Rusty fingers, but here goes as the thoughts were alive and while work kept me up last night it did not occupy my mind today--neither would it have yours had you been and seen where I was today--
Okay, so we spent last night in Ponferrada and one key objective was to ensure that my lower left back stayed connected to the rest of my body well enough to carry the 20lb backback (lighter than 07 but next time one pair of clothes and other stuff).
Matt and I are up and out early despite the inability to get to sleep earlier for whatever reason--
After a great day walking to Astorga and a light day walking to ponferrada we are prepped for the great challenge for the climb to the mountaintop of O'Cebreiro. I tell Matt that this was the most beautiful and special of views of the whole Camino and that last time there was a final stretch of 2 miles that we got a ride in a car because it was too late and Pepe (Spanish Gasoline man) and I couldn't see where we were going and didn't want to fall off the mountain (and the car hit he wild pig etc etc etc-man have u got stories!!).
So we are packed and ready for a heavy workload and the backpack feels pretty good on my back as we advance toward our starting point in beyond VillaFranca (beautiful village that will have to be seen next time as we only have 8 days of walking and I want matt to get into the rythym of the camino, walking and talking and reflecting, should he have that desire.
Funny thing is he seems to be enjoying almost all of it. He was in awe of the bridge at Orbigo, and is reading our guidebook and wants to know where and why I'm selecting the sections we are walking before we finish the last 100 miles straight into Santiago starting tomorrow. That book was home for two months on the counter, next to his dinner plate, handed directly to him on occassion over the last two months and nothing got him to open it. Here, he's pratically carrying it-- even reading some of the history of the places we are visiting and already making plans to visit the camino again when he gets older and can bring a more age appropriate friend and meet other age appropriate friends of the opposite sex without his father (he suggests 18/19 as the perfect returning age. And he barely has a full day under his belt.
Spain is experiencing a heatwave and its mucho calor!!! , even Bruce is on the news in Spain with picture "on the beach to cool off from the "mucho calor" in Spain. Matt? He's telling me walking on gravel for 15 miles without shade (that's the Astorga trail) in 90 degree heat is pretty cool. At the end of day one he even said "I can't believe you walked all of this!!" But no less amazed he was also fully comprehending the ability for anyone with the purpose to simply take "this walk".
So we start today and sure enough opportunities arise immediately as we realize we didn't fill up our waterpacks inside the backpack and stop at the first village fountain to fill up. We say hello to a couple from Germany, and he notice my big toe sticing out of my Teva sandals and suggests "that's not good" in english, but I set him at ease by showing him the two sizes of sneaker. Strapped to the backpack and tell him "it is normal". We then notice a walking shade hat on the bench next to our backpacks and inquire is the hat their's, and they respond no.
And I explain to Matt as I tie the hat to the rear of his backpack that he has found his first "purpose" on this Camino, to provide that hat back to its owner who cannot turn around and only hopes a fellow pilgrim might carry it to the albergue (more on this later) .
So we walk, and the first song that pops into my head is a Hall n Oates song from their Abandoned Luncheonette Album (1974) and I sing a few bars for matt of "I'm just a kid don't make me feel like a man" because I think the song might have some application since it popped up and I'm with a kid so I try singing to remember-- fortunately there are no walkers nearby and matt gets a history lesson on the first concert I ever went to -- age 13 at the monmouth arts center with my brother jerry and his first wife (I ask matt if he knew Jerry had a first wife and he didn't think he did, and yes his 2nd wife is doing fine thank you twenty five plus years later)!!!
I tell matt I missed a championship pop warner football game because of that wedding!!! I tell matt that we were winning at the half because my mom told me she would get someone to call me at the half-- score ? Toms River Little Indians 22- Matawan 6, but I didn't have a good feeling cause I wasn't there, but I usually did what my mom or dad told me so I then ask matt to guess what the final score was?? He guesses 23-22 ?? !!!! I say almost right, as we lost 24-22. Ps. We didn't lose cause I wasn't there playing like I was something great (played right tackle and in 1973 they were a dime a dozen!!), to be clear, we lost cause I was not present, not so much playing just present-- same reason GTown 1985!!! Was I there in 1984 in Seattle? You betcha!!! What happened in '84? They won!! '85? 82? Lost? Patrick Ewing at all three games!! Tom Thees only made one of them!!! They won that one!!
