Lazy?

"Oh, você fala Portuguese! American?" A cafe owner said to me as I stopped for a coffee. (You speak Portuguese! American?)

I blinked. "Não?"

He looked at me amused. We'd been communicating just fine. Duolingo did me dirty, but immersion really is the only way to learn a language. I still have no idea what the Portuguese are saying most of the time, but I guess I've picked up on some key phrases for ordering food and asking directions.

Although... there was one man in a grocery store with no teeth who was talking my ear off. I hadn't even spoken to him, he just saw me in line for checkout and went for it. Portuguese already has so many "shhh" sounds to my ear...as his lips blew in and out of his mouth, while he spoke rapid Portuguese, I just stared.

"Uhh....bom dia..." I stammered (good morning).

After my coffee at the shop, I kept going. I had a long day planned of 42 km to my next reservation (god I hate this shit). There are also more hills now, the first week was mostly flat, meaning these long days are rougher on my body and take longer.

I passed a much older man who was very tall and very fast. I heard him speaking English to an Argentinian I'd met earlier, so when he passed me again I said "wow you're fast!"

"I'm big, I can't help it!" He said. "Long legs!"

He slowed his stride to walk with me for a bit. His name was Frank. He was retired military from Belgium, now living with his wife in Spain. I asked why they had moved to Spain. He said the weather was much better and it was much cheaper.

"I can live well in Belgium, but in Spain I can live like a king."

Sounded to me like the European version of New Yorkers retiring in Florida.

Frank had walked also walked the Camino Frances, only a year earlier.

"Yes, I did the Frances, and when I came back, my wife said 'no more Caminos for a while!' She said a month is too long."

"Why doesn't she do them with you?" I asked.

"Oh she doesn't like this stuff. We take walks, but not this long and for every day. She's a clever woman though, because after a while she said 'if you remodel my bathroom, you can do another Camino.' So I said 'deal!' And I knocked that out in 10 days and now I'm here. Next is the kitchen remodel."

"Oh that sounds like a bigger job, you should negotiate a longer trip," I said.

"Oh I plan on it!"

It sounded like he was trying to catch up on some traveling lost during the pandemic. He, like many, had almost lost family members during Covid. Both of his parents are still alive and in their late 80s. His father was hospitalized for four months with Covid, while his mother had it and didn't even know it.

"Covid is such a strange virus. It's not about age or health, it's just luck. There are young athletes who died from it, and old unhealthy people who never got it. A very unpredictable virus."

I'm saying.

I asked if he'd had trouble finding rooms. I've been feeling guilty making reservations, like I'm doing something wrong. Now that we've passed Fatima, it might be better, but I'm "feeling out" the other pilgrims' experiences first. The Argentinian had told me he was struggling to find places.

"Yes, it's been very hard!" Frank said. "I went ahead and booked the next 20 days."

Frank had taken the train from Santarém to Fatima, just to see the place. He sounded like he didn't care much for it. He said it was very small and not impressive.

"They had this water they kept saying was holy. But I didn't know what was so holy about it! In Portugal, the only holy water I have come by is cerveja" (beer).

"Well, I hear Jesus turned water into wine, so cerveja seems like a reasonable next step for him." Frank liked that.

We chatted as we walked probably around 8 km together. He was a funny, opinionated man, and we had the most random conversations, like the importance of wearing sunscreen and staying out of the sun when possible.

"Your skin is your largest organ!"

"I know! And melanoma is very serious."

"I know! I reapply on my face and hands every stop."

Ah, the nonviolent things that draw white people together.

He also knew a lot about the flowers.

"You see those red ones? They're poppies. In England they represent World War I. Veterans wear them in parades.

"You see those there? Don't touch those, they're poisonous. They're used to kill."

"Ah, a military secret?"

He was silent. Okay so that wasn't a joke.

I said goodbye to Frank in Rabaçal, where his reservation was, and pressed on for my long hike.

It was a hot day with lots of hills. The kilometers went by slowly.

I've seen very few pilgrims while walking, and after Frank I didn't see any. On the long days by myself, I sometimes listen to music. I've also started an audiobook I've been intending to read. I don't like to crowd my brain while I'm on the Camino, but I intentionally chose the book Laziness Does Not Exist because it aligns with my mission this Camino - to stop overworking. The book is written by a social psychologist, who reviews the history of where we learned to overwork, the negative impact it has on our minds and bodies, and how to learn a healthier relationship with work and ourselves. He refers to the "laziness lie," which is what he calls the lie we tell ourselves when we tie our worth to how productive we are. The irony is, research has shown true innovation and quality work require rest (a summary of the book is available here). I know all of this in my head, but I SUCK at practicing it.

Every time I listen to this book I have a renewed committment to not fall into my old patterns. But I know this isn't enough. Intellectualizing something is not the same as applying it (which drives me NUTS because intellectualizing things is my shit!). The author shares research on how overworked people often become irate and then numb. They haven't had time to process their emotions because they're just always working, and this damages their relationships with others and ourselves.

