Whispers from the Camino—Day 34

October 8 Palas de Rei to Arzua 28.9 km

Typical morning scene as we all stir before getting back on the trail.

I had met Annika (from Sweden) and Leesee (from New England) three weeks prior at the old 12th century monastery in San Anton that still served as an albergue for traveling pilgrims. Leesee and I especially made a connection. I had recently ended a position as a church executive and was walking the Camino largely to discern where Life/God was calling me to serve next. Leesee was an educator at a private school, but was feeling a tug toward art.

We compared notes about this transitional phase and what it was like to be experiencing a shift in vocation so close to retirement age. After San Anton we did not connect again, although I remembered seeing her and Annika eating at a cafe in the town of Astorga a week later.

First scene leaving before sunrise.

This day, I first saw Annika and Leesee on the trail ahead of me after they had stopped at one of the many trailside food trucks for some refreshment. We were going different paces, me slightly slower probably due to my leg injury. We connected for a bit and then resumed our walk. Somehow I got ahead of them without knowing it and ended up in the small quaint village of Arzua before them. After securing a bed for the night I went to the only cafe in town, a bustling restaurant with outdoor seating situated above a colorful and fresh-looking small stream. I ordered my usual salad, liter of water and a beer and opened my journal.

It wasn’t long before Annika and Leesee showed up. I made room for them at my table and the waitress quickly got their order. I couldn’t believe how much it felt like a reunion of old friends. We really had only connected at the magical ancient monastery ruins that one evening. It had been 18 days since then. But something about that initial connection and our shared experiences found us immediately launching into what all we had experienced since we had last seen each other. We truly wanted to know how the Camino was challenging us and shaping us.

The refreshing stream in Arzua

After our restorative and yummy meal all three of us headed to the stream, took off our shoes and soaked our overly tired feet in the cool flowing water all the while continuing our conversation and marveling at the amount of goodness this “little walk” was blessing us with. It was an especially rich afternoon. The buzz at the restaurant was invigorating, the connection with Annika and Leesee grounding, and the stream pure delight.

Along the route I also met Alisa from St. George, Utah. I knew of the area around St. George and immediately started pestering her with questions about whether it was as much of an outdoor enthusiasts’ paradise as I had heard and assumed given its proximity to Moab. Alisa confirmed that it was everything I had heard—a playground for mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing, camping, kayaking and skiing. She shared that she had owned a furniture store in the area and had just sold it to retire. She painted the picture of an ideal life spending more time with her husband and four grandchildren and enjoying the recreational life St. George is know for. I found myself yearning for something similar on this pilgrimage of life—connection to nature, an adventurous lifestyle and plenty of time with my own growing family!

Fellow pilgrims on this busier section as we near Santiago

In addition to the good connections and beauty of the landscape a phrase also came to me. It felt like a gift from the psychological work of the past five weeks on the trail. I found myself mulling over the phrase, “I will never fit, but I will always belong.” It felt like an important breakthrough. On the surface it may sound like a bit of a downer. But unconscious forces had driven much of my adult life with the belief that I would finally belong WHEN I fit in. I don’t recall ever thinking this consciously, but a look over my history exposed that I had probably been struggling with equating the two for most of my adult life.

I had a hunch where I knew this came from. I remember my short 3-year stint as a juvenile probation officer 25 years prior. I remembered how much I felt like I understood those juveniles. While I had gone on to put myself through college and a master’s degree, those degrees did nothing to erase the narrative of my childhood. The truth was that my psychological identity was much closer to the juveniles I worked with given the early abandonment and emotional neglect than the colleagues that came with a professional degree.

A magical grove

Despite academic success, I never felt like my narrative fit the narrative of my colleagues. I remember the early years when colleagues would be talking about their family of origin and I would try to jump in. My story was so radically different that my sharing tended to put a halt to the conversation. It was clear that my background didn’t align well with backgrounds of my colleagues. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the confidence or the skills to untangle the difference between fitting and belonging.

The phrase “I will never fit, but I will always belong,” felt like a great gift. It said to me, “You don’t have to spend so much energy on fitting into someone else’s mold. The answer, Brian, is not to try to fit, but to insist that you belong.”

Sharing the trail with a tractor-pulled cart

The language of belonging helped me to see that my own narrative and unique life experience was my gift to others. My worthiness was not dependent on fitting a mold that just wasn’t me. My worthiness was in recognizing that my unique experience was exactly what others needed. They didn’t need me to be a reflection of them. They needed me to be me so they could be introduced to a world outside of them.

I didn’t know where this would take me, but I did know that I couldn’t waste any more energy trying to fit in. I had to be me with my own unique story and history and trust that I belonged somewhere. Maybe that is what this pilgrimage was about—ending the chase to fit somewhere and trusting the life to plant me where I belonged.

It was an interesting revelation as the title of my 2016 book was Alone: A 4,000 Mile Search for Belonging about my cycling trip through the American West. I had been working my way through this issue for a long time.

Maybe I was finally coming out the other side.

Maybe I was finally coming home.