life Archives - Nadine Walks

A Girl in a Tower; Day 6 on the Chemin du Puy, Aumont-Aubrac to Aubrac, 36km

August 8, 2017

If I’d gotten what I’d needed on my 5th day of walking (a German walking companion, a delicious baguette eaten in a park, a private room in a clean gîte, etc), then I also got what I needed on my 6th day of walking. It just looked a little different.

The day before had been a short one- only 8km! To balance things out a bit I countered that with a 36km day and even though this is a distance I’ve done before (many times, by now), I was just a touch nervous. Now I’m not even sure why, but I suppose it could have been because I had been doing much shorter days up until that point. And I was “in between” things, at least it felt that way: everyone I’d met in the previous 5 days was ahead of me, and I knew that my long day would probably catch me up, but I wasn’t sure. Two years before, when I walked the Camino del Norte, I’d somehow gotten myself very off stage and was in a strange “in between” zone for about 3 days. I’d met tons of great people over two weeks of walking, but suddenly I was alone in albergues and seeing no one on the path, and I guess I didn’t want a repeat of that here, on the Chemin.

After another breakfast of toast and yogurt and fruit and coffee, I set off. The morning was clear and blue and cool. It was the most beautiful morning so far, and I think I must have walked with a smile on my face. I passed churches and little stone chapels, fields of sheep and lines of cows.

I was walking through the Aubrac Plateau, an incredibly unique and- for me- completely unexpected landscape of the Chemin du Puy. It also had a special kind of energy, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Later, I would hear pilgrims say that it was their favorite part of the walk (mine, too), that some could feel great weights being lifted from their shoulders, others could do nothing but cry under the great and open sky.

There is a bit of a mystical legend associated with the area; in 1120, a pilgrim named Adalard was on his way to Santiago and was attacked but, surprisingly, was left unharmed. Because of this he vowed to build a monastery on the site, so that future pilgrims could find a place of safety and comfort. He did build the monastery- the Dômerie of Aubrac- and the friars decided to clear the forested land around it in order to breed sheep, for cheese (these sheep eventually gave way to cattle, which are now famous for this region). And this land, cleared by the friars of a monastery built by a pilgrim in the 12th century, remains a plateau: wide and open and expansive and a little wild.

I could feel that there was something special going on in this land. I didn’t feel a great weight lifted from my shoulders or break down in tears; for me it was something different. I smiled. I couldn’t stop smiling, in fact, I was laughing and dancing and spinning in circles as I walked down the trail. I felt so happy out there in the sunshine and under that big, blue sky. My legs pumped with incredible energy and I didn’t want to stop walking.

It’s this kind of feeling that I love when I’m on these treks: an unexpected day or moment, when the sun is shining and a wind is blowing and the air feels perfect on my skin. The landscape opens up and I’m all alone, and I’m walking strong and fast and sure. I’m free but I’m grounded, I can see all the way to the horizon and I know that all I have to do, my only task, is to continue walking as far as I can see.

I took a few breaks during the day but mostly I just walked, and walked, and walked. I felt good for nearly the entire day, up until the last few kilometers, and then a little fatigue set in. But soon the path was twisting and began to dip down and further ahead I could see a small village, with a church spire and a few buildings and a tower.

I didn’t connect the dots immediately- not until I walked into the village and stood at the base of the tower and saw other pilgrims. “Oh,” I thought to myself, “I’m staying in something called La Tour des Anglais… but I didn’t realize it was actually going to be a tower.”

It was. But before I could even step inside I saw so many people that I knew: Nassim (the kind man who gave Hilary and I some cherries a few days before) ran over to me and excitedly told me that he’d seen my name on the list of people staying in the tower, and that I was assigned to a bunk in his room. Then I saw the Quebecois couple, Paul Andre and Chantal, who I’d briefly met at a rest stop. With them was Therese, and coming down the stairs was Marie-Lou. (Aside from Nassim, I hadn’t actually learned everyone’s names at this point- they were all familiar to me but only just beginning to become the people I’d get to know on my walk).

I figured out how to check-in and pay for my bed and dinner and breakfast, and then finally made it up to my room. I couldn’t get over it- I was staying in a tower! A tower built in the 15th century and now serves the pilgrims who pass through on their way to Santiago. I wound up the spiral stairs, into a cavernous room with thick stone walls and picked a top bunk (the only beds left) by the window. I stuck my head out the window: below me were pilgrims milling about, to the left was the church, ahead were fields and countryside.

After the usual chores I walked over to the restaurant where we’d be eating that night, and sitting outside on a small terrace were the two French women I’d shared a room with a few nights before (whose names, unfortunately, I never learned or else have forgotten). They waved me over and soon we were joined by Katherine, the German woman, and the four of us sat and drank wine and talked about the day. We spoke in French, but the two French women made an effort to speak slowly and clearly (and I’m just now realizing how much of a difference this made for me- nearly everyone I met on my walk was so kind, but not everyone spoke slowly or clearly and often that made it difficult for me to understand).

There was a group of 9 of us for dinner: the four of us were joined by Nassim (a Moroccan man living in Belgium), Marie-Lou (a French woman in her 60’s), Jerome (a French man probably in his 30’s/40’s), Georges (a French man in his 60’s, who I’d sat next to at dinner on our first night in Le Puy), and Irmhild (a German woman in her 50’s). We spoke French, but because Irmhild, Katherine and I weren’t fluent, the conversation was slower and easier to follow, and sometimes Nassim would jump in and speak English.

And it was such a good, good night. Aside from the two French women, the rest of us were doing the Chemin solo, and I think it’s special to find a group of other solo walkers to spend time with, especially walkers who haven’t really hooked up with a group of their own. It made me feel less isolated, less uncomfortable speaking French or not understanding the conversation. I felt like I was folded into the mix: I asked Georges questions about the other Camino’s he’s walked and he was so happy to tell me his stories. Nassim poured us all more wine, Irmhild laughed and taught me a few German words.

I marveled at how different this evening felt that the previous two: the night before, when I didn’t know anyone in my gîte and ate a restaurant alone, and the night before that, when I was surrounded by people but felt quite alone.

After dinner I found a quiet corner in the bar area of the restaurant and wrote in my journal, and by the time I headed back to my tower the sun had just disappeared behind the horizon. The sky was full of soft hues: the lightest pinks and blues and purples. I went up to the top floor of the tower- as high as I could get- and leaned out the window.

A girl in the top room of a tower in the French countryside- it was like a fairy tale.

I smiled. Just like I’d been doing all day, I smiled.

Paris of My Dreams

August 4, 2017

I arrived in Paris in my hiking clothes: long green pants that zip off at the knee, a t-shirt over a tank top, my good socks, my sturdy and quite worn in shoes. I wore my pack, too, and over my right shoulder was a small duffel bag, all the extra clothes and items I’d needed for the writer’s retreat I’d just left.

I felt just a little strange, and nervous. My walking stick, which I’d carried for the last 34 days, had been left behind at La Muse; tucked away in the corner of a basement room where, hopefully, I might be able to find it again. My loaded pack felt heavy, though it was a weight that I had gotten used to just weeks before, as I hiked through the Chemin du Puy. Already, I was out of practice.

But I wasn’t in Paris to be a hiker or a walker, was I? I thought that maybe I was here to continue my writer’s retreat but I wasn’t sure about that, either.

All I knew were, well, three things:

1. I missed those full days of walking, and part of me wished that instead of a week in Paris, I had organized a week long trek somewhere new and exciting.

2. I missed La Muse. I missed Homer and the way he would bound up to me and then bound away, dancing in a circle when he knew we were going for a hike. I missed, already, my room with the big window and the view of the mountains, I missed the friends that I’d made, the little writer’s community we’d formed.

3. I love Paris. I really, really love Paris.

But why was I spending a week in the city, alone? What was I going to accomplish here? I already know Paris, at least I know the things that tourists know: where to get a hot crêpe and what the view from the top of Notre Dame looks like, how to find the room with the Van Gogh’s in the Musée d’Orsay and how to open the door of a car on the metro.

I’d spent time in Paris at least a half dozen times during the year I studied abroad in Toulouse, and in the last 4 years, have spent between 1-4 days in Paris every summer. It’s become a regular thing, a mandatory swing through Paris when I’m in Europe. Sometimes all I have to do is buy a baguette and walk down the streets of the Île de St Louis and come upon Notre Dame and stare up in wonder.

Now I was in Paris and I had an entire week and I wondered: am I going to continue to be in love with this city? Am I going to become restless? Will I wish I were somewhere else?

Here are the answers: Yes. No. No.

My days in Paris didn’t exactly have a routine, though I suppose in some ways, little ways, they did. I’d wake up between 7 and 8am, though sometimes if I was awake in the 6 o’clock hour I’d roll out of bed and walk onto my balcony to see if there was a good sunrise. Several times, there was.

Once I was up for good I’d spoon some coffee into the little stove top expresso maker and then take a shower, toweling off just as the coffee was ready. There was a small fridge in the “kitchen” of my place and on my first day I’d stocked it with some essentials: yogurt, fruit, cheese, meat. I’d have a small bowl of yogurt with my coffee and flip through a guidebook and come up with ideas for the day.

Around 9, sometimes earlier, I would set out. The city is quiet in the morning, even at 9 many places are just beginning to think about opening, the tables start to go out in front of the cafes, brooms sweep leaves and trash off the pavement and sometimes I’d pass men or women hosing off the sidewalk in front of their shops. Trash trucks drove up and down the streets, bottles would crash and shatter as recycling bins were emptied.

Usually, the first thing I’d do was stop for another coffee, or a croissant. I found a few cafés that weren’t traditionally French but featured pretty decent coffee, and a few cafés with mediocre coffee and a lot of French charm.

After coffee I would always head off somewhere, walking through the streets, never using the metro (not in the morning, anyway). I went to art museums: the Musée d’Orsay, Espace Dali, the Musée de l’Orangerie, the Musée Rodin. I explored the arrondissements, the neighborhoods: the 5th, the 3rd, the 14th, the 17th, the 6th and 7th, the 3rd and 4th, the 20th. The Latin Quarter, St-Germain, Montparnasse, the Marais, Montmartre.

And more. I walked everywhere. I almost don’t want to write this because it seems absurd, but on two separate days I walked 20km through the city. 20km! Around and around and around.

But I used the metro, too, I love the metro. Even in the summer when it is hot down there in those winding corridors, when the smell is so distinct, it’s a smell that screams to me: “This is Paris. THIS is Paris.” But the metro can take you anywhere, and on the streets you will always find one, there seems to be one at every other turn.

I went to bookshops, and I bought books. I read books, too, in back rooms of the cafés, with a noisette or a flat white (the coffee that is taking over Paris, apparently), and I’d sit and arrange myself on a wooden stool and I would open my book and read.

A few times, I met up with friends: for dinner in a bistrot, for a picnic by the Seine, for a glass of champagne to celebrate my birthday. We shopped for picnic supplies in La Grande Epicerie, a place I’d never been to before and I went back two days later to pick up food for lunches or dinners on my balcony: double crème brie, eggplant and yogurt dip, octopus and prawns and mussels marinated in olive oil, crispy baguettes, fresh raspberries.

I discovered new places: a covered market where I bought hot fries in a newspaper cone, a street market that I walked up and down three times, just to watch the vendors and listen to the sounds. I bought a bottle of wine from a little shop, a chunk of cheese from another.

Parks and cemeteries and canals and squares: I spent a lot of time in outdoor spaces. Jardin du Luxembourg (twice, because it was a 15 minute walk from my apartment), Père Lachaise (twice, because the first time I got turned around and had to leave to meet a friend before I could find Oscar Wilde’s grave. I’ve seen it before- two or three times at least- but it’s like a visit I have to make whenever I’m in Paris. I’m not even sure why, because I’m not a particular fan of Oscar Wilde… I just know that I have to do it). And what else? The Canal Saint-Martin and the Promenade Plantée, the Place des Vosges and the Place de la Contrescarpe. Parc de Belleville.

So many things, all of this and more. But I also spent time in that little apartment of mine- for afternoon catnaps and a glass of wine in the evening, sitting on my balcony and looking out over the rooftops. At 10pm, and again at 11 and again at midnight, thousands of lights on the Eiffel Tower flash and blink, the tower sparkles for 5 minutes and I could see it from my balcony and every night I was home I would stand outside and watch.

Home. That apartment and even Paris, a little bit, began to feel like home. My friend Alex, an Australian writer I’d met at La Muse last summer, moved to Paris in March. She signed a 6-month lease but always intended to stay for at least a year, and when I talked with her about it, her eyes started to shine. “If I can swing it, I want to stay for at least 2 years, maybe 3.”

