To read more context for the letter below, check out this post here:) 

Dear Pilgrim,

When you arrive in the Plaza do Obradoiro, take a moment to sit on the ground. I recommend a spot by one of the pillars toward the back of the square. This is where you’ll get the best view of it all: the cathedral, the pilgrims arriving, the musicians welcoming you to the square. It’s all been here, through every long night awake in your bunk bed or every morning wrapping the blisters on your feet. Every time you’ve debated if you could really do this, it’s been here, sitting silently waiting for you to arrive.

There are things to do while you’re here, rituals to marvel. If you choose, you can visit the spot where the Catholics believe St. James is buried. You can hug the gold statue of St. James that sits above the altar, you can participate in a pilgrim’s Mass and watch the botufumerio—a massive incense holder—sail above the heads of your fellow pilgrims like a trapeze artist testing the fate of gravity as you sit beneath in wonder. You can also go to the pilgrim office and request a Compostela—the certificate that celebrates what you’ve done.

But before you do any of these things, do not get up from the Plaza. You are here. You have arrived. Rest in this state for as long as you can. It is not very often in life that we can sit in a state of arrival, a state of suspension.

If Santiago is the end of your journey, the plaza is the entryway out of the wilderness and back into this world that we’ve collectively constructed. When you pick up your pack and check into your hotel, when you wake the next morning for a late breakfast, and when you eventually get on the bus to go to the airport, the world will return quickly and steadily.

It is not easy. The return is not fair. It can be lonely, loud, and chaotic. The trees fly by so quickly by train, car, and bus. There is no longer time to reach out and brush them with your hand, to wave at the cows, or sit on a stone and watch the birds duck between the canopies of the distance forests.

But you are not returning to your old home empty-handed. Your mind has settled into the shape of nontraditional days. The touch of sun and wind on your skin will linger for years if not decades. Close your eyes on a hectic day and return to the sunrise on the trail whenever you like. It’s always out there.

You will also return with stories—stories that can inspire others to shift the direction of their lives or to regain a bit of hope in what this world can provide. You have a responsibility to carry and share these stories with care. You are a pilgrim and will be even without a road ahead of you. There are people out in the world who will tell you that traveling 500 miles is impossible, and you have a responsibility to tell them that it isn’t.

Santiago can be a lonely place simultaneously filled with pockets of rich connection. There are tourists who come just to marvel at you—who stare at your wrapped feet, your sunburned skin, and your tired face. You may reunite with your Camino family and then watch them leave one by one.

During your time in the city, it is normal to look beyond the Cathedral spires, catch a glimpse of the mountains, and miss them with a pain in your chest that could break you open if you let it. Isn’t that the inexplicable nature of this journey? Longing to arrive and then longing to begin again.

Thankfully, the wilderness will always be there, just as Santiago was. I think of this on lonely days. The roads will always be there, kept company by teachers, writers, retired old Irishmen, doctors, businesspeople, scientists, actors, daughters, sons, moms, dads, priests, nuns, and loved ones. They’re out there right now.

      And if it’s your turn to keep the road company again, you’ll answer the call more quickly than you did last time. It’s waiting for you, whenever you’re ready.