In The Groove

(Nearly) Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, mom and I wake at 6 a.m. and take an hour walk before school/work. Now, considering I am a high school senior and most days don't have to be at school until 9 a.m., I think this is a HUGE sign of my immense love for my momma.

We've gotten into our swing of things: we both have our favorite knit hats that we wear and we grab a few cuties to eat on the way. We always walk to 24th Street Beach on the pavement (3 miles round-trip) and point out houses that we've never really noticed before, even after 15 years of living here. There's a few people we're beginning to see each day, walking their dogs or running.

Now that Daylight Savings Time has kicked in, we start out in the dark and walk by lamplight and leftover moonlight. By the time we hit the beach, the sun is just starting to come up and the birds are raising a ruckus about it.

Once we reach 24th street. We stop for a moment to glance at the beautiful view, then turn around and go home, to jump in showers, get ready for school/work, and to get hot coffee.

Weekends, we take longer walks -- ten miles last Saturday, past 24th Street Beach and Dog Beach down to the rocky edge of North Morro Bay ("Justin's Point") and back in about 3 hours. It was one of those perfect Central Coast days, bright and sunny, when you can sense summer's heat coming just behind the still-chilly breeze. Everybody was out playing with their kids and dogs, building with sand toys or heaving dog-slobbering tennis balls with those long red hand-catapult things. We settled into a rhythm that was easy but not lazy, broken only when we had to jump the creek near the old Exxon mooring station (Caity cleared it: I got a chance to learn just how quickly my new walking shoes dry out.) Our conversation matched our pace, and we meandered between topics: what goes in the backpacks...when to fit in upcoming college visit trips...re-revisiting the camera issue (NO! AAUGH!!)....and wondering, after trekking Cayucos, how different it will be to walk the hills of Galicia, and the beach at Finisterre...

I know that this routine we're in won't be the same on the Camino, and I'm glad for it. I'm looking forward to a completely new thing, even if it means culture shock, travel shock, everything shock.

And I know that, for both of us, this pilgrimage will be a kind of bridge between life as it has been, and life as it will be once Caity leaves for college. We'll walk this leg of Camino (hopefully making it all 108 miles), return home and, after a whirlwind of prep...she'll keep on walking...

So...here's to the Shared Road, and Grateful Hearts!

Soles & Souls, part 3

...plus

....plus

EQUALS....

HAPPY PILGRIMS (in Training)!!!!!!

Aaaugh!!!

This was Caity's reaction when I received in the mail 3 very small, very slim, extremely practical little booklets of invaluable information from the Confraternity of Saint James.

"We said no guides, no tourist crap -- are you trying to ruin this?!!"

So. An interesting mother-daughter dramatic tension is developing here...above and beyond the usual interesting mother-daughter dramatic tensions...

Obviously, Cait wants to plunge, tabula rasa-like, into this experience with no preconceptions or expectations -- lovely, wonderful idea. Life lived straight-out from the heart, bobbin' and weavin' (as my brother says...) around the obstacles. Unimpeded by actual information.

Yeahbut, me...can't help myself. At the very least, my Maternal Instinct nags me to gain a passing knowledge of places to sleep, things to eat and where all the hospitals are located along the route. But more than that...I want to know the stories! We'll be walking through a thousand years of history and legend -- I want to be able to "read" the sturm-und-drang captured in carved stone and stained glass and recognize at least some of the characters and plotlines -- gruesome, goofy, romantic -- attached to this camino. The more obscure and implausible, the better; for heaven's sake, the pilgrimage only exists because someone once found a pile of Holy Bones in an empty field and...

You know this, right? No?

Well, then....here's what I know about Saint James the Great. (If this reads like a jumble, well, it's not surprising considering the wide variation between sources. Mine include the Oxford Dictionary of Saints, the New Testament, Wikipedia, a few Saints-R-Us blogs and my very pretty French book, "Compostelle, le grand chemin", by Xavier Barral I Altet, which has the best illustrations and buckets of satisfying little details...which we're just going to assume I've translated correctly...)

Fisherman by trade, brother of John (together they were known as "sons of thunder" for their hot tempers and impetuous natures), James the Great was one of Jesus' earliest disciples, and the first apostle to be killed/martyred after the crucifixion. He was "put to the sword" by Herod Agrippa -- a poetic term for "decapitated". Now, here's where things get confusing: one legend says James' remains were placed in a tomb "under marble arches." Another says the body was placed in a small boat, which was pushed into the Mediterranean and, seven days later, miraculously arrived in Galicia, where the body was then interred in stone that formed a natural sarcophagus. (Another legend claims that small boat was actually made of marble....so...you're seeing the theme here, right?) At any rate, James' remains were lost to history...Time Passed...Charlemagne established Christianity as the (literally) reigning religion of the western world... Then, one night, a shepherd saw a divine light shining in a field and discovered the holy bones in their natural sarcophagus of stone...which had by now become marble (thematic resolution!) An angel revealed to the local archbishop that this was the body of Saint James, and a church was built on the spot. During this era, the Christian Royals were having a hell of a time trying to rid the land of invading Muslim Moors. During one decisive battle, Saint James appeared on a white steed dressed as a Cavalry soldier and charged the Moors, leading the Christians to victory. Thus, Saint James became the "Matamore" -- Moor-slayer -- and the political and religious symbol of the Catholic church's struggle against The Infidel.




For centuries, the Spanish Army rode to war with the battle cry "Santiago!" In due time, James became the patron saint of knights, horsemen and blacksmiths. For rather more obscure reasons, he also eventually became the patron of pharmacists, tanners, people who suffer from arthritis and rheumatism, furriers, day-laborers, veterinarians, Guatemala...


And, of course, pilgrims.