I asked her a lot of questions about what it had been like to move to Paris, to live in Paris, if the language barrier was a problem, if the cultural barrier was a problem. She told me about a French course she took, how she connected with other expats, her favorite things to do, the site she used to find her apartment.

And I began to dream. What if I could do this? I have an entire life somewhere else but the thing is, I’ve been dreaming about Paris ever since I was 20, from the moment I first laid eyes on the city. And Paris, after all this time, is still a beautiful dream. It’s the city of my dreams.

7 different people asked me for directions during my week in Paris; some of them were tourists but some were French, one- an old lady- might even have been a Parisian. I could only give an answer to one of them, a French guy, and I answered with a smile and with an assurance. I’d understood his question, I knew where we were and where he wanted to go, and I could give a response, in French.

After a week in the city I was beginning to feel like I knew where I was, where I was going. Could I ever have more time like this? More than just a few days, more than a week? Could I live here for a few months, half a year? An entire year?

In my dreams, yes. And if I continue to write and work and aim high and big, if I take chances and with a little (or a lot) of luck, I might just be able to live out my dreams.

But, that’s one of my castles in the air and it’s a beautiful one but for now I’ll be grateful for what is right in front of me: the magical week I just spent in a city that I love, the work it took to get myself there, the chances that I’ve already taken in life, the persistance of my dreams for where they’ve already taken me.

And Paris will always be there. Whether for a few days or a week or a month, a year or a lifetime; it will always be there.

You Get What You Need: Day 5 on the Chemin du Puy, Les Estrets to Aumont-Aubrac, 8km

July 17, 2017

Today, I only walked 8km.

This was all according to plan, but I have to say that initially, I was not pleased. 8km? That’s less than what I typically do after work when I walk around my neighborhood. And this was a day on the Chemin!

But I was doing it out of necessity. One of my previous posts mentioned the trouble around Nasbinals, the town that was hosting a road race for hundreds or thousands of people who had taken all the hotel/gîte rooms.

So my solution around this was to do a really short day, and stop in Aumont-Aubrac, where I had been able to find a bed in a gite. And the following day, I would walk 35km to make up for the shorter day. Now that was the part of the plan I liked: a long day, a physical challenge.

8km, on the other hand, would pass by in the blink of an eye. I tried to linger- I really did- I savored a second cup of coffee, I took a long time lacing my shoes, I was the last to leave my gîte in the morning.

And as I walked, I stopped to take photos and to try to enjoy the view. But my feet felt restless, and I was distracted. When I arrived in Aumont-Aubrac, what in the world was I going to do? I was going to have the entire day at my disposal, I was all alone, and all I really wanted to do was walk.

I was deep in these thoughts when suddenly the boy in the red shirt with the big pack appeared at the side of the trail. There was no avoiding him this time- he started walking just a pace behind me- but I wasn’t in the same mood as the day before. I decided that I might as well say hi and try to be friendly.

It turns out that he wasn’t French afterall- he was German and his name was Sten, a name that means ‘stone’. Even though he could speak English we spoke in French, and I found that I didn’t mind. In fact, I kind of enjoyed it: our levels were pretty evenly matched, and it was so much easier to speak with him than with a native French speaker. We both made mistakes and often had to search for the right word. He spoke slowly and I could understand him easily.

Sten had to catch a bus in Aumont-Aubrac at 9:40am; he had already walked a couple of the upcoming stages so he was going to skip over the sections he had already done. This meant that he had to walk fast in order to catch the bus, but I was able to easily match his pace. It felt good to stretch my legs like this, to move quickly down the trail, to talk easily with the person at my side.

The only downside of walking with someone like this was that I arrived at my destination by 9:20am. We went to a cafe and Sten bought me a coffee, but before I knew it he was standing and shaking my hand and saying how nice it had been to meet me, then was running off to catch his bus.

I watched him go, and then smiled. The interaction had been just what I’d needed, just enough to shake me out of my loneliness over saying goodbye to Hilary, enough to bring me back into the world of the Chemin. And as I sat in the cafe, I watched as people I knew filtered in and out. They came over and said hi, Pierre sat with me while he waited for Stephanie, the young Quebecoise girl. Katherine, a blond German women who had been in the samegîte as I had the night before, talked to me about how out of place she’d felt at dinner. “Really?” I said. “You looked so comfortable.”

“I wasn’t,” she replied. “I try to speak in French but it’s really hard.”

Eventually they all left, on to other towns and other gîtes (most of them had found beds in a gîte that was a bit off the main path of the Chemin. I’d tried to get a bed there as well, but had been too late).

I walked around the small town to get my bearings. It wasn’t a large place, just one main street with several restaurants and shops, a main square full of cafes, a church, a park. I found a boulangerie and bought a sandwich to eat for lunch, I stopped by an epicierie to load up on snacks for the next day.

In the park I settled into a picnic table in the shade, opened up my guidebook, and mapped out a plan for the next several days. I made phone calls too (this was one of my least favorite parts of walking the Chemin; calling ahead to book gîtes meant that I not only had to talk on phone, something I don’t even enjoy doing in English, but I had to speak in French which was still kind of nerve-wracking).

I looped through the town a few more times and then around 1:00 decided to see if I could get into my gîte. I was suprised to see that the door wasn’t locked, and that in the hallway on the bottom floor was a note that said to leave my shoes and pack downstairs, and then go upstairs to see which bed I had been assigned to. The hospitalera would be by in the evening to take our money and stamp our credentials, and in the meantime there were notes and signs all around, instructing us on what to do.

The gîte was perfect. Sometimes on the Camino and on the Chemin you get just what you need, and this had been happening to me all day. The place was clean and bright and modern and spacious. We were in a narrow apartment building and the gîte was spread out over three floors. Above the entryway and downstairs hallway was a floor with a sitting room and the kitchen, along with a couple of bedrooms. And the floor above was where I was staying. There were several rooms up here, too, and I was staying in a room with four beds. Since I was the first to arrive in my room, I could have my pick of beds, and I discovered that my room was actually split into two spaces. One had three beds, and another- behind a curtain- had one bed and a little desk by a large window. It’s like it was meant for me! Maybe it was.

The bathroom was large and clean, there was a rack to dry my clothes outside on the small balcony (set up in the sunshine), there was a fridge where I could keep my fruit and yogurt, there was an outlet right next to my bed where I could plug in my phone. This was gîte paradise.

The rest of the day was slow, relaxing, restorative. The other three beds in my room remained empty, the other pilgrims never showed up. The hospitalera, when she arrived, was so kind and helpful; she gave me the names of other gîtes along the way that she thought I might like, and gave me some advice about the trail for the next day. I met another pilgrim who was also staying in the gite- a guy from the Netherlands who had been carrying a big guitar down the trail. In the afternoon he played for us, slow Spanish flamenco music, the sound filled the rooms and floated down the hallways and out the windows and I was so relaxed I almost fell asleep in my chair.

There was no demi-pension at the gîte so in the evening I went out to one of the restaurants nearby. I wanted something simple so I ordered a goat cheese salad and a glass of wine and I should have known that my salad would be anything but simple: there was the goat cheese over toasted bread slices, yes, but also tomatoes and corn and carrots and peppers and lardons and grilled onions and slivers of garlic.

After dinner I walked through the town again, just to stroll through the streets and stretch my legs before bed. I found my way to the church, stained-glass glowing, empty pews, a line of lit candles and I added my own, giving up a small prayer of thanks for the day, for getting what I needed, for feeling renewed and refreshed and ready for what would come next.

And there goes our shuttle; Day 4 on the Chemin du Puy, Le Sauvage to Estrets, 21km

July 14, 2017

Here is the image that stands out the most from Day 4 of the Chemin du Puy: standing next to a small chapel in the middle of nowhere, waving our arms wildly at the shuttle hurtling down the road, watching as it passed us by without even slowing down. This was Hilary’s ride back to Le Puy.

But let me back up for a minute. We started our morning in Le Sauvage, eating breakfast after nearly everyone had already finished and headed off for the day. We were in no hurry because Hilary’s shuttle wouldn’t arrive until 11:10am. We would have to walk just a bit- 4km- to the place where the shuttle made its pick-ups; usually shuttles come to the gites, or some central place in town, but since we were in the middle of a field and the only roads were gravely and sandy, the man at La Malle Postale (luggage delivery and shuttle service) told me that the pick-up was 4km away, at the Chapelle de St Roch.

I’d made the shuttle reservation before leaving for France, and then confirmed it in La Malle Postale’s office in Le Puy at the start of our journey. So I wasn’t really worried unil we we met a couple who were also lingering over breakfast. The woman told us that they were also getting picked up by the shuttle- at 11:20- but their pick-up was at the gîte.

This seemed a bit strange, and Hilary and I laughed about that fact that she was going to walk for an hour, only to be picked up by a shuttle that would most likely be taking her right back to where she’d started walking an hour before. But we shrugged it off and walked on, and finally the morning was cool and almost crisp, the path running through a forest track that was quiet and peaceful and beautiful.

We got to the chapelle an hour early, and had plenty of time to eat snacks and for Hilary’s to rearrange her bag, and to sit and talk about the last few days of our journey together. As 11:10 approached we gathered our things and stood as close to the road as possible. We waited, and waited, and I didn’t start to get really anxious until about 11:15. The minutes ticked past and finally, at 11:20, we saw a white van approaching.

“That must be it!” I said, but the vehicle didn’t seem to be slowing down- in fact, I swear it was gaining speed as it drove past. We waved frantically and I’m pretty sure some of the passengers must have seen us but the driver just stared straight ahead, and we watched as the shuttle faded from view.

I immediately got on the phone with La Malle Postale’s office and didn’t even attempt to speak in French as I explained what had just happened. The guy in the office put me on hold as he made a call to another driver who was out in our area, and luckily, in about 5 minutes another shuttle came by and pulled over to pick up Hilary.

I’m still not sure exactly what happened- later, Hilary told me that the driver of her shuttle said that she was lucky that the office had called him and that he was nearby. That first shuttle was the one she was supposed to be on, and it was clear that the driver had no idea he was supposed to pick someone up (although, two girls on the side of the road waving their arms wildly would have been a good tip off…). Something must have gotten mixed up with my reservation, but with an email confirmation AND an in-person confirmation of the date and the time of pick-up, I have no idea what the mix-up was.

In any case, after a long hug and holding back some tears, Hilary got on the shuttle and I watched as it drove away. And man, did I feel strange and alone. It’s worse than the feeling you get when you leave your walking stick behind: it’s like a vital part of my pilgrimage was no longer with me, and I would have to figure out how to carry on without it.

I wasn’t even totally alone just then- a few minutes before Hilary got on the shuttle, a young guy in a red shirt and large backpack had walked up to the chapel and was taking a break there. After Hilary left I saw him lingering but I waited until he packed up and moved on. I was in no mood to meet someone new or try to speak in French or anything else. I just needed a little time to be on my own and to miss Hilary and to adjust to Phase 2 of my pilgrimage.

To be honest, the rest of the day was… off. I didn’t feel particulary strong as I walked, the day grew hot, I was indecisive. I passed through a town that felt abandoned and strange, and even though I was hungry and needed to pick up something for lunch, I walked past several open cafes, not wanting to go inside. I sat in the shade by the church, knowing I should take off my shoes and rest for awhile, but I felt restless. I saw the guy in the red shirt again and still didn’t want to even attempt to say hi.

Eventually I got myself a sandwich and ate it on bench in the shade just outside of town, and then I kept walking, and the day continued to be off. Right on cue, it seemed, dark clouds suddenly rolled in and I was walking at a bit of elevation and without much cover. I was so focused on the clouds and listening to the rumbles of thunder in the distance that I took a wrong turn and got myself off of the Chemin. I think I was happy to be on a path that was heading away from the clouds and towards a patch of blue sky that I didn’t realize I was no longer going the right way. But the Chemin is well marked and after awhile I realized I hadn’t seen the red and white striped waymarkers for quite a long time. Feeling defeated, I turned around and had to trudge back uphill, towards those dark clouds.

I saw one bolt of lightening and that’s when I got scared. Several days before, Mario had warned me about getting stuck in a thunderstorm and now here I was, alone and off-track with a storm brewing. I found the most tucked away spot that I could and crouched down and waited for awhile, unsure of what else to do. Was it safe to keep walking? Was it safe to stay here?

