(Not) Walking the Camino: Day 28
A lot can happen in 28 days! A person can walk across Spain while another surfs a mundane daily existence, hoping not to drown in it. We both survived, and only one of us feels like this:
But we’re both very, very close to finishing our respective journeys, and I feel a little like a pitcher taking a no-hitter into the ninth inning: I could still lose it.
A quiet day here (massive clean up, if I’m being honest), but I did treat myself to the world’s best SmashBurger, according to the Pulitzer committee or some equally renowned blue-ribbon panel.
For Christmas, Amanda bought me a gift card to FOR THE WIN, which had recently won a Best SmashBurger award given by people who track those kind of things. The card only lasted this long because I’d mostly forgotten about it before now.
It’s hard to argue with the Pulitzer Burger Committee: Here’s mine, all smashed and burgery, two primary qualities of a good one.
When I declined the fries, the man at the register looked at me as if I’d just turned down the winning lottery numbers, or a side of french fries, things that have never happened. But I didn’t want to fill up, with places to go.
In keeping with the theme if not the true spirit of the Camino pilgrimage, I headed to the WGA Theater for a screening of Stephen King’s “The Long Walk.” The movie poster tagline, “Walk or Die,” is a thing I like to imagine one of the sisters said at least once to the other across their month on the Camino.
(The film falls into the “meh” category of King adaptations, a little one-note and too nihilistic for me, and Amanda would have hate hate HATED it.)
But speaking of long walks . . .
I started this blog on Day 1 mentioning our mutual wariness and weariness of the word amazing, over-used to the point of meaninglessness to describe every act from picking up your socks to being bitten by a radioactive spider.
But it’s a good word here: AMAZING. Because Amanda, in the company of sister and friends, accomplished her goal, finished her pilgrimage, landing at the culmination of their roughly 500 kilometer journey outside the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral.
AMAZING!!
They got rained on during the final miles, “a kind of sad last day . . . but somehow fitting.” And later headed to the pilgrim’s mass, where I assume she’ll be inducted in a secret society like the one in “Eyes Wide Shut.”
She’ll be home very soon and I couldn’t be happier. But not as happy as they are right now. I mean, look at those amazing grins!
TOMORROW . . . the bittersweet unwinding of their journey begins, and I’ll assess my own meager goals and how I did. (Hint: I do not warrant a smile like theirs.)