Camino de Santiago Day 31: Portomarin to Palas de Rei
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An Infinite Loop
All month I’ve noticed a curious phenomenon: the words ‘Michael Jackson’ sprayed in graffiti on walls across the Camino, and presumably all across Spain. More than any political message or artist’s tag, or the name of his closest competitor - namely ‘Jesus Christ’, who comes far away in a distant second in the running for Spain’s most common graffiti slogan, the King of Pop seems to be either a running joke or a folk hero in this land. I’ve taken plenty of pictures to make a collection of sorts, a photo album of this amusing recurrence.
The latest one is on a brick wall on the edge of a small farming village, about a third of the way into the day’s walk. I take a photo as I walk and continue past it up a steep hill. About 20 minutes later, or maybe 25, I come into a small farm village and instinctively go to take a right turn at the T junction. An older farmer in the street points me the other way – “Ah, I see!”
The farmer’s middle-aged daughter is standing in the middle of the other road and starts nattering at me, and pointing up at the yellow arrow on the wall of a shed.
“Ah, I see!
“Yes, yes, of course – the yellow arrows!”
Just last night we’d been having a laugh – a friend had been travelling a monster distance and it was getting late; she asked an older gent how far to the next town. The man had responded – obviously weary and conditioned from the throngs of tourists who flood the roads of Galicia, perhaps less attuned to the routines and ways of the Way than the road-hardened pilgrims who’d done The Whole Thing – by pointing over to a big yellow arrow pointing the way:
“You see the yellow arrow? Just follow that one! And in about 500m, you’ll see another yellow arrow – follow it too! Keep following them all the way!”
My friend could only thank the man graciously for his humbling advice.
You’d have to laugh.
And so I thought here I was being given the same polite but useless advice, but also wished to receive it gratefully and not make a fuss –
“Ah, I see!”
“No, no, no” the woman replied, gesturing wildly and giving me what seemed like a lecture in Spanish, which I was beginning to interpret as meaning that if I kept walking and smiling politely at her I was going to be in trouble –
“You need to listen to me” she seemed to be saying, as she was making big circle motions with her finger the end of a fat piston of an arm
She pointed at the ground, at her village, at herself and her father, before making the circle motion again and then jamming two fingers at me in a V:
“You need to follow the yellow arrows, because
you’ve just walked around in a circle;
this is the second time you’ve passed through here;
and you don’t even recognise me and my father, but we recognise you.”
It dawns on me that I have been through here before, about 20 or 25 minutes ago, and not only did I not notice it, but if they hadn’t stopped me I would have kept walking backwards along the Camino after taking the wrong turn in the village, and going against the flow of traffic.
And I probably wouldn’t have noticed then either.
I thank her graciously for her humbling advice, and head on through the village – well, around the other building at the end of it, there wasn’t much to it.
As I poke my head around the corner, still trying to make sure I understand her correctly, not because I didn’t believe her (and to be honest, at this stage I nearly trust my Spanish or general listening skills enough that I’m confident I’m right), but because I’m still slightly disoriented for the fact that I let it happen.
Have I really just gone around in a circle?
I poke my head around the corner and see graffiti’d in black on a red brick wall of a small shed, the famous two recurring words that I distinctly remember taking a photo of earlier to add to the growing collection, that I see now not for the first or even the second time on the Camino, confirming that I have indeed done a complete two kilometre circle:
‘Michael Jackson’
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Why are you doing the Camino (part 3)?
There are dogs everywhere. And they’re massive. Loads of great big wet dogs, big Galician dogs they must be, larger than any I’ve ever seen, 3 and 4 at a time, in every village and near every home you pass, hanging around here and there.
Trinketville: Yes, it all gets a bit tackier from here on in, but how you carry yourself now says a lot about how you’ve walked this far.
Do you complain or do you just keep walking?
This is your test.
Personally I didn’t walk all this way just to let a few extra people on the road mess up my vibe.
Many people come here when they’re questioning what they’re doing with their lives to be met with nothing but questions such as:
“What are you doing with your life?”
But maybe that’s how it works
Maybe
Yet amidst all the walking and the thinking, the reflection in the solitude and the soul-searching in the conversations with others, all wondering through the wandering, all the ‘Whys’ and the ‘Hows’ -
the ‘Whys’ being the stories you tell others and yourself about the immediate or general context of your life that called you to do the Camino; and
the ‘Hows’ being the way you engage with the world on a day-to-day basis, being a more illuminating lens with which to view your life, to what do you attend and what gets you through the day, what is important to you when you have nothing but yourself –
it begins to dawn on me as we near the ending point of our journey – and I’ve no doubt it must occur around this time, whether you like it or not – maybe it’s triggered by a peak experience on a mountain under moonlight surrounded by friends, or
maybe it just happens in the accumulation of inertia and momentum of the hundreds of thousands of steps you took until now truth is reaching escape velocity and nothing can stop it from rising to the surface and bursting forth,
The dawning
The apocalypse
The great awakening
The revelation
The unveiling of the truth of Why you have come here and Why you walk,
Piecing together the sum total – no, the product – of all my Whys and Hows, of every conversation I’ve had and every story I’ve told, of every step taken and every action, interaction and reaction, of everyone I’ve met and everything I’ve seen and heard, of everyone I’ve listened to and connected with and every journey I’ve undertaken big and small, the trip as a whole and the journeys within journeys within journeys of my whole life, and the only thing I’m left with is that – that only reason I can honestly say as to Why I’m here, is
I think I’m just here to have a good time.
If you’ve done the Camino, are thinking of doing it, or are just interested in discussing the Camino or travel in general - then please leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you.