…NOR SENSE…

Stage 52 / Wednesday 17 June / From Los Arcos to Logroño / 29 km

 

Yesterday, the stage was relatively short, but my notes were too abundant … No doubt the century-old Izara (54% vol.!) tasted on arrival will have rendered me less inhibited than usual, and I was seeing double! Today, the stage descending toward the Ebra valley will be longer and warmer. These efforts that I impose on myself in progressing from one point to another, do they make sense?

 

For example, what is the moment the richest in meaning of my daily stages? The one with Izarra at arrival, satisfied that I have added one more grain to the dotted line of my stages? Or rather the moment of departure in the cool morning, all keen to plunge into the unknown of a new adventure? Is it admiring the ripe fruit I can finally munch, or planting the seed from which the fruit tree will grow? Is it contemplating a new arch in my imaginary cathedral or digging the foundation of the next pillar? And I can say that this cathedral will only make sense when completed, at the end, in Santiago! But in fact, what do I know? Perhaps not, after all! Will there still be a sense, concretely speaking, once there is no more movement, at the end of the walk? It will be finished, dead the pilgrimage!

 

Is dying a way of arriving? I remember this inscription engraved on a sidewalk in the Eaux-Vives quarter of Geneva: “Leaving is to die a little … but dying is to leave a lot!” by Alphonse Allais (1854-1905). Is it at the end of the path that my joy will be the most intense? Will I then feel myself being reborn better? Is this the profound sense of the “Camino” [the Way]?

 

I am thus absorbed by my very sensible reflections when a young pilgrim passes me at a rapid pace, go-getter style. As the descent to Viana has narrowed in the undergrowth, he forces his way through and impudently bumps me with one of his walking sticks, without even realizing it. I protest but he doesn’t hear me. He is advancing, and that’s all that matters! Headphones planted in his ears blaring who knows what rap song, a Nike cap, iridescent dark sunglasses, a sporty T-shirt, and a Suunto watch which also serves as GPS, altimeter, and “cardio frequency monitor”: he has all the gadgets for walking and he is like a machine! For him, the pilgrimage is only performance: “The more ground I cover, the more I find it fair, and if someone impedes my course, too bad for him of course!”

 

Oh senseless world! For some, there can only be a sense in the duration, for others in the moment. For some, it takes a lifetime to make sense of it. For others, it’s only making it last for the best, this life, because “It’s well known,” they say, “life has no sense!” Absurdity of the absurd, must one better submit to it in plugging one’s ears, like a whirling dervish seeking to enter a trance? And do like the one who bumped into me? He was advancing like in a tunnel, cut off from reality, blind to the beauty of the last scenes of Navarre, unconscious of the majesty of the Ebra river with its powerful and colored waters, insensible to the innocence of children playing on the market square.

 

OK, I’m struggling and hot, but my walk is perhaps less painful, in fact. I look, I hear, I breathe in, I sniff a little flower, I admire a butterfly: I hope thus to find in my life more spice than crossing a finish line while outclassing all those others that I didn’t even want to see while walking. In fact, since crossing the Pyrenees, I find more and more pleasure in listening to the conversations. I’m more ready to seek from others more experienced than I the answers to certain questions I have concerning my way of life. I am more and more ready to walk alongside someone, male or female, with whom I find an enriching exchange.

And I hear things like: “Give, rather than finding … a sense to one’s life. Desire living fully … rather than submit in sidestepping. Flourish in contact with others … rather than timidly withdrawing. Germinate, produce fruit … rather than go drooping and drying up!” I want to take, and I also want to leave. I’m willing to let myself be molded where there is beauty but also to leave an imprint. Thus, the sense of my life would be quite simply my own research on the meaning of life? Would this be what “my life” could give of the positive to others? OK, enough reflection, sensible thoughts or not. Today, no Izarra liquor, but a good glass of Rioja wine! I’m entering that province.