The story of my pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago is in another document but I wanted to at least tell how I got there, what I learned and what it meant to me.
The Camino is something I had never heard of and was never on my “bucket list.” The idea of walking 540 miles – actually walking – seems outrageous, and yet I accepted the challenges – physical, mental and spiritual – and accomplished it. Three things made it special: walking with my brother Roy, experiencing the culture across northern Spain, and enjoying the camaraderie of fellow peregriños on the Way.
I learned about it when I had coffee with a friend of mine, Jim McCoy, who I worked with when he was the Project Developer for the Housing Authority and Community Services Agency (HACSA) of Lane County. HACSA developed low-income housing and I was their banker. In December 2014 Jim and I were having coffee and he asked me what I was going to do to celebrate my transition to retirement in the Spring of 2015. When I told him I hadn’t thought of it, he suggested the Camino Francés, the traditional Camino route from St. Jean-Pied-de-Port in France across the Pyrenees and northern Spain to the cathedral in Santiago de Compostela. My brother Roy had done that so I called and suggested we might travel together; he had not planned on doing the Camino Francés again but different season (Fall instead of Summer) and with his brother – he said yes.
Traveling with Roy had its perks. He spoke much more Spanish than I, and this was his fourth Camino; he had previously walked the Camino Francés from Roncesvalles to Santiago by himself, the Camino Via de Plata from Southern Spain by himself, and the Camino Norté along the Atlantic Coast with his son Matt. He had lots of experience to lean on. On the other hand, he had already spent as much time as he wanted with other pilgrims and wanted a more solitary experience while I was eager to mix it up with everyone. We compromised, of course. We met pilgrims from Australia, Austria, Belorusso, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, and states Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washngton. Not always with the same group of people, we walked together, ate together, roomed together, drank together, and helped each other. Amazing.
My “Little Black Book” is a journal I kept on the pilgrimage and it’s interesting reading if you can decipher it. Some things noted in the journal that I learned:
I am not a deep philosophical thinker. I’ve spent days walking the Camino and can reach our destination without having a single thought – my “nothing box.”
Secrets of my Camino:
1) Prepare, but expect the unexpected
2) Regular, sometimes intense, effort
3) Celebrate successes
4) Persevere through adversity
5) Keep the goal firmly in mind
6) Accept help
7) Take however long it takes
Would I walk the Camino again? Yes, I’m 72 as of this writing and could still tackle it. There was much to enjoy and much to endure, but that’s life, isn’t it?