Signs along the way
As you are going along The Way (and by The Way, I mean The Way of St. James, the Camino de Santiago), you see signs. Some are obvious. They boldly announce that you are on the right path. Or they unmistakably point you in the direction you need to take.
On the Camino these can be big, brilliant yellow arrows, or turquoise blue signs with canary yellow clamshells, or concrete waymarkers with kilometer counts. Sometimes these signs are eye-level and hard to miss. Sometimes they are painted on the sides of barns or fences or stone walls, faded, barely visible. Sometimes they are little plaques embedded in the road, easy to miss unless you are looking down.
Sometimes, especially in Galicia, these signs greet you so often that you stop seeing them. Other times you can go a long way without seeing a sign, and you are concerned that you have lost the way, and just as that concern is about to turn to worry or even into something darker, you see a sign. The relief borders on exaltation.
And then there are the times you see no sign at all, but you see a person walking way ahead on the road, or you see the light of their head lamp. Although you may never catch up, never know who this person is, you feel gratitude and friendship. This happened to me along the Camino a number of times when I started alone in the pre-dawn hours. It brought to mind that E.L. Doctorow quote I am so fond of that I have used it in just about every talk I’ve ever given about the process of writing: “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
And that, really, is how I made my way: from sign to sign, by the light of my head lamp, by the distant light of someone else’s. Seeing just what needed to be seen to take the next step.
Now two weeks home, I am thinking: I wish life was like the Camino and every so often, just when you needed it, there was a sign to tell you, to reassure you, that you were on the right path. And then I think: Maybe life is like this, but we don’t know what the signs are, or we ignore the signs, or we are just looking elsewhere.
15 comments
I live this. What a fitting way to begin your musings about the journey you just completed, or should I say, the journey you’re (present tense) on.
Oops. Always proofread! I love this. But perhaps I’d like to live it as well.
I like both the original and copyedited version!
Beautiful. Keep walking, pretty soon you will arrive, as you so often have.
So appreciate your vote of confidence!
I wondered which of your Camino musing would make it onto (proverbial) paper first . . . And of course, true to form, I’ve had similar musings. Every time I catch sight of my Camino tattoo replicating one of the signs you mention, I have two thoughts: “I got this to remind me I am on the right path even when I am not sure I am” and “I wish real life had signposts like the Camino had to reassure me I am going the right way.” I can’t wait to see what else comes out of your time on the Way.
Of course you did, my friend! I am beginning to think that real life does, in fact, have these sign posts. But they are faded, or we step on them and don’t see them…or as in Galicia, we become numb/ blind to them. Dreams might provide signs.
I just really like your writing and would read anything you choose to share.
Thanks so much, Sue.
Love it Lauren
I have not ever read anything of yours before…before your “Camino Walk”. And then daily for over 30 days I would see pictures and read words that brought me right there with you. And now I’m hooked. I want to read your STUFf. All of it!
Thank you so so much. I hope you will continue to read.
For me the signs are the doors that open and the doors that close..I try to be aware of the new ones that open and not be afraid to enter and say good by to those that close….
There’s this saying (cliché) that “when one door closes, another one opens.” I kinda think that’s true. But you are so right, you have to say goodbye to the closed doors first.
Several wise people I know and have known say there are signs aplenty, it’s learning how to see, feel, and sense them. We are the constructors of our worst fears and happiest dreams. We are what we see. Spending time with one of my wisest friends who constantly p0ints out synchronicities is a training of sorts to help me see these little signposts telling me I am home, I am still on the path.
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