Galician Generosity

"I want you to have it." --Yanira from Santiago

When you make a big decision in your life, it can be as though the whole world is cheering you on. A few months ago, knowing that it was time to start spicing up my life with a change in direction, I decided that I would go back to Spain. The last time I was there was 2006, and it has stayed in my mind and my heart as a constant reminder of how exciting and wonderful life can be. I had heard whispers of the Camino in the north of Spain as I toured around the south, exploring the olive groves and Moorish palaces of Sevilla and Granada. I'd even met a few people who had walked parts of the Camino, who told tales of sore feet and enlightened hearts. But it wasn't until last year, when I read a blog post by a friend of mine and his wife who were walking it as part of a year of traveling the world, that I remembered these whispers and started to look into it again.

See, I was feeling pretty safe and secure in my good job and comfortable bed. But wouldn't you know it, bored senseless with the way I'd sunken into the "Velvet Rut of Victoria," a well-known phenomenon where life is just so comfortable but not really going anywhere that you forget what the word hardship even means. The hardest thing I had to cope with was deciding which cafe to go to when mine was closed on holidays. Poor me. But dammit, I wasn't only becoming bored, I was becoming boring.

And that was when the world started coming together to cheer me on. A plan started to form in my mind. Over the next 3 months, I researched and read and watched and plotted my escape. But it was going to be a year from then, when I'd saved enough money to comfortably leave for months on end. Certainly not at the end of the summer! I started looking into proper gear, and I suddenly had a great reason to start walking around Victoria--to see how far I could go without sore feet! Summer was here and the sun stayed up late enough that I could go for 5km walks at night before dark. The weekends were beautiful, so I started following some of the walking paths around town and discovered that a 10km walk really isn't that far. I could do it in a couple of hours really comfortably. My first 15km walk led me all the way up to the Oak Bay Marina and around Dallas Road, where I found a path I'd never seen before, leading up to a lookout I'd always wanted to see but had never bothered to. But after each walk I did, I realized more and more that I wasn't going to be able to wait until next year. I was ready now.

And I was in this frame of mind when I met Eunate, a Basque woman visiting Canada to learn English and have a holiday. She was staying with a good friend of mine, and the first day we met, we chatted nonstop for hours, half in Spanish and half in English. I had forgotten what a thrill it is to use my second language, no matter how rusty. I had also forgotten how easy it is to connect to people when you are open to new possibilities. That night I couldn't sleep. We'd talked about the Camino, and we'd talked about life and how we must live each moment. We talked about how some moments are meant to be quiet and dull, and how those moments are there to urge us forward to the loud and exciting moments that are less frequent but far more memorable. She'd unknowingly convinced me that it was time to act.

Two days later, I was plotting my escape for real. Plane ticket and resignation letter and notice to my landlord and sale of my scooter. All in one day. July 30 goes down in my book of momentous occasions. And then the world cheered and confirmed for me that I was making the right decision.

Eunate and I were lunching at a local organic market when a lovely couple and their newborn baby sat down at the table next to us. They heard us speaking our wonderful Spanglish and asked Eunate where she was from. The Basque country of northern Spain. And where were they from? The woman was Spanish too--from Santiago de Compostela. What? How was that even possible? Here I was, a month and a half away from walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, and halfway around the world at a little organic market cafe outside of town, I just happen to meet a woman my age from there. A woman who, when she found out I was going to do the Camino, insisted that she give me her Galician scallop shell, the symbol of the Camino and of St. James himself that all true pilgrims wear on their backpack, the one she brought to Canada because she'd had a feeling the year before that she was going to find someone here to give it to. As it turned out, that someone was me. :)