a buck sixty-five, he hasn't any reserves that serve him in any way when the food in his belly is gone.
Eagerly looking forward to this, we hit the next spot, find only one closed-for-siesta establishment. The next community is five klicks up the road, but the book indicates that there are at least two albergue/restaurantes there. Damn it all. We stifle the grumbly stomachs, down some water, have a smoke, marshall onwards. Whipping up each others's appetites discussing what we are going to eat, painting grandiose pictures of feasts, as longdistance hires or people in a life raft are wont to do; we are all now looking for pizza or a Burger King (the first is very infrequently around, but almost aways only in big cities, the second, I have seen only in Madrid, back when I would not have considered eating there...but that was before...!)
We arrive one hour later, go to the Casa Rural with the blue, international sign with a knife and fork on it, hallelujah! We are greeted at the front door before we even get to it by the German woman who runs the place. She is sorry, but she has to clean up the rooms for the next round of persons coming who have reservations. It is probably one-thirty or two o'clock in the afternoon at this point, we are famished, ask if there Is another place in town to eat. She says no, points west, says in the next town we can find a place that serves great paella. Grrrr.... Off we go again, an 'almost' place to eat in two 'almost' towns.
Another five kilometers, stomach acid swilling around with each step. Grumbling about Germans running Casa Rurales, about siestas, about 'almost' places, and finally, limping, grumpy, we get to San Níolas de Real Camino. We find the restaurante right away, as this is another pueblo of, like, sixty people. It is a charming, little place, dark, hand hewn timbers and bar, a smiling man of about fifty-two behind the counter. I buy a botella de tinto, get three glasses, Menno an iced coffee, teach him the word, hielo, for ice, we move out to the terrace, grab a table, happiness already achieved.
Soon the man comes out and starts telling us the choices for the courses, the pilgrim's menu. We ask if we can choose from other items, he says, 'Si, claro," of course. Bueno, pues, vale. We order paella for three, rabbit and chicken and veduras, vegetables. Another bottle of tinto. It will be forty minutes to prepare, he tells us. No problem, we couldn't be more comfortable, warm, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, talking, grinning, the knowledge of incoming food too wonderful to ignore.
Two rounds of tapas come while we are awaiting our meal, and they go down just fine. When el Seńor brings the paella we stare at it in both shock and awe. It is in a large , wide, shallow metal cooking pot with handles like a somewhat flattened wok. The dish is an amazing shade of luminous orange, cooked pieces, joints, of rabbit and chicken protruding along with slices of onion and pimientos, peppers, from the simmering hot broth. He says it needs five minutes, leaves, comes back shortly as we sit inside of the cloud of its aroma, practically manic with excitement, stirs it up with two silver spoons, about the size of large soup spoons, both gripped expertly in his right hand, using them together as though they were one utensil. Mixed the rice from the bottom, carefully recombining the large pan until it reached the correct texture, the broth now absorbed into the rice, then served us all one helping, leaving most of it still in place. We're all grinning, nodding our heads, smelling the rich aroma, and then, with a raising and toasting of our copas de tinto, we dig in. Yes, it is in fact to die for!
We graze and sip our way through the dish, flavorful beyond description. Absolutely satisfied in all regards, our hopes for food a dim and distant memory. Our love of paella now etched firmly into our gastrointestinal book of world records. As we begin to settle into the concept of preparing to leave, as we still have the remaining twelve klicks out of our twenty-five klick day to go, el Señor drops another bomb. He brings three frozen, chocolate chupitio copas, shot glasses, and two bottles of home made liquors, hierbas (herbs) and clear, which is a grappa type of alcohol, sets the bottles down, thanks us. We look at each other the way that children do when surprised and overwhelmed with glee, and proceed to more or less finish one, and do a pretty good job of lowering the other by about half. Granted they are not large bottles, but perhaps a half a fifth each. Needless to say, we set out for the city of Sahagún at about 4:30, maybe 5:00, with less than two hours of sun remaining, full stomachs, no longer sober, and a three to four hour hike yet to go.
Giggling, talking rapidly about the meal, the chocolate cups for the chupitos, how any other paella we may ingest from this point forward will surely be anti-climactic. The sun sets beautifully, the day, four in a row now, almost cloudless, sunny, hot, sunscreen (or as they say here, leche de sol, milk of the sun) kind of weather. Venus hits the southern sky strong, bright, clear. The red band hanging just below the thinner orange one, low on the horizon, straddling the distant hills, as the dark blue and then black sky falls over it. Stars. The chill picking up in the air as we stumble, limp, talk, tell jokes, brag, tease our way into the outskirts of Sahagún, a city of, and I KNOW this because I lost a bet along the way, me saying that it was a city of maybe three thousand and T assuring me that it was in fact a city of, 170,000 people. Oh, the bet? Yeah, I had to pay for T's housing for the night.
