A Departure — SeaTac Airport — Seattle, Washington

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. But not the don't-get-stabbed kind of nervous. Not the I'm-alone-in-a- big-bad-world kind of nervous. A different kind. Don't miss it. Don't get lost. Don't keep your eyes down or closed — or rolling. Yes, I am wary of my own sarcasm. 

My father's advice is fresh. I called him last night, a few hours before I'd be headed out to fly to Madrid. As I am now. 

He had read the guide book about the Camino de Santiago I'd left behind for him and my mom to follow, and in doing so became the first person to really inquire about my motivation directly since I haphazardly decided to walk the Camino 10 weeks ago. 

"I guess I should ask you, do you consider this to be a spiritual journey as well?" he asked. "Or are you just looking at it as a really neat hike?"

I realized I'd wanted him to ask me that, even though I'd been dodging the question with everyone else. 

"It is the biggest part of why I'm going," I said. 

He told me to beware of our sentimental human heart's ability to create the illusion of spiritual revelation. But to also be open to what real and true pieces of knowledge a greater being might wish me to have. That they could be there for me. 

(How does one tell the difference? Perhaps you don't, and just keep looking.)  

He'd read my mind. I am definitely skeptical of the sort of wonder that could be fabricated out of experiential naiveté. Powerful and joyful as new experiences may be, do they on their own come with any real understanding of a greater purpose, or knowledge beyond our earthly consciousness? 

I am guilty of this on an annual basis with commercial fishing. In my mind I build it into an ethereal experience, one I approach with reverence each year, having already forgotten the miserable boredom and cold and exhaustion and tension. So I know, I have the capacity to whip out rose colored glasses and look no farther than the pretty glow of sunset. 

And this time, I am putting myself in truly brand new territory. I'd hate to get sidetracked by traveler's awe and fail to do the real introspective consideration and outward exploration that would truly stretch my mind and spirit. So yes, the spirit is cautiously paramount in my mind as I move forward...and so is my ego. 

"But I haven't really told anyone that part," I said. 

I shared my larger purpose with maybe one or two people at school a few weeks ago. One woman who'd walked the Camino the year before, and one other who has spent decades discovering God in the world around her, and in herself. People I'd really just met. For the most part, though, I was afraid of getting eye rolls from my more practical, or less cosmic, or less religious friends. I'd hate for them to get the wrong idea, or start watching for my eyes to glaze over in faithful bliss. Perhaps I'm not giving them enough credit, but that's my ego overshadowing things again. 

I also didn't want to get in any sort of dogma-based conversation with my friends who do have a strong God concept in their lives, since my ideas surrounding a higher power don't fit the Christian model. And worst of all, in many ways, I've been afraid of losing what little street cred I have as a pleasantly sarcastic realist — the eye roller.

(In my pursuit of cliche-avoidance I've even embraced a plan of staying ON the beaten path, partly because trekking OFF the beaten path is so damn trendy. Will I be a step ahead of edgy if I just stay the well trodden course? Useless considerations, I know.) 

But now that I think of it, I'm not sure any of my close friends would necessarily call me cynical, or practical, or edgy, or even level-headed, or any of the other words I want to keep for myself the "realist." I'm just afraid to be outed as some sort of hippie on a spirit quest.

That's the kind of cosmic crap I make fun of. Liberally. But then, I do keep Tarot cards in my car. And I do pray regularly. And read Buddhist literature. And go to the occasional Catholic service. And have an  astrological tattoo behind my ear. And burn sage in my house while whispering mantras for peace and safety. I'm a spiritually eclectic, somewhat eccentric woman. So why am I so afraid to discuss or even validate that aspect of my consciousness, those constant silent questions I ask all the time through these varied pursuits? That may be a question of my maturity, it seems.

But there's no avoiding it now, because here I am. I didn't pick a random trail through unfamiliar countryside. I picked a thousand year old spiritual pilgrimage, pursued by Christians and skeptics and mystics and Hollywood and people from everywhere else. Because I have questions. And people tell me there are answers in such pursuits. And even if I don't find them, surly I'll be happy I asked.

So loathe as I am to be mistaken for a spirit-questing hippie, or God forbid some sort of eco-hipster, I might have to stop worrying about coolness labels. There's no hiding the backpack and the hiking boots. Or the Lonely Planet phrasebook and travel-size toiletries. Though I want to sometimes. 

When I stop thinking about all of that, stop worrying about how to avoid looking uncool, as if I could, I realize that the only cliches I need to avoid are the ones in my own head. Old thought patterns, emotional ruts, broken record memories and all the many shades of guilt and worry and blame and other brands of self-centeredness I carry around with me. They are in the way. So I'll be taking a departure from them, looking for a different way of putting one foot in front of another, asking, why. 

Columbia River - Near Kettle Falls, Washington - Labor Day Weekend