Okay, one more story. Long ago, a pilgrim family -- father, mother and handsome young son -- stopped at a tavern in the town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada. A randy barmaid came on to the son, who passed. Dissed, and pissed, the barmaid sneaked silver from the tavern's till into the Son's pocket, and loudly accused him of stealing (see: A Woman Scorned). The son was hustled before the town judge and summarily sentenced and hanged. Distraught, his parents continued to Santiago, weeping and praying for help. On the way home, approaching Santo Domingo, they were shocked to find their son still hanging from the gallows -- not dead, but very alive, and being held up by Saint James himself. Overjoyed, and eager to have their son released from the noose, the parents hurried to relate this miracle to the judge, who had just sat down to his midday meal of roast chicken. Irritated at the interruption, the judge scoffed, "Nonsense -- your son is no more alive than this chicken!" At that, his luncheon entree stood up crowing, scampered across the table, sprouted feathers and flew away. To this day in Santo Domingo, a pair of white chickens is kept on an elevated ledge in a niche on the cathedral's western wall. We won't get to see them (this trip...). But folks who have been to Santo Domingo say it's good luck to hear the chickens crow, or find one of their white feathers....

Just...beware of the barmaids.

Soles & Souls, part 2

Friends, strangers, my mother-in-law have asked: "So...why this Camino thing, exactly?"

Even Ron, my Worried But Supportive Husband, pointed out: "A hundred and eight miles -- hell, you and Caity could just walk to Santa Barbara. And go shopping."

True. Except...we hate shopping. We're good for, like, an hour and a half, then we both get splitting headaches and we're done. Time for lunch. Or at least caffeine and cookies.

"What about hiking the John Muir Trail?" someone asked. "It's amazing -- and you wouldn't be out the airfare."

True. Except....just as the Muir Trail isn't any old walk in the woods, neither is the Camino just a stroll in Spain.

"Ohhh...so, you're Catholic!"

Nope. Although I do love all the candles and incense and mystic choreography of that beautiful, ritual-laden tradition. And I'm frankly fascinated by glittering reliquaries and their gruesome contents (a freeze-dried Pope...the Holy Prepuce...the age-blackened Skull of Mary Magdalene) -- such gorgeous theatre!

But, when pinned, I identify as a Cranky Protestant. I favor clean walls, lean words, minimal clutter so as not to cloud the truth. At least I did, back when I absolutely knew The Truth. Back when scripture read like Directions, and not ageless, deeply-layered poetry that confounds as often as it consoles. Back when sitting through a sermon didn't seem like more of an ordeal than walking 108 miles...

"...okay....so....why...??"

The "Inferno" begins: "Midway this way of life we're bound upon, I woke to find myself in a dark wood, where the right road was wholly lost and gone..." When I read that back in college, I didn't get it -- I wasn't supposed to. Dante wasn't writing for 19-year-olds.

I get it now.

That's why, for me, the Camino -- an ancient path rooted in a tradition that is not mine, and a faith I'm not certain I still hold. I don't expect absolution, epiphany...mostly, I expect blisters. But slamming into anxious, messy Mid-Life has made me confront the burden of accumulated guilt, grief, fear and regret I lug around daily. So, with my daughter, and despite my doubt-riddled Cranky Protestantism, I'm embracing the Metaphor: I want to take a long walk on a right road, and lay that burden on some altar in Santiago...or heave it into the ocean at Finisterre... or drop it gradually, in shards and splinters, all along the Camino.

Or, maybe, just learn how to carry it better...with more wisdom, grace, and compassion.

Soles & Souls, part 1

These are all the shoes we did not buy last weekend.

We started out very hopeful, but after seeing thirty different shoe types, extremely varying prices, and multiple (radically different) vendors, we ended up having more questions than we started out with.

Personally, I think it's all about the socks. So, new plan -- This Saturday: socks, this Sunday: shoes.

I'm not very patient when it comes to buying shoes, so I've been wearing the same tennis shoes for the past 1 1/2, maybe 2 years? While the shoes were perfect, the sales guy who sold them to us was....well, creepy. Old, balding, slightly sweaty, foot fetishy type of guy. Just saying, the entire time my mom and I were giving freaked-out looks to each other. But we got great shoes...I guess everything comes at a price.

So this time, planning to go back and get the same type of shoes from the same creepy guy, we walked in hesitantly, determined, eyes darting anxiously. But he wasn't there! yay. We did however meet a lovely girl named Heather who really knew a lot about the few styles of walking shoes she had. She really understood what we were looking for, and since she didn't have it, suggested we go to another, BIG sports store. (This was of course after my mom tried on a pair of painfully squeaky white old lady walking shoes and after Caity tired on men's golf shoes for God's sake...)

ANYWAYS. We headed over to this big store where we met...The Dude. He was just that. Not helpful, and was merely sent to babysit us after they saw we were taking pictures. When we asked him some questions, he responded with an "umm..," deer in the headlights look, obviously his second day on the job. So needless to say, we didn't find what we were looking for there.

But at the next place we met Kelly, The Footwear God. We told him what we were doing and he asked us all kinds of questions about terrain, skill level, backpack load, stride length, etc. until Caity and I both had splitting headaches and had to stop shopping. But we DO plan to go back. So it wasn't a total loss--we didn't find the shoes, but we found the place where we will get the shoes.

(we darted into one last place where WWIII was exploding. Customer and clerk yelling at each other the proper fit of uggs. We ran out when we heard:

"They're too tight!"

"Well they're going to stretch"

"But what if they don't"

"They will."

"But I can return them if I hate them?"

"If you hate them...?!")

And that concluded our first day of shoe shopping.

(by the way, this blog site has a mind of its own, so if the pictures are in funky places and there are huge spaces, we apologize!!)