This actually ended up being the longest day of the trip. It was also the hottest day (and quite humid to boot), by a considerable margin. The vast majority of it was spent on pavement, which was a lovely pairing with the temperature. And, while I’m grateful to have tracked down viable new shoes in Aire, it’s unfortunate that they are black. All of which is to say that I’m writing this while sprawled on a bed in a greater degree of undress than is typically the case when writing (private room today, in one case of good timing), while trying to get around four liters of liquid in my system post-walk.
I was thinking today about why I have a visceral distaste for the “sportif” motivation that is often included as an option to choose when explaining why one walks the Chemin. I periodically am asked quite pointedly if I walk for “sportif reasons,” given that I walk more quickly and farther than most out here. My hackles rise, in part, I determined, because the sport motivation tends to stick out like a sore thumb on the motivation list. Religious? Good! Spiritual? A bit mushy, but at least you’re a seeker. Historical/Cultural? Maybe you’re godless, but at least you want to engage intellectually with the people and places around you. But sport? You’re just here, on sacred ground, to get a workout? That seems awfully shallow.
A larger source of my animosity towards the term stems from the fact that I think it’s impossible to disentangle the “sport” element from most of our pilgrimages. This is a deeply physical endeavor, one that pushes most participants to use their bodies in a strenuous and sustained manner that is fundamentally distinct from how they’re otherwise employed. That physical experience shapes or amplifies the spiritual one in often profound ways. Anyone can appreciate a cathedral. When you’ve seen it very gradually take shape over the course of dozens of minutes, the spire first breaking the horizon and then the dome rounding out, followed by buttresses flying off to the sides—when you have walked that church into being and then cross the threshold to the darker, cooler interior, when you see the kaleidoscopic colors erupting through the stained glass above you, and when gravity finally wins the battle, collapsing you onto a rickety pew that somehow withstands the impact… well, it’s hard to deny that it smacks of the numinous.
This was on my mind because, unlike most of my days walking out here, today was less of a pleasure specifically because of the distance I’d bitten off for myself, in conjunction with those other factors. There was a simple reason for the plan—distance be damned, I wanted to spend the night back at Gite l’Alchemiste in Navarrenx, one of the most memorable gites on the whole chemin. Sadly, when I wrote Jean-Gaetan a couple of days ago to reconfirm, he indicated that he couldn’t host that day after all. He kindly suggested another gite, but it was another 1km outside of the center, so I opted to track down a private room (in the walls, as it turns out).
Without that carrot, the day was a lot more stick, but I wouldn’t want the physical impact to diminish what was—asphalt-overload aside—a much more interesting walk than those immediately preceding it. There were a handful of real, actual ascents, sharp ripples spooling out from the Pyrenees (which, incidentally, I still haven’t seen due to haziness). There were many small villages to break things up, especially in the first half. I appreciate the pilgrim rest stop at Gite L’Escale in Larreule (complete with a coffee machine) and the small church in Uzan. I detoured to the tiny épicerie (with a fancy, old car parked inside, looming just off from the main room) in Pomps to buy a chunk of a spice-loaf, which was over-priced, under-flavored, and sufficiently filling, which was more than sufficient on this morning. I was surprised to see that the only waymarked approach into Arthez-de-Béarn now is the longer walk via the Chapelle de Caubin, when it used to be an alternative. It’s a nice little church, but the walk into Arthez from there follows a somewhat busier road with minimal shoulder, so it seems odd that they’ve cut the other route out.
The benches behind the church in Arthez are a glorious place for a break on a clear day, allowing one to survey the forthcoming Pyrenees in detail. Today, they were still comfortable enough, even if overcast skies blocked the horizon. The central grocery store was closed, continuing a trend that extended at least back to Éauze and then carried forward to Navarrenx this afternoon, when I had to walk back out of the historical core to reach the Carrefour. Fortunately, the bakery was still churning out the good stuff, so I took a sizable step towards my caloric quota.
