Seeking closure
After enduring hours of dehydration through a scorching canyon in Western Spain, you don’t need the extra stress of a rambling American seminary professor. The Camino de Finisterre is a 90km exclamation point on the end of the Camino de Santiago — an ancient path across Spain ending at St James’ tomb in Santiago de Compostela. It’s communion with a dead saint’s innards, to paraphrase Sarah Vowell. My wife and I were a few hours from the coast after a summer of chorizo, ornate cathedrals, lowslung villas, all-night fiestas, good, cheap wine and 30km days. It was hard to believe we were here.
The professor found me during a moment when I’d decided to quit. It was midday, siesta time. I was hyperthermic, hiding from the sun, dousing myself with water from a hostel’s garden hose and drinking litres of Aquarius — a ubiquitous citrus sports drink.
He told me that I looked like I was from Brooklyn, that he taught at a Bible College in Texas, that he was a really strong hiker, and that we should walk together even if it was unlikely that I’d be able to keep up.
I was raised in Ohio in the Midwestern United States. My homes had been New Zealand, Seattle. I’d never been to Brooklyn. I was walking after a decision to leave behind a fundamentalist upbringing. The Camino is an ancient spiritual pilgrimage, it’s true, but I was seeking closure on my departure from a certain type of faith. I hadn’t asked for any of this. I turned away and resumed drenching myself, hoping he’d pick up my body language.
“Okay Brooklyn, I don’t have a lot of time to talk! I’m going to get me a bocadillo!”
I told my wife we needed to move quickly. We left the hostel a few minutes before the professor and established a several hundredmetre lead.
He followed, calling after. “Hey Brooklyn, slow down! I want to walk with you!”
The Galician countryside was sunbaked hills, exposed terrain, and expansive views dropping down to the Atlantic. It was a clear day. The heat was beginning to break. We decided to run.
Hours later we limped into a hotel on the coast in Finisterre — a place that was considered the end of the Earth by preChristian Europeans. It feels that way, with a lighthouse perched on a cliff overlooking a seemingly endless expanse of sea.
A reliable outcome of a very long walk is that you become a different person at the end than you were at the beginning. Pilgrims burn their clothes on the beach as a symbol of transition from one stage of life to the next. It’s a dirty habit that bothers the locals, so we threw ours in the bin as we watched the sunset over a deep blue ocean. We didn’t see the seminary professor but I’m sure he made it.