I’m sitting on a stone bench. An empty mug sits next to me; I just finished an espresso, which I prepared in the hostel kitchen, and then sipped down while staring into the valley far below. The parish church is to my left. To my right are my clothes, flapping in the wind on a drying rack, nearly crisp from the still-blazing sun. They’ve only been out for an hour and I’ll be able to remove them soon. Such a thing is unheard of on this trip, when I typically begin each day by donning whichever clothes are still a bit damp.
The priest just departed. An older man arrived an hour earlier to let me in, employing the absolute barest minimum number of words necessary to do the job, never assembling a complete sentence in the process. The priest was a little more talkative, and even flashed a half-smile at one point, but he was back out the door in a similarly efficient manner. Nonetheless, I managed both conversations fluidly, understanding the entirety of what each man conveyed, and offering quick, relevant, and grammatically appropriate responses.
Several cats have circulated along the stone road outside my hostel. A pack of pigeons coo overhead from the church’s belltower. I saw one other townsperson, a little over an hour ago. Otherwise, I seem to be the only human in Campello Alto, this tiny castle town with perfectly intact walls, with an admirable view of the Spoleto Valley. I’ll sleep well tonight.
I’m thinking about how language shapes our thought, our interactions with others, our sense of self. There’s a moment I remember from the monastic albergue in Cornellana on the Camino Primitivo. I was leading a group of students, and often we coordinated a simple group breakfast, just bread, jam, nutella, and coffee. It’s the kind of thing that you might spend a few euros on individually at a bar, but collectively we could assemble a spread that left everyone stuffed for just a euro per person. My co-leader and I typically woke up ten minutes before the group; she took lead on the coffee, while I hacked apart five or six baguettes into a mountain of jam slabs. That morning in Cornellana, two pilgrims happened to enter the dining area just as I summited Mount Gluten, and the expression on their faces was a combination of shock and concern. Had we a common language, I might have launched into a quick explanation of the situation, about the horde preparing to descend upon us. Lacking that, though, I spun through my rolodex of Italian words and opted for humor. “Ho fame,” I said, with a shrug. “I’m hungry.”
My Italian has come a long way on this trip. It’s not about my vocabulary, which is still limited, nor my capacity with verb tenses; I’ve mostly got present tense at my disposal, with a little past present and gerund on the side. It’s the fluency of interaction, the ability to process free of panic, to decode on the fly, and to cobble together my available vocabulary into a suitable response. It’s funny, though, living almost exclusively in the present. Does that linguistic limitation facilitate the oft-recommended mindset? I have four ways of describing my mindset succinctly: Sono felice, sono contento, sono stanco, and ho fame. I’m happy, I’m content, I’m tired, and I’m hungry. I re-learned “I hate” at one point, when discussing American politics, but it left my head as swiftly as it arrived. It occurred to me how rarely I respond “I’m happy” or “I’m content” with regards to any situation, even when I’m legitimately happy or content. I might minimize or downplay my positive mood (“it’s all good”), or I might equivocate, balancing a positive observation with a critical note. My Italian, however, affords no room for nuance. That would be a problem if I were trying to discuss politics or philosophy; for my purposes, though, I’m not sure that nuance is required.
Two nights before arriving at this bench in Campello Alto, I spent the evening on a different bench in Stroncone, set along the town wall just ten meters down from the bar, watching the sun set. At one point, a German pilgrim I met in Rieti found me there, and we debriefed our days. The rest of the time, I typed away, as Italians gathered for drinks, enjoying the evening together. Just inside the piazza, a group of old men circled around the proprietor of the modest alimentari. Life unfolded, slowly but merrily, all around me. There were nights early in the trip when I bunkered down in my room; access to wifi certainly encourages that, as it allows me to devote more focused effort to these write-ups and other trip coordination. And certainly the warmer temperatures make evenings al fresco a little more appealing. Ultimately, though, the biggest change has been internal, that mindbeat, always ticking away so quickly, but gradually, barely perceptibly, trending downward. After seven weeks, Italy, I think, is seeping into me.
Pilgrims on the Camino who begin their walk around Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port view those who begin in Sarria in all kinds of unflattering ways. Sometimes it’s overt criticism and scorn, judging such pilgrims harshly for doing the bare minimum “just for the Compostela” or to check an item off the “bucket list.” The less negative among us, and I’ll put myself in this group, still tend towards a patronizing attitude–sure, it’s totally fine to walk a short Camino, and for many it’s unfortunately the only option available, but dang, you just don’t know what you’re missing, and I wish you could experience it.
Leaving Stroncone, I had the familiar Francesco experience, walking along hillside roads and trails, trending downward on this morning towards an unusually long stretch in the valley, through a genuine rarity: a flat city. Terni lay ahead, and I had plans. Big plans. OK, mundane plans, really: to detour over to a McDonald’s and steal an hour of internet time. Beyond that, though, the city had some Roman ruins, a few churches, and more giant supermarkets than I could hope to patronize in one morning. And a Lidl supermarket, in particular, means seven different varieties of hummus and blocks of baked tofu. It’s the little things. With my pack stuffed full of food (those little things add up), what followed was an absolute inevitability: a stiff ascent, the only such climb of the day. The descent that followed was a joint jolter, pounding down a series of trail steps of inconsistent height and angle. A low rumbling gradually took shape in the distance. As it happens, it wasn’t a trail ogre, waiting to consume ankles and knees. On the contrary, it was the Cascata della Marmore, and the trail, for all my complaints, had delivered me to a perfect vantage point, staring across the narrow valley at the plunging, two-part falls. We have this (and the Romans) to thank for the solidity of the Rieti Valley today, as Roman engineers redirected the waterflow in the valley and channeled it towards the gap in the hills, creating the waterfall and–quite literally in the case–draining the swamp.
