This doesn't make a lot of sense, especially since I'd just finished an 800 kilometer journey, and my destination was literally around the next corner. But I just wasn't ready yet. Neither was my friend Talitha, so we agreed we needed to stop and regroup before heading in to the maze of oldtown buildings surrounding the historic plaza. Part of it was practical needs. My feet were aching and I hadn't seen a bathroom in a while.
"I just don't want to walk into the square and have my only thoughts be, 'shit my feet hurt and I have to pee,'" I told Talitha.
We weren't the only ones. I saw several pilgrims I knew scattered in the cafes on the outskirts. Having beers and snacks. Sitting on benches consulting battered maps. What were we doing? It was right there. All arrows going to Santiago Cathedral. Seriously, there were arrows everywhere.
I was completely ready to be done walking. My feet looked and felt atrocious. My few remaining clothing items were perma-dirty (as evidenced by the smell I encountered upon reentering my hotel room that evening.) My bones and muscles were a sort of collective tired that only a week of laying around on soft surfaces while groaning was going to fix. And I desperately wanted to hug my dog and my parents and my friends at home. So why was I dragging my feet through Santiago, the very place I'd worked so hard to reach?
Maybe the same reason I'd felt like vomiting all day. I didn't actually want to be done.
We left early in the morning, long before the sun came up. Neither Talitha or I had a working headlamp at that point so we waited at the edge of the forest for someone illuminating. A Spanish man went by at a veritable trot, his flashlight making an ivory beam through the stand of dripping pine and eucalyptus trees. We made tracks behind him, along with another man in need of light. Normally I spend a lot of time looking at my feet while walking, picking my footing carefully, petrified of slipping. But looking down was useless in the pitch black, and the only way I was going to get warning of any upcoming speed bumps was by watching the feet of the front man. So I hustled, picking my feet up awkwardly high each step, hoping to avoid trip-inducing rocks by basically doing a high-knee drill through the woods in the dark.
We'd gone about three miles when the porch light of an open cafe appeared at the other side of an under-road tunnel. It was time for first breakfast. We loitered over cafe con leche and croissants, watching for daylight. Then we did the same thing three miles later. And again. Every few miles I'd also complain that I was sick to my stomach. Of course it wasn't the coffee and heavy cream we were downing every three miles. That couldn't be it. No, I know now it was the dread of finishing the great big thing I'd decided to do.
The final two weeks I'd been in a haze of peaceful discomfort. So much so that I stopped taking pictures, stopped writing blog posts, and just let myself zone out. Soreness and fatigue and the encroaching chill of fall were irksome, but none of that really mattered. I was at ease. I knew what I was doing, and I had a vague-sort-of-bewildered-but-good-enough philosophy for why I was doing it. Those two simple facts allowed me to get up every day with confidence and serenity. Put on the shoes, pack the backpack, fill the water bottle, check the map, walk.
In my everyday life, that litmus test I mentioned — the what am I doing and why bit — is usually impossible for me to answer. Even on a very basic level. Maybe I know I need to change the cat litter and do a few newspaper interviews. But I'm never sure I quite know how to do it right. Maybe I'll spill it on the bathroom floor. Maybe I'll freeze and forget what questions to ask. And WHY? I barely know why I do anything. As frantically involved as I am in extra curricular activities, most of the time I'm still like a kid trying to do algebra. I want to raise my hand and ask, "Uh, what is the freaking point of all this again?"
But not when I'm walking. Everything makes sense when I'm walking. I keep things clean and neat, I keep myself well fed and hydrated, I take precautions to stay dry, I eat decent food, I rest, I get up early, I work hard, and I do it because I need those things to get to where I'm going.
And that is why, at a standstill a kilometer from my destination, I felt like I was going to throw up. Because my very particular peace-inducing purpose was about to be achieved, and, uh, what the fuck now?
But of course I did complete the last kilometer, weaving through the streets of Santiago until I found the cathedral. And of course I did sit on the stones of the square with a few dozen other pilgrims and stare up at its gothic spires and consider the last 500 miles. And I watched an Italian man sink to his knees, weeping and singing to this shrine to Santiago. And I considered Saint James himself, mostly how little I still knew about him, wondering how much of the lore around the saint holds true to the man. Wondering if he'd recognize the modern pilgrim as a fellow to those who walked centuries before us. Wondering if the ancient pagans that passed this spot, on their journey to the coast, before the Catholics laid claim to it, would have had a place for me in their midst.
Mostly I wondered about what to do next. Aside from finish grad school and pay my bills and try to make reasonable decisions about my future. As I acknowledged the expected but distressing lack of epiphany, staring as I was at THE cathedral, I accepted that which I knew to be true from the beginning: the Camino doesn't end in Santiago. It doesn't even end in Finisterre, that windy rock on the western coast. It doesn't end in Spain, or any other earthly place we can walk or swim or fly to. It is a way we may move through this life, until we should find the next one. A way to learn with your body and spirit as well as your mind.
Those things don't have to add up to an epiphany to be grand. In my life they mean small victories. The Camino, for instance, is responsible for these simple facts: When I got home I cleaned car loads of stuff I don't need out of my house, I run almost every day, I get up early, and my house is still clean even though I've been home for three weeks. These things, normal as they sound, are a pretty big deal for me. There's other things. But not things I can necessarily describe. Which, for once, I'm ok with. But I can say I know things about myself and about my world in a way that is different and stronger and more tangible to me than ever before, even though I cannot put them into words.
And thankfully my sadness over finishing has passed, though not before I moped around a bit, joining some fellow pilgrims for a few long-faced meals before hugging them goodbye, bidding them all a Buen Camino.
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