W
Wanderer64
Guest
If memory serves me currently, and it likely doesn’t, it was a year ago to the day that I left my home, boarded a plane from Vancouver to Paris, and then to SJPDP via Bordeaux and Bayonne to begin my Camino. What I remember most about getting there is how badly I just wanted to get there and start walking. The remainder of my Camino is hard to recall. No, I don’t suffer early onset Alzheimer’s. There are trips, hikes, walks I did 20, even 30 years ago that burn as vivid as ever in my mind. But there is something about my Camino that has left me struggling to remember. What I do remember are generalities; I remember the first day over the Pyrenees, its bucolic vistas and pastoral beauty. That first day, from SJPDP to Roncesvalles, will always be one of the greatest single days of walking I’ll ever do, and I’ve done a few good ones the world over. After Roncesvalles, memory deteriorates into a 32-day series of broken dreams, punctuated by somewhat wakeful moments in the big cities, Pamplona, Burgos, Leon, Santiago.... And just to stem any speculation about my drinking habits, the answer is no. I was not perpetually drunk along the Way, although, to be sure, I enjoyed a few bottles of vino tinto and countless glasses of cold beer, but my amnesia is not attributable to a drunken haze. So what is it about the Camino -- my Camino -- that makes it hard for me to remember much of what is sure to be the most epic walk I’ll ever do? I’ve spent the last few days trying to answer this question. The Camino was not a bad experience, nothing traumatic happened to me along the Way, my subconscious is not repressing negative memories. Granted, it wasn’t always a good experience. I suffered a couple minor injuries, sometimes struggled to get through a day, and had the misfortune of being in an albergue that was pillaged by thieves (thankfully not my stuff or money), but overall a very positive life experience.
My first post to this forum was just after I completed my Camino, in September, 2013. At that time, memories were still very fresh and I described my long walk as an “existential odyssey of self-reflection and meditation.” Perhaps, therein lays the answer to my Camino amnesia questions. Meditation. For some, walking long distances is very much about all sorts of things, about the social connections to be had along the way, but for an introvert like me, walking is always about getting away from the social, getting away from the noise, away from the distractions of what has become an increasingly less-private, technologically invasive world. When I embarked on my Camino, I was in a bad head space, I needed to withdraw and think, or better, not think, just listen to my footsteps and let 800km of Spanish countryside wash over me with a minimal distraction and social noise. Much of my Camino was dream-like, a pleasant, extended trance of nothingness. Sometimes not remembering for no particular reason is a good thing. Sometimes clearing the mind to the point of existential anti-remembrance is the most therapeutic cure available to one in need of something.
My first post to this forum was just after I completed my Camino, in September, 2013. At that time, memories were still very fresh and I described my long walk as an “existential odyssey of self-reflection and meditation.” Perhaps, therein lays the answer to my Camino amnesia questions. Meditation. For some, walking long distances is very much about all sorts of things, about the social connections to be had along the way, but for an introvert like me, walking is always about getting away from the social, getting away from the noise, away from the distractions of what has become an increasingly less-private, technologically invasive world. When I embarked on my Camino, I was in a bad head space, I needed to withdraw and think, or better, not think, just listen to my footsteps and let 800km of Spanish countryside wash over me with a minimal distraction and social noise. Much of my Camino was dream-like, a pleasant, extended trance of nothingness. Sometimes not remembering for no particular reason is a good thing. Sometimes clearing the mind to the point of existential anti-remembrance is the most therapeutic cure available to one in need of something.
