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
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