Camino Via de la Plata 2022

I got up very early to say goodbye to Meg, Kathleen and Anita, but it was all a rush, they had just gotten downstairs when their airport taxi arrived so it was less a moment of fond farewells and more a hurried wave goodbye as they drove off.

I did not have much to do today, my tourist shopping was all done, my bags were more or less packed ready to go and I was on my own, my companions had either gone home or were away on further travels. Anne would also be moving on out of the city to less expensive accommodation whilst she continued to recover from covid. So, I spent the day drinking coffee, and helping other pilgrims find their way to the cathedral or to the bus station or to the laundry, I suspect there's a full time job there for someone who wants it. I don't have much to report about today other than it was somewhat lonely and I was already missing the ladies. So let me backtrack to the 13th of June and the final meal we had together.

On the night of our last dinner in Santiago together (minus Anne who had covid) I wanted to give them all something that expressed even in a small way how I felt about each of them. I made a few notes so that I would not ramble, but I rambled a bit anyway, so I can't write exactly what I said but it was something like this:

To Meg I gave the gift of a small plaque of the Madonna and Child. Somehow in this camino she had managed to help bring together a group of people who in other circumstances might never have given one another the time of day. She created space and opportunity for us to get to know one another, and like a nurturing mother she had cared for us, encouraged us and had helped us to find the thing that all humans deeply long for - a sense of community, of belonging. A common saying about the camino is that each person must walk their own camino and in many ways that is true. However, her care and nurture of this group reminded me of another truth, put so eloquently by John Donne, "No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less." I learned from Meg that whilst we must all walk our own pilgrimage, we can never walk it on our own. We need the friendship and support of others.

Knowing Meg has challenged me to try to be a person who welcomes the stranger, and who creates the space and opportunities that allow people to come together and that helps them to discover the friendship waiting in that space. To be a person who nurtures what is good in others, goodness that they may not yet see themselves.

Meg did not help to create an exclusive club but one that would always welcome the stranger and invite them to belong and so to Guillermo I gave the hand of friendship - it was an actual hand made from blue plastic!

To Kathleen I gave a photograph of a field of sunflowers taken on the camino between Santiponce and Guillena in 2018, it was one of my own photographs, I had managed to find a 1-hour photo lab in Santiago who printed and framed it for me. Ever since I met Kathleen, my days on the camino had been filled with light and laughter, joy and kindness. I will never forget sitting in the dingy albergue in Cea when she walked in, and suddenly it was as if the sun had come out, she lit up the space just by walking into it. Every single day on the camino, she was a ray of sunshine in our lives. So when I think of Kathleen, I am reminded that I need to be a person who brings the light in what is sometimes a dark world. So the photograph of sunflowers was to be for her a reminder of the positive impact she has been to others, to remind her too, of how thankful I am that she brought the light to me.

To Anita I gave a small piece of granite carved into the shape of a shell. Australians have a well-deserved reputation for grit and determination, and a toughness that echoes the hard landscape of their birth. Anita exemplifies those qualities is the most positive way. When it looked like her camino was over through injury, she refused to quit, and she demonstrated courage, and resilience overcoming that injury to return to the camino and complete her journey. She is as tough as Galician granite and Australian bedrock and I admire everything about her. I am sure that I will face challenges in the future, perhaps tough ones, and when I do, I will think of Anita. If I ever feel like I have given all I can and I can't go on, when I feel like giving up, I will think of Anita, her courage, resilience and strength and her refusal to quit and I will tell myself, you're not done yet.

To Mirjam, Julia and Anne (who was there in our thoughts and hearts) I gave a very small gift, a simple blue fridge magnet emblazoned with the yellow arrow of the camino, the ultimate cheap tourist tat.

From the start of our camino, the yellow arrows pointed us forward, providing direction with the unspoken promise that if we followed them we would find a hot shower, a meal and a bed for the night.

As I look at Mirjam, Julia and Anne I see three very beautiful and remarkable young women, beautiful on the outside, certainly, but also beautiful where it counts, on the inside. Each one of these young women is instinctively kind, generous, and thoughtful, and they care about the environment, about justice and about doing what's right. Furthermore, they are smart, brave, independent and capable of more than they yet know, I think they will change the world, one life at a time, just as surely as they have changed mine. Although I had given them a small gift, a little fridge magnet, they had given me a greater gift: the gift of hope in a better future, in a better world.

The evening ended as it began, with shared laughter and shared love and a sense that even as our camino was ending, something else was beginning.Read more