Category Archives: Travel

An Afternoon of (Almost) Writing, or How to Make Pumpkin Chili

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At the start of this post, I have one completed article, three new article pitches, and a slow cooker full of pumpkin chili.  What I do not have, my dear friends, is a single additional word of either my book outline or actual book that I set the past four hours aside to work on.  Nope.  Not a word. Instead, my big day of writing went like this:

It’s 11am, and I finish and submit my article to an editor–this my paid “day job” writing.  This particular article addresses meditating during your workday.

Since I now feel like a hypocrite–sitting in pajamas while doing work, NOT having meditated–I sit on down and meditate for about 15 minutes, all the while thinking about how to keep my cat from scratching up the decorative baskets I keep next to my meditation area.

11:30: I clean up all the scraps from the ripped-up baskets, realize the rest of the room is covered in a mountain of fuzz, and continue to clean.  Cleaning is important!

It is now noon.  I should sit and finish my book outline.

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How to Return

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The past two nights, I’ve stumbled through NYC pretending that I fit in, ignoring–or hiding–that I still feel like an outsider.  I stop extra long at busy intersections–at one point so long that a feisty West Village pedestrian smacks into the back of me without a word of “Oops” or apology.  I’m in the way.  But I can’t explain to them that I recently spent five weeks with traffic as one of my biggest contenders.  Before you leave, you avoid telling your parents or husband that car accidents are the biggest–and pretty frequent–cause of pilgrim injuries, or worse (Hi dad!).  I scuttered across a few too many highways with a heavy backpack because the yellow arrows told me to.  But alas, here I am, a safer New Yorker.

I am also used to being the “other” in a city. I see women walking toward me with makeup and fashionable clothing, and my brain still tells me that I am an outsider in hand-washed hiking pants, a faded blue shirt, and a nylon headband covering the heat rash on my neck.  I know I’m not, I’m one of the normals now.  But that’s the issue, I don’t feel like it.  I don’t feel like them and I know I’m not like them.

The true issue is figuring out what the hell you do with this confused energy right after you get back from a trip of this sort.  This happened to me last time as well, and honestly, I thought it had to do more with life events at the time, and not a pilgrim-reintegration syndrome, an issue I just made up all on my own.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m not a total mess by any means. In reality, I’m sitting at my new homemade desk (because I now write from home for a living, yay!)–with some calming folk music, a hot mug of freshly made coffee, and even a small oil diffuser that calmly changes colors every few seconds.  I could not be in more of a comfortable, introvert-friendly, privileged scenario than right now.  So why am I such an emotionally stunted grouch half the day?

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The Permission to Scream

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Last night, I had a dream about screaming at the top of my lungs.  In a normal situation, this would have been a nightmare. But since I am only two weeks out from Camino #2, nothing is quite normal.  My knees don’t really straighten yet, my calluses are still hideous, and more importantly, I’m having dream flashbacks to conversations from four weeks ago:

After a rather scary, 90-degree hike into Los Arcos, on what I remember to be the 4th or 5th day of hiking, Christina and I sat down to dinner with two of our favorite early Camino family members–Patrick and Steve.  Patrick–a feisty Irish guy in his 60s–was on his second Camino…that month.  He had gotten to the end of the trip a week or so prior, only to come back to the start and begin again.  His reasoning for this is currently lost in my cloud of fuzzy memories, but it doesn’t really matter for the sake of the story–and people make wilder decisions in the world of the Camino anyway.  People at home think 500 miles is insane, but in that world, we’d all made that decision, and people had come much farther. No one questions it though; no one asks “Why the hell are we all just walking in that direction?” or even, “Why don’t we stop putting our bodies through this pain?”  No one asks because the why either doesn’t matter or doesn’t change the fact that we’re there either way, trusting that we aren’t supposed to have an answer.

Anyway, dinner with Steve and Patrick.  We named Steve the patron saint of afternoon drinks. Though he was nearly a generation above us, Steve beat us by hours each day, even in the heat of that infuriating, direct-sun trudge through the open dessert before Los Arcos.  I had reached a point of heat so extreme that my sweat was colder than my skin–a creepy sensation that makes you feel like you’re sweating ice water.  Probably not ideal.  By the time we reached the town, I was ready for any structure that provided shade or produced water.  And yet without fail, Steve was already on the patio of the albergue, sipping a cold glass of white wine as we dragged ourselves in, red and panting from the heat.

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Post-Camino Zombie Phase

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I have officially entered post-Camino-zombie phase.  After Camino number one in 2009, I had one full day at home with my family before boarding a southbound airplane and launching into a “getting to know you”-new-job situation. So as strange as I feel now, I am grateful for the silence of my living room, the promise of at-home work (which will hopefully be more than “promise” soon), and the freedom to be a zombie.

