…UPSET…

Stage 44 / Tuesday 9 June / From Gamarthe to Arnéguy / 18 km

 

“Forget a hat! No, forget my hat! My brave little hat that I’ve been carting around since my departure! What a setback!” This stupid oversight nagged at me last night. I could still see it, this beloved hat, drying on the post in the field after serving one last time as a drinking bucket for the cool water of the fountain, where I had happily admired the little frog cooling itself while awaiting its prey.

 

When one goes “pilgrimising” alone, there are two objects which become your special companions on the path: your hat and your backpack. Both accompany you, better than your shadow, from the start, and without realizing it, little by little they make an inseparable trio: me, my pack, my hat! “So, what could possibly have been going through my head to make me forget my hat!” I could answer facetiously that, waking up suddenly after a longer siesta than I would have thought, my head was “elsewhere,” it didn’t need a hat! That’s what happens when one abandons oneself, in broad daylight, into the arms of Morpheus (Μορφεύς), that formidable son of sleep Hypnos (Ύπνος) and of the night Nyx (Νύξ), these cunning characters from the ancient Greek mythology!

 

Must I go back on my tracks to recover it? That would cost me 4 hours of walking round-trip. And it’s highly probably that this hat, clearly visible on its post, has already made another hiker happy. The path is moreover more and more crowded since I passed Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. And this in fact another subject of annoyance, I who so appreciated walking alone … “Come on! Resign yourself, you’ll have to pay for a new head-cover!” This mishap really bothers me, and discombobulated, I tell myself that life is just a constellation of rare islets of pleasure in an ocean of disappointments. “And, yes, life is not always a long calm river!”

 

My irritation, the cause of my bad night, which causes my bad mood, irritates me more and more, to the point that I decide to counter my contrariness: “Stop being down in the dumps” I say to myself, “you’re now in a position to find a new sombrero better adapted to the strong sunlight of Spain! And buying it there will be cheaper than in France! And then, it was beginning to be really washed out, your beloved hat; replacing it is not a bad idea.” I continue my route toward the border post of Arnéguy in whistling melancholically “The pleasure of love lasts only a moment [Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment] … »

 

Nonetheless, my ego has been wrinkled by my hatless inconvenience. For once, I can’t blame another person: “No, no one but myself brought about this discombobulation!” I am usually more bothered by other people than by objects. I must say that that object was more in the category of fetish objects … like Wilson the volleyball becoming Tom Hank’s mate! I start singing at the top of my lungs, “The grief of love lasts a lifetime! [Chagrin d’amour dure toute la vie !] » And now it’s a cow chewing her cud behind a fence, looking at me quite dumbfounded: it’s her turn to be discombobulated!

 

Frustration comes from the unexpected, the unusual which disrupts your habits. People who are particularly contrary are those described as “having (a strong) character.” The ones who impede going in circles, as opposed to those who appreciate the difference and whom we describe as “having personality!” Summing it up, it’s all a matter of nuances … But on the whole, it is because of frustration, by trial and error, that one constructs healthy life habits. One learns to respect what is fragile and breakable, and from there one discovers that nothing can oppose the laws of physics and gravity. It is because one hasn’t envisaged everything that errors of appreciation lead to an unexpected failure: frustration is the school of life.

 

Very useful, in fact, regular upset gives us « show & tell » sessions, like in primary school, which enrich and develop our experience. OK, I’m not going to eulogise frustration today – like Erasmus who wrote “The praise of folly” as a satire of the madness he perceived among the religious hierarchy – but I must admit: upset helps me anchor my existence in the real world! Perhaps it blows your hat away … but it puts you back Right side up!