Finally, when I hadn’t heard a rumble of thunder for several minutes and it seemed as though the clouds were beginning to move away, I started walking. I found the Chemin, I continued on, and as luck would have it, not 10 minutes further down the trail was a shelter made of branches and sticks! There were wooden stumps inside and a sign that welcomed pilgrims and I hunkered down in here until I was sure that the threat of the storm had fully passed.

I was actually fairly close to my gîte and arrived after only another 30 minutes of walking. I was staying in another beautiful spot: a large stone building with a big lawn and plenty of space to hang laundry. There was a cozy space inside to sit and read, and you could “order” a drink and the hospitalera would bring it to you from the kitchen. I was sharing a 4 bed room with two other women, and even though I was probably the last to arrive in the gîte, I still had time to shower, wash my clothes and have a glass of wine before dinner.

But dinner was difficult without Hilary. I think I was feeling sad that she was gone, and suddenly self-conscious about speaking French. I was sitting at a table with such nice people-Pierre, who I’d met the day before- was there, so was a young girl from Quebec, and two brothers, and the kind women I was sharing a room with. But the French was spoken so quickly, the voices jumbling together and it was so difficult for me to keep up, to understand what was going on. I felt isolated, sitting at the end of the table and hoping the meal would be over quickly so that I wouldn’t have to keep feeling so awkward, and out of place.

Mostly, I think I needed a little time to transition into this now solo journey, a little time to adjust to being alone and speaking French and needing to meet people and make friends. I tried to remind myself that it doesn’t happen all at once.

Sleep that night was restful, and in the morning the two women I was with agreed: the way to go was to try to stay in a room without men, to be assured of no snoring! (I know it’s no guarantee, but throughout the night we were all quiet as mice, and it was such a relief to get some sound sleep).

Stay tuned for the next post: no room at the Inn, so I need to come up with a plan of how to walk the next few days AND find a bed for the night.

Previous Post: Day 3 on the Chemin du Puy

Oversleeping and Walking Sticks, Day 3 on the Chemin du Puy, Saugues to Le Sauvage, 19km

July 12, 2017

It’s not easy to oversleep on a Camino/Chemin, but Hilary and I figured out how on the morning of Day 3: share a room with 4 people who begin to get up and pack their things before 5am. Listen to them rustle around, bump into things, whisper in the small room. Finally fall back asleep after they leave. Realize, a little after 7am, that you’d forgotten to set an alarm and because there is no longer anyone else in the room with you, you sleep well past the time you’d intended.

7:15am may still seem early, but I can’t remember another day on any Camino when I’d slept so late. By many accounts, the time we started that day shouldn’t have mattered: we were walking 19km- so not a huge day- and we already had our reservation for the night. But there was one factor that did make this late wake-up a slight issue: the heat.

Somehow, we weren’t actually on the road out of town until nearly 9am. Packing up, eating breakfast (no milk for my coffee, grr), searching for a boulangerie, then an epicerie for fruit… and once we finally got moving, we were sweating within minutes.

“How is this possible?” I turned to Hilary, sunglasses already secured over her eyes. “It feels like we’re walking under a hot, mid-day sun.” I paused to catch my breath, and we weren’t even going up a hill. “This is crazy.”

Much of our walk that day was over a dirt track through rolling countryside and deep green forests. The stage wasn’t technically difficult, but the heat was oppressive, and made every step feel like we were climbing a mountain. We ran our buffs under cold water at every opportunity, we listened to music and show tunes to regain energy, and we stopped for breaks. We stopped a lot.

Our first rest was in one of those spots that seems utterly ideal: just as you’re truding along, wishing that the perfect rest stop could appear, BAM! There it is: a picnic table nestled in the shade. This particular spot had an added bonus- a perfectly straight, carved walking stick was propped up against the table. Hilary’s knee had started to act up and we’d been keeping our eye out for a suitable stick, and now here was one that seemed to be waiting for us.

We looked around for an owner of the stick, we took our time and rested and finally decided that either the stick had been left there accidentally- and by taking it with us we might be able to return it to its rightful owner- or the stick had been left there purposefully, for someone who needed it.

So we marched on, sticks in hand (I’d found mine sometime on my first day- crooked and with some sharp bits and at that point I wasn’t sure if I would keep it or not). More cows, more countryside, and then our second rest stop, a beautiful lawn with cold drinks and umbrella-covered tables and puppies running around. One playful guy got a hold of Hilary’s sock and for a long time refused to let go (he also grabbed onto someone’s walking stick- clearly this dog was meant to be on a pilgrimage).

More walking, more resting, and finally we entered the home stretch- a slight uphill section through a forest path that opened up onto a wide-open field in the middle of hills and forests. It was here that the path wound though patches of wildflowers and down to a massive stone complex; the only building in sight (aside from a lone cottage). This is where we’d be staying for the night, in the Domaine du Sauvage.

The day before, one of the men in our gîte told me to look up the history of this place and read all about it in English so that we could understand exactly where we were staying. Hilary and I tried, but all the information we could find was in French, and it was difficult to understand and follow. About all I could gather was that we were in a massive farm building, whose granite stones had probably weathered hundreds and hundreds of years of history.

Despite not understanding where, exactly, we were, the place still had a powerful and special feeling about it. Maybe it was the sweeping sky, so vast; maybe it was the thick, anciet stone walls; maybe it was that there was nothing else out here, just this large building that was here for us, for the pilgrims on their journey, all of us arriving by foot like we’d been arriving for so many years.

We settled into our room, again waiting for a free and open shower. Once all my chores were done I headed downstairs to the main room/bar/restaurant area to try to make a few phone calls. Hilary would be leaving the next day and I hadn’t thought much beyond these first few days of the trip, the part that I was sharing with her. I needed to chart a course for myself, at least for the next few days, and I needed to call ahead to the gîtes I hoped to stay in, and make sure I could reserve a bed.

But right off the bat, I ran into a few problems. I couldn’t get a cell signal anywhere on the property (everyone else was having this problem too) so I asked a man behind the bar if I could borrow the gite’s phone. Another pilgrim was already using it; she had a notebook and papers spread across a table and was sitting with two other pilgrims, shaking her head with a frown.

“Everything is full!” I heard her say, so I hovered nearby and then starting asking questions. It turns out that she was trying to make reservations not for the next night, but for the following one- Saturday- and she couldn’t find anything. There was a big race being held in Nasbinals, a medium-sized town where many pilgrims ended their day’s stage. I’m not sure how many runners were registered for the race, but I heard the number was in the thousands. Not only was everything in Nasbinals booked up, but so were all the gîtes and auberges and hotels in all of the surrounding towns and villages.

Hmm. I borrowed the phone and made my reservation for the next night and decided to worry about what to do on Saturday later.

Dinner that night was much better than the awkwardness of the previous night, in Saugues. Earlier that evening I’d met Pierre, a French man who had just retired and was walking to Santiago. When Hilary and I found seats at an empty table, Pierre asked to join us. Two older French women also came to the table, along with another American- Stephen, from St Louis (he would be the only other American I’d meet on my trip).

It was a good group. There was a mix of French and English, and a lot of laughter and hilarity. And the meal was another good one (as they all would be): vegetable soup, a beef ragu and potato casserole, a cheese plate with three different selections (the sheep’s cheese was the best), an almond cake (that I couldn’t eat because of my nut allergy but I heard it was delicious). Bread, of course, and wine.

Hilary and I stayed up to watch the sun set; we ate gummy candy and compared notes on the day and I thought about how much I would miss her when she left the following morning. Even though I’ve been doing these Camino’s and treks mostly solo, it had been such a joy and so much fun to be with my cousin. There was so much laughter and encouragement and odd moments and joyous singing and shared misery and I wondered what this trip was going to be like without her. I was happy to be entering into a new phase of this pilgrimage, eager to tackle some big days and capture that pure feeling of freedom that only standing totally alone under a big open sky can give me… but I was suddenly nervous, too. I hadn’t even said goodbye and already I was overcome with such a bittersweet feeling: that happiness to have shared something big and amazing with one of my favorite people, the sadness with having to say goodbye and continue on alone.

But that’s been such a big part of these Camino experiences for me, hasn’t it? Being together, being alone.

We couldn’t hold onto the night forever so we gathered up our notebooks, collected our laundry that had dried completely in the hot sun, and tip-toed up to bed.

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Why is it so hot? Why are we still going up? Day 2 on the Chemin du Puy, Combriaux to Saugues, 17km

July 9, 2017

Even though I’ve done this walking thing many times before, it still takes a few days to get into the rhythm of the pilgrim life. I woke up on Day 2 feeling a little disoriented; our room had been hot during the night, and at some point in the night I had flipped myself so that my head was at the foot of the bed, and closer to the window. Once we woke up, we had to tiptoe through the other rooms with sleeping pilgrims in order to get to the bathroom, and we packed our things as silently as possible

And then downstairs to another pilgrim breakfast in France. These breakfasts would all look the same: coffee or tea or hot chocolate, bread and butter and usually at least 3 flavors of jam (many of them homemade), yogurt and sometimes fruit. Once I had a fresh croissant brought over from the boulangerie two doors down (this wouldn’t happen until nearly the end of my trip, and oh what a good morning that was!). I really loved the breakfasts on the Chemin, bread and butter and coffee are my preferred breakfasts at home, too, and it was such a treat to come downstairs every moring and have a spread laid out for us. Unlike on other Caminos, I never had to walk before my morning cup of coffee (well, actually, I had to do this on my very last day but you’ll have to wait for that story).

So after fueling up and rearranging things in our packs, Hilary and I headed out for Day 2. The morning was soft and beautiful, and the beginning of the walk was stunning: we were headed into the hills, climbing above the clouds and looking out onto views that stretched over the countryside.

There was another beautiful view that I loved seeing France, but one of a different sort than the sweeping landscape: the WC. France nails it with their public bathrooms; not only would you sometimes come upon a little shack in the middle of the trail (usually not much more than a toilet, but it’s still a good option), but in so many of the small villages and towns you would always see a sign pointing you towards the nearest WC. Some of these toilets were, ah, quite adventurous, but I appreciated them all.

Our morning was wonderful, and despite the increasing heat, Hilary and I were both in really good spirits. After about 5 or 6km we stopped in the small village of Monistrol-d’Allier for a coffee and a snack; this would be just before starting a long and diffficult ascent and fueling up seemed like a good idea.

We ran into Mario, our French translator and fellow pilgrim from the night before, and he told us about the amazing sandwiches the cafe could prepare for us to take along. He held up a wrapped sandwich that was roughly the size of his head. “Local goat cheese with a carmalized onion and fig compote,” he said. “You don’t want to miss this.”

Hilary and I were both already a bit loaded down with food; we’d picked up Babel cheeses wrapped in wax that could last the journey, as well as little sausages and a loaf of day old bread. Suddenly, our lunch options didn’t seem so appetizing, and we made what I think might have been one of the best decisions of the trip: to buy the sandwiches with fresh and local ingredients. (Later, we spread out on the grass for a long picnic lunch and those sandwiches were, indeed, the best sandwiches I’d ever tasted. It helped that we’d walked a long day and were hungry, but then again we were also in France, where the food truly is top notch).

Our packs now even more weighed down, we began our ascent. The guidebook we were using (along with all the French) was the Miam Miam Dodo. It breaks down each stage into detailed sections and shows either a green, orange, or red line (going up, down, or flat) to illustrate the difficulty of the grade of the route. Green is easy, orange is tougher, red is difficult. And very quickly, we came to regard the red line (especially a red line going up), as the enemy.

We began a nearly 4km stretch of ‘red up’, and remember, this was during the European heat wave. We were drenched in sweat within minutes. We criss-crossed on the trail in order to find tiny sections of shade. Water breaks were only taken in the shade. The buffs came out, and for the first time on any Camino, I discovered the momentary delight of running the buff under a cool stream of fountain water, then wrapping it around my head.

But despite the heat this continued to be a good day. Other highlights included: stopping in a chapel carved into the rock of a hillside, our first walk alongside a line of cows, a kind man resting in the shade of a tree who gave us cherries, the wooden carvings lining the entrance to Saugues- our destination for the evening. The day’s walk was only about 17km (but with the ascents and heat I wouldn’t call it an easy day), but it meant that we had time for long, leisurely breaks, and still arrrived to our gîte an hour before it opened.

But once we did get inside, we discovered that there was only one shower for 8 pilgrims (this, too, would become a theme of the trip). There was a lot of waiting around in our sweaty clothes, a storm rolled in and cooled off the air a bit, and once we were finally cleaned up we headed into town to explore and find some ice cream.