There is one part of my mind that is still seeing the rolling hills and endless wheat fields, and another part of my brain that is desperately trying to remember the details of everything that happened there.  I attributed my last post-Camino crash to a pretty lousy break up that commenced two days after reaching Santiago, but now I wonder if this feeling happens either way.  I just feel lost, confused by the silence around me while I’m home and confused by the chatter when I go out.  I’m used to heading into a town square and knowing half the people around me–if not by name, then by nickname–like “the twins with the hats” or “Irish guy with rolling backpack.”  We were known as a variety of things as well–Jersey girls, academic girls, and who knows what else.

On the Camino, you can learn the deepest, most intimate details of someone’s life before knowing their name.

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So I was on a podcast…

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Amidst the absolute madness of the past several weeks, I received an early light at the end of the tunnel in the form of an email from Dan Mullins.  Dan hosts a podcast based in Australia that interviews pilgrims from the Camino, and he found my xoJane article from last year on the experience.

I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the guts to listen to the full episode yet because the sound of my own voice makes me want to hide under a rock, but I’m making progress!  Dan did such a beautiful job with the interview, and the experience itself was not only a bucket list item, but also generally exhilarating.  After I finished the interview, I may have jumped up and down around my house and couldn’t go to sleep for a while.  Wine helped though.

My main hope is that the episode will inspire more people to go on the trek themselves. Buen Camino, all!  And if you’ve found your way to my blog via the podcast or Camino forum, WELCOME! And thank you so much for visiting!

Also, a huge thank you to John DeSilvestri for selling me his excellent mic that saved the day!

Feel free to have a listen, and definitely go check out Dan’s past episodes on Facebook!

My Podcast Episode!

 

54 days!

Two Months Before the Camino

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I’ve always had travel anxiety.  I dream about going on trips, and save up for years for these types of things, just to feel horribly anxious before I actually leave.  And the moment I decided on a date to return to the Camino de Santiago, I knew that this happy/terrified anticipation would begin even earlier than it did the last time.

Because this time around, I know exactly what I’m getting into.  I know how hard it will be on my muscles and joints, I know how long the days can feel, and I know how hard it is to let go of the dependable day-to-day life that you’ve been used to for the past several years.  But I also know that this is the whole reason I’m going.  My brain is like a dusty closet, filled more and more everyday by the little, persistent needs of my house, my job, my career. With too much dust, I forget what it’s like to sit down and think clearly for more than a few minutes at a time.  Even when I take a break in the middle of the day or go on a weekend trip, I see the impending end to that break on the horizon.  And this is exactly why I did not choose to go on a traditional vacation with my saved pennies.  This is why I need to spend this time moving as slowly as possible across a great distance. I haven’t found anything else that breaks up the cobwebs in my head like a challenge of this sort.

So with my building anxiety–and the countdown dwindling–I want to use this blog as a place to write where I stand, literally and mentally leading up to my second pilgrimage.  So I’m writing for three purposes:

  1. Help people who are considering/leaving soon for the Camino themselves.
  2. Vent about my feelings and pre-trip anxieties to make myself feel better.
  3. Prepare for the writing I hope to do on the trip itself.

So here’s where I stand…

Hiking during San Fermin.  Yikes.

Logistically, I have learned that hiking the Camino overtop of the running of the bull is a bit of a nightmare.  Pamplona, the fourth-or-so town on the Camino Frances (when starting in St. Jean Pied de Port), fills up for a week with revelers for the San Fermin festival.  So here comes a vegetarian and a girl that fears large crowds hiking right in the middle of the bull run.  Yeesh.  The hardest part is finding a hostel in or around Pamplona.  I know there are ways around the city, but I am worried these roads will not be well marked, and the last thing I want to do is get lost. Luckily, this morning we booked a room.  It was about four times the amount we will normally pay for a hostel, but alas, better than getting lost in the hillsides of Spain.  Hit me up in the contact section if you need suggestions of where to stay, we saw a few additional options in our journeys.

I’m losing patience with emails

My work email has a little notification feature that pops up on the top right part of my screen whenever a new message comes in.  As someone who needs to get into a zone when they work, I have been less immune to frustration as each one pops up.  I’m having real-world senioritis.  One of the best things about the Camino is a disconnect from technology, from usual rhythms and patterns of your day, and from a constantly shifting focus.  I feel the most resentful when I am pulled in several directions and incapable of finishing one specific task because of it.  I realize these are all “first-world” problems, and one of my whole purposes for returning to the hike is to reorganize my brain and not become instantly frustrated when several people need things from me at once.