As I had poured a significant portion of the hierbas liquor into a smallish plastic bottle for the road, we hit the city fairly sauced. Marching the kilometer or maybe two into the heart like rather loutish, loud boors. Teo attacking a large trash dumpster, and, may I say, winning, all of us extra animated, finally finding a placed to spend the night, a hostal, more or less a hotel, bathtub in our bathroom, two double beds, $40.00 for Teo and me. Menno in the room next door.T decides he has had enough, wisely chooses bed. It is about ten-thirty at this point. Menno and I head out for a bit of fun.
The lessons that I am learning out here on the Camino are myriad and varied. From the simple things that we are supposed to learn in kindergarten, which, since I skipped, I missed, to the higher level stuff. Example, to not give your power to others. Do not allow your brain to dwell on negative, hurtful thoughts; what's the expression, don't give crappy thoughts free rent space in your head? Learning that life really does exist only right now. Dwelling on any time other than now and feeling bad about it is like feeling terrible about the predicament of a character in a work of fiction, a phenomenon that has some value for purposes of teasing out meaning or self-understanding, what one can learn from this largely pretend happening, but not worthy of self-loathing or dread.
I don't know. This journey, this walking thirty thousand steps every day, the rhythm of the whole thing, the cyclical nature of rising with the sun, readying, walking, washing, feeding, communing, sleeping, doing it all over again day after day, seeing new landscapes come into view twenty-five kilometers in front, approach, recede into the rear view mirror over and over and over, it is a life changing event for me. How can it not be. What is truly necessary, important? For all the little things that I need to do, and yet there is, in the end, only one thing, the great thing, to wake to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.
Menno and I have a few glasses of tinto, smoke, talk. Then at about one in the morning we buy a bottle, two small tapas sized bocadillos with fried fish, eat them, sit on a cold stone bench in the plaza near our room, get into a really intense, intimate conversation. Talk of his having been diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome as a child, about difficulties with his parents, how he has not had any kind of even semi-meaningful conversation with his father for ten years, about my difficulties with also being seen as somehow 'different' in my family of origin, of feeling disapproved of, not understood, outside the flock. Talked of women and relationships, what happens, where they go, how they always end.
We sat on that cold ass bench in a breeze in that empty stone plaza, the yellow glow of the sodium lights echoing off of the buildings and the surface of the plaza itself, connecting, sharing, drinking wine, puffing away on our cigarettes until the better part of three in the morning, at which point we moved back to our hostal, to his room, where smoking is allowed, talked more there. He texting back and forth with a young woman that he is often in contact with, she, like him, has what he calls mental problems, and 'leeches' from the state, meaning that she lives on the eight to nine hundred euros a month that the government of The Netherlands pays out to persons who qualify. He also can do this, but has not. He says she really gets him but is not as attractive as he would like. I tell him, at your age I get that, as you progress in your life, however, having someone who will understand how freaky you are and still want to be with you, hold you, love you, be your best friend--that is the gold at the end of the rainbow.
Menno is not in any way impaired, or, in possession of 'mental problems' that I can see. He is good looking, the kind a guy you see on Calvin Klein underwear advertisements, very intelligent, tested so high that they moved him to a school for the top tier kids, Holland having a tracking system for their schools, bright, smiling, somewhat of a reckless young man. At twenty-two his world lays out perfectly before him. Spending time with him, walking with him, there is always conversation, humor, fascinating stories, connection. He thinks of me as an 'old man,' and I guess I am okay with that. Guess I am beginning to finally get that I am in point of fact not twenty anymore, but I still have considerable difficulty in convincing my brain of that, or of convincing others around me that my brain does not view myself in that regard. When I got my blood pressure read about four years ago, the nurse practitioner says, "Wow, it's like you're seventeen." My response, "Gee, that sounds like what my father says!"
Finally, listed over at about seventeen degrees, hand along the wall to steady me, I wish Menno a great sleep, walk into my room with intentions of writing some profound something or other in bed, get in bed, write maybe two and a half sentences, wake up the next morning with the iPad still next to the head of my pillow.
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Location:Calle de López Castrillón,Leon,Spain
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