Dinner that night was, in a word, awkward. I don’t even know if it would have helped much if my French were stronger; the combination of people around the table was not a good one, and there were a lot of long silences. Then, when dinner was over and the owner of the gîte was trying to arrange a breakfast time, there seemed to be a tense moment. The group of 4 pilgrims staying in our room were pretty insistent on ther 5:30am start time (the only time I would see anyone leave this early on this Camino), and the owner of the gîte didn’t want to serve breakfast that early. There was a lot of back and forth that I didn’t completely understand, but it was finally understood that we’d all help ourselves to breakfast, whenever we decided to get up. (All the while, in the background a radio played 90’s soft rock and sometimes I’d just disengage from trying to understand the conversation and instead tune into Whitney Houston and Celine Dion).

Hilary and I escaped once dinner was over and headed back into town for a pre-bedtime glass of wine, and when we returned to the gîte we sat outside with the kind dog, watching the day’s light fade to black, strains of soft rock drifting through the air.

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Called Back to the Camino: Why I Keep Returning to Spain, and Why I Keep Returning to the Camino de Santiago

March 13, 2017

“I was called to the Camino.”

This is something you hear a lot, when talking to people about the Camino.

Something else I’ve heard is this: “Once you’re called to the Camino, you can never un-hear it. That call will sit with you- maybe for years- and not go away until you answer it.”

Was I called to do the Camino? Maybe. I’m not sure. I suppose I was, because the Camino wasn’t some random trip that I happened to show up on; it was purposeful and planned and I was really, really excited for it. But my purpose for walking the first Camino wasn’t necessarily about the Camino, not exactly. It was more about doing something big to move myself forward and out of the sad place I’d been in.

But when it comes to feeling called, I can say with certainty that I felt called back to the Camino. And not just once, but twice. Well, three times now, if you count my upcoming plans to spend a few weeks on a Camino route in France this summer.

What’s this all about, the call to return again, and again? Why do I love the Camino so much?

Longtime readers of the blog will have already caught onto the answer- maybe never explicitly stated- but the one that has come through all of my writings and ramblings and notes from the road. And that answer is… I love to walk.

And more than that: I love the people on the Camino. I love the community. I love the coffee and the wine. I love spending all day outside, moving.

This stuff all seems fairly simple and straightforward but there’s something important in here. The combination of all of this- the walking and the community and the coffee and the wine and the wind and the sunshine and the movement- it all comes together and when I’m on the Camino I feel like I’m the best version of myself.

I didn’t realize this would happen when I took my first steps out of St Jean Pied de Port, and it wasn’t the goal of my walk. My goal was simply (or, maybe, not so simply) to get to Santiago, and- more loosely- to begin to rewrite the future I had envisioned for myself at that time. To do this, I thought it would be good to have a direction to move in, and the Camino provided over 800 kilometers of just that: a clear direction.

But as I walked, I discovered something, and it happened quickly. Within only a few days I became so comfortable on the Camino that I felt almost at home there. I was sleeping in a different village or town every night so it surprised me how strong this feeling of belonging was, but it was undeniable. I felt like I belonged there, walking straight through Spain under a hot and heavy sun. I felt like I belonged.

Who knew I would love to walk so much? There have been hints throughout my life: hours spent riding my bike as a kid, all alone, pedaling in loops through my neighborhood, daydreaming and staring up at the trees. Later, long walks through my neighborhood, long walks on the beach, a curiosity about hiking.

But still, I’m not exactly an outdoorsy sort of person, and I’m absolutely not a risk-taker. Now, there’s a small amount of risk associated with the idea of walking 500-miles across a country, but the Camino isn’t exactly for thrill-seekers. We’re on a pilgrimage and it’s amazing and soul-searching and spiritual and inspiring and energizing and sometimes very difficult but, at the end of the day, we’re walking.

We’re walking. All day, every day. Sometimes a section of the path or a day’s route could be described as hiking, and when I’m of mind to try to impress someone I might call it ‘trekking’ but honestly, what we’re doing is walking.

And I’m good at it. I laugh because I’ve discovered that one of my strongest skills is something I mastered shortly after turning 1. Sometimes I wish what I were doing was a little more exciting, like: I run marathons! I go rock-climbing! White water rafting! I surf! I sing in front of rooms full of people! I do stand-up comedy!

But no, I walk. And it’s exactly, perfectly, the thing that I want to be doing. I learned on my first Camino that I didn’t tire easily, that I could just keep going and going. I’ve had bad days, days that were a struggle, but on the majority of my days on the Camino, I was in love with the simple act of walking.

So I return to the Camino because I feel alive being outside all day, moving my body. But it’s not just the movement and the walking, because I can do that easily enough at home, can’t I?

It’s the community of the Camino.

This is important for me, because in order to be the best version of myself, I need to be around people. And not just any people, but people who light me up and inspire me, people I connect with. I have a lot of these people in my life but they’re not in my day-to-day life, and I crave that. So maybe that’s another reason I keep returning to the Camino- to meet these people, day in and day out. To find that connection of the soul. To find my people, my community. It’s an ever shifting and changing community but it’s there: I’m walking alone one minute and then the next I find myself sharing ideas and hopes and dreams over a glass of wine with a fellow pilgrim. It’s kind of neat how that works.

And the thing is, in my real life, I’m kind of shy and very much an introvert. I’m this way on the Camino, too, but I get my introvert time by walking mostly alone, and the shyness? It gets snuffed out after several days of meeting new people and having conversations and being out of my comfort zone. At my core, I’m a really friendly person who loves knowing people- it’s just that the trick is, I have to go through the process of getting to know someone. The befriending. And right now, in my life, that feels like such a long and daunting process for a shy introvert. But on the Camino, it all happens so fast and maybe it’s because of the nature of the walk, or maybe because I’m feeling like I’m one of the best versions of ‘Nadine’ I can be but whatever it is, it all comes together. I make friends, I meet people whose souls connect with my own. (To this point, I sometimes wonder if the best shot I have at meeting a man I might think to marry would be to find him on a Camino. But that’s another post for another time).

So this combination- the walking and the connection (not to mention being able to sleep on a bed at the end of the day, all of the great coffee and wine and fresh fruit, the experience of another culture and a different place, plus the spiritual aspect of the walk)- this combination keeps me coming back for more. It calls to me, again and again. It tells me that I belong out there, I belong there in ways that I haven’t fully belonged in many of the other places of my life. Something keeps pulling me back- it’s happiness and discovery and love and life and feeling so fully alive.

I know that a lot of pilgrims have felt this after their Camino, and I know a lot struggle with this upon coming back home. How to keep these feelings alive? How to continue to live your Camino even after the Camino ends? But that, too, is another post for another time. Right now, I just want to think about the reasons I love that dusty path through Spain, all of those paths that lead to Santiago, all of those people walking those paths, everyone moving in the same direction and me, right in the fold of it all. Maybe I still have a lifetime to keep returning to the Camino. Maybe I’ll just never stop walking.

Walking through the Pyrenees, Camino de Santiago

First day on the Camino, walking through the Pyrenees.

Memorable Moments of 2016

December 30, 2016

I always get reflective at this time of the year. For years I would journal on the very last day of the calendar year, looking back and reminding myself of all that I’d done (or hadn’t done), what went well in the year, what hadn’t. And then I’d set my sights forward, making lists of goals and resolutions and plans. A new year has always had a touch of magic to it: I still love the idea that I’m starting from a blank slate, that I hold the pen that writes in the story of my next 12 months.

But before we can get to the future, lets look back at the past! I’ve never written a ‘best of’ post, have I? In any case, I’ve been thinking about all that I’ve done this year, and I thought it could be fun to do a round-up here on this blog, going month to month. There were some things that went wrong, maybe some months where it felt like I didn’t do too much, but I’m going to keep this post happy and positive. These are my memorable moments of 2016, along with some of my favorite photos. (And, in case you don’t make it to the end of this post: a great big thank you to all of you. I’m still astounded that there is anyone at all who reads this blog, much less people who have been coming back for years now. My blogging slowed down this year, but I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. If anything, I want to make blogging a more regular part of my routine for 2017, so I hope you’ll stick around).

January

I kicked off the year in Washington DC, a place I visited multiple times in 2016. I have several very good friends who live in or around the city and so I find myself there a lot: for art museums, baseball games, concerts. And I ended the month in Fort Royal, Virginia, where I met up with a friend for a winter weekend of wine tasting. But aside from these trips, the month was cold, and quiet. I made a few trips into Philly to hunt down the city’s best coffee shops, but otherwise I was tucked into my apartment and doing the tough, but gratifying work of writing my memoir.

February

Another cold, winter month and the few photos I took reveal simple activities: I wrote, I hit more coffee shops, I baked bread, I went on a few long walks when the sun came out.

March

More walks! More coffee! Art museums in Philly are pay what you wish on the first Sunday of the month, and at least once I year I get into the city to see my favorite works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This year I waited in a long line to get free tickets into the Barnes Foundation, a museum that holds an extensive collection of post-impressionist and early modern paintings. It’s an outstanding collection, and I can’t think of a better way to spend a winter Sunday than in the gallery of an art museum.

This month also held my first big trip of the year: a four-day camping excursion on Cumberland Island in the state of Georgia. It was an adventure, to be sure: I’d never been camping on my own before, and never for more than one night. I bought myself a new sleeping bag, a little camp stove, and loaded up my car and drove 12 hours down to Georgia. I took a ferry out to the island and crossed my fingers that this camping thing would work out. And it did. The weather was stunning, I explored all over the island, saw wild horses and armadillos and the ruins of old mansions.

April

The weather began to get nicer this month, so I took advantage and was outside as much as possible. I went on a far-too-long walk along the Delaware & Raritan Canal (I think it was about 18 miles? My feet were throbbing at the end and I had a small blister forming on the ball of my foot but it was a good to get back outside), spent a weekend in Frederick, MD with good friends, spent time with my family and kept chipping away at my writing.

May

I usually love the month of May but this year it seemed like it rained constantly. Did the sun come out at all? My pictures show beautiful days only at the end of the month, when I drove out to Cleveland over Memorial Day weekend to visit my sister. When it wasn’t raining I spent as much time as I could at my local park, hiking on the trails and getting ready for my summer adventures.

June

The end of work, baseball games, beach trips, hiking, a bridal shower for a good friend. And at the very end of the month, I set off for my 7-week summer in Europe, which I kicked off in Bath, England. I spent a day wandering through the city, finding my travel legs, and hanging out with Jane Austen.

July

It’s hard to pick the highlights from the month of July: on the 1st of the month I was at Stonehenge, on the 31st of the month I was dragging myself into Oviedo to finish the Camino de San Salvador. In between I had three mostly glorious weeks at La Muse, the writer’s and artist’s retreat in the south of France. If I had to pick a favorite moment from the month it would probably be sitting up at Le Roc with Homer, looking out over the mountains surrounding Labastide.

August

Look how dirty my leg is!!

Lots more walking to do this month! I started things off with 9 days on the Camino del Norte, then spent a week in Scotland, hiking the West Highland Way. Both trips were incredible, but by the end I felt ready to come home and spend the last month of summer with family and friends.

September

I checked an item off my bucket list this month: I officiated the wedding of two good friends! Afterwards I joked that I might make this officiating-weddings-thing a side-gig (anyone need someone to marry them?), but all joking aside, it was an incredible experience. The rest of the month was about transitioning back into work and enjoying the fading days of summer with long hikes and a couple trips to DC.

October

My mom and I took a little trip up to Concord, Massachusetts to see Walden Pond and (most importantly) Orchard House, which is the long-time home of Louisa May Alcott. I wasn’t supposed to take any photos inside but when no one was looking I snapped a photo of the desk where Alcott wrote Little Women. It’s my favorite book of all time, and after the trip I felt re-energized and excited about getting back into my own writing.

November

November had a couple weekend trips: one down to Maryland and Virginia and West Virginia- with a quick hike in Shenandoah National Park and a visit to Harper’s Ferry, and a day trip up to NYC to reunite with a couple friends from my summer at La Muse. There was election day madness and a relaxing trip home for Thanksgiving, and lots of walks and hiking as I took advantage of some mild fall weather.

December

This has been a quiet month. I’ve seen friends, baked lots of cookies, and spent the holidays with my family. Since my summer travels I’ve really struggled to get back into my writing, but I think I’ve set myself up with a good plan for the next few months. I’m ready to get into a new year, and I’m ready to see what I can accomplish in 2017. 2016 was, overall, a fine year, but now it’s time for something even bigger and greater.

Happy New Year, my friends, and I will see you all soon!

