An ode to Einstein

Okay friends, I'll be honest, I nearly went home in Burgos.  Save for the help a dear friend I don't think I could have pulled through.  The good news is I put my big girl panties on and kept on walking.  Des and I have both reached this point and incidentally both swore we were done in Burgos.  Yet here we be.  27km trekked today and we're better than ever.  We have entered the Meseta and short of temper tantrums over bugs and lack of shade we are rocking it.

My thoughts today were mostly focused on leaving my rocks at the cross.  I reflected on the miles and my aches.  How every step hurting meant I was Camino-ing right (in my own mind; each camino is personal).  I fought internally struggled physically and kept on going.  I bit my tongue, I held back my frustration and I took a step and then another.  I looked to the ground; left foot, right foot, and so on.

Looking back at the kilometers travelled, the trials we've survived and the breaking points we have weather I thought about a camino peer of ours.  We call him Einstein for his intellect and characteristic guise.  This man has been with us since day one, what's more is that he is pushing 70 years of age and shuffle steps along with a pack I'm certain weighs more than me.  The significance of Einstein is that despite his aches, his well lived life and surrendering youth HE STILL KEEPS UP WITH US!  He's my hero.  He's my momentum.  There are so many you meet along the way struggling in some facet of life or another, I summarize my time here as a calibration of mind body and soul.  Each one of us with weight on our shoulders, some driving force and heavy hearts.  The community is drawn together with the ailments and the remedies.  I've taken pills from strangers a couple times, which would be alarming back home but here along the way it's just one member to another trying to help.  We pat each other on the back, we cry into the shoulders of virtual strangers we embrace like family because no one really gets it like your fellow perrigringos.  If I could say one thing about this trip and I in fact I did say it today:  I WAY UNDERESTIMATED THE CAMINO.

My advice to those out there, surfing blogs and planning their trips, the things I wish I knew.  You can't prepare for this adventure, and it will suck.  Somedays will feel like the worst of your life. You need the people along the way.  This is not about solitude.  The camino will break you, but not destroy you.  Quite alarmingly it will empower you.  Nothing (certainly not the damned guidebooks) can offer you insight.  Start walking, try to put togeher into words how you feel, I dare you.