Oh I left a good job in the city

One thing about me is, I am obsessed with my nephew. I steal photos of that kid from his parents’ Snapchat like nobody’s business. I’ve shown everyone on the Camino photos and videos of the little bub whenever possible.

I mean look at that face, how could I not?

My brother Nate with his son Julian.

LOOK AT IT.

Katie and Fabian see the most of him, since I’m with them frequently. Fortunately, both of them love children. I forget how we approached the topic (though it was probably me gushing about Julian), but at one point Fabian and I talked about how part of what’s special about children is that they actually do know what they want. In many cases, they (hopefully) are not worried about survival. They know how to play. They can rest (though they might resist). Many adults struggle with knowing what they actually love doing, and not what they need to do.

“That’s kind of what I’m hoping to get out of the Camino,” I told Fabian. “I think with the simple routine of just getting up and walking, I’m able to get more in tune with myself without all of the other distractions and commitments in my daily life.”

In the early days of this Camino, I had sudden urges to listen to songs from my childhood. Like, early childhood. The first few days walking from Lisbon, I only listened to songs from Riverdance. My father has videos of me as a literal two-year-old dancing to Riverdance in my little pajamas. When I have no worries in the world, Riverdance is what brings me joy. And a few days into this Camino, my soul wanted Riverdance. I took it as a good sign.

Arcade, Spain was one of the most beautiful towns I’ve seen.

In the last 3 km before arriving in Pontevedra, Fabian and I walked through a wooded area with a creek.

“Do you want to put your feet in?” Fabian asked.

“Hmm, yes, but no. I’m worried I’ll mess up my feet.”

Shortly after, we passed a German couple tying their shoes back on. They had walked some in the river for a while. They said it was very refreshing.

Fabian and I walked on, before he gave me a look and said he wanted to get into the water. Okay fine, let’s do it.

We took off our shoes, tied their laces to each other, and slung them over our shoulders.

“I do this with my rollerblades, back home, when I metro somewhere I want to skate,” I said.

“When did you start rollerblading?” Fabian asked.

“When I finished my Ph.D., I just had the sudden urge to do it,” I told him. “I loved it as a kid, and it’s like as soon as I was finally done with school, that childhood urge bubbled up.”

We were wading in the river by then. A gorgeous green snake gracefully slithered by.

“I think it’s like what we said about children. When there’s less stress, you’re in tune with what you want. And when I had the stress of school over with, I wanted to rollerblade. So I did.” I bought some used adult skates, a helmet, and some knee and elbow pads (okay I bought the knee and elbow pads after I busted my ass a few times).

The German couple who had walked through the water first caught up to us. They were delighted that we had imitated them. They spoke to Fabian in German. I didn’t follow the conversation until the woman shrieked. Then I assumed Fabian had told her about the snake (I confirmed later that he had). They wished us a buen Camino and carried on.

“We are walking through life right now,” Fabian said.

“Because life is like a river?” I asked.

“Yes, exactly.”

"AND WE'RE WALKIN', walkin', WAAAAAALLKIN' through the riverrrrr....." - Anna inspired by Tina Turner

A Slovakian pilgrim, Marcelle, walked by, laughed, and took off his headphones. He took a photo of us.

We kept walking through the river until I, the gimp, stepped in something sharp and sliced my toe. I KNEW something would happen to my feet. We climbed out of the river. Fabian poured water on my bleeding toe to clean it off. Between both of our first aid kits, we disinfected it and wrapped it up as best as we could. I put on my man sandals to then meet Katie at our albergue, arriving in wet pants with a wrapped toe.

She’d had quite an interesting day. We were sitting in the albergue kitchen, where I was warming up a frozen tuna and bacon pizza (yeah, it was as gross as it sounds).

“There were so many more people out today,” she said, annoyed. (Many more people join in the last 100 km because that is the distance required to earn the compostella credencial.)

“I know! Since I usually walk so much later in the day, I don’t see many people, but there were tons,” I agreed.

She said there had been vans full of people being dropped off while she was walking. I had flashbacks of the Fatima pilgrims earlier in my Camino.

“I met this church group of Florida men,” she said.

Oh dear. I know my people. We crazy.

“They were really pushing me to go inside a church," she said. "I told them no thanks, I've been in a lot of churches. But they insisted this one was special. So I finally said, 'I'm Jewish,' and one of them says 'I'm in love with a Jewish man.'"

I turned away from the toaster oven, eyes wide.

"Yeah," she said. "It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Jesus."

"OHHHHH!" I said. "I totally thought he was a closeted gay who couldn’t come out to his church!"

"Girl me too!" She said.

Later, we were rearranging our bags by our bunks.

"So...what happened to your toe?" She asked.

"I cut it."

"On what?"

"A rock I guess."

She stared at me.

"...in a river."

"Okay."

She's used to my shit.

We went to get a drink at a bar nearby. Katie has had a hurt knee for a couple of days, so she picked up a brace at a pharmacy. She had a hard time getting comfortable in the bar chair as we sipped our piña coladas. When we stood up to leave, she instantly felt a sharp sciatic pain. She could barely walk.

She stopped to try to stretch. I recommended some yoga poses.

"Uh, half pidgeon, knees to chest, happy baby....there's a bench right there, why don't you lay down and try some?"

"Oh yeah, let me do happy baby right here in the street?!" (For "happy baby pose" look here.)

"Why not? We move towns every day. Nobody here will see you again."

She gave me a look like "bitch I've known you for ten years because pilgrims see each other every day for weeks."

Fair.

We slowly made our way back to the hostel, but she was in so much pain. It came on so suddenly, we hoped with some stretching and rest that it would also leave suddenly.

The next morning, my sleepy ass woke up at 7:45 a.m. (late for a pilgrim). Katie stood up from the bottom bunk.

"You're still here?!" I exclaimed, knowing something was wrong.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm not going to be able to walk today"