Survive, Part One
Another [half of a] story from my Camino walk this past summer.
I knew. I knew that on the other side of my walk I’d be coming back to dwindled resources, a partially dissolved business, flagging interest in my offerings, and big questions (yet a-freaking-gain) about what is mine to do next. I knew that it would be a time of rebuilding, which I felt very willing to engage. Pare way back on expenses, mindful about how little I actually need, lay low, reassess.
This all sounded doable. Still, clanking around amid this vision was the incessant concern: “but what about my purpose? How can I stay connected to my purpose, explore my puuurpose, live my puuuurpose if I’m so minimally resourced?”
Out on a neighborhood walk, I caterwauled this tired question to the universe or God or Whoever (GOW). Patient GOW, constantly fielding my repetitive concerns, easily receiving and diffusing the incessant barrage like the net in a batting cage.
Sometimes, so very rarely, like when it’s really important, this good universe responds in actual, audible words. This is what it said this time:
“Sweetie, your purpose is to survive.”
I may have stopped walking then. I’m not sure.
“Oh! Oh. W… bu…wait … that’s it?”
“That’s it, babe. That’s all it’s ever been. Just be alive. That’s all we need from you.”
“I can do that. I have done that.”
“You sure have. And will.”
I let out one of those sob-guffaws as a huge chunk of burden calved off me like an iceberg. Relief. Breath. Truth resonating through the momentarily empty space of my mind.
I knew by ‘survive’ it didn’t mean “scrape by, hoard every penny, do what you can not to starve.” Nor did it mean “thrive” in the way this culture has come to understand it: everything optimized. It just meant… live. It meant tend to your days and the living things in your purview. It meant follow your curiosity, stay afloat. Love and be loved. Stay connected to what’s around you. Try not to stress.
Survive. My goodness, to be released from this imagined burden of needing to make a splash, make an impact, even make a difference. I glimpsed how much more effective I can be if I can let the roaring, sparking flames I’ve been tending relax down to a smolder and, yeah, survive.
The day of the mountain arrives
A week or so later I am at the apex, literal and figurative, of my solo Camino walk. Even though I was on a different route than I usually walk, there was still a mountain to climb. This one was pretty wild (also literally, also figuratively).
My anxiety over being left behind—one of a neurotic cast of characters revealing themselves on this journey—had me set off alone. I walked slower than most of the folks I’d made friends with so far, so I figured a head start would have me meet up with them when things started getting serious—whatever that even meant.
The walk began with the expected, super steep ascent. I huffed along, turning around every now and again to watch the sun rise over the mountain range. As I got higher, the mountain was quickly subsumed in cloud cover. The glow gave way to thick fog, with a visibility of maybe 10 meters. The pavement turned to gravel, then to loose rocks: big ones, the size of tennis balls, poised to roll away under a misplaced footfall. In fact I watched someone go down a couple of meters ahead from me. Shaken but uninjured, she got up slowly and kept going, but it was sobering.
It was then that my intention for the day took root: Survive.
A fate worse than death
Not that I believed I would die, necessarily, but being injured and incapacitated felt distinctly possible. My real fear, though, wasn’t around that wasn’t my own pain; it was being a burden to others. I was going to a wedding after this walk, with birth family I’d found a few years ago. They’d accepted me unconditionally; still, the last thing I wanted was to be the aunt with the broken leg who needed accommodation, slowing everyone down. Or the long lost sister did this reckless thing and fucking died, casting a pall over the whole celebration. That felt worse to me than the possibility of my own death.
Unreasonable of course. Insane, in fact. And. This is what our wounds do. Literally the first thing that happened in my life was being a burden to someone who didn’t want me, and being rejected as a result. I knew this was one of the many deep-rooted narratives controlling all my behavior: one that will probably never go away, but that I can at least change my relationship with. Like so many of these narratives, this journey brought it into stark relief, and gave me an opportunity to work with it.
