hiking – tales of samwise

‘Above all, I am happy for practices that bring me back to my body, where the operative categories are not ‘bad’ and ‘good’ but ‘dead’ and ‘alive’. As hard as I have tried to be good all my life – as hard as I try to be good even now – my heart leans more and more toward that which gives life, whether it is conventionally good or not.’

Barbara Brown-Taylor, ‘An Altar in the World’

Like many before me, when faced with a transitional period of life, I decided to walk the Camino. I wonder what the medieval pilgrims would think of us 21st Century wanderers seeking to ‘eat, pray, love’ our way along the very same pilgrimage route that they walked in their sandals? Maybe they wouldn’t be surprised? Perhaps medieval folk too took to the road when they didn’t know where to turn next? When looking for direction, there is something so very human about following a trail marked on a map. Or even better, massive yellow arrows pointing your way. In a time when I have felt, like it seems many people have been (the number of pilgrims travelling along one of the Camino routes has more or less doubled in the last decade), at a loss for what to do or where to go next, I turned to a hiking trip.

So many of my worries, anxieties and quandries over recent years have been internal. Mental. Even metaphysical. But the Camino is a refreshing change – you can’t get shin splints from overthinking. The very physical, incarnate, challenge of walking over 100km in five days (I only did the end of the Camino Frances from Sarria – enough to qualify as an official perrigrino) was such a welcome respite from the weight of worry I have been carrying around. Each day, the plan is simple; start here and walk to there. Stop for a coffee or a beer if you like. Find some inevitably fried lunch somewhere. Then lay down. And repeat.

The past several years have led me to a place somewhere between despair and freedom. Perhaps it is a moment of a shedding of something old and an embracing of something new. But that is just the most frustrating and painful to go through, especially when you have no idea what you are becoming. Or where you are going at all. For me, there has been a sense of running out of road.

I have become desperate for anchors. Yet still long for freedom at the same time. These two things have come to feel almost unreconcilable. How can you anchor yourself as a single person who’s only tie seems to be a job that has become close to stifling? When you have also moved to a new city? I’ve become so tired. And disappointed. Things there are no easy way to resolve.

My experience of the Camino was as a place to start resetting and focusing on the present, rather than getting tied up in the roads not taken or the paths yet to come. The simple act of walking each day makes this a lot easier. The connections and conversations with fellow pilgrims, reminds you that everyone is making and remaking themselves all the time. It makes you feel less alone, even as you spend hours walking by yourself.

I was fortunate enough to follow up my Camino trip with a visit to a dear friend in Barcelona, where I spontaneously bought a ticket to see Catalonian pop-superstar Rosalia on her ‘Lux’ tour. Somehow, this felt like a fitting end to my pilgrimage. So much of this incredible album is about the physical meeting the spiritual, and how different holy women, and Rosalia herself, have made sense of this over time. One lyric from the song ‘Divinize’ stands out to me now –

‘Pray on my spine, it’s a rosary’

Rosalia

I am struggling to think of a better summary of my short time on the Camino. Our bodies walking can be prayer. Our spines our rosaries. In times of uncertainty, focusing on that can be enough. Or at least, a start.