Day 13 Part 2: Finishing Strong And Content
The final morning I woke up with a kind of discontented feeling. I was dealing with some fatigue and kind of an overall blah feeling (that’s a medical term") about everything. I got everything packed up and ready to go (which I am insanely efficient at by now) and trudged down to the breakfast room. While filling my coffee I heard a familiar “hello”, it was Alexandru from a few days before. It was amazing how seeing a friendly and familiar face lifted my spirits. We decided to finish this thing out together and took off on the trail.
He’s not giving the devil horns intentionally, I just didn’t let him know I was taking a picture because I’m like the Camino paparazzi.
We saw the final sunrise of our camino.
Lovely sunrise, crap picture
A couple of miles into the walk we noticed a pilgrim sitting in the middle of the trail. I wondered if they were hurt or meditating or who knows what. As we got closer Alexandru noticed that it was Hannah, who’d I’d spent the previous day walking with and having a 2 hour lunch. She was sitting in the middle of the trail petting a cat. Her love of animals is massive and she’ll stop everything to say hello to a cat, a dog or even donkeys.
No dog is safe from getting love if Hannah is around
The three of us then set off towards Santiago. The conversation was interesting but easy and the walking was effortless. At some point my body had decided that resisting walking was pointless and everything seemed loose and light. I remember when this happened on my previous camino and it’s a really spectacular feeling. I guess I can compare it to running when you reach that point (anywhere from 3 to 10 miles in depending on your body) where running becomes truly fluid. That usually only lasts for about 1-2 miles for me but it’s amazing. This was the walking equivalent.
I think the trail helped with my easy walking
When we got closer to Santiago Hannah set off ahead of us to finish her camino with her thoughts. Alexandru and I wound our way through Santiago and walked into the cathedral square.
It’s quite a sight
It really is spectacular walking into the square. You enter from the side so you’ve seen the spires for a while but then very suddenly you walk into this huge, open square and there is the cathedral. Not only are the square and cathedral a sight but the people are even more interesting to me. Everyone is in some state of emotional, I don’t know, release maybe? There is a lot of joy and celebration along with a lot of tears. There is also a lot of reflection on the accomplishment. For every 3 beaming pilgrims there is 1 sitting quietly staring at the ground or the cathedral. I’ve never experienced anything like it. The energy is almost tangible. We took a couple of photos:
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We then did what every pilgrim is obliged to do. We sat down with and rested against our packs in the square.
It was glorious. Hot but glorious. Then my butt started to really hurt. Then it was less glorious. Then we got up
We went and got our compostela certificates and immediately bumped into Hannah. The three of us had dinner at an Italian restaurant nearby to celebrate. Eventually we said our goodbyes and wandered in three separate directions to our rooms. It seemed kind of fitting that we all came from such different places (Romania, Brazil and Oregon) and would thereby leave in opposite directions. It was bittersweet and I’m still surprised by how connected you can feel to someone in such a short time on an adventure like this. I think being together on a journey like the camino provides an instant kinship and removes some of the barriers that get in the way of meaningful conversations in everyday life.
I came onto this camino on the heels of two difficult losses and in a fairly gloomy (kind of a shitty word choice but it’s all I could come up with) head space. I was set to start this walk right after Chuck died in late June. Shortly after arriving in Portugal Steven found out he didn’t have long to live so I cancelled the rest of my trip. A couple of days before he passed he asked, “You are going to reschedule your camino, right?” I told him that I was planning to whenever the time was right. He said, “Good, you seem to get a lot out of those types of trips”. He was right. I knew I would have a lot of solo time to walk in silence and process all that had happened. I did have that and I have been able to process a fair amount. I will never stop missing them and the world has less laughter and light with them not in it. But on the short walk to my hotel it dawned on me that exactly what happened that day was the camino experience. It was accomplishing something I wasn’t sure I would still be able to do. It was seeing places I had never seen. It was eating food that was amazing because it was fresh and different and you had walked 20 miles. Most importantly, it was realizing that although the world might seem a little less joyous and light then it was a few weeks ago there are people out there who can help fill that void with understanding, laughter and above all - kindness.
Thank you all. I needed that.
P.S. They also indulged my constant coffee breaks, and that’s a pretty big deal too.