The clouds were still with me, so I pushed an aggressive pace, trying to max out every kilometer I could while cooler conditions prevailed. The chemin continued straight out of Arthez, following the ridgeline, before finally descending back into the valley. The walk from there to Maslacq via Argagnon is one of the more unusual on the Chemin, as it’s in the proximity of busier auto traffic and even crosses an expressway. But, it was easy enough, and I wasn’t picky. I was churning kms.
Nonetheless, I was happy to take a short break at Maslacq’s épicerie, tucked away in the center, once again off of the chemin and easy to miss. A few pilgrims were already enjoying themselves and I was amazed to actually encounter someone I knew. Way back in Grealou, I met this French pilgrim; I realized only afterward that I had managed to buy the exact same snack today that I did back then. There’s no greater downside to the fast pace than the social displacement, always crashing through into new pilgrim families, saying hello and then never speaking again. A single earlier connection is hardly a foundation for friendship either, so we mostly circled around small talk, sharing where we were headed and expressing gratitude for the persistent clouds.
They couldn’t last forever, though, and they finally yielded the skies before we left the épicerie. While I’d managed to complete nearly 2/3 of the walk by then, that last third was a killer. After one of the rare corn-moats of the day following Maslacq and an all-too-brief stretch along the Ousse River, it was a whole lot of pavement from then on. La Sauvelade was my last real break. By that point, it was past 2:30pm and I knew that 4-6pm were going to be the hottest part of the day. There was no incentive to wait and my legs had it in them. Nonetheless, I left the village thinking it would be a nice place to spend the night, and I appreciated both how the church included a video one could play that told its history and how the bar/épicerie is open all day every day. There’s an indulgence-meriting maneuver if ever there was one.
As I shouldered my pack in La Sauvelade, bracing for the transition from shade to sun, I muttered, “why do I do this to myself?” It was one of those lines that is mostly in jest but is barbed with some measure of truth. On every trip, I stick myself with at least a few days that are pushing up against reasonable limits. My body is amazingly resilient, but if you play with fire OR go to the well one too many times (if I tried both, would they make it safer?), you might not just mess up a day—you could screw up a week or worse.
It’s on these days, though, where I scrape against something elemental, some personal truth that is concealed in comfort. When I charged out of the gates this morning, I did so with a smile, sheer determination, knowing full well that the deck was stacked against me—that I had stacked it myself—but I could defy those odds again. Sitting in Maslacq, I was absolutely content with the day thus far, grinning with satisfaction over how my body responded to every new ascent after so many flat stages. And even when the heat radiated back into my face from the road, my shoes mini-Instant Pots, I laughed giddily that my pace and stride were unchanged. Maybe that was partially the heat stroke, but really, I was laughing through the Meritein Forest.
One of the deeper stories that I tell about myself centers on endurance. I endure. I can push through any walk, no matter how long, no matter the conditions. If I have a stack of obligations for school, I can work late if I need to, or start early on weekend mornings, or whatever it takes. If my publisher says the book is due end of September, then it’ll be done. I’ll do what has to be done. Having read and traveled, I recommend the distinctly American nature of some of this—rugged individualism combined with the over-glorification of work. I’ve had to grapple with the question of how much of this is some form of cultural brainwashing, conditioning me to believe things that, at their core, are unhealthy. There is a certain perverted quality to valuing pushing through discomfort and difficulty, as opposed to just doing something different!
And yet, even recognizing the legitimate pitfalls, I still value that stubborn persistence, that dogged determination, that mulish insistence. When I push myself closer to my limits on a walk—after having obliterated what I falsely believed to be my limits many years ago—I see something in myself that I like and value. And when I endure exhaustion in other contexts, I often find that it allows me to serve others better, in a variety of different capacities. And that, too, makes me value myself. Any virtue can be a vice; any tool can be a weapon. I sat in a small oasis in the midst of the woods, filled with blackboards provided by Jean-Gaetan, then shrugged and pushed on.
I arrived in Navarrenx around 5pm. I showered. I climbed the town walls and visited the church. I’d worked too hard to not enjoy a bit of this beautiful place. And then I walked back out to the Carrefour, bought a package of ice cream bars, and devoured them in less than two minutes. I don’t think they have competitive eating in mind with the Sportif goal, but that angle might help me come to terms with it.
