There’s no real reason, you see.
The easy explanation is that you cannot fly from South America to Africa in one go, and the city that came up was Madrid. The longer explanation is that a friend, Scott, had come back wholly renewed from his own Camino experience. I was astonished at the transformation, and promised that someday, somehow, I would consider doing it myself. I just did not think the chance would come so soon.
I could accept that fate had dealt me Madrid, above all other European cities, and that I could therefore elect to embrace this opportunity, no matter the fact that I had not yet sorted out why, exactly, or if I even needed to.
Or else what? Chose another city. Go to Amsterdam and read more Hunter S. Thompson, Kesey, Hemmingway – immerse myself in the best of European bohemia for as long as I could pretend to afford it, and then head to Africa, pretending I had grown. No. Thanks.
So instead, it would be Quixote, and fate, and the consolation that 30 days of walking should at least be good for my legs.
The Camino turned out to be harder than I ever thought, and far more meaningful. The lessons we learned on the Camino are not the sort that are easily put into words. It will be a long time before I understand what I have experienced here. It will be a long time before I truly feel like talking about it.
I know I will never forget the four weeks I spent as a pilgrim, nor any of the remarkable people we found along the way. To share an experience like this with people also searching for some meaning or purpose is to have found just exactly what we were looking for; one of the sacred bonds of humanity that make us creatures capable of greatness, fragile and hopeful and profoundly interconnected. And to have experienced this has made me more whole, more alive, and more determined than ever to relish the fray, to live, to love, and to keep on walking.
Contrary to popular belief, I did not find God on the Camino. But I did find a way to be at peace with faith; with that essentially human need to believe in something – anything – even if it is merely myself, my husband, the healing power of hot showers, or the magic of sunrises over flat fields.
In that spirit, I’m re-launching our Camino experience on this dedicated photoblog. The decision to present this experience via photos is a deliberate one. I’ve managed to find a few, but there are no words true enough to transcend this journey. You’ll just have to walk it yourselves.