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Our journey didn’t need a certificate. It didn’t need others acknowledgements. There was no summit, no turn around point, it was a one way journey into the future as we had dreamed it. One where the short time on earth we are blessed to spend together was priority. One where we didn’t live by “some day” but made our shared desire for adventure our present. It wasn’t easy. But some how on our journey it got easier and easier to see how uncertain life really can be. We began to see that bank accounts, pensions, and homes weren’t pleasant life insurance. There are no guarantees or certainties. It’s true what they say, you only have this very moment.

It’s been fascinating to people watch on the camino. Though my experience seems to be one of conquering challenges, I hear and see so many others on their camino feeling a real sense of healing and personal growth.

The fact is that people all over the world choose, some times on multiple occasions, to put life on hold and walk 10-20 miles a day in northern Spain each year. A lot of the religious or obligatory (at one point it was a prison sentence) reasons for the journey have died off, and yet people are flocking here in growing numbers.

It got me thinking about the common sentiments of pilgrims. I’ve heard and read things like, “it’s wonderful meeting new people and having meaningful conversations all day,” or “I’ve gotten to know myself better,” or ” It’s been great to live outside my comfort zone each day,” and “I’ve accomplished things I never thought I would,” and “I love the time to reflect on life.”

And it hit me. The camino is therapeutic.

It is the perfect metaphor for systemic (or marriage and family) therapy! One embarks on a journey to know themselves better and embrace desired change through acquiring a relationship with a person with no personal vested interest in their life. Everyone on the camino and in therapy are prioritizing self reflection and embracing change however painful it may be. At the foundation of systemic therapy is the belief that we best see and understand ourselves through relationships. That’s what makes systemic therapy so different from psychology and psychiatry, the therapist seeks to have a healthy professional relationship with the client to be able to reflect back what the client is experiencing in life to aid in personal growth and creating more options.

Another important part of therapy that happens here is a respect for context. Being somewhat trapped in the middle of northern Spain, is a context no one can ignore. It affects every part of the persons experience. A good therapist sees the client and their context whether it be their job, family of origin or current partner and children at home. All of these aspects affect whether a person experiences feelings of happiness, depression, anxiety, joy, or sorrow.

And I whole-heartedly believe, everyone could use a journey like that 🙂

It’s hard to summarize the trip so far. The camino is so much larger than I anticipated. Every time we make a plan or feel like we’ve found a rhythm, it’s shattered unexpectedly. The first three days were tough physically but we found a decent place to sleep each night and plenty of food. But we felt the race each day. We felt like we had to wake up and start walking earlier and earlier to secure a place to stay. And it was getting to the point of being unmaintainable. Each day we would walk 15-18 miles with no rest in hopes of arriving in time to find a place to sleep and even with that pace we were having close calls. In a couple towns we found the last two beds, we couldn’t even find a room.

So we began to entertain the idea of letting go of the romantic notion of just finding places along the way in favor of making reservations for each leg of the journey. And it was also forced to a head that day upon arriving in Los Arcos when my achilles started to ache and later swelled up like a grapefruit. We also, for the last darn time, found the last two beds in the town after going from hotels to pensions, to albegue after albegue. We felt pretty defeated at that point. Where was this mystical journey we sought? Why did it feel there wasn’t enough resources? And why on earth were we pushing ourselves so hard physically?

We were forced to take about 4 days off to try and rehab my foot and look hard at all of those questions. Though I wasn’t a fan of my swollen ankle, I think it was time for a rest and to reassess what on earth we were here for because it certainly wasn’t to race pilgrims to the next town each day.

The next morning, my grapefruit ankle in tow, we slept in (the lack of sleep that night is a whole separate blog!) and headed to a cafe for a pastry for my disappointment. I felt so angry at my foot. I’ve never had achilles pain let alone swelling like this. I felt I had ruined the whole trip. Just 5 days in. But as we were sitting there a couple we had met the day before showed up with quite the story about their hotel having plumbing problems and they were shipped out to another hotel in another town and were unable to get back here to start walking until too late in the day. “It’s not our day to walk. Oh well!” She exclaimed. We shared a cab with them to Logrono since we had made reservations the night before and because Logrono would have more access to shoes or whatever I needed for my foot. We enjoyed this couples laid back approach. They were here to do as much of the camino as possible but had reservations in hotels and didn’t seem militantly tied to doing every kilometer of the thing.

It began to open our eyes to what was actually meant by the phrase “it’s your camino, no one else’s” and our camino just gained a bum ankle and a desire for a place to sleep preferably with my husband, not in a separate bunk and not with 50 other people.

In doing this, we realized it was important to us to finish this thing within the month and not keep dragging it out because of my ankle. So we skipped 4 legs of the journey to keep up with our time frame which gave us two glorious days in Burgos where we found some incredible restaurants.

Today it was back to walking. We left Burgos (reluctantly…) and began our walk through the Meseta, a desert portion of the camino. With lots of water and stretching breaks I felt SO INCREDIBLY BLESSED to walk today. It was sunny and relatively flat compared to the first 5 days. Our whole experience had been changed.

So we were walking along happily, discussing our newfound ability to accept things as they are, and…I got stung by a bee…. I should add this is just one more of many personal struggles for me. A couple days into the trip I caught a bad sore throat, then the ankle, now the bee sting inflaming my poor armpit. Is someone sending me a message?

Upon arriving to St. Jean Pied de Port, I got swept into the camino frenzy. We exited the bus into a misty hill town and hurried about like we were participating in The Amazing Race. “What’s your plan?” “Where’s the tourist information?” “Where do you get a compostela?” Accommodations seemed scarce and hard to find. Michael and I resorted to our default roles. I started observing and going on instincts and Michael pulled out the gps and started plotting. That sounds like a good good match on paper but when we part our efforts like that it always leads to us being lost (at least this time we weren’t in the woods).

