My foot is finally healing. I went to the doctor after threatening to do so ALL SUMMER. Apparently, I had developed a fungus of some kind on the site of the original blister. He gave me a cream, and in a day my heel felt better, in two days, the pain was gone. In three the skin of the heel was pliable, and the scab from which my heel bled was gone. Now, ten days later, and the heel feels much better. It’s going to be clear in another ten days! Who’d have thought going to the doctor would help my foot heal.. A healed heel! (Yes, that passes for sarcasm.)
Perhaps, I should rewind the calendar, and un-go to the doctor. Because now that my heel is, er, healing, my thoughts are returning to what caused the foot problem in the first place. Walking. Not hum-drum walk a couple of miles today. Not walking two or three or five miles before going to work in the morning (though, I am doing that, and enjoying it.) No, I’m talking about the Walking. With a capital W. The thing that got me into this mess in the first place. Before the Bataan, even. Before the thought, one year ago this month, that I should walk to Deming, a mere 60 miles west of here.
I think, perhaps, I am slowly coming to understand what lies beneath all this. Bear with me a bit, please.
An acquaintance of mine recently took a six week leave from work. He got on a plane, flew to France, and is walking a centuries old… no, a millenia old… trail known today as the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. This Camino is the route of an ancient pilgrimage that has starting points throughout all of Europe, that converges on the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, near the Atlantic coast of north-western Spain. According to tradition, St. James is buried there. I think he’s nearly half way done with this journey.
Years ago, I looked into this pilgrimage. I deeply wanted to go on it. Scott and I were living in Council Bluffs at the time. I must have spent over a hundred dollars on books and maps. And then, I don’t know what happened. I came to a point I decided I just couldn’t do it. My back hurt. We didn’t have the money. I didn’t want to go alone. I was already too old. Scott had no interest. I really don’t know what happened. But I gave up on it.
I’ve done this on several occasions. I once outlined a foot journey from Boston, Massachusets to San Francisco, California (if I recall correctly). And one from Omaha to San Francisco. And one from Land’s End near Sennen Cove in south-western England to John O’Groats in the far north-east of Scotland. And numerous others as well. I’ve spent hours pouring over maps, reading books… well, accumulating books, anyhow… and dreaming of these journeys.
I assumed that I was just suffering from some kind of wanderlust. That I just couldn’t be happy settling down in one place, but was just too lazy or perhaps practical to do anything about it!
But, reading John’s account of his pilgrimage, posted here, at Trail Journals that yearning is returning. I find myself wanting, again, to set out on some kind of journey. And this time, I discovered what I might have known years ago, had I read any of those books I accumulated and have since discarded (why keep them if I’m not going to follow through?) One doesn’t have to backpack the Camino! Or the South West Coast Path. Or any of the other major trails through the UK. One can walk them! Spend the nights in hostels or aubergues (Camino) or “Hiking Barns” or even B&Bs, and have your gear meet you at your next stop. Now the dream seems possible. And some of the pilgrims with John are well over 60, so obviously I’m NOT too old now… nor ever have been.
But why? I have wondered this and wondered. Why do I want to go on this kind of a journey? Do I just have wanderlust?
Here’s something else, and it does go along with this. I’ve always wanted to buy a tract of land somewhere and build a retreat center. Yeah, there was even a motel in Council Bluffs I’d drive past on my way home at night. It was closed, and boarded up. I often fantasized buying it, remodelling it, and turning it in to a retreat center/monastery type place.
I want to go on a retreat. A long retreat. A private retreat. I want to find something I’ve lost, or perhaps never had, that seems always just out of reach. Perhaps, to put a “hippy” twist on it all, I want to find myself.
I think there is something of a pilgrim in me. According to at least one dictionary a pilgrim is one who journeys to a sacred place for religious reasons. I think it can be distilled further to “one who seeks.”
I do seek. I think all of us seek something deeper, more spiritual. Not necessarily more religious. I have friends who are atheists and agnostics. I think they seek, as well. They may not seek God, but I think they seek something.
Tonight I spoke with Scott about doing something like this. I don’t think he wants to. It is possible he would agree to something akin to this, perhaps a seven or eight day hike through England, but not if the sole purpose of the journey was to hike from A to Z, or some point in between. And I don’t think for a moment he needs to hike a hundred miles to find something he seeks. I think he’s found it. I think archaeology feeds that deep need in him.
How do I resolve this yearning? I don’t know. We don’t have the money. I don’t have the time. Perhaps, ten years from now when I retire I might find the time, but by then, who knows? Ten years seems a long time. When I stop doing my daily chores, or working out, or my job, or any of a dozen things that keep me busy, my heart begins to hurt. I feel the call, the summons to … something. It hurts, sometimes, it is so powerful. Ten years is a long time to try to run from that. There have been times I have thought just packing up and… no, not even just packing… there have been times, I’ve considered walking out the front door, walking down the street, out the gate, and off… to wherever.
Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote in “Confessions” that “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” I sense the truth in this, if not an obvious solution.
I’ve considered planning for the Camino. I’ve also considered picking all of, or a segment of, one of numerous trails in England, Wales or Ireland. I’ve even thought of going on a retreat. I’ve not been on one since the disaster of the one I attended in Pecos, NM, back in 2007. I’m afraid to try that again! But, maybe, just maybe, that is a solution.
I just don’t know what to do, how to resolve this. I do know that there seems to be a hole, perhaps even a vaccuum, in my life that nothing fills. Not even my faith in God. It’s as though God called me to something.
In the meantime, I guess there’s nothing for it but to walk. Two and a half miles every morning before work, and 26.2 miles at the Bataan this coming March.
On The Road II 