I only needed to walk 19km today, which presented more of a challenge than I thought. The municipal hostel opens at 1pm, and if I started at my usual time at 6:30am I’d arrive with way too much time to spare.
I woke up one hour later, but even then I knew I’d be sitting around with nothing to do if I walked my regular (comfortable pace). I needed to walk uncomfortably slow.
Yes, it was uncomfortable. I had developed a cadence this entire Camino, just to interrupt it on the second to last day. But I knew it would be better to take it extra easy than spend too much time just waiting around doing nothing. I might usually characterize delayed gratification by walking uncomfortably fast, but it seemed just as relevant today walking uncomfortably slow.
Alone the way, I saw a man walking with no shoes. And no socks. He had no choice but to walk slow. So I studied his mannerisms and choices - what did the world look like to him at his pace?
It looked like a lot more of stopping to admire the flowers. A lot more sincere greetings to fellow pilgrims (instead of rushing by). A lot more meaning being made per step.
These are called hortensias, according to my friend. Typical of Northern Spain (where it is more humid).
I think this was bubbling under the surface of my conscience, but the walking experience today has surfaced the following realization: discipline and delayed gratification to reach a goal doesn’t have to be painful if you can make meaning out of the process itself, divorced from the goal. Or maybe if can be its own goal.
I ended up walking today with some old friends and sharing a conversation about independence politics - different from the norm, and very much welcomed!
I realize that I’m talking about timing my arrival like it’s rocket science, but this exactly implicates my second realization today - just how simple life on the Camino is.
I was talking to a friend a while back and explained that I really enjoyed this Substack because it added some flavor to an otherwise very simple life: wake up, walk, arrive and check in, find food, find a place to wash and dry clothes, repeat.
She said, “Enjoy it while you can - this is probably the simplest your life will ever be.”
I lived that today. I allowed the simplicity of the life I am about to let go of after tomorrow to make my happiness easier to attain. I ran back to my hostel in the pouring rain in my shower shoes, and it made me happy. I saw a rainbow this morning and it made me happy.
I have been living happy.
I think in the logistical nightmare college usually is, I have forgotten to take the most mundane of experiences, squeeze all the happiness and meaning and energy I can out of them, and take it for myself and the people I care about.
A binary that my brain has decided for me is a trade off: simplicity at the cost of complacency.
It is not lost on me that many of the people making the most impact in the world today (politically or otherwise) struggle with mental health. They are so good at healthy skepticism that it becomes unhealthy. They are so good at critique that they lose focus of what is there, only what isn’t.
How possible is it to balance a steady diet of contentedness with an unending appetite for improvement and change? To wish for more and be happy with how far we’ve gotten.
It is possible - I have in my head several ways I could have done the Camino better, but first and foremost in my mind is an incredible amount of gratitude for the experience I have had.
It ends tomorrow - in another 19km. I suspect I’ll have trouble sleeping tonight.