The End of a Long Walk; Day Five on the West Highland Way, Kinlochleven to Glen Nevis, 24km

December 17, 2016

August 17th was my last day of walking on the West Highland Way, which was exactly 4 months ago. 4 months! This is absolutely the most delayed post I’ve ever written.

I was just looking through my photos from those last days in Scotland, and in some ways I feel like I was just there, but in other ways… it feels like those memories are from another life. This tends to happen, especially in these cold, winter months (I’m currently sitting on my couch under a heavy comforter listening to the ping of freezing rain against my window). In the Scotland photos I’m tan, my hair is lighter, the world is green and the sun is shining brightly. Everything is warm and light and free and fun- very much the opposite of the time of life I’m in now.

There are moments of fun in these months- indeed- so maybe it’s just this transition to winter that always gets me a bit down. These are short, dark days- we are in the very shortest days of the year right now, and I can feel it. The cold has blown in too, and I can feel myself resisting all of this. I still want to be outside in a t-shirt, hiking loops on the trails in my park, driving with my windows down, making smoothies and planning camping trips.

I’ve resisted settling into these dark, cold winter days, because this time of the year, for me, is synonymous with work and discipline and routine. The end of my summer travels was so much fun, and I found that for months afterwards I wanted to hold onto that feeling. I still want to hold on to that feeling, but just as equally, I want to begin again with my writing.

So here’s what happening, over here: I’m missing summertime. I’m dreaming of travel plans for 2017. But more than either of those, I’m finally beginning to accept that winter is here. And that it’s time to write- to really write again.

And what better place to begin than at the end? My last day on the West Highland Way was, by all accounts, the ‘easy’ one. It was the shortest distance of the trip, clocking in at only 24 kilometers (which, following days of 30, 32, 31, 35km, felt like a breeze).

But maybe I was a bit too confident heading into the day: I felt so relaxed that I didn’t prepare as I normally would, by meticulously examining my guidebook and planning stops and lunch breaks. So, an hour into my walk, when I stopped for a moment and paged through the guidebook to see where I was, I realized that I wouldn’t be passing through any villages, the path wouldn’t take me by an Inn, there would be absolutely no places to buy food.

Whoops. I’d eaten another hearty breakfast that morning- a huge bowl of porridge, two slices of toast, a container of yogurt and a lot of coffee- so I didn’t need to worry about my food situation right away. I was totally stocked up on water and I had some leftover snacks tucked away in my pack so I just kept walking, because, well, it was the only thing I could do.

It was another stunning day: bright sunlight and a clear blue sky. The walk started with a steady climb out of Kinlochleven, but soon the path leveled out and the walking was mostly even, with only short ascents and descents for the rest of the way.

I walked steadily for hours, stopping a few times for short breaks, or to examine old stone ruins, or to take off my socks and air out my feet. After about 20km (and a mere 4km from the end of the day), I was too hungry to continue so I hopped up on a large rock and dug through my bag, searching for any bit of food that I could find. I had one apple, three Oreo cookies, a small and rather stale packaged croissant, and half a bag of dried cherries that I’d bought in Santiago. I ate it all, and then continued walking.

Even though the walking that day wasn’t too difficult, I felt ready to be done. I walked swiftly through the last kilometers, ready to find my hostel, ready to take a shower, ready to sit down for a large meal. 100 miles (many of them difficult) in 5 days wasn’t easy. I don’t wish that I’d done it any other way: I loved the challenge, I loved those really long days of walking, I loved how strong I felt.

But I was also tired. And I was at the very end of my trip- not just the Scotland part, but the whole thing: Bath, London, Paris, Labastide, Madrid, Leon, the San Salvador, the Norte, Santiago, Glasgow, the West Highland Way. It was almost time to go home, and I was ready for the comforts of my apartment, the ease of daily life, the familiar faces of my family and friends.

My hostel wasn’t technically at the very end of the West Highland Way- it was in Glen Nevis, a small hamlet in open countryside, about a 45-minute walk from Fort William. The official end of the West Highland Way used to be in Glen Nevis- just off the side of the road by a round-about (and there is still a sign to mark this), but in recent years the “end” was moved into Fort William, so walkers would have to pass directly through the bustling commerce and tourist shops of the main street in town.

In any case, when I arrived at my hostel, I felt as though I had arrived at the end. The next day I would walk into Fort William but for now I was happy to find my bunk, wash my clothes, and eat a good meal. I was happy that I’d decided to stay in the Glen Nevis Youth Hostel- it sits directly across from the entrance to the path that leads up Ben Nevis, Britain’s highest mountain. The hostel building was old and quirky but the rooms were clean, the bunks seemed new, and I found a private bathroom down one of the hallways that had a lock on the door and a pristine shower.

This was the first time that I had to share sleeping quarters with other people on the West Highland Way, but I found the people staying in the hostel to be an interesting mix. After eating dinner at restaurant down the road, I came back to the hostel and settled into the lounge area, to try to do some writing. I only got a few sentences in when Tony, a wiry Londoner in his 50’s, began talking to me. He was in Glen Nevis with a few of his buddies- his friends were taking on the challenge of climbing three mountains in 24-hours and Tony explained that they were currently climbing to the top of Ben Nevis. “I’m their driver,” he explained. “See this radio here? They’ll signal me when they get to the top, and then I’ve got to be ready with the car as soon as they descend. Then we drive off to the next one.”

While he waited, he made me a cup of tea, saying that I had to have it prepared in the proper, British way (with cream and lots of sugar). Sitting with us in the lounge was a Norwegian man who was trying to convince me to climb Ben Nevis the next day (a lot of people staying at the hostel were there to climb the mountain), and an American woman who was tired of driving on the “crazy Scottish roads”.

This felt like the most I’d spoken to anyone in days, and it was nice to be surrounded by friendly people. But, strangely, I was the only one there who had walked the West Highland Way. This cinched it- most people on the West Highland Way were campers. If I were to do it again (and be guaranteed to have stunning weather), I would love to try camping. But as it is, having a roof over my head and a mattress to sleep on is still a very nice luxury at the end of the day.

My original plan had been to walk the West Highland Way in six days. I’d needed to change that because of availability of places to stay along the way, so I cut the walk down to 5 days. This left me an extra day in Glen Nevis/Fort William, and before beginning the walk I thought that I might like to climb Ben Nevis. But sitting in my hostel that night, sipping my sweet tea and listening to tales from the other travelers, I knew that I was done. My body was tired. I could summit that mountain another time- and besides, I hadn’t come to Scotland to climb a mountain. I’d come to walk the West Highland Way, and I’d done a good job of it.

Tony’s radio buzzed and he leaped into action. Before running out the door he raced over and gave me a big hug. The Norwegian man asked if he could have my walking stick. An American girl from Arizona asked what the West Highland Way had been like. I smiled at her. “It was an adventure,” I said.

“You’re looking awfully casual for a walk like this” (it’s only walking); Day 3 on the West Highland Way, Inverarnan to Bridge of Orchy, 31km

October 27, 2016

There is pumpkin bread in the oven, outside it’s pouring rain. Red, wet leaves are everywhere now, they’re blanketing the ground and coating my kitchen window. It’s autumn, maybe the most autumn-est day of the entire season so far. Horror movies run in marathons on TV, tomorrow night is Game 3 of the World Series. The end of October is a great time of year.

And speaking of time, I think it’s about time that I wrote more about Scotland. I can’t believe I’m still writing about this trek- or, more precisely, that it is taking me so long to write about these days. I’m not sure why, but it seems as though the further we move away from the summer, the more difficult it is to remember my long days of walking on the West Highland Way.

I’ve been afraid that I would just stop writing about it altogether, and never finish telling you about my adventure, but that doesn’t feel right. So I’m back at it, and maybe if I’m lucky I can finish telling you about Scotland before we ring in a new year.

We’re on Day 3. And it was a magnificent day. 31 kilometers and I think the walking wasn’t too difficult (See? I can’t remember! Was I tired? Exhausted from the days before? Did the small hills feel like mountains? Or was I gliding along?). All I really remember is that this is the day when I finally felt like I was in the Highlands, or at least the Highlands of my imagination. I’d finally moved away from that lake of epic proportions and was now among rolling hills and green earth. There were cows and sheep, a sky that looked like a painting, crumbling stone walls and an old cemetery.

Aside from the stunning scenery, the highlight of this day might have been my lunch stop. I walked off the trail and went just a bit out of my way to find a little family-run coffee shop that was housed in an old church. One end of the room had a small gift shop full of handmade crafts and the other side had wooden dining tables with tiny vases of fresh flowers. I sat at a corner table and ordered a cafe mocha, a grilled cheese sandwich and a small salad. The service was slow but I didn’t mind; I had nowhere to be and all day to walk and this little café/church was the perfect place for a good, long break.

When I finished I went up to the cash register to pay, and noticed a counter filled with trays of pastries. A hand-written sign said that the pastries were all fresh and homemade, so I picked out a thick slice of lemon drizzle cake, that I asked to have wrapped up.

“That’ll be the perfect snack when you need to get out of your car and stretch your legs,” the woman behind the counter said, handing me my cake.

“Oh I’m not driving,” I replied. “I’m walking the West Highland Way.”

The woman gave me a long look and tilted her head to the side. “Really? You’re looking awfully casual to be on that walk.”

I looked down at myself. What could she have meant? I was wearing my hiking shoes and long green hiking pants and a long-sleeved black t-shirt. I was dressed like a hiker, at least I thought I was. Maybe West Highland Way hikers didn’t often find their way to this café? Maybe when they did, they looked different?

The woman chatted with me for a few minutes and then I was on my way again, back out into the sunshine and the warm air, up into the hills and past fields of cows. I was energized by my espresso drink, full from my meal, satisfied to have all day to walk in a beautiful place.

I rolled into Bridge of Orchy, my destination, sometime in the late afternoon. Bridge of Orchy is described in my guidebook as a tranquil hamlet nestled in the foothills of two mountains. The village is nothing more than a train station, a hotel, a few houses and I walked all the way through and was headed straight out of town when I realized that I must have passed my lodgings for the night.

I’d reserved a bed in a bunkhouse at the train station. I knew I’d be sleeping at the train station, and yet, when I crossed under the tracks, I walked right by because I couldn’t figure out where, exactly, the hostel was located. But I made my way back, walking up onto the platform and peering through the windows of the long, narrow building that sat between the tracks. I tried a few doorknobs; they were locked. Then I saw an opened door and went inside, to find a crowded and messy room. There were old couches and newspapers and books scattered about, shelves of packaged food and a basket to collect money.

I called out ‘hello’, thinking someone might be in the back room, but the place was deserted. I went back outside, circled the building once more, and then- because I had already walked through the village and hadn’t seen a soul- I sat down on a bench to wait.

As I sat on the bench at the empty train station, eating my lemon drizzle cake, I had the thought that I was waiting for a train that would never come. But after only 5 minutes I heard voices, and then I had one of the stranger encounters of my trip.

Three old men walked up, they each had a bag dangling from a hand- one had a small canvas bag but the other two had large and tattered plastic bags. There were all wearing t-shirts, old jeans, beat up sneakers.

I looked up at them eagerly as they walked by. “Excuse me,” I said. “Do you know how to check in here?”

They slowly turned to me as if they hadn’t realized I’d been there all along. One of the men spoke. “We’re walkers,” he said.

“Yeah, me too.”

The men all stared at me for a moment, and then they kept walking down the platform. One of them called back, “But we’re walking the West Highland Way.”

Huh. I couldn’t understand what was going on, but maybe it was best not to. A few minutes later another old man walked up, but this one had a set of keys in his fist and came right up to me and asked if my name was Nadine.

“Strange day,” he said to me as he led me into a room with two sets of (three-tiered!!) bunk beds. “Last night we were packed, but tonight there’s hardly anyone. You’ll be the only one in this room.” The three old men were staying in a room further down the platform (and to be honest I was a little relieved), so I found myself, yet again, with a room of my own.

I ate dinner in the bar of the Inn down the road; it was a beautiful white building and my table had a big leather chair that I sank into and the room was warm and cozy. I ordered a hamburger and fries and a couple glasses of wine (and paid three times as much as I would have in Spain but who’s counting?), and while I was eating a man from California came over to talk. When he found out I was hiking he fired dozens of questions at me, not seeming to understand that I wake up in the morning and just start walking. “You don’t have a bike?” he asked. “You don’t take a train?”

