Back in March, I was in Spain to re-walk the Camino Primitivo, and I was fortunate enough to have that timing overlap with Semana Santa. This was my first opportunity to see Spain during Holy Week, and I was eager to see some of the processions and celebrations the Catholic country is famous for.
Three of those events brought me to Lugo’s cathedral–two masses along with the Sermon of the Seven Words. I had spent plenty of time in the cathedral before, but I had never attended a service there, and as I waited for the first mass to commence, my antipathy for the building’s design elevated. The sight lines are geometric impossibilities. The altar is partially closed off from the sides and completely from behind. The center of the nave in front of the altar is a walled-in choir. A closed-off room further chews up the nave’s limited space behind the choir. It’s as though the owner’s box at a stadium wiped out the best 25,000 seats, leaving the audience stuck behind pillars or off in the nose-bleeds.
This meant that, on each occasion I attended a service, I rotated around the margins, able to see only a narrow slice of what was unfolding. And, of course, my ability to process the echoing Spanish wasn’t ideal, either.
“Why,” I fumed internally, “would the Church’s most sacred space in Lugo tolerate a design that leaves most of its flock on the outside looking (partially) in?”
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I imagine that every long-distance walker or runner has an origin story–a moment that lingers in their memories as the point at which something clicked and they began to embrace a pursuit that certainly isn’t for everyone. For every single person I speak with who is immediately drawn to the idea of walking hundreds of miles, there are ten who respond with a blank expression and a single-word response (“why?”), followed occasionally by a slightly longer one (“we have cars now”).
Mine came a couple weeks into my first Camino. I had been plodding along, enjoying the experience well enough, while also struggling with some typical challenges. In those days, most people generally were aiming for a 25km daily average, and so I followed suit. As I neared Burgos, though, I started to think a little differently, breaking away from some of the suggested stages. And, for some reason, I decided to tackle a stage far longer than anything I had attempted to that point–35 kilometers to Villafranca Montes de Oca.
I can’t say that I thoroughly enjoyed the day. I could barely move at the end of it; I just wanted to lie flat on my back and eat my way through a bag of magdalenas. In my mind, though, it was exhilarating. Twenty-one miles! Who knew such a thing was possible? It’s astonishing, I thought, what the body is capable of. I couldn’t see where this breakthrough would lead me next, but an unfolding had begun.
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I set out from Cedar Rapids at 5:45am. Not a late start, certainly, but also far from my earliest departure. My schedule called for me to walk ~32 miles, camping out somewhere between Brandon and La Porte City. In the back of my mind, I anticipated that I might end up pushing on to the latter. I even went so far as to email their police department, to ask if they would allow me to sleep at the trailhead. It’s hardly unusual for me to go a few miles longer on camping nights, especially when it sets up an earlier arrival to a hotel the next day.
Nothing was set in stone, though. I had no particular urgency, just coasting along at a steady 3-mile-per-hour pace, easing my way through the morning. When I reached the first town, Center Point, 13 miles in, I detoured from the Cedar Valley Nature Trail before the center, in order to reach a coffee shop for a long break. One good turn deserves another, and so I similarly settled in for a break at a coffee shop in the second town, Urbana, as well.
It was an utterly unremarkable morning. The bike track offered plenty of shade and only occasional bicyclists, so I spent hour after hour marching forward, the view unchanging, just me and the bunnies.
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By contrast, the walk on the Camino Primitivo that led me to Lugo was a weather whirlwind. After a stunning first day-and-a-half, with blue skies and delightfully moderate temperatures, the full array of late-winter meteorological phenomena came hurtling at me.
Shortly after I crossed the Puerto del Palo, one of the higher-level mountain passes on the Primitivo, the downpour began. Ensconced in clouds, I had little hope of seeing the well-loved views that so many pilgrims wax rhapsodically about. Indeed, with my poncho hood pulled low to keep it from blowing off, rain drops plunging rhythmically before my face, I could see precious little–my feet seeking purchase on the rocky trail, an occasional yellow arrow, my hands asking “why?” in their own language.
Conditions deteriorated further the next day, with snow flurries greeting me as I ascended from Grandas de Salime. Wind whipped the flakes relentlessly into my face. When I raised my head, it looked like my television had lost reception; when I lowered it, I saw my feet leaving a short-lived tale of my passage.
While so much was happening externally, something else was unfolding internally. On those delightful first days, I reveled in the walk. I inhaled the expansive views and merrily marched mile after mile, going well beyond my initial target. It was great; I wouldn’t trade it. And yet, by dint of seeing everything, I absorbed precious little. In contrast, the moments that persist from the precipitation are vivid, indelible, and varied. It wasn’t all positive. I questioned myself, grappled with disappointment and frustration, bitterly resented the lost opportunities to see such beautiful places. And yet, each day I pushed on, finding the fortitude to not merely accumulate kilometers, but to see something valuable in each step.
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While most of the Holy Week events in Lugo took place at the cathedral, one important event took place at the Franciscan church in the main plaza, reenacting Jesus’s descent from the cross. As one church leader narrated events in the Bible, another man on stage gradually lowered a figure of Jesus from a large crucifix. In theory, this would have led to a procession around Lugo, but unfortunately the same rain that hounded my Camino Primitivo similarly wiped out many of the Semana Santa processions around Galicia.
Unlike the cathedral, the Franciscan church is just one open nave. Every seat has perfect sight lines, especially given the large crucifix, standing high above the altar. Even sitting in the back, as I tend to do, I had no trouble tracking the events as they unfolded.