A large parking lot waited for me when I arrived at the valley floor, filled with cars on this sunny Sunday. Most of the Italians had flocked over to the base of the falls, craning their necks upward at impossible angles, trying to take it all in. Some, though, headed in the other direction, to join the riverside track through the narrow Nera River Valley, which I followed for most of the remainder of the day. Suddenly, the Francesco script had flipped! Instead of riding the hillside roller coaster, climbing into and down from hill towns, on this lovely afternoon I mostly ambled beneath them, as one after another appeared and then retreated as the track wound its way northeastward.
“Sono contento,” I thought. And indeed, it wasn’t just the word I had, it was the only word for the job. What a difference it makes to have an abundance of time, to have seemingly no limit. Three months, on the ground, walking day after day. If five weeks once felt like a marathon, now it’s a sprint. Forget the Sarria pilgrims; am I doomed now to look down on the Saint-Jean folks, bemoaning all that they’re missing?
I sit down in the tiny piazza in Precetto, which itself sits next to its partner town of Ferentillo, both topped by castle walls lining their respective hills–an excellent spot from which to control passage through the valley. A man stands at a table selling flowers; nearby, a tree is decorated with Easter eggs; a group of teenage boys is playing cards. There’s nothing for me to do; I’m not hungry, nor do I particularly need a break. But how can you skip past a pleasant piazza on a sunny Sunday?
I finally break from the Nera River in Ceselli, sad to lose such a delightful companion. As the hills begin, I flip my focus over to campsites, hoping to find an unfinished house or a picnic area. I’m stopped in conversation at one point by a family that has just completed their Sunday meal, taking a slow stroll through the neighboring village. The patriarch had just been studying a Via di Francesco waymark and is excited to encounter a living, breathing pilgrim; his son, meanwhile, is equally enthused to practice his English. I’m neither excited nor enthused by the camping prospects, though, as the narrow road offers little on either side, and every meter I climb is another shiver in the early morning cold. Finally, I settle for a grassy field, tucked into a bend in the road and partially obscured by thornbushes. It’s the kind of scenario I’ve rejected dozens of times in the past, a situation in which I would just push onward, deep into dusk, powering through the kilometers until either something more passable emerged or I reached a town. Instead, I unrolled my bivy and collapsed into the soft grass, luxuriating in the last warm rays of the day. It would work out. Everything works out.
That night, my sleeping pad developed a significant leak; I spent much of the time directly on the cold, uneven ground. It was fine.
Waking up, my feet are freezing, my hands are shaking from their efforts to decompress the mat (a cruel trick, deflating enough to make for an uncomfortable night, but still holding enough air to make decompression a pain) and roll up the bivy, and my poncho (used to cover my backpack over night) is coated in frost. Fortunately, though, the stiffest ascent of the day awaits me, and so I thaw out within the first thirty minutes and feel delightfully warm by the top of the next hour. By 8:30, most of the descent is already behind me, and I arrive in Monteluco, home to a Franciscan sanctuary complete with a sacred forest. It’s all a bit of a detour, but I’m in no rush, and so I stroll through the woods, protected by the Romans from harvest two thousand years ago, in the first known case of environmental preservation. Deeper into the woods is tucked the grotto where Saint Anthony of Padua spent time–though grotto makes it sound much more evocative than the reality, which is basically a 2×2-foot cave.
One pleasant discovery or encounter follows after another. Descending to Spoleto, I spy a marvelous aqueduct spanning the ravine between a fortress-topped hillock and my own steep slope, and soon enough I’m crossing a bridge on the side of that aqueduct. Spoleto’s duomo, around the corner and down the hill, is preparing for an event, as a large group of Italian military officials, in full regalia, gather in the piazza outside. They seem eager and a little nervous, congregating in groups, adjusting their uniforms, and shifting around continuously. The Via di Francesco slides through Spoleto in a serpentine fashion diverting around the center in order to visit two churches on the other side of the expressway. While one is closed because of earthquake repairs, the other has a remarkable set of frescoes in its crypt.
Spoleto is a crucial place in the story of Saint Francis. He was passing through this city in 1205, en route to Apulia, preparing to achieve military glory as a knight. However, he fell ill in Spoleto, and was left behind by his companions to recuperate. Lying in bed, he heard a voice: “Who can do more good, the master or the servant?” The answer was easy enough: “The master,” Francis replied. “Then why,” the voice retorted, “are you looking for the servant, rather than the master?” The vision then prompted Francis to return home and reflect on the proper use of his life, and following a period of deep prayer and isolation, he decided to commit himself to a life of poverty, humility, and faith.
How does a life transform? How do you become a different person, refashion yourself anew, divine a novel purpose or direction? A sudden epiphany, a voice in the head offering a clarifying imperative is a nice notion, but rarely are we as fortunate as Francis. Even in his case, it should be acknowledged, the historical accounts–which surely have been smoothed down to a fine sheen over the years–highlight the familial turbulence generated by his conversion and his own inner turmoil. Change is slow, and probably it’s rarely as dramatic or sweeping as it might feel from the outside looking in, or vice versa.
Campello Alto isn’t terribly far from Spoleto, just 16km, so I settle into a comfortable stroll, laden down with another fresh load of groceries in my pack, as I set forth from the city. I don’t know yet that Campello Alto has the most perfect little set of fortified walls this side of Monteriggioni. I’m not aware that the kitchen is well stocked, thanks to the care of the priest. I have no idea about the stone bench just outside the hostel door. But I know I’m happy to be here, lucky to be here, existing only in this present moment, detached from the chaos of the world beyond, where all are fairly fretting about the future and relitigating past failures. Sono contento.