He invited me to join him and his friend for some whiskey but the sun had set, the sky was a dark shade of blue and I had a 10-minute walk back up to an empty room in a deserted train station. I politely declined his offer and he walked away, and then a local woman at a table across the room began talking to me. Under the table and at her feet was a big white dog, and she told me that she overheard some of my conversation and wanted to know how my trek was going. She asked how many days it would take me and when I told her 5, her eyebrows shot up in surprise.

But she quickly recovered. “I walked it with my girlfriends,” she said, “And it took us 7 days. But 5 days is fine, my husband did that.”

I told her that I was worried about tomorrow’s walk- it would be another long day and there were two difficult stretches but her reply was instant. “Don’t worry, you can do it. They call it the ‘Devil’s Staircase’ but it’s really not that bad. And just think, all you’re really doing is walking, right? It’s only walking.”

Yes, it’s only walking. Sometimes it’s uphill, sometimes it goes on for hours and hours and hours, sometimes it’s muddy or rocky or smooth or rough, but at the end of the day, it’s only walking.

So I walked myself back up to the train station under the light of a near-full moon, opened the door to my private room and crawled under the covers of my bottom bunk.

It’s only walking, and I love it.

The Last, Perfect Camino Day; Day 9 on the Camino del Norte (Miraz to Sobrado dos Monxes, 25km)

August 31, 2016

Warning: this is a long post. I think this is what happens when I write after the Camino ends, when I’ve had time to think about my days and reflect on all that happened. So maybe grab a cup of coffee or a glass of good Spanish wine and read about my last day on the Camino.

It seems like each time I do a Camino, I have one perfect day. Or, a day that’s just all-around so good and I feel so happy that I don’t want to even think about it too much- I just want to be in the day, in each moment of it, soaking it all up. On the Camino Frances it was the day I walked into Burgos; last year, it was the day on the Primitivo when my friends and I cobbled together some food and ate in the garden of the albergue under a setting sun.

And this year, it was my very last day on the Camino. How beautiful is that? It seemed like good Camino symmetry, that I’d had a rather difficult and isolated time overall, until the very end. And the very end felt magical.

All three of these ‘perfect days’ have something in common: I spent them with people whose company I truly enjoyed, people who I felt connected to. This makes me laugh, because I spend so much time alone on these Camino journeys; walking alone is important to me, facing challenges alone makes me grow, being happy and content with my own company is something I admire about myself.

But in the end, I need people. I think we all do.

My last post left off in the albergue of Miraz, where I’d eaten a hearty pasta dinner cooked by an Italian woman and eaten with a table full of new friends. I woke in the morning knowing I wouldn’t get an early start- the hospitaleros prepared a simple breakfast for us that they began to serve at 7am, so after a couple cups of strong coffee and a large stack of jellied toast, I didn’t set off until well after 7:30.

From my seat at the table in the albergue kitchen, I had watched the light change out the window. At first a dark, almost navy blue that slowly shifted and thinned, turning pale and then pink and orange tinged at the horizon and it was a perfectly clear, pastel colored sky.

I sat watching this sky in the albergue, wanting to be out there, walking, but at the same time content to sip my coffee and crunch into another piece of toast and make groggy conversation with the pilgrim sitting across from me. I almost felt like I was beginning to master something on this Camino (though in reality I’ve probably still got lots of work to do): I was able to just be in the moment, letting go of expectation and control of how I thought things should go or how I wanted them to go. I had learned to let go of worry or stress, and to just sort of take each day for what it was going to give me. I’m still frustrated that I got sick on my Camino, but if there was one take away, it was that everything felt so much easier once I started to feel better. And that I was reminded that feeling and being healthy is maybe the thing I’m most grateful for; if I have my health then I’m able to walk, I’m able to enjoy the food on the table in front of me, I’m able to smile and talk to a stranger. I’m able to be alive in the world.

So for the end of my Camino, I felt so settled into my days, accepting of whatever they would look like: if I would be alone, if I would make a new friend, if I would fly through the walk or if I would feel the burn in my legs. I had no need to make my last day into anything- to frantically fill it with all my favorite things, to make sure I drank Rioja wine or to have a cafe con leche break, to ensure that I would walk alone, to walk to a beautiful sunrise, to arrive at an albergue at any given time. Maybe I’d have these things and maybe I wouldn’t; it was okay.

This is a long way to open a post about my last day, but I’m reflecting on it now because I think my attitude probably contributed to how beautiful this day turned out to be (and it’s a reminder of how I try to keep living, back at home… it’s awfully hard but I’m trying).

When I did finally leave the albergue, full of coffee and bread and the warmth of the hopsitaleros and my new friends, the walk was beautiful. The day was beautiful: it was barely 60 degrees and a strong wind was blowing and the world around me felt a little wild, and free. And by extension, I felt a little wild, and free. I was alone for most of my walk, facing forward but also turning around to catch the sun reaching over the peaks of distance hills. The light was golden and cast long, deep shadows across the reddish dirt and rough stone. I walked, sometimes feeling like I was gliding, being pushed along by the wind.

And as I approached my destination, Sobrado dos Monxes (after a 25km walk), I didn’t feel sad or anxious to try to capture the last steps of this year’s Camino, to savor each one. I just felt… good.

Just before the small town of Sobrado is a small lake, and sitting off to the side along a stone wall was a big group of Spanish teenagers and a few young adults. One of them flagged me down, and began speaking quickly. When I told them I spoke English, another came over to translate. “Do you know where we are?” he asked. They wanted to know where I had come from- they were walking in the opposite direction, not on the Camino exactly, but maybe on a scouting/camping trip. I mentioned the names of towns I’d seen as I walked, and pulled out my guidebook and pointed at a map, to help them orient themselves.

I walked away feeling satisfied that someone had asked me for direction, knowing that I felt sure about where I was, what was behind me, where I was going. I walked a few more steps and saw two pilgrims sitting on a small dock at the water’s edge. They were two English guys who I’d seen a couple times the day before; we chatted for a few minutes- they were killing time because apparently the albergue in Sobrado didn’t open until 4pm. It was almost 1:30 at this point but I didn’t want to linger too long, I wanted to get into the town and find a restaurant where I could get a good meal. One of the guys nodded and said, “Natalie passed by about 15 minutes ago, so she’s just ahead of you.”

I grinned as I walked away, pleased that this pilgrim had linked me together with Natalie, even though I’d only met her yesterday. And I was pleased that she wasn’t far ahead of me. I’d known that just about everyone I’d been in the albergue with the night before was planning to stay in Sobrado- the albergue is in an old monastery and there were over 100 beds available for pilgrims. So I continued walking and I arrived at the monastery to read a sign posted on the door: the albergue had been open until 1:30, and would reopen at 4:00. I checked my phone for the time- it was 1:38. I had just missed a chance to drop off my pack and claim a bed, but in keeping with the theme of the day, I wasn’t bothered by it. I noticed a German man who I’d met briefly the morning before, and for some reason- even though he hadn’t stayed in the Miraz albergue with us and I didn’t even know his name- I considered him part of our group of solo walkers. I grinned and shrugged at our bad luck and said, “Lets go find some lunch.”

We went back to the main square of the town, looked around, and I picked a bar that had a large black board propped against the wall, listing some items from the day’s menu. After using translators on our phones to decipher the food choices, we ordered and took glasses of wine to a table outside. No sooner had we settled in than Natalie, Silvia, Michael and Matthias walked up (they had made it into the albergue before 1:30). They laughed and cheered when they saw us, and we all crowded around the table, then moved inside when the wind started blowing over chairs and knocking over glasses.

My food came out first, and it was then that we realized we had stumbled onto something great. This wasn’t just another Spanish bar with bland lettuce and watery tomatoes, fried slabs of meat, hunks of white bread. I’m sure there are restaurants like this in larger cities on the Camino (I’ve even been to a few good ones), but this was a hidden gem in a small, dusty town. On the outside and on the inside, it looked like any other bar, maybe a touch more modern, a touch more clean. But the food! The guy bringing out our dishes was the chef, and he owned this restaurant. He was young and full of energy and ideas. He could speak some English (which I hadn’t encountered much), and explained that his menu evolved; he aimed to use the freshest, most local ingredients, and so he cooked with whatever was available and in season.

And it was evident in the food that we ordered. My salad wasn’t a normal ‘ensalada mixta’: the lettuce looked like it had been picked sometime in the last hour (and maybe it had; it took awhile for the food to get to us). The tomatoes were the right color of red, there were thin slices of radish and a broiled cheese that I couldn’t identify but the flavors burst on my tongue and I scraped up every last bit. My next dish was mounds of smoked salmon piled on top of an avocado mousse and layered on thick toast and there was so much I could only finish it because it was so good.

I’m not totally sure of what everyone else was eating because I was so absorbed in own meal, all I know is that everyone was raving over the quality of the food. I saw some sort of pulled pork, and long plates of deep green padron peppers. We drank glasses of wine, and then more glasses of wine. When the chef came to ask us if we wanted dessert, we rubbed our stomachs, looked at each other, and asked what he was making.

I ordered his personal recommendation, in English he called it “cream cheese with jelly”, but even he knew that this description didn’t do the dish justice. “Just try it,” he said. “It’s made with ingredients unique to Galicia, and it is the very best.”

And it was. After dessert we ordered coffee, because there’s nothing like a strong shot of espresso to end a really long and really good meal. We thanked the chef countless times and raved over his food and he urged us to come back later that night. (I’m kicking myself for not noting the name of this restaurant; my google searches are bringing up nothing).

Just as we were leaving, I noticed the two English guys I had passed on my way into Sobrado. One of them- the handsome, blond one with long hair pulled back into a knot at the back of his head- was paying at the bar and I decided to walk over and talk to him. I did it without giving it much thought; he had caught my eye and I wanted to say hi. I was feeling good from the weight of the wine and the fullness of my meal, from the soft morning sunlight and the wild wind, from the freedom I’d felt as I walked and the confidence I had at the end of this journey through Spain.

We stood at the bar, talking, then moved outside to where his friend was sitting, then all walked together back to the monastery. We stood in line together and waited to check in, talking about the day’s walk, about where we lived, about our ideas for the future. I was so distracted by the conversation, by the English guy’s light blue eyes and his nice smile that it wasn’t until we were almost at the front of the line that I realized I had left my walking stick behind.

My stick! You guys know how much my walking sticks mean to me on these Caminos, and this year was no exception. I’d found the stick on my second day of the San Salvador and it was different than the sticks I’d carried on my other Caminos but I’d learned how to carry it so that it fit into my hand perfectly, I learned to love it. I couldn’t believe that I had gotten distracted by a guy and left it behind. I was about to turn around and go retrieve it, but then I realized that I didn’t need it anymore. My walking was done, the stick had fulfilled its purpose, I was going to leave it behind that day anyway. (I did go back later to look for the stick, but it was gone. And that, despite knowing I was going to leave it behind anyway, made me a little sad).

I’m amazed that I don’t have a good photo of this year’s walking stick. So here’s another shadow photo.

We got our beds and I showered and a French woman I’d never met before asked if I wanted to share the washing machine with her so I didn’t have to hand wash my clothes. While my clothes were washing I walked around, exploring the monastery. I couldn’t quite believe that I was staying here on my last day of Camino walking. It was my kind of place. Old and nearly abandoned, crumbling and decaying, vines growing through empty windowpanes, the flap of pigeon wings echoing around the vacant spaces. In many ways it was sad to see this beautiful, imposing building left to rot, left behind. But it was also quietly beautiful, more beautiful to me than so many of the gilded and ornate churches that dot the path of the Camino.

The rest of the afternoon and evening went by too fast, and I wanted more time. Time to run my errands and wander through the town. Time to write postcards to my friends and family, time to explore more of the monastery, time to talk to my new friends. I was able to do some of this, all of this, but I wanted just a bit more. More, and yet, what I had was enough. A big group of us did go back to the same restaurant where we’d had lunch, we ordered several bottles of wine and plates of tapas and stayed until just before 10:00, and then we had to rush back to the albergue before we got locked out.

At some point in the evening, Natalie asked me if I was sad that my Camino was over, that I couldn’t continue on to Santiago. And you know, I surprised myself a little that my answer was ‘no’. It would have been wonderful to continue on for two or three more days to Santiago, to try to stick with the group I’d found, and with the people I was continuing to meet. But a few days into the San Salvador I’d known that I couldn’t walk all the way to Santiago this year, and despite my recent connections, I was okay to say goodbye that night. The entire day had felt surrounded by a haze of that ol’ Camino magic- and I was happy. Content with the way I’d walked, excited about a new adventure to come, but mostly just focused on the beautiful place I was in at the moment, the beautiful people surrounding me.

