“JENE!!!!!” Oh, there is no sweeter sound when I enter a town, or a cafe, or a resting spot after a long journey up a mountain. It means I’m reconnecting with someone whom I’ve shared time with on this long journey. It’s as if I’m seeing long lost relatives. The ones who yell “Jene!” started the Camino around May 17 from St Jean Pied de Port and they probably stayed in Orrison that very same evening. There were 60 of us who converged on that wonderful auberge that night and 60 of us who experienced the most glorious day on earth crossing the Pyrenees the next day. We met over vegetable soup and Basque cake and passed each other over hills too steep to ever explain. The point is we bonded over something only those who have experienced the Camino can understand. It’s as if we own a special secret. A secret of blisters and aches and afternoon naps and early morning crinkling of plastic bags by others in the dorm rooms that get up in the dark and wake everyone else up.
This last week I’ve received multiple Facebook and Whatsapp updates from friends who have reached Santiago. These are the ones I’ve traveled with in various spurts. They are my family.I am just a few days out from the final goal and I’m going at a snail’s pace because I don’t want this journey to end. I’m also finding the conversations are getting deeper with the new people I’m meeting…the ones who will be long lost relatives when we reach Santiago and they yell, “Jene!” On the Camino the joy is in the journey. I relish what has become the perfect existence for me for the past six weeks. I. Don’t. Want. This. Experience. To. End.
The Camino is a home. Does it change you? Yes. Does it offer you the answer you are looking for? Yes. The answer is that there is no answer.
You just have to let go. You have no control and so you can’t control the outcomes. You’ve just got to let things BE. And that is the answer. That, and making peace with the ones who crinkle the bags.
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