When we finally did find a damp old farmhouse that had been remodeled into what I guess passed as a hotel, we were able to reflect on how we approached the situation assuming we would be lucky to get a bed and would probably get screwed somehow given the amount of people chaotically rushing about. It seems everywhere you find the mantra “make the camino your own.” But it seems that is an impossible task for most pilgrims. There are just floods of people each day. A man at the pilgrims office said “this week, about 300 pilgrims each day. Next week 350.” In those first couple of days, if you weren’t up and walking by 6am you faced not having a hostel to stay in. And if you didn’t make hotel reservations a year in advance, you are outta luck there too. Now imagine what it is like when the weather has been too bad to cross the pass for a few days and all the pilgrims who arrived earlier are waiting for better weather. Let’s just say that it piles up very quickly.

Part of me began to wonder if resources were really that scarce or is it just what happens when you get a group of 500 people together. As a therapist, I have seen a theme amongst people. There are those that believe there is a finite amount of resources and you have to funnel them all to you, and others that believe there is always enough and when we live and give freely, the more there is. I see that here. The majority believe there is a finite amount of beds and food and you have to strategize by either joining a clique or keeping to yourself. The more Michael and I embrace the living and giving freely and believe we will find what we need along the way, the more it seems to happen. And the more we seem to find others that believe the same.

Which brings me to another theme: The camino is a giant mirror! If you are spiritual and you came here to find more for your spirit, you will find it. If you are here for a grueling, stripped-down, rugged-living experience, you will find it. That’s what makes the camino so powerful for so many people from all parts of the world. You see yourself as you are, and it makes the beliefs you live by transparent. It’s another mantra of the camino that it brings you the gift of self-acceptance.

I’m still not sure what of all these themes I embrace or how they will impact our journey. In fact there have been some times I ask Michael “what the hell are we doing?” And they seem equally balanced by times that I say “we are right where we should be.”

So, there you go. An exhausted ramble about the camino so far. Today we are in Pamplona. We found an incredible 4-star hotel yesterday and decided to stay an additional night. I am nursing a couple blisters and general fatigue, but apparently I’m married to Terminator 2, who will walk forever. I’ve also relearned what an introvert I am. It’s been so exhausting to learn a new language and communicate ALL day long. Currently Michael and I are locked in our hotel room having some much appreciated silent side by side time.

It has been brought to my attention that I am not doing enough to attract male readers to our blog. This post is a deliberate effort to balance out our readership. If you are the typical American guy, read closely….

1. Spain and southern France are home to many sporting events. In fact, our hotel in Madrid was mere footsteps from the European Aquatic Sports Championship. I’ll spare you the spoilers… But the finals in men’s underwater basket weaving was an edge-of-your-seat thriller for sure.

2. I’d be happy to tell you about it over a BEER, WINE, or SPIRIT! They have lots of booze here, and if you drink enough of it you can forget about the Obama presidency or how you are an embarrassment to your family because you never became an astronaut.

3. Butt cleavage. The European fashion world is leading the way in the fight for the rights of men who are not prisoners of our gender’s centuries long obsession with breasts. They have made women’s shorts so short here, that 59% of all men here have constant bruises on the tops of there heads due to a combination of their constant downward glances and the abundance of decorative street lamps. Remember men, those bruises aren’t injuries, or signs of obsessive perversion… They are a sign of freedom from boob- centered oppression. !Vive la resistance!

Guys, please let me know if I have sparked your interest.

I should start by saying, as a therapist and human being, I am not one to cling to first impressions. It’s my profession to hear my inner dialogue about someone and at the same time continue to gather information before formulating hypothesises. With that being said, France upon first arrival sucks!
We just arrived via pleasant train ride followed by hellish bus ride in which others were puking as we rounded each switch back of the Pyrenees and were greeted by no one… Haha! It took a long time to find a place to stay, no one was helpful, and we were continually redirected to a kiosk for information. This was only startling because of our fabulous two days in Madrid where each meal became a generous language lesson and people were generally friendly.
So after waiting an hour and a half for a pizza and much debate, I convinced my loving hubby (and myself) to stay an extra night so that we have tomorrow to really get to see St. Jean Pied de Port. I mean not everyone is a jerk, right??
I mean, I’m trying my best to use my therapist skills here and see their context. Bus after bus and train after train bring a constant flow of eager pilgrims here. And most of them are rushed to get thier compostela, some food, and go to bed to start walking early.
So, France. I’ll give you one more day to prove that the fact that you rhyme with underpants is in fact a coincidence and not some form of warning about your sanitation.

Update day 2: I will be walking the first 25k so fast to get back to Spain, I may break some sort of record 🙂

#pilgriming
#earningthisone
#stilldelighted

I can officially say after not sleeping all night in an effort to maintain organization, it was a close call. Moving out the day before leaving the country sounded fine on paper, but had some challenges. In the end, we are all moved out of our house and packed into two 35Liter backpacks. We were so blessed to have had a wonderful landlord who was flexible and patient, my mom and her cleaning partner Debbie who made the house look new again, and loving friends who are so kindly watching over our vehicles. I plan to keep posting throughout our journey from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela. 

It’s hard not to talk about the trip as if it is already complete.  We have been on an incredible journey just getting to the point where we could even imagine trying this.  There is neither time nor space to thank everyone who has played a role in helping us get here.  I imagine though that everyone we would wish to thank knows our sentiments.

And we’re off! Our flight will be leaving Sea-Tac in just a few hours. 

We will do our best to provide updates on the evolution of our journey as time and connectivity permit.

Buen Camino!