Walking back to the albergue under a half moon and the fading light of the sky, my friends before me, I thought to myself, “This is the perfect end to a Camino. I don’t need anything else.”

Somewhere in Spain, Walking and Coughing; the first 2 days on the Camino Del Norte (Salinas to Cadavedo)

August 4, 2016

I’m sipping a cup of tea in the little kitchen of the albergue in Cadavedo right now; this albergue is old and worn, small and basic. The kitchen is a sink and some plates and utensils, but there’s also one of those things that heats up water, and several boxes of leftover tea. Perfect for me with this lingering cough. And with a long wooden table filling the room, the perfect space to catch up on some writing.

I’m two days into the Norte now (two walking days that is), so lets backtrack to where I was yesterday morning. I woke up in my hotel room in Oviedo, and I felt… still not great. But I didn’t want to sit still any longer and I figured I’d try to walk, just to see how it would go. There’s no way I have enough time to make it to Santiago- I did the San Salvador in 5 days and not 4, like I originally thought I would, and I lost a day due to being sick (plus I’m going to have an extra day in Scotland because of flight logistics, which took off yet another day off of my Camino-ing). So basically this means that I need to do some trimming, and I thought that the best place to begin would be at the beginning. My guidebook has this to say about the link between Oviedo and Aviles: “… this is not the most pleasant of walks- you’ve only just passed the industrial outskirts of Oviedo before joining the highway into Aviles…”. So yesterday morning I took a bus from Oviedo to Salinas, a small town about 7km past Aviles, and began walking from there. But before I could start walking, I was instantly stopped by two young Germans, sitting on a bench. “Do you speak English?” the girl asked me. She and her friend had gotten off track, and worried that they had lost the Camino.

I had just stepped off the bus and hadn’t quite figured out where I was yet, myself, but together we figured out the route. I let them walk ahead of me because almost right away, I could feel that walking was going to be a strain. Not as bad as the day into Oviedo, but I wasn’t feeling as good as I hoped. The day was sunny and bright- thank goodness no rain!- and while I knew I wasn’t far from the coast, unfortunately this day’s route didn’t allow for even a glimpse of the water. The day felt uneventful and long, though that was probably because I still wasn’t feeling well. Mostly I just wanted to arrive at my destination. I toyed with the idea of trying to find my own room again, knowing that getting good rest was still so important, plus I didn’t want to bother anyone with my coughing. But in the last few kilometers I didn’t really care if I had my own room or if I was in an albergue; once again, I just wanted to arrive.

And when I did arrive, to El Pito, where my guidebook promised there’d be an albergue and a couple pensiones, there was “no room at the inn”. The woman running the “albergue” (I’m not sure what it was, more like a hostal and it wasn’t just for pilgrims I don’t think, and it took reservations and it was sort of expensive), she wasn’t very helpful. She just sort of looked at me and said, “sorry” and told me that I could just keep walking to the next town with an albergue, which was 12 kilometers away. At this point it was already after 4:00 and I wasn’t feeling well and the thought of another 12 kilometers just made me want to sit down. There was another pilgrim there- who had made a reservation- who tried to help me, and I was so grateful for it. She sort of bounded over to me, stuck out her hand and said, “I’m Marcia Jane, from Germany” and then we sat on the ground and looked through her phone for ideas of where I could stay. It was good to be in the company of another woman, and someone who was kind.

We didn’t find much, though both Marcia Jane and the owner of the hostal thought that I could give the camping sites a try. And I started to walk towards them- in the opposite direction of the Camino, under a still burning sun- I walked and walked and then thought, “What in the world am I doing? I don’t feel well, and I don’t even have a tent. I don’t want to do this.”

So I just decided to keep following the Camino. My guidebook said there was a hotel in another 2 kilometers, and when I arrived there, lo and behold I found an available room. Hurray!! This place was in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing else around, but I had a room and it had a bed and much like the day when I walked into Oviedo, I took a shower, washed my clothes, and then fell alseep.

Middle of Nowhere to Cadavedo

As I slept in that big hotel room in the middle of nowhere, Spain, I had strange dreams. Or maybe they weren’t so strange- I dreamt that I was back at my apartment, then back at my parents’ house for a few days. It was a little reprieve from the Camino, just a little time to rest up and figure out what to do. It’s what I had fallen asleep thinking about- if I continue to feel sick, if I continue to be isolated, do I want to keep going? And if not, where do I go, and what do I do?

I woke up this morning feeling as though something had shifted. I definitely wasn’t totally better, but I felt like I had a bit more energy, and that was definitely true as I walked. Not my normal Camino energy by any means, but I didn’t feel like I was dragging myself along quite as much.

It was a long day, 34 kilometers, but there weren’t many (or any!) options on places to stay until I arrived in Cadavedo. The walk was bookended by brillance- I walked just at the edge of gorgeous, secluded beaches, a sprinkling of sunlight falling through the tree branches, just enough to make everything feel like it was glowing.

But in between? It felt like 30 of the day’s kilometers were under a gray sky, on a narrow track that was advertised as the coastal route, but which stayed too far from the coast, and always up up up and then down down down. Then repeat. And repeat. And repeat. There’s beauty around me, I know there is, but it’s been harder for me to see it. Everything feels a little harder than it used to be.

This Camino feels different. I’m not even sure what I’m comparing it too- I wonder if it has anything to do with just starting in the middle, feeling as though I’ve been plucked down into something totally foreign and strange. Or that I haven’t figured out how to belong here yet, but since I’m here I have to just go, but I don’t really know what I’m doing. I see a few clusters of pilgrims throughout the day, and everyone smiles and greets each other, but I’m not part of anything or anyone. I don’t know these people, not yet. Many of them already know each other. Or maybe I’m still in the mindset of the San Salvador, where there were no other pilgrims, it was just me and the path and that was different, but ultimately, it was good.

In any case, when I arrived to Cadavedo, I was worried that the albergue would be full. It had taken me the full day to walk, and I arrived at 4:30 (which is a bit late in the day, especially when there are lots of pilgrims on the path). When I rounded the corner, following a sign for the albergue, the only building I saw looked old and faded and my first thought was, “Oh no, this albergue has closed.” Turns out, it’s just an old building. There were some young Spanish guys sitting out in the back and a woman washing her clothing in the yard, and when I went upstairs I saw a sign posted that the hospitalera would be back at 6:30, and to take a bed in the meantime.

There were several beds open (and the albergue never filled up) but despite being around other pilgrims, it was still a very quiet night. The Spanish guys kept to theselves, and there were only a few others. I chatted with Yoko, from Japan, and later with a girl from Madrid, but everyone mostly did their own thing.

Was it like this for me last year? I’m trying so hard to remember. Somehow this feels very different to me, but last year, there were definitely evenings when I felt rather alone, or when I shared an albergue with people I didn’t know. And besides, I’m not feeling well! Of course that throws everything off- the walking, the eating, my connections with others.

So, everyone, that’s the recap on the last two days. Definitely a different sort of Camino experience for me- one that’s more challenging, not quite as fun, not quite as carefree. At least for now. But you know, as I was walking today, I asked myself, “Would I rather be home?” And I think of the dreams I had last night, of how nice home would be, just for a few days. But only a few days, and then I would be restless, knowing that I had more of summer to be off exploring and having adventures.

These days are adventures- maybe not the sunny, laughing kind (fingers crossed those come soon), but they’re important adventures to me all the same.

The only peregrina on the trail; (Poladura to Pajares, 15 km)

August 1, 2016

It’s the end of day 3 and I’m in my own sweet room above a bar in the town of Pajares. My double doors open to a small French balcony that overlooks the spire of the church, and beyond that, to the rugged peaks of the mountains. Mountains that I passed through earlier today.

I’ve been tucked up in this room for quite awhile; aside from lunch downstairs at 3 (the standard three courses with wine and bread; the food wasn’t exceptional but it was just what I needed), I’ve been up in bed, staring out at my view, taking advantage of the wi-fi. This is the town where the albergue is closed, and even though I arrived early, I took my chances with the room above the bar. I’m glad I did.

I think I might be battling another small cold- this has not been the healthiest summer for me! It’s not enough to stop me from walking, but just enough to make me feel drained by the end of the walking day… more drained than usual. So maybe it’s a good thing that this is truly a sola Camino, that I can stay alone in albergues and private rooms and try my best to rest up and recuperate.

I was, indeed, alone last night. I had the fleeting thought that it might be a bit scary to to be all alone in a big and empty building, but I was too tired to worry much. I went over to the inn to pick up my dinner, which was all packaged up for me to take back to the albergue. An appetizer of chicken wrapped in puff pastry, a first course of salad, a second course of paella, fruit, wine, bread (8 euros!! Gotta love Spain). For all my worries about not having enough food, I’ve been totally fine. There was even a coffee machine in the albergue so I could have my shot of caffeine before leaving this morning- perfecto.

Today’s walk was splendid. This is what I came to this Camino for. I left Poladura and immediately began to climb into the mountains, and for the next 10 km, I went up and down and around, on wide tracks and small dirt trails, though meadows of high grass and wildflowers every color of the rainbow. These evenings may have felt just a bit lonely, but to have the path all to myself during the day? I feel lucky, grateful, blessed. As ever, I think to myself, “How did I manage to get my life to this point? To be walking precisely here? Amid this beauty? To have it all to myself?”

The guide I have says not to underestimate the challenge of the first 10 kilometers out of Poladura; the trail is remote and rugged and it took the authors just shy of 6 hours to walk the 10 km. Me? It took me about 3. But the weather was perfect and once I got going I didn’t want to stop. My pack didn’t feel as heavy today- maybe I’m getting used to the weight- or maybe I was too awed to notice my fatigue.

I slowed a bit towards the end, during the last 5 km descent into Pajares. One moment I was standing above the clouds, and in the next, I was moving down towards them… then into them, through them. The path wove through a forest and it was dark, eerie, and with the sun now gone there was a chill on my skin.

And the weather has mostly stayed like this- when I look out my doors I can see the mountain peaks framing the village, but they are hazy. I’ve hung my laundry up to dry, but I think my socks will still be damp in the morning.

That’s all for now; a quiet night following a spectacular day. I’ll take it.

(One extra note: I actually wasn’t the only pilgrim on the trail. 4 Spanish hikers, men probably in their 50’s/60’s were also staying at the bar. And since writing this post I’ve heard of a few others behind me, all guys. But maybe it’s safe to say that I’m the only peregrina- female pilgrim- on the trail for now.)

You Can Always Come Back: Blue Skies and Final Days

July 21, 2016

Yesterday, I was thinking about how long it had been since I’d seen a cloud in the sky. It feels a bit as though my entire time here has been under a perfect blue sky, and that is nearly true. But then I remember the last thing I posted here, how the weather was chilly, and I remember that yes, there were clouds. There was wind, there was a cool stretch.

It feels so long ago, that first week when I was settling back into life in a small French village in the mountains, remembering how things are done, relearning how to do them, discovering that some things aren’t the same at all. I finally felt settled, another week passed, and now here we are, almost at the end.

How is it possible that my time at La Muse is almost over? It makes me feel a little panicked, and I think, “There’s so much I haven’t done.” It makes me feel a little sad, and I think, “When will I come back again? Will I ever come back again?”

I even thought about canceling my Camino, and just staying here. But it’s impossible- the rooms are all booked, which is great news for La Muse and probably the right kind of news for me, too. As much as I want to stay here and never leave, I also want to settle into the next thing… which happens to be Spain and tapas and lots of walking.

I still have four solid days here, and in addition to my regular brainstorming sessions at Le Roc, the long hikes, the chats with the other residents, we also have an “excursion” down to the ruins of a Cathar Castle (we’re tacking on a lunch in a Michelin starred restaurant, too!), and a concert and all-village fête on Saturday night. Tomorrow Vera leaves, so tonight we’re all meeting on the terrace for a goodbye drink. Last night we had a reading, two nights before we had more goodbye drinks for Kelly.

There’s a really good group of residents here, though I have a feeling I might say that about nearly any group that spends time at La Muse; everyone here is creative, and serious about their creativity. But then you have a great and unpredictable mix of the rest of our personalities: introverts and extroverts, loud and quiet, soft and hard, vibrant and calm. On a few nights I’ve stayed up until the bitter end, talking and singing and laughing with those who remain on the terrace, long past the time when the stars have appeared in the sky. Usually I’m in the “second wave”, not leaving first, not staying until the end. But some nights I slip out as soon as my dinner is finished, the last sips of wine drunk. I sneak cookies upstairs- we’re not supposed to have food in the rooms- and I read a book or write in my journal or work on my story.

