Day 37… D-1

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From Ribadiso do Baixo to O Pedrouzo
22kms. 4horas. (20kms left to Saint-James)

 

… that day I defended my masters or PhD thesis… that day I got my diploma at the Aula Magna… that day I got married… that day I got baptised…

Today, I spent the day having the similar feeling than the one I felt the day before all those events. The moments I’ve been walking alone, I became a cumulus of tears, nostalgia and nerves.

Even if I try, as a rebellion act, not to watch the lasting kms, I keep getting closer…

The collective anxiety can be felt in the atmosphere. Almost everybody woke up at 4AM. All of them want to get the closest possible. I began to fear becoming like them, fearing not to get early enough for the Mass, not to be on time for… for… for… etc.
I forced myself to finish my stage without doing too many kilometers for my body’s sake. 22 kms were enough and I wanted to get to Saint-James after one more stage, like everyday. But I couldn’t avoid to get into the whirlwind.

I breathe. I think about how the Way got to touch me. I realize that maybe I don’t have all the answers to all the existential questions, to all the transcendental questions…
So many times did I the arriving image passed through my head…

I breathe. I think about the sentence “Let Saint-James arrive to you”, I keep repeating it in my head, I keep it in my heart.

I breathe over and over again. I’m searching the trees’ peace, the beautiful memories’ tranquillity. I let the fatigue doing its job and relaxing my body.

I breathe… tomorrow, I’ll arrive to Saint-James.

Day 35… D-3

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From Gonzar à Ponte to Campaña.
24kms. 7h.

 

HER…

She stepped into the bar… and just like a hurricane…

– I found the right technique, yes sir!

Everybody in the bar smiles, like if they knew her already.

– Well yes. I arrived to Portomarin, she said, wondering if I was going to stay there. It was a few kilometers, but the village was beautiful… even if I could walk some more. So I told myself “I’ll try a new technique: “what if I take some wine with a plate of octopus ? Where would I end…?”

All the bar was listening to her carefully.

– I found a wine and tapas mate and I told her “as for me, in 30 minutes, I’m out of here”. I sat, enjoyed a first albariño, then a second one, then arrived the octopus, and the after-effects of the win told made me say “well I’d better stay”. So after finishing the bottle, my mate was continuing while I was going to bed… When I arrived to the hostal, I saw the time: it was very early, so why not stick to the plan… why not going back on the way? So I didn’t check in and after that, what I can tell you is that there were the best and quickest 8 kms of all the Way. It was sunny and hot, it was very likely that I wouldn’t get a place to sleep, but none of this was erasing the smile on my face. I am happy, overabundant and absolutely sure that I could have done 10 kms more. So, my friends, even if it’s a bit late, I assure that I discoverd it: with bread and wine can be done the Way!

Everybody laughed and almost applauded.

She’s very impulsive, passionate, however she always needs some remit, some organization, and that’s why she was feeling that happy: she realized that things could be alright without plan, trespassing her limits and by simply living.

She always walks with a smile on her face, no matter how was the weather like… some people have seen her talking to her shadow:

– Hey beautiful, you’re kind of getting a pretty good shape.

To which the shadow answers:

– You exaggerates and are a fool, but it’s true that it has been a long time since I didn’t see you smiling like that.

She already wasn’t listening: she was humming a song she invented from a mix of wining rugby song and absurd lyrics.

She becomes a child when she sees a cow walking on the plains or a goat getting close to her: she jumps like if it was the first time in her life, screams, take pictures and run terrified of the possibility of letting these beasts getting too close to her.

But she becomes a woman again when, before the daybreak, she faces the lonely forests full of fog… she clings on to her stick and says – tells herself – “Let’s move on!”

She sleeps with we every nights and her energy explosion is so strong that sometimes I can’t fall asleep; so I let her talk, I accept all of her reproachs about my hypochondria, my malaises, my complaints; I see her writing so at the end, little by little, fatigue takes the best of her and she begins to snore like nobody else. I contemplate her until I fall asleep myself. At 05:55, she wakes me up like everyday since 35 days: “Come on, come on, we need to start off…!” So I dress up and follow her…

She and me walk towards Saint James… even if I should say towards life…

Day 34… D-4

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From Barbadelos to Gonzar.
23kms. 6,5h.

The fog, again and again the fog on the Way.

The fog flooding the villages, the forests.

The fog spraying on your face.

The thick fog through which you can’t see anything.

 

The remembrance of a yellow arrow was painted on a stone. Was it an arrow? Was it my imagination?

In the middle of the thick forest, the fog and mi in the solitude of who’s frightened to get lost.

You stop, there is nobody.

The heavy silence of the forest.

You facing the solitude in the fog.

The sudden noise of the stick on the earth accelerating.

You stop, there is nothing, but some people have left tracks in the forest, rubbons and messages on a tree.

You feel less lonely.

You realize the gift of living this forest only for yourself, in the middle of the fog.

You take a deep breathe.

No need to hurry your steps. You stop here as much as needed…

… You are not afraid anymore!

Day 33… D-5

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From Samos to Barbadelos.
18kms. 4h.

A tricked song…

There are ways for hope
there are ways for pain too
and there are ways from out there
where the wise can’t reach
any ways of other colors

there are ways that are poems
there are ways from a strange place
there are ways without a name
with no date, no place
that it doesn’t worth locate
there are ways that look like see’s arms
they surprise you and drag you
they lose you and done

there are ways of law
but that we are not looking for

there are ways that are the Way
personal ways of two

there are ways that print sweet burnings
ways of goddesses and gods

there are ways that have made our days
and the ways to come

there are ways that are so alive
so healthy, so pure,
that one of them will be… my LIVING

 

(Adaptation from the original song “Locuras” by Silvio Rodríguez (to see the original version, check the Spanish version of this post) ; translation by Cédric H.)

Day 32… D-6

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From Hospital de la Condesa to Samos.
26kms. 7h. (122kms left to Saint James)

To Amaranta Ursula!

… and if it rains…

“Today, the day awakes raining on the Way… and yet I want to walk, my heart…”

– Rain that doesn’t wet but can be watched.
– Rain of the villages that happen to be eaten up by the clouds and become my melancholic picture of the day.
– Rain from before yesterday, from the Plains I’ve never seen, but that was falling like a torrential shower on the face of some little sisters playing to wear in rose while they’re throwing stones with a Chinese girl.
– “Chirivire” that soaks to the bones even if they look like mother-of-pearl. No raincoat can resist it, and when it comes, it’s to stay.
– Rain of looking at the sky and feeling on the face some fresh raindrops that steam up the glasses and avoid you to know where to put your feet.
– Rain that stir together with the teardrops of the old memories.
– Rain that cleans up
– Rain that plays
– Rain that comes from nowhere and to which you don’t resist, and becomes a partner of the silence and solitude, and kisses your steps, now you like it… she became sweet and delicate so you can enjoy it thinking of this plains where you’ve never been,  of this mouth you wanted to kiss, of this way you’re doing walking.
– Rain, tender in the middle of a thick forest and the villages of ages, that makes me sing, laugh, cry… and play.

I keep walking. I keep understanding.