First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
Illustration by Drew Shannon
My wife, Tracy, and I are winding our way along the Portuguese Camino. Starting in Viana do Castelo, on the Atlantic Ocean, and for the next six days, we follow the tracks of the followers of St. James who ferried the apostle’s cherished remains to his final resting place in northern Spain.
We are steadily “making” our Camino, as the expression goes, as if what we are experiencing on these sunlit days is not a hike or trek but a continuous act of creation. Many others from all over the world are doing the same. Under azure skies and through well-kept vineyards, on ancient Roman roads whose stones are worn smooth by time, along the gorgeous sea-coast and amid enchanting, mossy forests, fellow travellers turn and smile and say, “Bom Caminho,” which means “good path.” We respond in kind, the unfamiliar syllables tumbling easily out of our mouths.
During the lengthened and deliberate day, my wife and I listen to the murmur of many different languages, but this single and singular phrase is said by all. As an English professor of 40 years, words like these fascinate and enliven me. “Good path” is so much more than a simple greeting, it is a hospitable gesture given freely amid a grossly inhospitable and unfree world.
The phrase means: With my eyes and voice, I extend my hand to you in peace. May your journey sustain rather than deplete you. May the labour of being good to yourself and bringing goodness to others guide your steps, as hard going as they have been and will no doubt be tomorrow. Saying “Bom Caminho” nourishes: it is food for body and spirit. Exhausted as we are, there is always something left to share.
First Person: I loved travelling with Mom, but where had she picked up this exquisite silk scarf?
On the Camino, we are welcomed everywhere by strangers and welcome them in return. We gladly make room for each other. In a world haunted by so much scarcity, that simple abundance moves me in ways that are too deep for tears. We are only guests on these beautiful lands and its peoples, many of whom leave water and fruit on their thresholds – a gift of sustenance to pilgrims they will never meet.
What then is a good journey? It is a path where we wish others well. We respect everyone we meet, both locals and fellow travellers, for who or what they are, and ask for nothing else but safe-keeping. Although each Camino is unique, we travel it as one: in this life, we are alone, together.
People make their Camino for many different reasons. Some treasure the time to slow down and reflect. Others seek absolution or spiritual fulfilment. There are those who take pleasure in the mental and physical challenge, while others hunger for respite and companionship. A few travellers seem caught between fleeing something they dread and seeking the thing they love. To be honest, in the moment, I am not exactly sure why I am here or what I am doing and perhaps that is all for the good. For the Camino needs no justification or explanation.
Tracy and I had always wanted to take on this journey, excited by the difficulty and eager to see an ancient part of Europe by foot. We left Toronto partly imagining that the experience would be a kind of test of endurance or resolve. In the weeks before our departure, we trained, walking further and further across the city. But the Camino had quite different plans for us. Was it arduous? Were we tired at the end of each day? Yes and yes. And yet in ways that I struggle to understand, the Camino lightened our spirits, gently focusing our attention on more weighty but less burdensome feelings.
First Person: Travel mishaps are just a part of the journey
When you attend to each step for its own sake, the physicality of the path becomes less and less significant. I do not know how this miracle works, except to say that the passage opened spaces of possibility in us. We may have made our Camino, but it is more accurate to say that it made us.
In the words of Grace Schulman, who wrote a wonderful poem about the Camino, I am an “unholy pilgrim.” On my 70th birthday, as I walk hand in hand with Tracy toward the Spanish cathedral city of Santiago de Compostela and then beyond, to Finisterre, “the end of the world,” I feel strangely, wonderfully composed. My heart is full. I am grateful to all those who lifted me up along my travels. I hope that I have offered the same succour to others.
As I put one foot in front of the other, listening to the wind in the eucalyptus trees, I am very far from my earlier life as an unhoused teen. And I have miles to go before I sleep. I fondly remember those who cannot walk by my side today. I shoulder the heft of their precious memories with love. On the Camino, the end is also a beginning. The Camino is enough. The Camino is life.
David L. Clark lives in Toronto.