It’s incorrect (and a little sacrilegious) to say I enjoyed this, but I was certainly much more immersed in this ceremony. My mind didn’t wander; I took in each moment in full. Months later, though, it has largely faded to black, while those moments in the cathedral, trying in vain to track the sermon and accompanying rituals–to see them as they are, in their entirety–continue to hold sway.
It occurred to me, as I shifted in my third different seat in the cathedral, seeing the events anew from differently compromised sight-lines, that my struggle in Lugo was analogous in some ways to my struggles with faith. How can I believe something that is utterly unprovable? How can I embrace something so ephemeral, something that I can at best catch only glimpses and echoes of, but never the truth in toto? I have come to understand that this is part of what makes faith so powerful and necessary; faith would become irrelevant if proof were at hand. But when “seeing is believing” is hard-wired into how one operates, then not-seeing can only lead you to a different outcome.
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While the walk from Cedar Rapids through Center Point and Urbana was smooth enough, conditions deteriorated after that. Extensive trail work was being performed by local authorities, resulting in the Cedar Valley Nature Trail being nominally closed soon after Urbana, undeniably inaccessible before Brandon, shut down once again between Brandon and La Porte City, and then once more for good measure outside of La Porte City.
There were work-arounds, of course, but in every case they added miles, replacing the nicely diagonal rail trail with the zigzagging of east-west and north-south roads, while also trading shady, quiet tracks for exposed roads with auto traffic. Brandon offered a short reprieve, including a much-appreciated visit to the biggest frying pan in Iowa, but it was otherwise hot, sweaty, thirsty work. It also made my earlier plans–camping between Brandon and La Porte City–more complicated, since I didn’t have the privacy of a rail trail available to me.
Never mind, I thought. The food options in Brandon were non-existent, so I felt motivated to just push onto La Porte City. This paid off in a milkshake from Tootsie’s, which was thoroughly invigorating. And that’s when I started nurturing a vision. With roughly 40 miles on the books already, I realized, and at least a couple hours of daylight remaining, I could push on. With three more hours, I could potentially end the day having covered more miles than ever before. That had never been the plan; I never saw that as a goal. But the view from La Porte City had changed things, and I set forth with an extra spring in my step.
Unfortunately, the last trail closure shoved me over to the main road for an extended stretch, but traffic was almost non-existent. Adrenaline started to trickle through my veins. I felt great. Strong. Pain-free.
Sunset seemed instantaneous. Within minutes of the deep-red fireball plunging below the horizon, full darkness kicked in. I left the highway for a minor road. Every 300 meters or so, a street light illuminated a couple hours, before darkness swept me back into obscurity. By the time I finally made it back to the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, only the faintest outline of the track emerged, while frogs serenaded me forward. At last, I crossed the Cedar River into Evansdale, the black serpent slithering silently beneath me. I imagine it would be a nice view, if one were there in daylight.
A 51-mile day deserved a shower, so I pushed on, following residential streets through the deepening night. My pace never slowed; my feet never protested. It’s uncanny. My feet are often sore after 30 miles. That’s reasonable. And yet, on this day, my body worked in perfect harmony; it was just my brain that was slow to catch up. Once it finally did, there was just enough time left in the day to get me to the finish line, flopping into bed at 11pm.
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The same person was wrecked by 21 miles and soared victoriously through 51. And while it wasn’t a straight line from A to B, it has been a remarkably smooth growth arc.
When people discuss motivation on the Camino, some sources of inspiration carry more cachet than others. Religious motivations smack of authenticity on pilgrimage. Spiritual motivations are swimming in the same pool, even if the waters are often murky. For the secular crowd, cultural and historical interests carry some measure of validity, making it clear that there’s some intellectual heft to the walk. While different people might rank each of those differently, you’re most likely to find consensus on the least prestigious motivation. In Spanish, it’s “deportivo,” and it basically means walking for athletic or fitness reasons. The physical challenge. The concern is that this kind of priority strips the pilgrimage of its deeper meaning, relegating it to “just a walk.” I understand where those judgements come from, and I don’t think I’ve ever completed a pilgrimage where “deportivo” best encompasses my motivations.
Having said that, there has been no more lasting transformative impact of pilgrimage for me than the physical one. Most of the discourse about body image is heavily gendered, with significant attention paid to unhealthy body image issues among women and (especially) teenage girls. That’s important. It needs to be addressed. It’s unfortunate, though, that little concern is paid to boys and young men, and the struggles they often face. For most of my adolescence and early adulthood, it’s fair to say that I didn’t have a positive relationship with my body. It’s not something I ever talked about; good lord, that would have turned out poorly.
And yet, walking long distances, I discovered all kinds of things I never knew about my body. It’s incredible. My feet just willingly carried me 50 miles and then were game to head right back out the next morning. My knees and ankles comply without a peep. My quads and calves carry me through any and every ascent with pleasure. My upper body doesn’t complain about total neglect. For years, I resented my short, dense, fire-hydrant of a body; only later could I see that it was almost optimally designed to carry me far and fast and without complaint. My view was obscured.
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The point is not that gradually, in time, if we’re patient and forbearing enough, we might be able to see things clearly, in full, as they truly are.
Rather, I think that a great deal of power lies in our capacity to do transformative work with obstructed views. Instead of offering clear answers, they provide partial evidence, hints of possibilities, a puzzle with a cluster of missing pieces. And in that absence, our creativity can go to work, our necessity can make demands, our identity can find a through-line that makes our disparate experiences cohere. There’s an opportunity to piece together a story that makes sense of it all.
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I so enjoyed reading your amazing story and offer up a prayer that one day, after such an experience , you may be led to simply say ” Thank you , Lord , that was amazing” !