Day... 40? Leaving Santiago, and saturation

Those are the spires of the Santiago de Compostela cathedral fading behind me, as I press on toward the sea.  About 90 km to Finisterre; that's a chocolate-filled pastry fresh from a pasteleria, to fuel the first leg of the journey.  (As a side note, I do also eat fresh vegetables.  And healthy things.  Though being less fun than street food, they usually don't get photographed.) 

I've reached and passed Santiago, and am continuing on to the sea.  On to Finisterre, the edge of the world!

I'm typing this at 16:00, on a top bunk in the upstairs of a small stone-walled bar called 'Casa Pepa', run by a very industrious woman in the tiny town of San Mariña.  This may be short, because in truth all I feel like doing is napping (or perhaps reading: I found 'The Light Between Oceans' at a tiny bookshop in Palas de Rei, one of only 4 english books there, and it's shockingly good - about a lighthousekeeper.  I may still be reading it when I reach the Finisterre lighthouse.)  Except, I feel so guilty for napping.  I feel guilty for tuning out, too, and for daydreaming while walking, and for not taking photos of everything that's beautiful, and for not taking the time to try and talk to everyone I pass if they're in the mood for talking - because many people are more in the mood for talking than me.  I know they all have interesting stories.  I know there's something to be learned from everyone.  So it's not that I'm being dismissive, or that I don't admire the other travelers, and I certainly still smile and say hola and buen camino to everyone.  But I've been finding that more and more - starting about 100 km before Santiago, when the huge influx of other more touristy pilgrims hit the trail, and continuing now, after I've passed the city and kept walking on this less-traveled leg of the trail - I've been keeping to myself more and more, smiling but then walking on, and relishing the alone-ness.  

Incidentally, about that same time was when my phone memory started getting full of photos.  

I realized - with mounting horror - that I was running out of old photos to delete, and I'd already deleted all the audiobooks.  I realized that in order to make room for new photos, I'd have to start deleting some of the photos I've taken here in Spain, which were not backed up on any computer, anywhere.  I thought this might be easy.  Surely there were duplicates, excessive landscapes of the Pyrenees, photo after photo of masonry farm huts.  But when I started trying to delete photos, every photo brings up such a specific memory - of the moment or the feeling or a person I'd just met when I took it - that I don't want to let any of them go.

2,775 photos.  That's how many I can easily fit, before my old 16 GB iphone 4S says its full.  2,775 moments.  You'd think that would be plenty of space.  But now I've been walking past house after picturesque house, and rosebush after picturesque rosebush (the Spanish really know how to grow their rosebushes: like this one.  They're everywhere.  Alleys and doorways and trellises, with little old ladies diligently spraying all their thousands of blooms against bugs.  I mean really, these people are just showing off:)

And I've been seeing so many more photos I could take - of everything, everywhere - but then I... don't.  Because I can't. It's just all beautiful.  It's all worth documenting.  Every sunrise.  Every sky.  Every rosebush.  

 And I just know every person who passes me is worth talking to, worth hearing and get to know and learning from, but I... don't.

 It seems the people who have been walking the longest - with the dustiest packs, the oldest boots, their hair greasy but their eyes warm and wise as you pass - are the ones least eager to talk, and most content to let you pass by with only a smile.  It's not that they're unfriendly.  If you start talking to them they're clever and surprisingly zippy and great conversationalists, probably from all that pent-up cleverness during long silences.  

It's more that they've... stopped trying to hold it all.  

They're the ones who aren't desperate to keep track of anything.  They don't snap photos.  They don't wear GoPro constantly-recording cameras, to video their whole camino and re-watch it later.  They don't try to get emails or phone numbers to contact anyone later.  They're just not desperate at all.  It's like, they've stopped attempting to hold all these infinite moments and encounters, stopped trying to capture all the beauty like it's going to run out, stopped trying to record all the feelings in order to re-feel them later, because the beauty's never going to run out.  The world just keeps coming.  There's so much more to see, so many more places, so many more people.  So many more rosebushes. 