A Week of Happy Crying

I have a suspicion that I’m going to happy-cry my way through the first few days of this trip.  Yes, I know I’m anxious as all hell now, but once I get my butt on the airplane and fall asleep, I will actually be able to say that I can truly rest. It’s strange to think that walking for five weeks is “truly resting,” but this is my sort of freedom.  I look forward to days and days of being out in the sun, opposed to looking at it through an office window. And I look forward to a community of people that find little reason to fall into the trap of negativity–a great listen for my own brain.  All that matters on the Camino is safely getting from one place to the next while looking out for the people around you.

So much support!

As I mentioned in one of my past posts, I’ve had such a different reaction to my trip announcement this time around. In 2009, the Camino was not as well known and the world was simply in a different mindset. I said that I wanted to drop everything and disappear for a few weeks, and everyone assumed I was doing a drunken jaunt through Europe to be wild and crazy. I was also told that it was too dangerous for a young woman to take on. This time though–nothing but positive thoughts from everyone.  I’ve even received a whole bunch of phone calls and emails from people asking about how to plan their own trips.  The world may feel like shit right now on the whole, but I applaud everyone’s newly opened mind to the idea of personal and spiritual pilgrimages.  You don’t get a big golden award at the end or some giant recognition on the news.  You do it for you, and you go home.  The fact that something of this sort if gaining popularity is a good sign for society.

 

We’re at 61 days.  And counting.

Day 21: The Infamous Rome Story from Hell

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For the final 30 days of my twenties, I am writing one personal narrative a day that has impacted my life until now.  To read more about my challenge, feel free to check out the first post.  

Also, this 30 Day challenge is also to support a wonderful charity, Zara Aina.  Please check out my fundraiser here and if you’re able, please consider throwing a few dollars toward this amazing cause.  It would mean the world!

This story does not have any related photographs…nor does it deserve any.  Good luck reading, friends.

Part 1: Murphy’s Law

If there is one thing I learned during my early years as a young traveler, it’s that listening to your body can make the difference between a disappointment and a complete disaster.  A week before traveling to Rome during my semester abroad, my body was telling me that something was wrong, and I did not listen.  Instead, I figured pushing through the impending flu-like symptoms was the smartest way to make them go away.  At 21, you think that one good night sleep and a good dose of ignoring the problem is all that it takes to carry on.

Three quarters of the way through my London semester, with one of our longer holiday breaks on the horizon, my friend Helen and I planned to head over to Rome for a few days, our second unguided trip of the semester (and our lives, really).  But that weary, woozy, heavy feeling began to hover as the trip approached.  In my head, the Ryan Air flight–which was probably only like 30 Euro–should not be wasted over a mere fever.  We were going to make this trip happen.

The night before the trip, a stabbing pain developed in the back of my throat, which was quickly followed up with a heavy resonant hack to go with it.  But no, this was going to happen.  We had Italian dreams, and again, the money shouldn’t be wasted!  I figured a solid nap once we reached Italy would push me back into Healthy Land.

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New Camino Post on xoJane

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Good Morning!!  If you check out my post from yesterday, I was in a hell of a slump.  But an article I wrote for xoJane was published last evening, and so far seems to be going over pretty well!  It was definitely the boost I needed after a poopy day.

If you are just finding my site because of the xoJane article, welcome!  I’ve noticed that many people in the comments are either discussing their own Camino experience or interested in going sometime in the future.  If you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to contact me.  I love to talk about it, and though my trip was seven years ago (and I’m sure a lot has changed with the growth of technology since then), I can definitely get you started.  I even have a packing list saved that I wrote up for a few friends of mine.

Also, just for the record, the Camino was not all about shaking fists of rage and cursing the stars.  It was also about choreographing interpretive dances, singing The Proclaimers in the middle of the desert, and drinking one-Euro bottles of wine with people from all over the world until you’re told to go to shut up and go to bed.  It’s grown-up summer camp, with a lot of walking.

The backpack dance

The backpack dance

The Native Navigator Launch Date: March 23rd!

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Yahoo!!  Remember that time last fall when I decided to start a new website?  I sure do–because ever since then I have learned many a lesson about the trials and tribulations of launching a website. Turns out there’s much more to it than buying a URL and having a super lofty idea about traveling.

Nevertheless, I have decided to take the plunge and give myself a deadline.  After almost a year of futzing, researching, learning how to use a camera, and getting over my fear of interviewing people (well, I’m still working on that one), I have at least the beginnings of The Native Navigator.  So let’s break it down (in what somehow became an interview with myself):

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