day 16: the 'meseta'

greetings from day 16 of el camino de santiago, where our heroes have just paused at the half-way mark of the camino francès, high fived, and continued on their journey. that half-way point was ensconced in the no-nonsense mini-metropolis of Sahagún, where we visited the Iglesia de San Lorenzo, but were kicked out after a small horde of women finished taking down the decorations from sunday's wedding. we weren't supposed to be there at all, but that's how we roll here in spain - sneaking into every house of the Lord we come across, getting off a few stolen prayers, reading a few illicit psalms, jotting down notes in our journals while looking about mischieviously for spiritual authority figures, or, in yesterday's case, women with brooms.

but my real purpose here is to tell you about la meseta - this utterly flat region of northern spain that does not seem to participate in the space/time continuum with the same strictness as other geographies. to clarify, we get up at 5:30, eat a loaf of bread with jam, then walk 6-8 hours in a straight line through shadeless wheatfields, hunting the horizon. we dream of mountains, of anything at all to break up the endless expanse.

the meseta has presented us with a unique challenge, and i use the past tense because when we reach león tomorrow we will be preparing for mountains again. the meseta, as far as i can tell, is teaching us that there are times when one must become intensely involved in the location of stones scattered across the path in the 2 meters preceding one's forward foot, when the pile of rocks ahead must be a goal whose acheivement can inspire just another 50 meters to the next, when you've got to find a rhythm in your footsteps and your breaths that become a familiar and consoling song. perhaps this is the root of ancient hymns. i find myself humming tunes i thought i had forgotten.

the meseta does not fear us, as we may imagine foolishly that mountains do. the meseta will not be conquered by our strength or youthful brashness: it holds us in its grasp, not merciless for spite, but only because we are weak, and we must face it. the meseta is teaching us what the camino is at the bare bones: a road whose true length is impossible to measure, whose half-way markers have little to give us. the surest stride will never make it across the meseta without a stumble, a look around, a fall of the brow. we have yet to make it to the horizon for all our leaps and scurries. yet it also seems that the span of our journey is never so broad that we cannot cross it with a heavy breath of resignation, a clap on the shoulder, and a single stride that feels beneath it the earth's subtle, dusty curve.

day 12: castrojeriz (between burgos and leon)

so we've entered the pre-teen years of our journey, and things are continuing without too many tantrums and we've miraculously avoided the awkward growth spurt. then again, i was kind of a late bloomer.

i have 5 minutes here, so let me spell out for the curious our more or less daily schedule:

5:15 alarm segueing into final preparations for the day: breakfast
6:00 (ideally) rubber on road
6:00 -9:00 follow yellow arrows and signs with seashells along El Camino de Santiago, a pilgrimage route that is older than any of the nations it crosses
9:00 take off our packs, apply sunscreen, eat 4 or 5 muffins and some fruit, stretch
9:00 - until we're tired: one foot in front of the other
when we're tired: take a little break, drink liters of water, stretch
after the stretch: follow yellow arrows (seriously, if a yellow arrow led into a bottomless manhole, i would jump into it without scruples)
we usually arrive into our destination between 12:00 and 14:00, depending on mileage (we're averaging about 27-28 km a day, pushing ourselves up to 36 on one occasion, resting the sore and blistered feets with a 21 earlier in our diaper days)
we then check into the albergue, a variation on a barrack facility, eat our lunch (without fail: bread, cheese, chorizo sausage, fruit), and proceed to afternoon activities.

afternoon activities:
sitting there
sleeping
reading (i'm in the middle of canto VI of dante's inferno in italian and loving it)
stretching, attending to minor medical concerns
hobbling around the town in search of physical sustenance, the silence of church spaces
eating
chatting with our fellow pilgrims in a variety of broken languages and hand gestures
talking about what we want to eat when we get back to AMERICA

8:30-9:30 in bed and excited to be there.
rinse and repeat.

these days are full of reflections on the many blessings in my life, not the least of which that there are people out there who are reading this and thinking of us. thoughts and prayers, to avoid confusion in the vastness of the cosmos and meta-cosmos, should include full names: Carl Claude Adair and Patrick Michael O'Brien.

el camino de santiago

greetings from day 8 of el camino de santiago. pat and i are getting kicked around by this ancient trail - we are sunburned and sore, but we are safe and we are keeping our heads up. keeping the eyes and ears open. looking for signs.

i had a dream last night that i was home in fairport and having trouble accessing my email while eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. thank you, unconscious, for making it just that much more clear that i am getting ready to be home, and that the strain of this trip has got me craving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. that being said, the day's reflection warranted this: a lot of the most important things in my life seem to happen when i wish i was already home.

on the move again

i'm under the gun - i have to get to firenze campo di marte and i'm at santa maria novella. i also have to call my host parents and chase bank to straighten some stuff out.

suffice it to say that i have been working on an organic farm for the last week in Castegneto Carducci, which is near the western coast of italy - one afternoon i walked to the top of the nearest mountain, illegally climbed a forest fire lookout, and saw the bright blue against the deep green of the hills that roll right down to the edge.

this organic farm is also a spiritual retreat, run by a wonderful woman named edith who has moved to italy from the states 35 years ago and has established this sustainable farm as an opportunity for people like myself to come and to some work within, some work without. i am bone tired, but i feel refreshed, collected - ready to walk. ready for the long haul. time has begun to stretch out in front of me, which both frightens and inspires me. but the better question than 'what am i supposed to do in all this time?' is: 'what am supposed to be doing right now?'

the answer to that, right now, is to say a quick word of thanks for the myriad blessings in my life, strap on my pack, and get on the road. my love to you all.