The work I’ve gotten done here has been difficult to measure. The bulk of my book is written, I think, but it is so very rough, and I’m still struggling to decide what, exactly, I’m trying to stay. So there is still an awful lot left to be done, but I’m feeing good about it. I’ve had the space here to really delve into the heart of this story, and to my surprise, I discovered that I might not want to really share too much about certain parts, and that I have a whole lot to say about others. And just like last time, the most important work seems to have happened away from my desk, away from the computer. I take the 10 minute path up to the top of the mountain and sit on my large, flat rock and stare off into the valley- the Pyrenees lining the horizon- and after an hour sometimes I just know in my gut what I need to do, what I need to write.

I went on an epic hike today; I wanted to get one full, long day of walking in, a sort of “Camino” training day (because in less than a week, I’ll be on a Camino! Hard to imagine right now….). Lets just say that maybe it was a bit too much. I headed for Latourette, which is just another village tucked away in these mountains, though it is not close. Last time I was here I’d seen signs for it, trails that led there, but it always seemed impossibly far away. But now that I have hiking experience, Camino experience, it seemed doable. The first half was great- up and down and through these mountains, stumbing on tiny villages that weren’t much more than a few houses and a really old church along with some crumbling stone ruins.

I made it to Latourette and sat on a bench and ate some snacks and rested my feet. Then I continued on, following a path that I assumed would sort of take me in a big circle and back to Labastide, but the further I walked, the more I realized that it might not have been so smart to follow an unknown trail. I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going, and even though I was always on a marked trail, I had a bad feeling that it was taking me away from where I wanted to go.

I kept walking though, hoping that the trees would open up and I could take a look at the landscape and get my bearings. The sun was hot, the air was humid, it was getting later, I was feeling more and more unsettled. Finally I turned around, walked back to Latourette, and followed a road that I knew would lead me to a village that was not far from Labastide.

I stumbled back into the village, my legs feeling like jelly, just as dark clouds gathered in the sky and a little rain began to spit down. It’s still overcast now, the first not-blue sky I’ve seen in what feels like weeks and weeks. The kind of sky that makes it easier to sit inside and get some writing done.

Already I can feel myself begin to move away from this experience, my thoughts starting to turn towards Spain, and the Camino. But I’m still here for a few more days and I want to really sink into these last moments: write what I can, wander through the village, sit up at Le Roc, hang out with Homer the dog. And I tell myself the same thing that I did three years ago, as I was preparing to leave: you can always come back.

To Summer, To Travel, To Time

June 23, 2016

The great summer trip of 2016 begins in less than a week, so I thought it was about time that I check back in here with an update. And the only update I really have has already been said: I leave in less than a week!

Does time seem to be moving fast for anyone else? Like, really really fast? Until only a few days ago I was convinced that it was still May, that I had over a month to plan and prepare for my trip, that the days are continuing to lengthen, that summer was still far off.

But all of a sudden it was summer, and work had ended for the year, and the only thing that was looming before me was my big trip. I should be used to this by now, it’s been my pattern for the last three years: work ends around the middle of June, and I promptly hop on a plane for Europe.

So why does it feel like this trip is still weeks and weeks away? Last year, on the first day of summer, I was doing this:

I’d already been walking on the Camino for a few days, life at home felt like it was another world away.

My trip begins a bit later than usual this year, maybe that’s part of it. Or maybe it’s just that life is speeding by so fast that I yearn to hit a pause button, and give myself some time to catch up.

But there’s no stopping time so here we go. I think that finally, in these last few days, I’ve accepted that summer is here. I’ve gone to a baseball game and drank a coke slushey and had a dish of ice cream and spent a day at the beach. I’ve stretched in the lounge chair on my porch with my feet in the sun and read a book that I was too busy to finish months ago. Two days ago I went on a 10-mile hike; tomorrow I’ll try for 12-miles. This is the most hiking I’ve done in a long, long time, and well, it’s about time.

And then next week, I’ll leave for Europe. My first stop is England, something I don’t think I even mentioned in my Summer 2016 blog post. It sort of got lost in the shuffle of my mind, and stayed lost until just a couple days ago. But- oh yeah!- I decided to fly into London because it’s been a solid 15 years since I’ve been there and I thought it could be nice to do something a little new.

This photo is from my last trip to England, all those years ago:

My friend reminded me that our original plan was to spend a few days in London, then head to Stonehenge. But in 2001, Stonehenge was closed for 5 1/2 weeks because of foot-and-mouth disease, so we went to Liverpool instead (and honestly, this was probably my vote all along… Long Live Ringo!).

It’s a bit crazy to think back to that trip- parts of it that feel like a lifetime ago, other parts that are so recent in my memory I could swear that I was just there. Wasn’t I just there? Leaving notes for our friends on scraps of paper at the hotel lobby because this was just before any of us had a cell phone; crossing the street at the wrong end of Abbey Road (and causing quite the pile up of traffic in order to get a photo); battling a cold on the train to London and the endless cups of tea to soothe my throat; noticing that a small magnolia tree was growing in the front yard of the house where George Harrison grew up.

These memories are creeping in because I finally sat down and planned some things for my three days in England. I focus on these details for a moment- there’s a Jane Austen Centre in Bath! I can finally make it to Stonehenge!- but then an email pulls me into another part of the trip. It’s from the writer’s retreat in southern France- our host has forwarded a suggested shopping list so that we’re not overwhelmed when we arrive and are whisked off to the grocery store. And then I think back to my time there three years ago, and how I was overwhelmed, and didn’t buy quite enough food. Will that happen again? What will the village be like- will it be just as I remembered, or will there be changes?

And what am I like, this time? Three years wasn’t all that long ago, and yet, I know that I am different. And certainly, I’m different than I was 15 years ago, on that first trip to London and Liverpool.

Different, and yet… still me. Always me.

There’s more, too: another Amazon package arrived at my door, it’s a guide to walking the West Highland Way. And then I need to push the days in England and the writer’s retreat from my mind, and focus on Scotland. Scotland! I know nothing about Scotland! Shouldn’t I learn something, shouldn’t I do some research? A friend warns me about the haggis, and I wonder if I will try it.

And then, finally, in the very back corner of my mind, I remember that I’m also walking a Camino. That I’m returning to Spain. I’ve barely given it any thought, because this is the thing that feels the most familiar, the most comfortable. Other than breaking in a new pair of shoes, I haven’t done much in preparation. I have all my gear, I know where I’m going; this is the thing that I don’t have to plan for.

But remember just two years ago? My fretting and my fear in the weeks before I left for Spain that first time? Wasn’t I just memorizing the Spanish words for ‘I’m allergic to nuts’ and wondering how, exactly, I was to go about hand-washing my clothing?

Ah, time. I still don’t know what to make of it, of how quickly life is streaming past, yet of how far I’ve seemed to travel in what feels like very fleeting moments. I know that in August, I’m going to be back here at my computer, in my apartment, marveling over how fast the summer just went by.

Of course I will. But I’m not at the end yet, I’m only at the very beginning. So, here’s to summer! May it be the best one yet.

How we tell our stories (love on the Camino?)

April 13, 2016

A few days ago, I received an email from an online Camino friend. He was writing to tell me that he had just seen me in a movie.

“Ah,” I thought. “So they made the movie.” And then, “They included my part.” And then, “What in the world have I done??”

Let’s set the scene. I was 17km away from Santiago on the Camino Frances, two summers ago. I’d been walking with my Irish friend, and it was a long, hot day that seemed to never end. We’d had to walk much further than anticipated because all the albergues were full, but finally we found an albergue/pension on a quiet street just off the main path of the Camino.

You know who also found the albergue? A Swiss film crew. It was their last night on the Camino- they’d already been to Santiago, they’d finished filming, they were about to fly home. But then they heard that there was a couple staying in the albergue, and they didn’t have the love story angle for their film, and before I knew it, I was in a green plastic chair in front of billowing laundry and being asked questions about my Camino relationship.

Now, before I get to what I really want to write about, I need to set a few things straight. I was never in a “Camino relationship”, not really. I didn’t have a love story to share, I wasn’t even sure how I had ended up in front of a camera, but then again, that just seemed to be the sort of thing that happened on the Camino. And I remember that on that night, I was overwhelmed, and I probably thought to myself, “Well, why not just tack this onto the list of things that the Camino has thrown at me?”

This happens on the Camino, it’s something I continue to marvel at: how so much life is crammed into each and every day of the walk, how time seems to alter and bend. You meet people and after a couple days it feels like you’ve known them for years. You walk through ever changing scenery and you sleep in a different bed every night and there is just constant motion, constant community, constant stimulation.

And when I sat down for the interview with the Swiss film crew, I was so saturated with Camino experiences that I simply couldn’t keep up. I was still trying to process things that had happened to me weeks before, so I suppose I just sat down on the green chair and thought to myself, “The Camino provides?” and then started answering questions.

I think I’ve only ever told one person, maybe two, about this interview. Because once it was over, it was sort of tacked onto the list of “things that happened on my Camino that I don’t really have time to think about, or understand”. I was so close to Santiago at this point that all I really wanted to do was walk. I couldn’t really think about anything else. (And in fact, the crew asked if I could find them in the morning before I left, so that they could get a few shots of me walking. But when the morning came, I slipped out of the albergue quietly, and headed off towards Santiago).

And that leads me back to my reaction, when I found out about this movie: “What in the world have I done??” It’s not nearly as dramatic as that, I can’t imagine there’s much more than 30 seconds or a minute from me, or from my Irish friend (who was sitting next to me during the interview). But I have to laugh a little, and wonder what, exactly, I was portraying in that film. And what, exactly, the filmmakers wanted from us, how they chose to shape and edit words and images so that they could tell the story they wanted to tell.

They wanted a love story, or at least a piece of one. And my story wasn’t a love story, but I suppose that my Irish friend might have answered differently. And, as you readers of the blog will know, I was caught in my own eternal Camino question: be alone, or stay with others? Ultimately I began that Camino alone and I ended alone, but all along the way, it was a struggle. And I was still struggling with it, right up until the very end.

I remember one question that the interviewer asked us, he said something like, “So, I have to ask it: what happens next with you guys?” And my answer was something like this, “I don’t know. Maybe we’ll get married, or maybe we’ll never see each other again.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I was wondering where they came from. I knew I would never marry my Irish friend, but the thing is… hadn’t part of me wondered? Hadn’t part of me wondered at every person I met, every good-looking European guy (and there were so many on that Camino!) who stayed close to my side, who wanted to walk with me, who offered me a hunk of cheese? Love wasn’t exactly part of that Camino journey for me, and yet, it was also in nearly every step I took. There was a point when I had wondered about my Irish friend: “The Camino provides!” they say, over and over, and suddenly there’s a beautiful 6 foot 4 inch man who wants to walk with me, who listens to the same music as I do, who recites poetry, who buys me gummy candy. Maybe I could marry him, I thought.

And maybe that’s what you see, when you watch this film. Maybe that’s what I portrayed, when I answered the questions. Maybe that’s what the filmmakers want you to see and believe.

But that’s only one small part of the story, and it’s a part that’s not entirely- or even remotely- the truth of my Camino. In the past few days, I’ve thought about this a lot, I suppose I’ve been thinking about this all fall and winter, as I’ve worked on my book. What story am I choosing to share? What version of the truth am I deciding to put down on the page?

Once I was having a discussion (or was it a fight? I could never tell the difference) with my ex-boyfriend. I’d just explained my point of view on something, the way I was feeling, how I’d reacted to something he’d done or said. And he exploded, crying out, “But that’s only how you see it! That’s not what happened!!”

What? It was what happened, it was my experience of what happened, which makes it a version of reality.

There are a lot of different versions of the way things happen, the way we choose to remember something, they narrative threads we pick out from our lives, how we arrange things so that we can tell our stories. I think of how, somewhere out there, I’m a very small part of a Camino film, and how it’s telling some sort of story of my experience. One that I might not even agree with. And I think about how, right at this moment, I’m in the thick of writing another version of that story, a larger, more fleshed-out version. But already I wonder, “Is that really what happened? Did I really feel all of those things, say those things? Was that my experience?”

It was a blast being interviewed for a film. It captured something, some small part of my story- one that was reality or imagined I’m not sure. And it’s also been a blast writing this book. It’s been difficult and mind-numbing and even excruciating, but a blast. I’m capturing something. And it is my wildest dream that one day, you might be able to read my story, however I choose to tell it.

Because it just wouldn’t be right to talk all about a Camino film and not share details with you, here is some information: http://santiagoelcamino.com/dvd.html