As I was contemplating this, someone nearby pointed into the mist with a soft shout at a group of hulking silhouettes. My heart stopped momentarily until I realized they were… cows.
Heartbeat leveled out, then the ground did. Now we were on grass, with a few sparse trees. The path was now a faint line of dirt that changed direction often. The arrows were tougher to locate.
Survive. Just survive.
I was glad not to be alone, though the folks nearest to me were Italian and we couldn't talk much. I started to regret my head-driven head start, which had put me too far ahead of my actual friends. It was getting intense, and I was, for all intents and purposes, alone.
Out of the mist
The fog stayed thick. Grew cold. I happened upon the first of the hospitales—ruins of original pilgrim hostels—that this route was known for. I pulled over to look in one, to rest. There wasn’t a tucked away enough spot for a pee break. A joke I have is that, whenever I feel alone, all I need to do is try to pee in public and someone will come along within 30 seconds. I decided to have a snack instead and, sure enough, as I leaned against the stone wall munching an apple, through the mist at last came not just a friend, but Rebecca.
It’ll take many pages and probably a lifetime to convey the goodness of this incredible Dutch woman who became a friend for life as soon as we met in the random bar we’d both stopped in for a break a few days before. I gave her the nickname MP, Mary Poppins: all business, but powerful, trustworthy, resourceful, and full of so much love.
She walked toward me now with what I’d already come to see as her token ease and joy.
“Welp.” I shrugged and gestured around to the fog, a mild conveyance that our day had been somehow spoiled by it. We knew there were some pretty spectacular views it was obscuring.
My relief at seeing her was immediately hip-checked out off the mountain by another pattern: the “everything is my fault” one. A couple of days earlier I had advocated the mountain route to Rebecca and another buddy, who hadn’t yet decided which route they’d take. I’d shared the unequivocal urging I’d gotten from someone at home to come this way. So, went this narrative, I’d ‘made’ my friends come over the mountain, and the fact that it wasn’t as spectacular as it could possibly be was also on me.
My “welp” contained all that, plus a tacit apology to her for having ‘made’ her do this.
“I actually prefer this,” she said, truthfully, about the fog. She is not one to blow smoke, to bend the truth even a little to save someone’s feelings—one huge reason I took to her so instantly. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t want to be. I didn’t force this, nor did I summon the fog to the mountain. (I mean, who am I, Saruman?)
With that, another entire neural network lit up: the one that has me take responsibility for others’ experiences—particularly bad ones. It’s another pattern of which I’d been vaguely aware, but was forcing me in the moment to look closely, let it go. Once I did, I found I too was grateful for how the mist was swaddling us on this challenging climb. We weren’t hiking in the blazing sun or violent wind (that would come later). For the moment we were sheltered from more intense elements. It was quiet, still, serene.
Downhill
We walked on together. Sooner than seemed possible, the kind of terrain I really hated began: downhill. Rebecca graciously, generously, even joyfully slowed down with me as I slowed to my overly cautious pace, picking my way around rocks. Our conversation and laughter unclenched me a bit. She, who so easily could have run down that hill, instead opted instead to keep pace with me, some instinct telling her how much I needed it. She seemed to enjoy my company as much as I did hers.
After a couple more kilometers the fog dissipated completely, replaced by some of the most insistent wind I’ve ever experienced. Wind that threatened to blow the gator I was wearing clear off my head. Wind that was literally blowing us sideways. Luckily there were no steep drops to be blown off of. The insane views we’d been anticipating were at last revealed to us.
It’s a special thing to get to be on top of a mountain, especially if you’ve climbed there yourself. I kind of get why actual climbers do it. A rare moment of having nothing between you and, like, forever. It’s a particular kind of sacred energy; a certain almost violent awe. Goddamn was it incredible.
And then.
Though we’d been ascending and descending for the last handful of kilometers, there came a point ahead of us where the land just… dropped off. The ask, it seemed, was for us to step off the edge of the world.
