end of the world
Blessed Santa Barbara
your story is written in the sky
with paper and holy water— Federico Garcia Lorca
Whom should I find when I reached Finisterre, but Jerome. After a long, hot day of hiking, I was please when he led me to the small, hidden beach he loved, and it was perfect – hardly any people, plenty of beach to nap on, and plenty of icy cold Atlantic water to play in. He said he could manage two minutes in it; I lasted for ten. Not only was the water colder, the waves came stronger, fiercer. It was exciting, less like a dance and more like competitive sport: I jumped, then dove under, ducked, then dove over the tops of waves, met by a face full of salt water, or the sound of a big wave going over, or an unexpected free ride backwards toward the beach.
Refreshed, I left to go get my final “compostela.” I already carried the one from Santiago, the standard from the Middle Ages still used to document and honor completion of the Camino. A second compostela was also available, showing my total kilometers, and my routes. Then I got one in Muxia, the Muxiana, having collected sellos along that track and pushed my way through the throng at the disorganized tourist office; and now, the Finisterrana. I tucked it into the red cardboard mailing tube that held all of my compostelas, which rode safely in the bottom of my pack. I loved them. I had such affection for these beautiful pieces of paper. The Finisterrana struck me as especially beautiful.
Last night after the Mass, at dinner in Muxia, having met Christoph’s lovely and charming wife,
I had mentioned them. “Where will you put all these compostelas? It’s going to be a lot of frames,” I added, and raised an eyebrow in mock distress.
“I don’t know,” he began. “We only have one real piece of art. We bought it together, when we were young – ” Christoph started to explain.
His wife interrupted. “Well, we will not be creating a ‘religious wall,'” she laughed, as if this was obvious.
Christoph looked down, and then away, as he talked of putting them in storage, in a closet somewhere.
Sad at this exchange, I changed the subject. “So – congratulations to you, on your degree! You just finished, I hear? Social Work?”
“Yes! Only just finished,” she smiled warmly.
“That’s a lot of work. Do you have any idea where you might like to find a job?” I asked.
“I have one, already set for me,” she answered with a brief nod, like a gulp.
“That’s fantastic!” I congratulated her again.
“I am…nervous? I have fear, that I do not know how to do this job,” she confided.
“Oh, of course. But you will find your way. You have studied for all these years. You could be a great social worker.” I thought about what I had said to interns in the centers where I’d worked. “The people you serve will be the ones to find their way, after all. You need only encourage them.”
I looked back at Christoph. “More wine?” he asked me, his voice dear and familiar, but his expression impossible to read.
“Yes. I’d love some.”
It had been a hard hike back to society. Climbing the hills out of Muxia alone this morning, as a rosy sun emerged, soft and quiet, I found myself in tears, not wanting to leave. I loved this place. But my Camino had ended, at the small cross on the tiny mountain; now I walked one last day, back into the world. The sun burned me, as always, and the insects left their swollen bites on my neck and legs. I had stopped to drink water, and to rest my feet. Yet tonight, I would sleep in my last albergue. And I would follow the final tradition – witnessing the sun setting over the sea, beyond the end of the world. Finisterre.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I walked the road in a haze of mist and fog. The beaches had turned chilly. I put on more layers of clothes and followed the people up the high road leading to the lighthouse. I passed a statue of a peregrino strugging uphill in the wet winds of these cliffs.
But at the top, a carnival atmosphere reigned. Booths sold trinkets and souvenirs. People toasted each other at the lighthouse bar. Mothers scolded children who strayed too far, fathers pushed strollers. Photographers set up tripods in the grass beside the path to the lighthouse.
Peregrinos, including me, stood in a huddle to take each other’s picture at the 0.00 mile marker, The Lighthouse At The End Of The World as a backdrop. This was the sort of scene I’d loved when I was seventeen. I thanked the man who took my smiling picture with my phone. A woman took his next.
I found an open patch of grass near the cliff’s edge and sat down expectantly. The sun setting in the foggy gray cast colored circles, sometimes prismatic rainbow rings, around the lowering sun. A murmur rippled through the quieting crowd, all settling in now, as we each realized what we were witnessing – an eclipse. An arc cut from the glowing orb revealed the shadow of the moon crossing the sun.
With so much fog and cloud, I looked directly into this amazing moment, happening here and also so far away, in the center of our galaxy, in our wobbly corner of the universe. I sat within those rings of light and fire, and I looked into the sun, and was not blinded.
Surreal, an eclipse at Finisterre, welcoming me back to Earth. It reminded me that the world we lived in was magical in its own right, beyond the narrow trail of the Camino. Once the sun actually set, everyone spontaneously started clapping. We applauded the setting of the sun, into the sea.
The Celts used to believe the sun died here each day, another meaning of the Costa da Morte. If it did, then tonight it went out in a blaze of glory, auras and prisms and fire and sea, a worthy Viking funeral. If it did, then it was reborn somewhere else – somewhere I needed to find. Either way, I had decided, I would be needing a boat. I hoped La Virxen was listening.
Seventeen-year-old me would be proud. She was no longer someone I had to turn to, make sure I included, make sure I listened to. She was me, right here behind the watery eyes, now with a sprinkling of gray in her hair, the lively spirit I hoped I would never lose.
After my photo, I had peeled down my layers, finally stripping off my faded, pale green tank top, paper-thin and worn and never completely clean, a color a chameleon would love, virtually invisible. All through my nearly 1,000 km of walking, I had seen tiny lizards everywhere, and had been looking for a lizard emblem to add to my walking stick.
But Saint Thomas would not accept some tokens, like the black feather that was lost, nor, apparently, a lizard. No chameleon, blending in, ever-shifting to match the surroundings, never its own true self.
I stopped at the big tent and picked up a T-shirt with the Basque/Celtic/Nordic Tree of Life on it. In “True Blue.” I went on Camino, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt, I smirked to myself.
“Is good?” the woman asked me, as I handed her my euros.
“Is good,” I smiled back, pulling it on over my bikini top, then walking away.
People were starting to kindle the traditional fires at Finisterre. You gave up something, or left it behind, writing this on paper and burning it symbolically in the cleansing flames. These fires, technically, were not allowed; therefore, they were commonplace. As I walked by one group, I asked their pardon, which they easily gave me – as I tossed the chameleon shirt into their flames and strode on by.
A cheer rose up among the group. “Buen Camino!” they shouted happily after me.
“Buen Camino, amigos,” I called back.
welcome to the end of the world
where you think you can’t go on
where the weight that you carry is measured
an ounce beneath what breaks your bonesthere’s a treasure at the end of the world
but it’s not a map to gold
it’s a way to draw yourself a blueprint
with the knowledge that you hold(C) welcome to the end of the world
lighthouse tells that you must build
a ship – let the sails unfurl
wind and waves will carry you
past the end of the worldwhen you’re walking to the end of the world
now you know what you must do
stop carrying the weight of the world
find a north star that is trueoh, welcome to the end of the world
lighthouse tells that you must build
your ship – let the sails unfurl
wind and waves will carry you
so welcome to the end of the world
lighthouse tells that you must build
a ship – let the sails unfurl
wind and waves will carry you
past the end of the world— “End of The World”