This small bit is from a reflection I wrote after completing the Camino de Santiago Compostela. It was a 3 week long hiking trip across Northern Spain that I completed in June of this year. I wasn't going to share because I don't think I did that good of a job of writing it but since I have starving readers out there I figured, why not? So without further delay:
Besides the relationships that were forged and sealed with each step the Camino has taught me two important lessons that I hope to uphold till the day I die. Now as soon as I wrote that a million other thoughts of the multitude of lessons I learned came flooding into my consciousness. Like for instance, the versatility of olive oil; that stuff is good on anything and the word sopa is not Spanish for soup (a lesson that I learned all too well). But aside from all the wonderful pearls of wisdom I picked up along the way the most important thing I gathered was the value of simplicity. Walking the Camino and being a pilgrim is such a simple life. Don’t get me wrong I’m not using the word simple to mean the opposite of difficult as indeed walking the holy path can be trying and exhausting especially without frequent Aqarius and Café con leche stops and at times café con Bailey’s is needed.
Living a simple life is one that can seem so hard today with all the gadgets and possessions that make life crazy cool. But it is so amazing and at the same time terrifying how much ‘stuff’ a 23 year old can accrue. When I got home I went through old boxes of clothes and cut my earthly possessions down by 60% I’d say. Where does this stuff come from? How can someone accumulate so many t – shirts in four years of college? I just got back from Spain where for 3 weeks I not only survived but thrived on 4 shirts, 3 pairs of shorts, 4 pairs of socks, s pairs of boxers and 2 pairs of compression shorts. It was so great to not have to worry about what you were going to wear. Everything I needed to take care of fit not so nicely into my back pack. I hesitate to say that back in the real world I have to keep tabs on a lot more aspects of life but it’s realistic. As much as I would like to I can’t go through life only worrying about my journey and that’s the toughest part. I need to be mindful of others and keep a watchful eye out for trials and tribulations that others go through each day in case there is something that I can do to make their lives more enjoyable. I got a sense of that during the Camino, mostly with people sharing their wine openers with us but even the people that were so quick to offer advice and hiking tips whether we asked for them or not.
So now I’m at a place where I’m trying to explain how I learned about the concept of a simple life but it already is starting to seem like this lifestyle is only applicable to people who can afford (or get student loans to cover) to go to Northern Spain and walk around for 3 weeks. As a writer you know you are in rough shape when you start to get confused by what you are saying so I’m going to continue my quest for simplicity. It’s an ongoing process and it’s really hard to stick to. One great way to help me with that goal is my volunteer work with the Benedictine Abbey of Newark New Jersey. The Benedictines are the kings of simplicity. The extremely elementary explanation of the lifestyle is moderation. There are things you don’t need. I don’t need to get a cookie after lunch. There is always a jar full of them and they are delicious but it’s not needed. They are like a test. I don’t need to go out to bars on the weekends and drink. Or if I do drink I don’t need to drink until I need to be carried home. There is no reason to. And sure, I could watch television all day but why not pick a show to watch and when it’s over, go out and do something else? There are things in life that are so easy to get caught up in and the next thing you know you’ve wasted your whole day or 5 years of your life. I remember being in Spain and the thought of sitting in front of a T.V. for more than 10 minutes seemed completely foreign. At the time I couldn’t imagine not walking all day and then going to bed. But back in America it has become customary to build in some down time in your day. There are times when I literally have nothing to do. It’s important to rest, relax, and recuperate but not at the expense of becoming slothful and a waste of space.
The way I’m trying to simplify my life beyond the activities of daily life is to forego the human tendency to micromanage my life. Too many people today try and plan out the next five years of their lives and then go into shock when it all goes horribly wrong. I don’t know if God has a plan or not but I sure as hell don’t. At this point in my life I am happy with the direction I’m going. I finished college in a reasonable time frame. I’m volunteering for a year in New Jersey and when I get back I hope to find some meaningful work. That’s about all I know. I don’t know where I will be in five years and that is what makes it so much fun. Sure it’s a little bit scary, but exciting nonetheless. My good friend Molly now lives in San Francisco and works out there for the time being and I met up with her before we both left Minnesota (she left the week before I left) and it was tough saying good bye but when she asked when the next time she’d see me I started to laugh and said I have no idea. We are close enough that I’m confident our paths will cross again but for now the directions we chose for ourselves are leading us away from each other. We aren’t going to fight it and try to make sure we end up living on the same block in 20 twenty years so we can hang out and watch basketball games together. We are just going to take it one day at a time.
That was my favorite part about the Camino, not even looking at the itinerary or maps. I don’t recall even bringing my maps to Spain. I left that at home so my Mom could have an idea of what I was in for each day. But they were about as useful to her as they were to me as they were written in Spanish. If you can imagine she speaks even less Spanish that me. The things that bothered me were the mile markers. Someone would always start the countdown of kilometers and I couldn’t help but feeling relieved when we only had a few more to go for the day. But what was I looking forward too? Having dinner, a bottle of wine and going to bed like the last 2 weeks straight? The trail is the only thing that changed from day to day. It was the reason we were there. If we wanted to go to Santiago so bad we would have just flown in. I just wanted to walk until I got to a point where I was too tired to walk anymore. I didn’t want to start looking for the next town because I ended up missing what was going on right in front of me or right under my feet.
That’s why I say no more goals. No more five year plans. The only things that matter are the choices that are in front of us right now. If we pay attention to what’s happening now and take our time in order to make a good decision we won’t have to worry about ending up in a tight spot 5 years down the road because we’ll know that we wouldn’t make any different choices. It reminds me of a saying that goes something to the tune of, I’m not late if I arrived exactly when I meant to. Well five, ten, fifteen years down the road I’ll be exactly where I am supposed to be. That is as simple as I can make it.
