Santiago to Regensburg - part 1
Friday, October 2, 2009 at 10:25PM There is a quiet feeling of loss —Journal Excerpt, June 13, 2006.
When the train went by me and all I could see was the end of the last car, I felt rather numb and much like I had started my journey: alone and afraid. The speed of the train and the clacking of the tracks created a woosh of air and sound that suddenly blew over me and then quickly faded in that moment when it passed by my body. I watched the back of the last car until I couldn't see it anymore. Then I turned around and walked out of the station. By some luck, because you may remember I don't believe in luck, and which I only say because of the state of loss I was experiencing in that moment, I saw a line of people standing with suitcases and backpacks at a bus stop. I went over and read the sign. It was the bus stop to the airport. I had wondered how I was going to get there from the city, and now I was relieved to not have to ask or worry about it anymore. My flight was in the afternoon. It was still early morning. I had a lot of time to kill. I walked back up the city streets in reverse order. For some strange reason I stopped at a fruit vendor and bought a small amount of peaches. They were the flat shaped peaches I had first tasted in Italy a year or two before that I had remembered with fondness. In Germany they are called Weinberg (wine -mountain) peaches, and have sadly become popular and as tasteless as most of the other peaches you can buy here. In Italy the Pants' mother had told me they were named after little purses to hold tobacco in, which, from a visual perspective is certainly more logical, not to mention infinitely more charming. I suppose I wanted something I knew to be consoling. Perhaps I was thinking of a snack for later. Or, more likely, I was desperately trying to distract myself from the pain I was feeling. I continued up the streets with my little paper sack of peaches and found my way to the cathedral.;)
Before going back to the hotel I decided to do two things. The first was to buy Marc's triptych he had wanted. He had also wanted a statue of St. James, but I didn't see anything that I would want standing on my shelf, so I didn't buy it. Marc had given me a little money for the task. I found my way to the store where we had looked at the triptychs and bought a small one, about 4 inches in height. I would send it to him along with his jacket I was still wearing when I returned home. The second thing I did was go back into the cathedral. I decided to go visit St. James behind the altar after all. Since it was morning, the cathedral was rather empty. There was no line to wait in. I walked up to the statue which is behind the altar. I was surprised, actually a little bit alarmed, to find that he had his own bodyguard there. I put my hand on the shell where many pilgrims do and said a few quick things that were on my mind. Then I went back to the hotel thinking I could rest for a bit if I wanted. There was a bed and quiet, after all.
When I opened the door to my hotel room, however, I had a moment of hesitation before being able to cross over the doorway into the room. All of my possessions strewn about the floor felt suddenly foreign to me and I didn't want to see my stuff or pack my stuff or have anything to do with it. I stood there looking at it for a few moments, and then understanding that I was going to be alone for the rest of the day and all the way back home, I fell apart and sat on the bed crying. The only thing that snapped me out of it was the thought that I knew I had could get out of there any time I wanted. I threw myself into the ritual of packing. I wouldn't need to carry any water now and that helped even out the weight difference of having to add the things I had sent ahead, although being much stronger now the extra weight wasn't any problem. When I finished packing I looked around the room one last time after I was done, tossed the pack onto one shoulder as if it were a light purse, and creaked my way down the wooden staircase.
I didn't know yet where I was going, only that I was going to get out of the loneliness of the hotel. I began walking. I decided if I got tired of walking I was going to walk to the bus stop at the train station and take the next bus to the airport and wait until whatever time my flight left.
I walked around streets not far from the cathedral. It was raining now. The strangeness of that didn't escape me. Not only did the Camino gods know how to disturb sleep at will, they knew how to remind me that my journey of days;)
and days of infinite blue skies had really come to an end. The air had turned cold, the wind was blowing a bit. Everything was beginning to drip. Looking down most of the old streets you could see pilgrims with their billowing ponchos over their backpacks. It made them look odd, I thought, like the German incense burners taken out at Christmas time. I took a few photos, and every time I began to feel alone and afraid I started walking again. I found a small café and decided to eat something since airport food's greatest attraction is the psychological contest of finding out how much or little you're willing to pay for it. There weren't so many pilgrims present, so I felt a bit ridiculous dressed in my pilgrim attire, but only a little since I knew the people of Santiago were used to it. I sat at a tiny round wooden table in a corner at the end of the bar so that I could put my backpack down behind my chair and out of the way of the narrow walkway. I ordered a simple ham sandwich and a Coke from a waiter who was extremely nice. As was the custom when I was alone and eating, I took out my journal and began writing. I tuned out the people I normally would observe, stopping only from time to time to look out the front window of the café to see the rain continue to fall and the legs of passers by moving swiftly in search of shelter. I liked watching how drops of water flew off the back of their heels. When I finished eating and felt I could no longer stay writing without appearing like I had somehow become a squatter, I decided that I had had all of Santiago that I needed. I carefully escorted my backpack down the narrow path of the café, holding onto one arm strap with one hand as if it were the hand of a small child, and directed it and myself back into the wet streets. I pulled the hood of Marc's jacket up onto my head and gently arranged my pack onto my shoulders. On my back it would at least keep that part of me from getting wet.
I suppose I bought my bus ticket on the bus. I don't remember now. I do remember getting on the bus and feeling exhausted. I sat there and closed my eyes, trying to keep myself together and trying not to think about how upset I felt. We made some stops, one being under some large concrete garage like area which must have been the main bus station judging from the other buses there, where upon we picked up a lot of pilgrims and then left the city of Santiago behind us.
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Reader Comments (8)
i leave next wednesday for a week in iona then off to the camino. i can't wait!! your story has encouraged my own excitement for the journey...
cheers,
kelz
Thank you very much for your kind comment. I'm very happy to know that you liked my story of my journey. The Camino in October would be a very different experience, and one I would like to see myself. Please comment when you get back and let me know how your journey was. I'm always happy to hear about the experiences of others.
Buen Camino!
~Deb.
~Deb
Look forward to hearing more soon.
We, your faithful readers, will wait as long as it takes. We are with you for the long haul. And besides, I have a feeling that the best is yet to come.
What ever it is that you are dealing with I know that you have the gumption to deal with it. Look at all you accomplished and endured walking your camino.
Take care and hope to hear from you when you are "good and ready".
best, Barbara
I had a feeling you would be writing in before I got out more entries. Thanks dear Jacobus for the comment and sticking with me. I hope your Camino was great. Would love to know which route you were on.
~Deb
Thanks for the comment and encouragement. Thanks to all reading who are waiting patiently. I have to stay up all night for something else, so let's see if I can get the draft that's unpublished, published.
Breathing in and breathing out...that's what I have to say at the moment.
~Deb.