Buen Camino!

Woke up Tuesday morning, June 1, thinking: "Great! All graduations have been happily, successfully celebrated, Family here and gone. Now, just one week to concentrate on last-minute Camino prep, since everything's all set to go."



Within 24 hours, our flight had been cancelled due to the British Airways strike, and Caity had landed in and hobbled out of the emergency room with seven stitches to the right knee and the top and toes of her left foot badly banged, scraped & swollen. (Note: no more leaping in the dark between an unfamiliar jacuzzi and pool without first making sure there isn't a 2-foot concrete-edged drop in between...)



I'd already been fretting over ash clouds, a looming general strike in Spain, and multiple Forum reports that the Camino Frances is now so crowded that pilgrims are being turned away not only at albergues and refugios but private inns as well. Add the slip-sliding flight schedule and the Limping Girl, and I started to wonder...



Is Somebody trying to tell me something?



So...Hello, 3 a.m., my old friend.



It strikes me this could be one of those moments you look back at and, according to where you are (like jail, or a hospital, or the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night), you think: "Why didn't I listen to all those warning signals -- what the F*&K was I thinking?!"



Then again...according to where you are (like a convivial coastal cafe, sharing a meal with new friends and happy offspring), you might just as easily think: "Man, I'm glad I didn't let all that crazy last-minute stuff scare me off..."

Where's that damn crystal ball when you need it?

Well now here we are, the day we leave. Saying to ourselves...glad we picked the second choice! There was one night where it looked impossible for us to go. Not just all of the physical aspects, but the mental ones as well. But we slept on it, and woke up in the morning with the same feeling. Lets do it anyways.

What's that old saying...? "Sometimes the only transportation available is a leap of faith..."

We got my stitches out, the bruise on my foot is almost completely healed, the flights re-scheduled, stewards managed to stop striking just in time, no volcano ash in the air (for the moment).....and we leave for the airport in ten minutes.

But to be honest, the thing that got me most prepared for the camino was this:

When we'd made the decision to go in spite of everything, it really struck me that this (for me) is as much a spiritual journey as a physical one...and, historically, pilrgims often carried the prayers of others on the way. So, I threw this out to my friends and colleagues at work: if there's a prayer, a concern, a hope or intention you want to share, write it on a scrap of paper or cloth or give me a small memento and I will place it on a chapel altar, or a roadside shrine, or on the beach at Finisterre. It was just a last-minute thought -- but so many people responded. Some shared the stories behind their intention...others just gave it to me with tears in their eyes... And, with each little charge I received, I felt this journey deepen in meaning for me.

When my mom showed me all the mementos and sealed letters, I felt the same feeling as well. Like, this isn't just our journey.

We're going to carry all these people in our hearts, but we're also carrying something for them.

"Prayer smugglers," Nick just said.

So with this, the "prayer smugglers" will sign off and hit the road. Keep us in your thoughts and we'll keep you in our hearts.

Buen Camino!