I digress, severely and in jest mostly-- see, only two days on the camino and the mind expands from wondering what's happening in CIT financial world explosion to 1973 in a jiffy. 1973, the song--
"I'm just a kid (don't make me feel like a man)" sung mostly by john oates, trying to coax a girl (perhaps in a bar?) into "talking with him"
Words are--
"What's your name"
"Just talk with me"
Won't you talk to me?
Will u survive?
Learn to drive?
I know you can't describe the dreams you
want to be?
And then it's "walk with me? " "Won't you walk with me? and I'm trying to sing the song about someone trying to coax someone else to talk and walk with them, and while the song is NOT about a father and son (clearly not, I might add) I unilaterally arrogated (usurped/highjacked!!)) the smooth and soft groove of the song for my own purposes here on the Camino and it worked pretty well.
So age 13 at the monmouth arts center (now the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, NJ!! Where I think I've been 1000 times since!! For Hall n Oates, Bruce and everyone else except U2-- even James Brown!!! Can you dig it.
And I tell Matt all this---
So matt and I are talking and walking and he's leading I'm following even though I've been here before and he'd be "lost" without me???? No, I don't think so, not here, not on this Camino, as there are pilgrims walking everywhere and yellow waymarks guiding the path and, as I told you all before on the last Camino and proceeded to tell matt when he even suggested one of my town detours yesterday was going to get us lost-- I let Matt know that "one is never lost" on the Camino.
"Never lost, and never alone"!!!! Even in your darkest hour on your durest, hardest walk, this is true, if you let it be so and know it to be so. But you have to be open to it, and you have to be going slow enough to allow the light in.
So matt, all 5'almost 10" barely a shade of hair shorter than me at this point, and all 150 whatever lbs of his swimming/tennis body is walking just fine, straight uphill, for 6 hours!!!
Me, well let me give you the updated description I provided to the frenchman Jean Michael who has been walking since June almost fell over when I told him we were Americans (first one's he's met in 4 weeks!!), let alone a father and son--
See Jean Michael has been to America once, to run the NYC marathon in 2007 and he's going back in 9/2010 to run Chicago he says--
I tell him I ran nyc when I was 50 lbs lighter and 10 years younger, and this particular walk right here with my son was my recommencer!! My recommencing with my own body to take it back and get it where it should be (at least 30lbs lower, with 10 of them off today!!)
So I'm 50 lbs heavier than 10 yrs ago and I'm carrying a 20lb backpack, and the body carrying all this is working just the way God intended it to but definitely could use some particular TLC from its current and only user!!and THAT is the reason Matt is leading and I am following!!!
So we walk, and we talk!!! Nothing too deep, and I don't need anything other to just know Matt and I have a bond, and its not growing weaker, on this trip. Some of the things I say, the directions I take, the statements I make, they appear to have some resonance with my son, walking near/next/in front of me. Like I actually make some sense in ways he never imagined before!!!
"Wow, this trip is cool!! Wow, you must be cool!!!". This is so crazy its cool, and you're so crazy you're cool, and all these people doing this thing with backpacks in Europe-- THAT's COOL".
That, mostly, is what comes out of Matt's mouth, not exactly, and perhaps I'm taking some interpretive liberties here, but I KNOW he's cool!!! He almost can't imagine I can compete!!
He's also checking in with me, as we head up the mountain, all day in fact as he can hear me breathing like an earthquake, and asks "how I'm doing"? And how's my back doing? I say I'm fine for an out of shape hiker, and he say's .......?
"cool"!!!
And today's trail is truly one of the more peaceful and tranquil in all the world, such that when we come upon one village out of nowhere matt asks?? What do these people do? And I say these people farm and eat what they grow, and they and their ancestors have been doing it on this land, this way, for centuries, and don't need any stinkin internet or much else should they desire to stay here in these hills-- their call.
And we ascend about 5000 feet toward O'Cebreiro and matt wants to know why when we need to go up someone created a trail that actually goes down before it goes back up sometimes??? A lot of times, actually, but this is the only part he's seen and he thinks its kinda funny that I had guys come out here and paint yellow waymarks on the down trails to throw him off---of course that's not true and he know the shape I'm in I am not looking for extra steps this Camino.
Imagine robin williams telling the story of the creation of Golf, in a bar in Scotland?? Seen that one on HBO a decade ago? Oh, put the ball in the hole with a stick, like pool!!! Yeah, except we'll put the hole about 400 yards out there not on the pool table!!!AND, we'll do it 18 times!!!
