buen camino.
from terminal four gate 25 i started and ended this trip, if you can call it an end.
i wrote those words on the sixth day of july in the year 2005 after returning from a pilgrimage across spain. it has been four years since i walked the camino de santiago. there exists inside of me a battle to not forget all that was learned on the 500 mile journey. there are days i simply forget all that took place, and then there are nights when dreams rich in color and vibrancy will not let my mind let go of each step, each person met, each lesson learned and unlearned.
those nights are incredible, and i am not surprised when i wake up exhausted.
today i had lunch with a friend who not only encourages me but walked with me four summers ago. we ate delicious red lentil soup, talked about the books we were reading and caught up on each other's lives.
she was speaking to her sister when i sat down at the table, and commented, "well, jillian is here now, so i will call you later. oh, yeah, i forgot you knew her." i wondered what she possibly could be talking about. i didn't recall any such meeting. when she got off the phone she said, "she walked with you while you were on your pilgrimage."
it only took that reminder. so many people walked here in the u.s. while i was walking in spain. people i still don't know walked with me.
it was a humbling reminder.
as we prepared to say goodbye after our delicious lunch, my friend grabbed her book of rumi and left us with this parting thought.
I want to be where
your bare foot walks,
because maybe before you step,
you'll look at the ground. I want that blessing. *
these words rolled around in my head and transported me back to the road, the camino. when i returned from walking the pilgrimage, my feet were abused to say the least. half dollar sized blisters had left their toll, not to mention the invisible pain deep in the tendons. i was very much aware of my feet during the walk and for many months after. a few days after my return, friends washed my feet after a conversation of pilgrimage.
it was a humbling reminder filled with beauty and grace.
ever since the camino, i have mostly taken communion with bare feet. it serves as a reminder to me of that humility and blessing that came from walking so many miles and from having to confront myself in the midst of waving wheat fields and spanish vineyards.
every june, memories come back to life for me in dreams and visions. i welcome them. it calls me back to wholeness, it calls me back to simplicity, and it calls me back to a grace understood on the camino in ways that are impossible to explain.
on the last page of my journal, i wrote myself a note, as if i knew the time would come when forgetfulness would become easy.
this pilgrimage has and will continue to be about grace... so be gentle with yourself, jillian, as you step back into a world that seeks for grace so hard that you will miss it...
slow down
breathe
walk and see it
tranquilo. tranquilo. tranquilo.
* this is part of rumi's poem mary's hiding.
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