I thought the Camino would be a "spiritual experience." But I had it compartmentalized. I believed the "spiritual experience" would begin sometime after the plane took off and end in Santiago. So when I arrived in Santiago, I sat in my room and thought, "Is this it? Is this all there is?" I don't know what I expected, but I couldn't see that anything much had happened, other than a darn long walk. It took me some time to process what had happened and to realize how the Camino had changed me. Like all life experiences, it is not a single moment in time or unconnected to all my other life experiences.
I think it is in human nature to to define and compartmentalize. How many of us throw all of our clothes (underwear, shorts, tee shirts, etc.) into one drawer. We define things and put them in different compartments. This compartment is my schooling, this compartment is my family experience, this compartment is my work experience, this compartment is my trip to Europe. I look at these experiences as though they are all separate and have little do with one another. I do this with all kinds of experiences, including life experiences and spiritual experiences. I believe travel has opened the compartments, or maybe my mind.
I was getting ready to go on a bicycle tour of China, when I realized that one of the reasons I had always wanted to go to China was informed by my radical days in college when we thought Mao had the right idea. Needless to say, I was a little naive and idealistic. However, I knew that it had triggered my desire to see China. I then realized that the trip didn't begin when I got on the plane, or when I arrived in Hong Kong, or when I finally made it to Mainland China. It began all those years ago. Even the fact that I was a naive idealist had formed from life experiences before my college days. The fact that I had college days was the result things that happened when I was younger.
At the time I was preparing for my trip to China, I began to understand that the trip starts long before I take off. It starts with the decision to go, through the planning and preparation. It doesn't end when I get back to my house. It continues in reviewing pictures, sharing with friends, and sometime just mind tripping through the memories of gliding down a mountain in China that looked like the ubiquitous wall hangings, through a mist that was thick enough to feel, and feeling completely alive.
I can't fail to mention that I went on that bicycle tour during the great SARS scare. All my friends asked me if I was scared, and if I was going to cancel. It occurred to me, maybe I should be scared. I did a little research and came to my usual conclusion involving me getting hit by a truck as I stepped out my front door. I went. I was the only one who went. There were supposed to be 16 of us on this trip, but everyone else apparently didn't have the truck at the front door scenario. So I was there with the tour director and bus driver. It was a marvelous trip that included dysentery and a very fancy certificate of health.
That trip developed a curiosity about the world, a courage to step out into it and explore, and a decision not to make decisions based on fear. When my husband and I were in Spain in 2006, after touring the northern coast by bus, we arrived in Santiago for a few days. i saw all these people walking around with back packs and sticks, like shepherds or something. i wondered why they were dressed like that and why there were so many of them randomly wandering around. It couldn't be an organized performance. So I asked a few of them why they had sticks and back packs, and being pilgrims, they patiently explained the Camino to me.
I had done a few 3Day, 60 mile walks for breast cancer, but that seemed puny compared to walking across a country with a back pack. Still I thought, "That sounds amazing, I want to do that "some day." Apparently I thought that a lot and even verbalized it a lot, because in the Fall of 2009 a friend called me and said there was a movie out about that "thing" I'm always talking about, the Camino. She invited me to go to the movies that day with her and another friend. I went and while sitting in the theatre, I thought, "It is time to stop saying I want to do that some day and just do it." I went home and made a plane reservation. I believe today that the courage to make that decision, to be called and to answer was made possible by prior life experiences, like the trip to China.
I am now in the process of my fourth Camino. Some may think this has become an addiction, but that is a question for another day. I was driving through my old neighborhood on my way to a hill for a training hike, when I passed my old church where Iwas married, my daughter was baptized and took her first communion and where i taught CCD. At that moment it registered that the name of that church is Santiago de Compostela Catholic Church. Maybe that is why my husband and I visited Santiago. I don't know. I do believe there are threads of experiences running through my life and as I look back i can see connections like threads in a tapestry forming a larger picture. On this Camino, I will take with me the experiences of the other three, in lessons that I have learned and changes that have occurred in me as a result of having had those experiences, as well as other experiences in my life. Just training recently has introduced me to new places, sites and sounds. Life is just such an adventure.
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