Gorma Tales of the Camino: Miguel of Madrid and the Living Wood
Bright and early as the sun was just rising, Gorma stepped carefully through a wooden gate in a fence and onto the smooth dirt of the path. She and her walking stick Saint Thomas hiked along in rhythm – step, stick-step…step, stick-step – when she thought she heard the sound of a cra-a-ack. A crack in wood. Gorma stopped to look, and sure enough, Saint Thomas had a long crack. It did not look new, which was a relief; neither, though, did Saint Thomas. Gorma could not be sure.
Just then, she heard the sing…sing…sing… of tiny bells behind her. Gorma closed her eyes, smiled just a bit, and breathed in…out…, easing her worry. She opened her eyes and looked again at the crack. She began to frown.
Sing…sing…sing… the tiny bells rang. Once again, Gorma closed her eyes, smiled just a bit, and breathed in…out…. She opened her eyes, and around a gentle curve came a gentle man, smiling a wide smile. Two tiny bells hung from the pack over his shoulder, and as he stepped forward, they came together with a clear and chiming sing…. Gorma bowed, hands clasped in front of her heart. “I thank you for the singing of your bells on this clear morning,” Gorma said. “You have eased my worried heart.”
“Ah, Gorma, Gorma, have no worries! What seems to be the matter?”
Gorma sat down on the grass next to the path. “It is Saint Thomas. He has a crack, and I do not know if he can make the journey to Santiago and beyond, as we had hoped.” Gorma looked sadly at Saint Thomas, whom she had laid gently across her lap.
“I am Miguel. I am a woodworker, come from Madrid. Let me see to this matter.” So Gorma handed Saint Thomas to Miguel, who gently touched and stroked the walking stick, until Gorma would have sworn she heard it purr like a contented cat. Gorma looked with her clever eyes at Miguel, trying to see who he was.
“This is a good wood. It is a good walking stick. I think Saint Thomas might make the journey, if you will bind his wound and hold it together. The love in our hands can heal many wounds, even if they are old and seem to have penetrated to the heart. I have cord for you, here.” And reaching into a pocket of his pack, Miguel found orange cord the color of marigolds, and pumpkins in fall, and the harvest moon. He cut a length and gave it to Gorma, and while she tied it round and round Saint Thomas, she asked MIguel about his work.
“I find the lost wood, the old, discarded. This I take to my small workshop. I can carve any wood into life – yes, truly! – but only if it is a creation of joy and delight. Small and sweet, light and lively. These are my creations.”
“So wonderful!” Gorma exclaimed. “If you made a toy, such a toy it would be!”
“Oh indeed, Gorma. My toys make children laugh with glee – and so I must join the laughter, too,” Miguel added with his wide, beautiful smile.
Gorma felt Saint Thomas stronger in her hands. “Look, Miguel – your cure is already working!” She smiled at Saint Thomas, and then at Miguel.
Miguel looked carefully at the walking stick. “You must hold the bond carefully as you walk together, Gorma. Remember, Saint Thomas will heal, but this must be allowed time.”
“Dear MIguel, how can I thank you?” Gorma beamed her friendly smile.
“It is no trouble,” Miguel smiled back.
“Oh please. Let me thank you. What can I give you for helping Saint Thomas?”
“Hmmm.” Miguel thought. “Well…well, there is one thing.”
“Yes?” Gorma pushed.
“Well…will you share with me the secret of your freedom in the world, Gorma?”
Gorma looked worried. “I don’t know, Miguel; what is freedom for one is a burden for another.”
“But Gorma, Gorma, I want to be free, as you are. It is a small thing to tell me.”
Gorma looked at Saint Thomas, and the smooth path, which never stays smooth, but grows rocky, or steep, or muddy as time and seasons choose. Choose. That was it. “You are choosing this Miguel, and I cannot take back what is given. Just know that if my freedom does not suit you, all you need do is let it go, and find your own. But I cannot do this for you. No one can give freedom to another; we can only free ourselves.”
Miguel nodded, and at that, Gorma sang a song there in the middle of the smooth path:
I’m young when I choose to be young,
I am old when I choose to be old;
my hair is the fire of the sun,
my skin it is freckled with gold;
my smile is a friend that is true
but my eyes flash lightning of old —
I walk where I want in the world,
and I never will do what I’m told!
At this, thunder rolled through a cloudless sky, and the smooth path became cobbled and stumbly, now forked in two directions. Miguel cast a worried eye at the sky, but then smiled sweetly at Gorma. “Oh Gorma, Gorma, thank you so much! I will never forget – ah, to be free! Goodbye, Gorma, goodbye!” And off he went to the right, singing Gorma’s song and occasionally tripping on the cobble stones. Gorma turned to the left, and she and Saint Thomas walked on.
