It’s not easy for me to express how much I’ve learned on my trips to Santiago.
The first time I’ve walked the Camino the experience was something I was totally unprepared for. Ever since then, all of the times have been different, but as enriching as the first. I’ve walked the Camino once with two close friends, once by myself, and once with my mother.
Now, at last, with in equal parts shame and longing, I can share the short film I’ve made about that one time I started it alone.
There’s Erdinger, doritos and monopoly on the table, as our wolfpack is playing amidst a cloud of happy smoke. While we recover our bodies from a day of snowboarding at a cozy Airbnb, a white landscape gazes at us from the window.
This was my first time snowboarding, and, as you can imagine, I’ve fallen. A lot.
I’ve tumbled like wet clothes on a washing machine. I’ve shaken like an astronaut on reentry. I’ve stirred like a martini, rolled like a Royce, felt my brain pole-dancing on its skull as I fell face first on a white sheet of snowish ice.
I’ve hit the softened ground face first, ass first, God knows what else first, and on those rare instances I flew a bit, as I twisted mid-air before the inevitable impact, I knew — this was one of the greatest days I’ve ever had.
And you? Do you belong somewhere? How is it that you make a place, a group, a family part of your fiber? Where do you plant your lunar flag? When do you finally set the palm of your hand gently on a lover’s face, letting her close her eyes indefinitely, without second thoughts flying above you?
There was a pub in Glasgow I remember fondly. It had a brazilian theme — go figure — and a mesmerizing scottish redhead from Inverness at the bar. Me and my cousin bristled with enjoyment, as we had been visiting Inverness not many days before. Between laughing at our misadventures, she warned us about scottish winters.
He never felt like running.
Every other morning, he puppeteered his lifeless mass of numb arms and legs to venture into the cold, brisk north wind that swept the morning beaches. Seagulls kept a promise of life among the dark blue plains of water, crying about their birdly affairs, and the long stretches of atlantic summer chaos, devoid of people, welcomed the elements and almost nothing but.
Every now and then a pilgrim on the way to Santiago crossed his path, and to every single one he wished ‘bom caminho’, dreaming of the times, future and past, he walked to Santiago just like them. Otherwise, he was all alone, for it was much too early in the day, and every wave broke a silence only disturbed by their own echoes on the sleeping buildings.
A timid sun lurked between rows of distant, sleepy houses. The raincoats shone from the constant pouring, and the mud on our boots clinged for dear life. You’d see clearly, by the way we moved, how sore our feet were. Compared to past days, they were strolling gently through freshly cut grass, drinking camomile tea and being massaged to the soothing sound of generic oriental new age monk music.
We had arrived on the tiniest of grocery stores. The old lady running it didn’t care much for light, as half her universe was as dark as a coal mine, and the rest dimly lit. The small collection of fruit and food was everything you could hope for in the middle of the Camino. I picked up some bananas, apples and grapes, and ordered coffee. Scratch that — saying I ordered coffee will sound like I was in a Starbucks, selfie’ing shamelessly around my badly written name on the paper cup. I wasn’t.
Feeling like he could be sick on the fucking bus at any moment, Charlie closed his eyes and tried to tame his stupid stomach. What a fucking disgrace it would be, and all thanks to the pills he took this morning. Fucking pills. Fucking teeth. The anesthesia could disguise the pain of ripping a vile tooth from the bone, but the feeling of ingrained uselessness remained.
What a fucking mess of mouth, the dentist must have thought. With a couple of stitches on the new crater, and a never-ending flow of blood to swallow, Charlie traversed through a sea of people on the smelly, noisy, disgusting bus station. As he sat down on a disease-ridden waiting room, where time wasn’t the only thing passing, he pulled the phone from his pocket.
The sun was dizzying and the path was unforgiving. I felt very hot, increasingly tired, and my damned water bottle was empty. Forgetting to refill it before those last 7 kilometers was, in retrospect, a rookie mistake. Step by step, with a ghost-like expression on my face, I hurried to my unknown destination. Where was I going? Why was I alone, thirsty, walking painfully towards the smallest of villages in Spain, in a terribly hot afternoon, in May?
I wish I could answer that truthfully. The truth is I can’t.
Last April, I embarked on a one-off journey that would last 35 days. I felt a gloomy, worrying sensation on my spine, when I saw my parents leave me at the Campanhã station in Porto, waiting for a middle-of-the-night train that would take me two countries away. Why?