Part of me feels guilty for passing them by.  But if I stopped to smell every rose along these manure-splattered farm lanes, I'd never get anywhere.  If I tried to photograph every abundant flower - in this humid, hilly land of forests and fog and lillies all sorts of things that ought to be found in a botanical hothouse, growing wild by the road. (Like these white lillies, which grow as house plants in the US, but sprout here along farm walls and cow pastures, as abundant as the red roses:)

If I tried, I'd be out of space within moments. 

And if I tried to talk to everyone, I'd never stop talking.  

 I'm starting to realize what the difference is, now, this shift from intensely experiencing everything, to suddenly wanting to... pass by.  Keep walking.  Not take photos, and keep to myself, and take naps.  I think it's the difference I've seen in others who are long-term travelers vs. short-term travelers.  It's like, when I first met Julia-the-teacher-from-Ohio (who, incidentally, I met again just a few days ago, in a tiny cafe, after a week without meeting) she was typing quietly on a laptop, at a communal albergue table, not speaking to anyone.  I actually shared a bunk with her without doing more than exchanging greetings, because she was just so quiet - I wasn't sure if she was shy or just very private or flat-out indifferent and disinterested, but she kept to herself.  

Then, days later, I realized she typed on her laptop because she had a part-time copyediting job, to make money while she traveled long-term.  She'd taught for 2 years in India, and 2 years in Turkey, and volunteered at a language center in Poland (she gave me the name of this language organization that offers free room and board to English speakers) and I realized: 

Ah-ha.  She is neither shy, nor indifferent, though she is very private.  Because she's turned this into a life.    

 She was a long-term traveler, though I hadn't recognized the shift in myself yet.  It's like, at some point instead of actively swimming through this sea of new experiences and vivid strangers, one starts to simply drift, and be carried along in the current.  It's like, the people who are only here for two weeks document everything to go home to their routines and be able to remember it later.  But the people who are here for two months, or two years, stop trying save everything for later, because there will be just as much later, and this is their routine.  

I remember feeling so, so blatantly irresponsible and extravagant for sitting on a park bench in Burgos reading A Tree Grows In Brooklyn instead of sightseeing, ignoring the many sights that were doubtless waiting in that lovely historic city.  I read for hours.  It felt luscious and greedy.  I loved it.  

 There's a saying that I think is Buddhist, about how 'A wise man is he who sits on the riverbank all day without moving.'  

 I've often felt critical of Buddhism for being too passive, encouraging calmness instead of intervention, and leaving all things as they are.  And I'm still feeling critical of myself for wanting to take a nap, instead of going out to explore the small town of San Martiño, and do a sketch, and document something, and freeze a memory in time, so I can come back to it later.  But I'm starting to realize the wisdom of that man who can sit all day simply watching the river.  (Side note from the bunk room: these three incredibly noisy old Italian pilgrims just got vigorously shushed by at least 10 other groggy people of various nationalities, who are all trying to nap.  Naps are quite popular.  Pilgrims are excellent sleepers.)  Today, I took a lunch break after about 15 km, in a field of tall grass under the shade of two trees.  I've been doing less multitasking, as this trip goes on.  Less eating-while-reading.  Less sketching-while-drinking-coffee.  I've been... just eating.  Just looking.  Just sitting.  Just seeing.  I sat for almost an hour snacking with my feet propped up and watching a farmer plowing his field and noting the direction the seagulls passed. 

 I did a very quick sketch, just enough to place that moment on a page, and record the bliss of it.  But mostly I just sat.  And I love how physical this is.  The living on your body's terms, and measuring how far you can go between water, between food, between rest.  It feels primal and animalistic and so present.  

I love the gradual realization that all the beauty in the world is not going to go away if we don't photograph it, and that all the marvelous things we've seen keep happening whether or not we see them.  People are still crossing that vast stretch of Meseta right now, every day.  People are entering the cathedral in Santiago right now, at this moment.  That wild boar that crossed the road way back in Week 2 is probably still rustling in the bush somewhere, in the hilltops.  There's just so many wild things and so many flowers and so many people, and they go on living, day after day, month after month.  Maybe the individual moments are fleeting, never to be experienced again, and that's sad, but it hardly matters, because new interesting things just keep happening all over the world forever. 

May your days be filled with enough amusing and interesting moments that you give up on trying to record them all. 

 -mlj