Now, kind Miguel was so grateful, he wanted to make something special in order to keep Gorma’s words forever. So once home, he went straight to his workshop and found a beautiful piece of cherry wood. Such hard wood, but in his magical hands it took the carving knife, and before a week was done, Miguel had carved a tiny Gorma doll, so real in every way you might believe it was really Gorma! Satisfied, Miguel sat the Gorma doll on his workbench and repeated Gorma’s song to the doll. He patted the wooden doll on the head, then closed the workshop door and, inside his cozy house, had his supper and went to bed.
The next day, MIguel entered his workshop to find a huge mess! Wood shavings had been thrown everywhere. The Gorma doll stood upon his workbench, not a hair out of place. “What has happened here?” MIguel wondered, as he swept up his usually tidy workshop. “I must have left a window open, and a wind in the night blew the wood shavings. That must be it,” he thought, putting away his broom and shutting the door. But the window was latched tight, as it had been all night.
The following day, Miguel entered his workshop to find all his tools misplaced! The carving knives were on the anvil, the saw was in the middle of the floor, the planes and files hanging from the ceiling by strings. “What has happened now?” Miguel wondered, as he carefully returned all his tools to their places. “My brother must have borrowed them while I was away at the market. That must be it,” he thought, putting away his last chisel and shutting the door. But his brother was over the mountain in the next valley, visiting their mother, as he had been all day.
The third day, Miguel entered his workshop to find 500 Gorma dolls! They were everywhere! Gorma dolls on the workbench, Gorma dolls in the windowsills, Gorma dolls covering the floor in a mountain of Gorma dolls! “What – in the world – has happened?!” Miguel cried aloud. At the sound of his voice, the 500 Gorma dolls all ran and ran, around and around, bumping into each other and joining together as they did, crying, “What in the world? What in the world?” over and over in their tiny Gorma doll voices, until they had all joined into just the one Gorma doll Miguel had carved, standing on the workbench.
“Gorma doll, did you do all this? Did you make the mess and throw my tools about and fill my workshop with 500 of YOU?” Miguel asked, incredulous. Gorma doll was silent. “Gorma doll, you must not do such things. You were made out of respect, to remember Gorma’s words of freedom. Now behave, Gorma doll, behave.”
Gorma doll opened her tiny eyes, and lightning shone flickering. “I will behave. I will be VERY have!” And laughing like a cookoo bird, Gorma doll ran amok. “I will ‘have’ this hammer – ” and she took Miguel’s hammer – “and I will ‘have’ this metal bin – ” and she grabbed a bucket – “and I will ‘have’ MUSIC!” Then Gorma doll made a wild racket, banging the hammer onto the bucket like a flicker bird hammering a metal chimney cap in spring:
RAT-A-TATTA TAT, RAT-A-TAT, RAT-A-TATTA-TATTA
RAT-A-TATTA TAT, RAT-A – “Whoo-hoo!!”
“Gorma doll, stop!” MIguel shouted, frantically trying to grab back his hammer.
Gorma doll laughed hysterically. “‘I never will do what I’m told!'” She began throwing wooden stops and plugs at Miguel, the very bottle stops and jar plugs Miguel himself had made for his paint pots.
“Gorma – doll!” Miguel called desperately from behind a cabinet door he held open against the flying wood. “I carved you – OUCH! – as a creation of joy and delight – AAH! – to remind me of – OW! – Gorma’s words of freedom!”
Gorma doll hollered as she peppered Miguel with stops. “Freedom? Freedom! STOP! Trapped here on a workbench in a workshop?! STOP! This is no kind of freedom for me! STOP! Remember? ‘I walk where I want in the world’!”
“Well, it is the perfect kind of freedom for me, Gorma doll. I craft and I sing and I love what I do – this is my freedom. But I see it is not for you. So now, my tiny friend – adios!” Miguel opened the workshop door, and quick as lightning, Gorma doll ran off into the evening’s red skies of delight, singing:
I’m young when I choose to be young,
I am old when I choose to be old;
my hair is the fire of the sun,
my skin it is freckled with gold;
my smile is a friend that is true
but my eyes flash lightning of old —
I walk where I want in the world,
and I never will do what I’m told!
And several days down the lefthand trail, the real Gorma had walked on, quiet and smiling. She arrived at the next albergue just in time for a bed, for which she was very grateful, and she slept deeply. Outside, animal voices called and barked and twittered as the red skies turned to night, and one small voice sang and laughed, delightedly lost in the forest, free in the world.
Buen Camino, Miguel.