Remember: always, always, we will have the Camino de Santiago
One day a friend told me that he didn't need psychologists, that when he cracked, when he felt that he was breaking down, he would go to the Camino de Santiago. Do not force yourself, only those who have experienced it understand it.
That walking calms the spirit, helps to gain perspective and opens doors to order the mind it is not something new. The Peripatetics, for example, already knew this, those philosophical disciples of Aristotle who indulged in the noble art of walking as a way of invoking genius.
Although let's be honest, This pilgrimage is not about walking, but about walking. “One foot in front of the other” as a mantra in your head, paraphrasing the lyrics of the National Anthem sung by La Maravillosa Orquesta del Alcohol.
The Camino is for this, to enjoy
Machado already wrote: "Walker, there is no path, the path is made by walking". Being punctilious and sticking to the literal, in this case there is indeed a way. About 80,000 kilometers in Europe spread over 256 routes signposted as the European Cultural Route, which lead to the paths of the Peninsula.
Being honest and sticking to the experience, also there are as many paths as there are pilgrims. Because one advances following the yellow arrows, but he builds his path with the experiences that he allows to enter it. Open up and trust because the Way is magic and, in it, everything ends up fitting.
And it is that, without a doubt, this can go from reaching Santiago de Compostela, from wanting to arrive; but, as if it were a metaphor of life, the important thing is not only to enter the Plaza del Obradoiro to be speechless when contemplating the Cathedral. The important thing, what will mark you, will be what you live in the process to reach that end.
Follow your rhythm. Even if you are one of those who chooses to plan up to the kilometers that you will travel per hour and the minutes that each stop will last. There are those people and, as crushed as they are, they are able to resist the charms of Melide's octopus to meet your schedule.
The more we touch the rest, those who believe that the Way is about letting go, assuming that you cannot control everything (although from that this 2020 we have learned something), from lose the fear of uncertainty and recover the ability to improvise. With calm and tranquility, and allowing ourselves the audacity to enjoy everything and everyone that the Camino puts on our route.
For example, on the outskirts of Saint Catherine of Somoza there is a man, whose name I no longer remember, who spends his time selling pendants made with threads and shells that every year he picks up on his trips with the Imserso to Benidorm.
Near Brume Hospital , is the most emotional bar on the English Way. Casa Avelina is run by Avelina and her sister Mª Carmen and, as a way of honoring the memory of her father, they maintain the welcoming spirit that he cultivated for years, aware that each pilgrim is the stories that he carries in his backpack. And some are too heavy. I remember Avelina and what it will be costing her not to hug all those who have already passed by again.
I've also been thinking about that lately kind of farmhouse that that gentleman had mounted just before entering cocoons, where he had already been living for more years than in his native Andalusia. Flags of his Betis (or were they from Sevilla? Unforgivable mistake not remembering), litters of kittens to hypnotize any walker, Bierzo wine to refresh the journey and olives to gain strength.
Add the landscapes and continue. At your own pace, remember. With the Cantabrian Sea and its waves rocking your steps if you travel along the Camino del Norte; with the hard and arid beauty that not everyone understands about Campos de Castilla that many confess to having jumped on the bus; with the magic of the trees intertwining in the Enchanted Forest of the parish of A Sionlla (meigas, if there are any); with those intricate trails, well green and well fresh, for which to go crowning Or Cebreiro; with the estuary by boat along the Portuguese Way… The purest nature opening, generous, wide the doors of its charms.
Are you already intuiting why what counts is not just arriving? And we didn't even need tell you about the Betanzos tortilla.
They ask me to write one love letter to the Camino de Santiago and I must be caught up to the bars because I can't find fault with it. Up to the less good things, not bad, I take out their positive side.
The ampoules, for example, served to put a friend in my life with which two years later I continue organizing trips, going to festivals and fixing the world between reeds; spend a sleepless night share a room with a pilgrim who screamed in his sleep and 15 other people, made me start walking in time for see sunrise over the meadows of Galicia; an injured foot makes you an expert when it comes to look for icy streams as the best medicine for the muscles; and the unnecessary nonsense of doubling the stage meant an extra night of revelry in Santiago de Compostela.
Yes, definitely, we will always have the Camino de Santiago. Now also because I know that she is with the handsome high, more exuberant, wild, indomitable and natural than ever.
He puts the beauty and hospitality is in charge of the usual, those hospitaleros who have resisted, and continue to do so, adapting to these strange times and trying to ensure that the shared essence of the Camino suffers as little as possible. Lalo, María, Marcela… and, with them, restaurants, bars, pharmacies, hostels, hotels that you will find along a Camino that is already coming to an end.
Forget the clock, live according to the rhythms that your body marks for you, sleep when the sun goes down, wake up when it comes out; Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Gmail, what was that? Disconnect, lose the embarrassment of talking to strangers, give yourself the time to listen to what others tell you and confess that yes, that you live with the desire to arrive, to prove (to yourself) that you are capable, but since you left behind the milestone of 100 kilometers you feel a pang of shame every time you discount one more.
Ever since you left the 100-kilometre marker behind, you feel a pang of sorrow every time you discount one more
And then you get to Monte do Gozo. You see her clearly for the first time. Still in the distance, but you already know that yes, you arrive in Santiago de Compostela. And what a dance of emotions, what a stomping of thoughts in your head, how could so much happen in so little, if it seems like it was yesterday when you started walking. You still remember that first step, how the sand felt when rubbing your boots, those nerves, that illusion, that expectant attitude that gradually relaxed when confirming that, indeed, you just had to walk.
Little by little, nature will give way to the city, the green to the gray polygon and the asphalt will welcome your steps. In those few 5 kilometers there will still be room for magic and for everything to fit together, remember?
And, as if it were a Rubik's cube, everything is perfectly placed, even the hugs that you have finally been able to give to those pilgrims with whom you shared the first stages and that you had not seen for days. The quadrature of the circle. The serenity of closing.
A bagpipe sounds, the asphalt has long since turned into cobblestone and a friend suddenly whispers: "You can be proud of what you have achieved."
Santiago, we are already here; we haven't assimilated it yet; but we already know that we will return. On foot, of course.