I have noticed this is my own life, and even on the Camino. I have randomly been come over with rage, joy, sadness, etc. while walking. It's scared me a bit. Why am I on vacation and angry? But it's the first time I've hit pause in so long, that I think I'm having a delayed reaction to things.

Research recommends expressive writing as a way to process. Writing for 20 min a day about how you feel, without the intention of anyone reading it, and ripping up the pages when you're done. It's just to get the emotion out and process it. I haven't gotten to 20 min yet, but almost every day, I have written down what made me angry, sad, happy, etc. while on the trail. But I hadn't ripped out the pages yet. I've been carrying the still in-tact notebook with me. An extra weight in my bag.

A Fatima shrine on the trail

I was listening to this book on this very long day, and in the last 4 km I turned on Google Maps because I knew my EFFING reservation was a little off the trail. Maps had said it was about 3.5 km away for over 30 min. The direction the arrows were pointing were not aligning with the Google Maps. This does happen, the Camino is not the most direct route to modern places. However, I eventually couldn't even see the Camino trail on my maps. I didn't know where the arrows were pointing me. It was past 6 pm. I'd been hiking for 10 hours, and I was exhausted. I started following Google Maps instead of the trailhead, just wanting to get this over with.

The guest house is off the trail, maybe that's why Google Maps is taking me another way.

I was in the final chapter of Laziness Does Not Exist, taking this detour. After a kilometer, I realized Google Maps had taken me to what we would call an interstate (inter-municipality?) for the last 2.5 km. There was no shoulder to walk on next to it, it would clearly be extremely dangerous to walk on this road.

I had added a km, to the last three kms, when I was already wiped. I knew I had three options: 1. take the dangerous road, 2. go back another km and add two kms to my 42 km journey when I’m already tired, or 3. call an Uber.

I knew I should call an Uber. I wanted to call an Uber. I had the book in my ears telling me that pushing myself too hard was bad for me. But I feared "cheating."

I knew it made no sense. I recalled my thought from the second day on the trail, "If the original pilgrims had had access to cars and trains, they would have just used those." Hell, many of them probably rode animals.

But I feared being lazy.

And arriving in an Uber, to a guest house? What if other pilgrims saw? What would they think? Would they think I was lazy? Weak? I already wasn't staying in many hostels because of these damn reservations. I can't be even less pilgrim-y!

I soldiered through the km back to the trailhead, knowing that it was still God knows how long till my guest house. I turned off the book in my ears. It was getting on my nerves now.

I can't see the trailhead and call an Uber. Once I see the trailhead there's no going back.

But walking back, I knew that I was working against what I’m trying so hard to incorporate into my life - not running myself into the ground. I was already so tired. I could make it. But I would hate it every step of the way and be even more sapped of energy for tomorrow, which was another long day. I decided I don't want this to be a pattern for my trip or my life. If I wasn’t already so tired, I wouldn’t have been watching the countdown on Google Maps so closely.

Everything pushing me forward, was a fear of what other people would think and my need to be the ruggedly individualistic hero of my own story that nobody else gets to write, and nobody has to read

So for the purpose of my Camino, and not for the acclaim of a few extra traditional steps, I called the fucking Uber right from that trailhead where I took the detour. Right next to it. I just sat there and let it burn a hole in my ego. When I got dropped off at the guest house, I'd walked over 26 miles. I was 1 km short what I had planned for the day. Intellectualizing something isn't practicing it. I have to start small. Even if it's just one km.

I kept justifying in my head, well I did an extra long route on accident the other day.

I've gotten lost so many times, that's extra kms too.

And all the kms exploring towns.

What the HELL am I counting kms for?! Who is going to make sure I walk exactly the number of kms from Lisbon to Santiago?? I don't even know off the top of my head how many there are. I have the arbitrary metrics I'm killing my self to reach. They're ridiculous.

So when I got to the guest house and they had no food, I pulled out my phone again and ordered Uber Eats for the first time in my life.

Technology isn't all bad yall.

Notice the shoes are NOT on my feet.

I still have a long way to go (both to Santiago and in unlearning overworking). I woke up with a sore throat the next morning and still decided to walk instead of rest (but also, I am allergic to EVERYTHING y'all, so that doesn't necessarily mean I'm sick. I mean I had to take two rounds of antibiotics right before I got here but still....). So yeah. A long way to go.

Warning sign to not feed the pidgeons at a lunch stop in Coimbra

But I am trying to enjoy The Way, and not get caught up in the reservations drama and even guilt. And I've started tearing out the journal pages. I realized I had been hesitant to tear them out because what if I forget what I wrote down? My memory hasn't been the same since my second concussion in 2018.

On the Camino Frances, it is traditional to carry a rock with you. Near the end, at the highest point, Cruz de Ferro, you leave your rock. You leave your burden to then descend into the city of St. James. The Portuguese Camino doesn't have that point. So for me, these pages are my weight I'm leaving on the trail. If I forget the feelings that I've processed, then I guess that means it's time to feel it all again. Otherwise, I don't have to hang onto it.

What I'm telling y'all is, there is no rock. I'm the baggage.

Beginning of a mural I saw along The Way. According to Google Translate, “Walking your footprints are the way, and nothing else, walker, there is no path, make yourself walk.”