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Camino Dreams

March 24, 2024 by Amanda

There are moments when that solo walk across mountains

Floats back to me

My feet

Following the dirt paths beside verdant fields

Through silent forests of ancient, gnarled trees

Whose wisdom and endurance is palpably felt

Those miles

Wandering through Spanish villages of stone rowhouses

chapels

Rock-walled pastures and gardens

The music of cowbells

Underscores the slow fade of the mist

 

As it rises from its early morning rest

In the softened valley.

It leaves behind bejewelled spiderwebs

Delicate yet weighted with its touch

These memories feel like this;

A grounding in beauty

Almost too abundant to hold

 

It’s as if I’d walked

Two centuries back in time

And into a painting

Yet I remain so fully present

in the moment

 

These sensory memories ~

The sweet, sharp taste of grapes, fallen from a wagon

That my hands rescue from the ruddy earth of the vineyard road

Evening meals

Shared with fellow Peligrinos

And prepared from the harvest

Of the fields just journeyed through.

We find a common language,

If not through words

then through the dialect of the heart

and the intensity of our shared path

 

 

By day, I chose to walk alone

But friendships are woven nonetheless

And I relish

The companionship of Santiago at journey’s end

Finesterre must be a solo moment

The bittersweet triumph of standing

On the sea cliff, the definitive end of the road

Gazing across impossible miles of churning ocean

Toward home

These memories flow back to and through me, some days

In full-body flashes; vivid and close

 

And it yet feels surreal

A dream version of myself

Who was brave enough to walk across Spain

For 200 miles

Trusting my body would

Carry me.

All I needed

Contained within myself and my pack

The memories are an elixir

My marrow recalls

The euphoria of transcendently magnificent landscapes

The wonder of being alone in a space

 

so utterly remote

vast

and steeped in beauty

 

What’s next

for this 54-year-old soul and body?

Who has danced through life

Whose high mileage

Is like a car

With parts starting to wear out

The kind you worry

About taking on a long road trip

I tell my PT

As she manipulates an injured hip

“I want to be able to hike the Camino

All 450 miles this time

At age 60.”

But I wonder

If my body

Will allow it

And if my courage

Will not wither away bit by bit

with the passing years

 

I wonder

What new adventures

I can conjure

 

What new peaks to climb

To chase that transcendence

To stave off the

The narrowing

To keep my world

expanding

 

Amanda Cantrell Roche

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