En Route to Camino

One of the things I looks forward to most when I travel is writing these blogs.  I go through the travel-day looking for something that's culturally different from my life in Melbourne, or consider interactions with friends met on route to another location. It makes the holiday a social and cultural analysis. All day an idea percolates. The writing of the blog is the most strenuous part, often times I have to write a blog twice after the initial inspiration has gone because I didn't hit save (such as this blog). I write at night when all I want to do is sleep, or I write when I'm on a train in transit between cities or countries. The inspiration and writing is one aspect, but perhaps the main reason I write - although I wouldn't want to fully admit it - is to share the blogs with family or on Facebook to collect 'likes' and spread the FOMO to those who can be bothered reading till the end.  Such is the way of our social media age.

I'm about 5 days into this trip and have not been as desperate to write as I normally am. I have also noticed that I'm taking this trip more at face-value and feeling far more relaxed than previous trips. This is the first, very apparent moment I have noticed that the 2.5 years of councilling for my anxiety has paid off. The adrenaline is not as high, the second guessing is at a minimum, and I feel more confident. I also strongly feel that this comes with age - last time I was in Europe I was around 24 years old. I wanted to fit in as much sightseeing  as possible but my head was stuck in grief. Travel forces you to stop wallowing in self pity and instead focus wholly on where you will get your next meal, or how to get to the station and buy a ticket, or how to ask a local for directions to the chemist. It forces you to live in the moment, but often the moment can be overwhelming when you are an outsider. Back then, the only peace I felt was in churches. I could poke myself and acknowledge the grief, but still feel like I was taking in culture and admire the archetecture. Churches are calm but exciting in their foreigness.

This trip's aim is ultimately to do a bloody big walk. We will do 2-3 weeks on the Camino Frances across Spain to Compostela de Santiago. It is a pilgrimage route, following the way of St James who brought Christianity to Europe. Now its a tourist destination for white people to 'find themselves' and for at least a moment to reconnect with themselves. Everyone has a different reason for doing the Camino, and everyone's Way is different, but it is ultimately a reconnection with body if you are walking 20-30km a day with a 10kg pack. Our aim for doing this is partially a 'coming of age' - to purge the anxieties, the sadness of unrequited lovers lost, for new beginnings. Its a slower holiday than I'm used to, where I practically lived on a train and every dinner's meal was eaten in a different town. It will also complete my bucket list dream to visit 30 countries by 30 years old. It is the perfect holiday.

And yet, despite all the weight put on this holiday - the expectations for epiphany and the hope to find inner calm through acceptance of self and of blisters - I don't particuoarly want to write. Not with the same ferocity as I used to.  I often had discussions with my Irish trotskyest shrink that I believe we place detailed narratives on memories to defign ourselves. These can be dangerous and self centred. My doctor doesn't agree fully, his speciality is EMDR therapy, not your standard CBT. I told him I'd written a diary pretty consistently since I was 8 years old and he wasn't half as impressed as I hoped he'd be. In a later session when I mentioned I haven't written in my diary for a few months, mainly because I didn't know how to word some of the events that had happened recently to my friends, and in turn what that would mean to me (I'd thought too much of the narrative than the act of simply writing events) he stated that a diary can be pointless as you have to choose what to include and more importantly what to exclude. It becomes tiring. I've found reading over them is quite humorous as you remember more what you specifically excluded rather than what you included. The narrative of my diary was getting depressing. I would write perhaps once or twice a month so the diary takes time to fill. One page would be the start of a new dating relationship, a page later it had ended. I also mainly write when I feel down, but then the diary seems like I'm a sorry sod who has no happiness, so I'd try to incoude something happy but it seems forced. Or I'd exclude the details on why I'm sad. Now the diary's seem pointless and more stress than catharsis.

We met with an old high-school friend when we were in London who recently returned from a Camino with her mum. They walked around 650 of the 800km, but her mum injured her ankle and couldn't make it to Compostela. She is a playwrite and will be writing a script about her trip. She said initially it would be a play about a mother and daughter bonding on The Way and about acceptance of body. Now it will be a puppet play with turtles (as they walked very slowly) and on her Way she did a lot of thinking about Brexit and the value in remaining in the EU - the acceptance and lesser racism that comes with a union of different cultures. Now her play will be about self and about politics. For someone who also writes, she didn't write at all on her Camino. I'll be interested in how I feel while I walk. It might be a comfort to not write, or a desparation to type out my thoughts as they evolve over the trip. One foot in front of the other.

These blogs aren't quite the same as my diaries. They are snapshots rather than an attempt to journalise. But still, with all the expectations and the range of emotions I have set for my camino, it may be hard for even me to put them into words!Read more