The Call of the Camino

     Before October 24, 2014, I hadn't given a thought to walking the Camino, not the entire 500 mile length, at any rate. I had two friends who had walked a portion of the Camino. One had walked the first leg of the Camino Frances, from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Roncevalles, in seven hours.
 I loved reading about her experience that day, stunning in its challenges and beauty too. The other  friend had also walked a part of the Camino, about 10 days on the Portuguese route. I was beginning to consider walking a few days of the route myself, maybe five days, having a service carry my luggage from village to village, and staying in small private hotels. I really didn't know much about the Camino, El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I was just beginning to feel its pull.
    Then in late October my friend Nancy invited me to her church to hear a presentation by one of their members, a woman in her mid-sixties, who had walked the entire Camino Frances solo, in the Spring of 2014, just a year ago. Her name was Donna Erickson. From the minute Donna began talking, I was caught, hook, line and sinker. I remember sitting on the edge of my seat, soaking up her every word. She walked the entire Camino, staying in albergues, or hostels, carrying her backpack, eating the pilgrim meals with the other pilgrims, experiencing it all. I knew that I wanted to do that, that I had to do it. It was a call unlike any I have ever had, maybe a call from God, maybe a call from my soul, from my bones. Something was missing in my life and this is what it was.
 
    My life changed on July 3, 2012, when in a moment in time, I went from being a wife for more than 40 years and a caregiver for 16 years to being a widow. What did that mean? I didn't know. I moved through the first hours and days on autopilot, and then through the next months with some deliberation. I started at once working with a trainer at the local gym, a generous, empathetic young woman with a sense of great calm and peace with herself and her world which spilled over into my life. I knew that exercise would be important for me both physically and emotionally and I gave myself over to that with great dedication. I found a bereavement counselor, another young empathetic and remarkably intuitive young woman who helped guide me through the first difficult months and beyond, as I began to find my footing again. After nearly a year and a half, I joined my church choir, a group of like-minded liberal Catholics who had become a family to each other. That was my first commitment after the death of my husband, and it was life-changing, because of the deep connections between the members of the choir, who welcomed me into their family with great warmth, and because of the joy I experienced being a part of the music. Music had always been at the center of my life, and it was only right that in these later years of my life, I would find such happiness in joining my voice with those of a group I had loved for more than 40 years.
    But I was still looking, waiting, for something that would ignite the passion within me. The Camino de Santiago became that something in an instant. It was, if I may say so, love at first sight.

Less than six months

     In less than six months now, I'll truly be on my way. My plan is to fly into Paris in the early morning of September 4, 2015, find my way to the train station at Montparnasse and get a ticket on the high-speed train to Biarritz. I will spend the night there, catching a smaller train the following day to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. I'm hoping to find a pilgrim place to stay there, spend the following day there recovering from jet lag and adjusting to the altitude, not to mention calming my nerves, and then, in the early morning of September 7, Labor Day here in the states, put on my boots and backpack (hopefully by then no more than 10% of my weight), and begin my Camino, starting up the steep slopes of the Pyrennes on the Route Napoleon, weather permitting.
   That will, no doubt, be my first test of how open I am to accepting what the Camino has to offer. If the weather is poor, the Route Napoleon may be closed, and I'll be forced to forego one of the highlights of the Camino, the walk over the top of the mountains. I'll have to take an alternate, lower route, around the mountains, even though I read that it has its own challenges. I wish I could say that I'm completely ready for that disappointment, but I know that I'm not. Not yet, at least. I do hope that I can walk that route, stay at the intermediate stop at Orisson, and then complete the walk to Roncesvalles the following day. Only time and the weather will tell.
    Meanwhile, I am still here in Missouri, getting ready, readying my body and mind and spirit. On the bed in the upstairs guest room, I have spread out all the gear I have accumulated, most of what I'll need. I continue to make decisions, change my mind, ponder, weigh the pros and cons of this or that, weigh each item literally on my little scale and record its weight, with the plan of adding it all up in time to see just how much I'll be carrying on my back. That may change my mind on any number of things. 
    As of now, I'll be carrying my Deuter 45+10 backpack (3 lbs 4 oz), meaning that it has a little additional top space where I can store extras, like food for the day. It's a shade of green that repelled me at first, because it felt a little military, but which I've grown to like quite a lot. Strange how familiarity can breed attraction. Now it feels like an earthy color, which I love. I'm taking a sleeping bag which is only slightly more heavy than a lighter mummy-shaped down bag I had originally. The bag I've settled on is a Traveller Snugpak, 31 oz, that is a rectangular shape and unzips all around to open out fully. The mummy-shaped bag felt claustrophobic to me. My other essential piece of equipment is on my feet, my Keen low-rise waterproof boots in a size 9, a full size larger than I normally wear. They feel wonderful right now, with a double pair of socks, liners with a pair of Marino wool outer socks. 
    The rest is scattered willy-nilly on the bed, waiting for a final decision. My mind feels a bit willy-nilly too, as I begin to focus it on the goal ahead. So many questions bounce around my head and heart. But I still have over five months to get ready for this. That's long enough, isn't it?