getting a grip
blessed be blessed be blessed be
the short day’s hike this bed for me the water man
on this camino this plastic chair along the way
my life and softest grass his wall
or the distance beneath my aching strung with the scallop shells
to you and my feet is open, peregrina
If you only get lost a little, and come out ahead, is that really getting lost, or is it the fortune that favors the bold?
The stairs out of Pobeño rose so long and steep, I looked at them and laughed. A hillside of stairs. And so I climbed. And at the top, and all day, a view of the sea.
Not just a bay, or a port, but the wide open ocean rolled majestically beneath me, wider than the reach of my outstretched arms, opening below my tentative heart in infinite waves, upon waves, upon waves. Initially awed into silence, I stood atop a cliff, watching, mesmerized, until at last, I lost all track of time and stepped within a great stillness.
The calm was profound. Grounded in the rock of being, in the confidence of being alive, I breathed. While the expansive skies of my youth had encouraged me to dream of navigating adventures, the sea quieted my mind. The moving depths showed me the enormity of reality; my worries or grievances were nothing but footsteps on a beach, wiped clean and smooth with the languid roll of one wave, all insignificant in a landscape of true proportion.
It wasn’t just the sky that was vast; nor was it only the sea. I was understanding that Life is vast. Physically changing my view point was guiding a change in my spiritual perspective. I felt like a small stone upon the sand. The Camino was slowly smoothing the rough edges of cynicism, and softening my fears of dreams defeated by relentless Time.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Thank goodness, last night, at the albergue where the beds were tightly packed in the rooms, I sat outside a long time, where Miguel asked to look at my walking stick. He greeted me: “Barbara, I see you walk with two sticks now?” I told him I was trying this out, because my original stick had a crack, and I didn’t want to be without. But I wasn’t sold on my new option.
Miguel was a woodworker and artist. I handed him the new, straighter but heavier stick I had found along the path, saying, “I need to peel off all this bark.” He quickly shook his head.
“No. No, this is not so good. Besides – you are carrying a friend with you.” At first I thought he meant my walking stick, Saint Thomas, but then he showed me a hole in the end of the new stick that some beetle or worm had made. Making a face, I tossed the stick away from us all, and several nearby peregrinos laughed.
“Saint Thomas has a crack? May I see?” He examined the slightly irregular stick with the smooth touch of his expert hands. It was dry and light, and upon examination, the crack appeared old. “This is good wood,” he reassured me. “It will last for some time, maybe even all the way to Santiago, if you wrap it, here, where you place your hand? What is this called?”
“A grip,” I offered.
“Yes,” Miguel said, handing back Saint Thomas. “You make a grip by wrapping here with string. Then your hand will hold your stick together.” He rummaged in his pack and gave me day-glo orange cord.
I sat at a nearby table, “getting a grip” so I could “hold it together,” which made me smile. As I tightly wrapped the cord, careful to keep it straight and smooth, I felt great affection for Miguel, who could understand that I was becoming fondly attached to my old walking stick. He told me about the small, beautiful items he loved to make from found wood, or from repurposing scrap from a guitar maker, sanding his pieces until they felt soft and alive. He nodded approvingly when I finished getting a grip.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mioño offered an inviting taverna midday, where I sipped coffee and studied my guidebook. It noted, “Those who prefer to enter Mioño can rejoin here by following a minor road off of the highway.” Mioño is a tiny village, so all the roads are minor roads – no guidance at all, really. I asked two women at the cafe, and they said to follow the road…so I followed the road. The cafe road. Which became the highway.
It was a good thing Miguel had looked at my stick. Now, as I walked up the narrow but busy road, I held Saint Thomas up like I was leading a pilgrim processional (of one), his orange grip raised above my head, stick resting on my shoulder, the overall effect of my banner like a caution triangle on the back of a slow-moving tractor. So Miguel may have saved me from being hit by one of the trucks or buses usually ignoring pedestrians as well as the lane lines.
Finally, I reached Castro Urdiales, and yellow arrows directed me through a new neighborhood, where a construction crew was building several apartment buildings. I wound my way through cranes, brick stacks, slabs of cement, forklifts, and dump trucks, stopping to wait for equipment backing up, moving loads; I stood, all alone, once again skeptical that my route was correct, distrusting my way.
And yet I did trust my way. I knew it was right; it just looked crazy. I held on to Saint Thomas, that supportive friend through doubt and disbelief, and kept going. I passed the long dumpster filled with iron, glass, drywall, rock and broken wood, and stopped to ditch some more extra weight from my pack. As I reached the end of the construction site, I saw that I was coming out on a hill above the sea again. A coastal path led down and around to the old part of the city. I started down, and suddenly, over the hill behind me came peregrinos I had walked with earlier in the day. We called out greetings and walked down into the city together.
I got a gelado on the beach promenade, licking it beneath the huge statue of the working woman, her apron tucked up, her arm missing like all good classical statuary. She was strength personified, larger than life, and I immediately loved her.
But I think I loved my ice cream just a little bit more. It was soft and sweet, smooth on my tongue, cool and gentle down my parched throat. I kept a good grip on the cone, and on Saint Thomas, and walked happily down to the beach.