Okay, now you are with us??--
And then Matt starts laughing and says that wasn't smart and the Camino creators could have been more industrious and efficient.
And then he goes into a Robin Williams " I got it, we're up here on the mountains kinda bored and its like 900 AD, so let's build a trail straight up the mountain, and let's call it a Camino and tell everyone that their sins will be forgiven and stuff if they climb straight up that mountain, and then let's put a bunch of downramps on the trail to make em think the down parts are part of the trail too--- up down up as opposed to just UP!!
oh, oh, oh, another ancestoral mountain man chimes in, we'll watch em do it one day and laught the whole time!!
NOOO!!!!, the creator chimes in, we'll do it all over northern Spain and make walk clear across Spain--like the 40 days 40 nights thing!!! yeah, let's build it all the way to Santiago and we can tell em the pilgrimmage is not not complete unless they walk all the way to Santiago--
Yeah, that's it, we'll call the trail thing the "Camino de Santiago"!!
So matt and I are laughing so hard we have to stop and I have to catch my breath before we ascend further, and see more of this beautiful land that Matt has never seen before.
And ascend we do, sweating and breathing in full tilt!!! But it is quite a day, to be sure, and we finally arrive at the city walls, and I start wondering why they needed walls up here (who's coming up here?) but go with that and start singing a few bars of "these city walls, these city walls" "only to be with you, and I still, haven't found, what I'm looking for " as I am fresh from U2 in Dublin.
Okay, that's it for the day-- good night.....
What? There's more??? How could there possibly be more, you ask?? And will the day end? As it is Spain and dinner isn't served until 10pm and the Sun barely goes down before 11pm!!!
Okay, yes, I'll finish the story but my bbery crashed right here so I have to recreate it as this part wasn't saved--
So the city walls open up and we enter the village of O'Cebreiro, and we find the albergue, the same one I stayed at in 2007 except this time there's going to be 100 people sleeping here versus 6 in November 2007!! From all over the world (except, of course, America as we're the "it's" from New Jersey!!
And matt hangs outside with the backpacks and I go to the window to check in and pay the 3€ Euros each to stay the night. We aren't too late to get the bunks next to each other, although most of the people here will be sleeping next to and hearing strangers all night!!!.
So I go out to retreive matt and the backpack and he and a couple from Denmark are laughing it up and all smiles.
Seems Anna Marie and Hans had stopped at a water stop and a fellow pilgrim handed Anna Marie a banana to share so she put her HAT down on the bench--- but it was shady so she forgot it and was too far up the mountain to turn around when she realized.
So she said a prayer that some smart pilgrim would retrieve and bring it to the albergue, AND she said another!!! prayer that she would RUN INTO the hat-saver when he/she got here!!
And so Matt's small purpose in this world today was provided ever so simply, yet the message, the lesson, the triumph of such a simple gesture of caring and how important it can be to someone else is unmeasurable, isn't it!!!!
Its like the Camino I knew all over again, and now I've got proof I'm not making this stuff up. It just happens when you are going slow enough to see it.
And so in O'Cebreiro there exists the oldest church actually on the camino--
we went to the 9th century church Iglesia de Santa Maria Real, and we gave thanks-??!!
- ok, I'm not sure what matt did or said other than his presence there, and if he shares it with me and invites me to share it with I will.
What I did, when I was inside the small iglesia , was say a prayer that Matt's small purpose today will translate when he sees and has the opportunity to serve larger purposes, that he will be as protected and safe as he was today. And I did two other things, one I was conscious of before the trip and the other not so much--
I prayed for the speedy treatment and recovery of the person I am thinking of on this Camino (and now incorporate the person you are thinking of who needs those same prayers) and also I said a prayer for all fathers, the world over but especially those I know and myself, that they/I enjoy the journey on the camino of life with their sons/daughters wherever it takes them and they go slow enough to experience the feeling of being solo with their offspring for a good amount of time, slowly, so that what can and should come out and rise to the top does so.
So, from the top of the world, O'Cebreiro, on a trail in Spain, sleeping in a building in bunk beds with 98 unknown pilgrims, and my one and only son, and thinking that if my simple prayers tonight were answered than all would be right in this world- !!!
Peace
Tt
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