Journal entries - first thoughts

So, in addition to video blogging most nights, I also had a small leather notebook that I carried next to my passports and pictures in order to write down random ideas and thoughts that, at the moment seemed deeper and meaningful at the moment but upon later reflection and re-reading, come across more like the pompous ranting of a drunk freshmen philosophy major.  Sigh.  I'm hoping that as I transcribe these, more of a pattern of where I started and ended mentally and spiritually will start to appear.  I fear that instead I'm gonna look more like a loon....:)

“Be great and doing good because doing good is great”.  Not sure why that popped in my head on the first day, and it’s not that I don’t agree with it, but if this entire trip is going to be inspirational quotes best suited for bumper stickers and team building rallies, I have seriously misjudged the Camino experience….

I have discovered that one of the things about a pilgrimage like the Camino is that, whether in a group or alone, it is all about time for reflection, personal peace.  This is a case of common people taking part in an uncommon activity with an unknown result.  This seems like a “duh” statement, but it’s one thing to talk about reflection, but it’s newly defined when you are all alone in a foreign country on a forest trail with a backpack.  May make it, may need to stop.  Not sure what the result will be beyond success or failure of the walk…but there will be a result, a change to the individual.  It is a shame that we do not have more pilgrimages like the Camino in the US (I think that walking the Appalachian Trail might be a close experience back home)

For me, it is a sense of wonder at this new adventure and undertaking.  There is the sense of “I cannot believe I am doing this”, in equal parts pride and incredulity.  I just have to finish.  HAVE to finish.  I am taking a lot of stops, but as the saying goes, everyone’s Camino is different and personal.  It isn’t a race….and that’s a good thing, because I’m not built for speed at this point!

Listening to a lot of music on the Ipod.  I have it set for random among a set list of songs I have handpicked for the trip.  Many times, the songs that come on are completely appropriate for the day, the mood (or the terrain).  I started off in Ferrol with “Dreams I’ll Never See” by Molly Hatchet:

                        Pull myself outta bed, yeah, put on my walkin' shoes.

                        Climb up on a hilltop, baby, see what I can see, yeah.

                        Pull myself together, gonna put on a new face, yeah.
                        Gonna climb down from the hilltop, baby, Lord, get back in the race.

Yeah, pretty much an appropriate way for more than one morning to start.  Other times, during long stretches of trail or path, I’d be surprised by songs like “Man on the Run” by Cowboy Mouth:

I've got the desert in my eyes and the western skies on my mind.


Everywhere I look I see wide open country for miles.



Out in the distance there's a mountain the size of the sun

Looks like I ain't drivin’ nowhere

I feel like a man on the run

Get goin’

Or, during more introspective and contemplative times (missing Joel, Brendan or friends and family), a song like “Ghost Rider” by Rush:

                        Carry all those phantoms

                        Through bitter wind and stormy skies

                        From the desert to the mountain

                        From the lowest low to the highest high

                        Like a ghost rider.

As I’ve mentioned in blogs before, music is an important part of my life, and tends to color and shape my moods and perspective.  It is very rare that I don’t have music of some sort on around me, and certainly it is just about a constant companion when I travel.  So it is little surprise that on the Camino, songs appropriate to the situation, or mood…or what I might need to hear at the time would come on the Ipod at certain times.   Songs more often than not spoke to the moment. However, with that in mind, I still find myself slightly uncomfortable in processing (or tracking, as one of my counselor friends likes to say) the deeper hidden truth behind the two times I was struggling on the walk and was suddenly joined on my journey by these insightful words:

                        Life's such a treat and it's time you taste it

                        There ain't a reason on earth to waste it

                        It ain't a crime to be good to yourself

                        Lick it up, lick it up, it's only right now

                        Lick it up, lick it up, ooh yeah

                        Lick it up, lick it up, come on, come on

                        Lick it up, lick it up

Ah, KISS.  The more I re-read those lyrics, the more I come to realize that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are just Lennon and McCartney with face paint and platform shoes.  Brings a tear to the eye...for more than one reason.