Now comes the hard part: making sense of El Camino. That may take a lifetime. I suspect it may take a lifetime because it is actually quite simple. What may be a better exercise for me is to examine my own reactions to what happened on my journey. After all the camino is a personal voyage of discovery.
It is twelve days since my arrival in Santiago de Compostela. So much has happened since that time. I spent two days in that city, flew to London for four days before returning to Canada. I have been exposed once more to the stresses and strains of "normal" daily life, along with murder and mayhem, an oil spill of disastrously spectacular proportions, a pending G20 summit in my home town that threatens to bring the City to a standstill, and Justin Bieber is still the heartthrob for countless young teenage girls.
Enroute to the airport on my way for the two hour flight to London, I passed other pilgrims making their entry into the City. Is there a look of joy or achievement as they wend their way towards the cathedral? Actually, they take on more the demeanor of automated Fritz Lang characters as in the movie Metropolis. They have a job to do, and that is walk. At this point there is no awkward news to detract from their path. Emotion will come later. Life lacks complication. At the same time, what we describe in the "real world" as ordinary takes on a almost surreal intensity.
More on this later,
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You are starting to get the PPB's - Post Pilgrimage Blues! You realise that 'real' life is easy but complicated whereas a pilgrims' life is difficult but uncomplicated.
ReplyDeleteIt gets worse as time goes by and eventually, the only thing to do is to take another long walk!
Who knows, you might be following in your own footsteps a year or so from now.
un abrazo peregrino,
Sil