Simply Walking – Camino Days 23-25 (Mesita)
Pack - walk - eat - walk - eat - walk - nap - eat - sleep. Repeat (times 38).
The Camino is that simple. No wondering what we should do tomorrow. Each day will unfold with its own wonders and blunders. Landscapes softly transition from field to forest, hill to plain, green to brown to yellow-red-orange. They are both the scenery and the substance of our experience, but perfectly beyond our control.
Walking the Mesita - Spain’s long flat breadbasket prairie - is rather like cycling across Saskatchewan. Days blend together, vistas merge, the mind can either go stir-crazy or go blank. I choose blank. No non-stop 80’s soundtrack in my head. No internal conversations or What Went Wrong ponderings. No longing, no questioning, hardly even any motion - just step, step, step. I look up and we’re still in the same place as an hour and a week ago, but look around again and every unharvested ear of corn or shaft of wheat is drinking in the sun and sucking up the water and growing and drying and doing nothing more and nothing less than me.
No Logistics
The decisions we do make are bare-boned, basic, and ultimately non-consequential. Should we walk 20 or 30 km? Which albergue should we sleep in? Should we order the “Pilgrim’s Meal” at a bar or pick up fresh bread and cheese for a picnic? Those three questions use up 5 minutes of brain space and that’s it for the day. We set that outside structure and then we are completely free, like the boundaries of a rural school play yard.
In normal life, we invest so much energy into planning, executing, evaluating, and then planning again. I have taught this cycle in workshops: how to make the most of a day, maximize use of time, find meaning in a moment or in a life. What to eat, who to see, what to watch. Who what when where and, if there’s the luxury of a bit of reflection time, why? It can leave precious little time for Being.
No Existential Angst
Beyond plain logistics, how much energy do we put into figuring out how to enjoy a day, how to make a life meaningful? Each morning I snuggle into Sarah’s bunkbed and jokingly whisper, “What do you want to do today?”
A young Korean pilgrim in front of me swoops down to pick up a small branch with delicate yellow fall leaves. For the next half hour I am mesmerized - she is not hiking. Her legs are moving, but her entire soul is enraptured by this branch that she waves above her, swirls to the side, swooshes up and down. Her whole world is the wonder of this autumnal magic in her hand, and my whole world is my wonder that her world could be so simple and beautiful.
No Responsibilities
A privilege we are making the most of these days is a lack of responsibilities. No house repairs, bills, cleaning, redecorating. Bills on autopay. Kids thriving in college, parents healthy and happy. Sarah’s job is flex, and I’ve yet to join 2 boards and 3 volunteer gigs.
For these 7 weeks we’ve put other mundane things on the backburner that will come back to burn us when we emerge. Taxes, health insurance, Sarah’s next big site build, cutting toe nails - can only be put on hold for so long. But on hold they are, and not being held in the meantime. There’s simply no room for them in the wide-open skies of the Mesita that this morning was filled with the awesome spectacle of a full moon setting in front of us just before the sun rose behind us.
No Tomorrow
When conversation at the communal dinner table turns to “What comes next?”, we honestly answer that we have no idea. A committee of friends met on Zoom and have decided where we will go for the month after the Camino ends, and they’re not telling us until we reach the ocean.
Not knowing where we’re going next lets us be fully present in each day, each step after step after step. We’re not researching Latvian beaches or booking Lithuanian airbnb’s. Not envisioning what we’ll eat and do and love and yearn for in Lesotho or Lilliput. We are just here, and tomorrow will blossom when it’s good and ready.
No FOMO
Relationships are deep and intense but also flex on the Camino. We’re not responsible to follow or serve others. A conversation can last a meal or a hill or a week, and end as easily as “We’re going to stop for water.” I love helping my little 4-year-old friend when we bump into them, and then when we want to stretch our long legs we easily say “See you when we see you.” And we usually do - people weave in and out and back into our path in unexpected ways. And the fish we release are still in the stream and we feel their ripples from up ahead or behind.
From this simultaneous combination of freedom from social expectation coupled with automatic social inclusion, I feel how bound I can still be, at age 57, to a teenage-worthy Fear-Of-Missing-Out. Maybe sometime along this endless flatland a vision will pop into my head about how to free myself from the samsara chains of wanting and looking for love instead of just accepting and giving and living it. How to let go of measuring and expecting and assessing, like Love is a finite resource and I need My Share. Here on the Camino it’s as infinite and free as the vast starry morning sky, and I suspect it can be the same in Latvia or Lilliput too.
No Deep Thoughts
Sleepy legs take one step, then one more step. Arms begin to pump with the hiking poles in rhythm exactly opposite the legs. Backpack cinched tight, head up straight, eyes straight ahead and gently unfocussed. It is mindless, easy, unquestioned and unchallenged. Walking is the entire experience, there is no need for more.
Most of the time I am not filled with thoughts, not singing old Broadway songs and country tunes in my head (or, God forbid, out loud.) I am not actively thinking through problems, not planning anything, not wafting in memories - good or bad - not daydreaming. Just opened. And sometimes, like in a Quaker meeting, a thought, or a feeling, or a memory, gently slides into that open space and hangs out there for a while, felt and acknowledged but undisturbed.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to have a question or a quest on this Camino, like so many other pilgrims. Maybe I was meant to have a time without questions, without questioning or evaluating or planning or wondering. I am writing this on a park bench in a tiny nothing town somewhere in Spain, a little tired and vaguely hungry and lacking nothing.
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Currently in...
Monteverde, Costa Rica, for 2 months of cloud forest and community
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Chicago/Montreal for Christmas, then Thailand (Chiang Mai), Vietnam (Hoi Ann, Feb-Mar). Please share any sites, people or ideas by email.
Rick, I am so enjoying this commentary! I have been meaning to say that for several days but, unlike you, I am in the other “usual” word of appointments and commitments and so on an on. The few minutes it takes me to read each episode reminds me of the significance an experience such as you are now living holds for a human life. Keep on living it, my friend.
Glad to give you a break from appointments and commitments, friend!
Hey Rick,
There was Ricky, Ricky, playing nicky nicky…in the store, in the store…
Remember me, Paul Reid from back in the camping days? I got your blog from my Godmother, Rochelle. Nice writing!!! I look forward to hearing more. Keep on truckin’ ✌️
Wow, of course I remember you Paul (and your very scary dog…) Glad to have you on board!