A Knock on the Head

Laptop follies

2012-01-04T15:55:00.000-08:00

Hey folks — The Camino postings will continue as soon as I work out my laptop issues. My poor Mac appears to have given up the ghost and I'm currently wrestling with a virus-ridden, decade-old PC. I am putting it out there into the etherverse for a new(ish) Mac. The Camino provides. Thanks for your patience. Happy New Year!

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Camino yellow arrows under freeway

2011-12-01T02:00:00.000-08:00

More yellow arrows—spray-painted as well as an official posting—outside a tunnel leading under the freeway. You can see the rain water flowing down the middle. It didn't smell particularly enticing; quite a few pilgrims obviously used this spot as a toilet. This was snapped between either Zabaldika or Trinidad de Arre and Pamplona on May 5, 2010.

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Camino: Wrong way sign

2011-11-30T02:00:00.000-08:00

I took this photo between Zabaldika and Trindad de Arre. It is very easy to get lost along the Camino de Santiago if you aren't paying attention. This yellow X spray-painted onto some kind of utility shed is clearly meant to warn wandering pilgrims. The actual Camino was broad and well-marked at that spot, with Trinidad de Arre on the horizon within eyesight. But I suppose that hilly path could be tempting under the right circumstances.

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Tiny yellow arrow (outside Zabaldika)

2011-11-29T02:00:00.000-08:00

A small, easy-to-miss, yellow arrow spray-painted onto a rock outside Zabaldika, Navarre. This was found along the nature trail I mentioned yesterday. It was considerate of someone to make sure there were yellow arrows to be found on this portion of the Camino de Santigao, but I missed it completely. In fact, I didn't see it until I grew frustrated and, in a terrible snit, began to retrace my steps. Luckily, I didn't have to walk very far, perhaps less than a mile, before I found this arrow and confirmed that I'd been heading in the right direction. I hadn't encountered anyone all morning and didn't learn until later that this nature trail, as I wrote yesterday, was a new addition to the Camino. Most peregrinos were following the traditional route along the freeway at the far bottom of the hill. Argh!

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Muddy Camino (outside Zabaldika)

2011-11-28T02:00:00.000-08:00

Rain, rain, go away. Yet another washed out portion of the Camino. This was just outside Zabaldika, Navarre, Day Three (May 5, 2010) on what turned out to be about two-and-a-half weeks of constant rain, cold and snow, wind and mud. Bleah. If the weather had been cooperative this would have been a breathtakingly beautiful nature walk. What I didn't realize until after I'd slogged through the mud all morning was that it was a relatively new addition to the Camino; the traditional route ran along the freeway at the bottom of the hill. Figures!

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Dogs of the Camino (Zabaldika)

2011-11-26T02:00:00.000-08:00

This will be the first in a series: Fierce Dogs of the Camino. This moon-faced canine was encountered just as I was leaving the Iglesia de San Esteban in Zabaldika, Navarre, which barely qualifies as a town at this point. It's a hamlet, I guess. I staggered up a steep hill behind the church and followed the Camino right through their backyard. The nun who found me as I was catching my breath could not have been more kind or accommodating. I'll have more photos of her and the church later. As I was leaving, this furry guy—or girl?—came trotting up to check me out. He kept his distance and did not make eye contact, but didn't give me any problems, either.

I'm running this series because tales of dangerous packs of dogs that terrorize hapless peregrinos along the Camino are plentiful and legendary. I grew up with dogs and have no fear of them. I know how to handle a tense situation with an angry dog. But even so, I was a tad bit anxious about these fearsome beasts said to populate the Camino. I needn't have worried. Most of the dogs I encountered—no doubt accustomed to having pilgrims pass through their turf all day, every day—were harmless as long as I left them alone.

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Yellow arrow route marker (near Pamplona)

2011-11-25T12:02:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the break in posting! I've been dealing with laptop issues. Argh. This photo is another angle on a photo I posted earlier. It was snapped somewhere between Zubiri and Pamplona on Day Two, I think. It's a nicer view of the typical route marker found along the Camino de Santiago. Most of the concrete markers I encountered also had stones piled on top as you see here. They are left by pilgrims for good luck and to just mark their progress. Click the image to embiggen.

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Washed-out bridge outside Zubiri

2011-09-15T02:00:00.000-07:00

Date: May 5, 2010.

Day three of my Camino trek. This little bridge on the path just outside Zubiri was on the verge of being washed out by the rising waters of what is usually, no doubt, a sleepy river. These pilgrims were properly outfitted with rain gear; I was not. Stupid mistake. I was drenched and miserable and feeling very sorry for myself by the time I reached Pamplona, despite traveling for part of the day with a very pleasant, idealistic young American pilgrim I met the day before.

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Rainy road out of Zubiri

2011-09-14T02:00:00.000-07:00

Date: May 5, 2010.

Day three of my 34-day Camino de Santiago adventure. Rain, rain, rain. This is the road out of Zubiri. You can't tell from this picture, but there was a long line of pilgrims filing out of town. Maybe 30 or so? The crowd thinned out pretty quickly. The path drops steeply just over this ridge. And as you'll see in tomorrow's photo, a bridge over the footpath was close to being washed out by the rising river waters due to all the damned rain.

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Zubiri albergue: El Palo Avellano

2011-09-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

Date: May 4, 2010.

Here we have a snap of the El Palo Avellano albergue in Zubiri, which is small, quiet and tidy. I suspect servicing pilgrims is the town's main business. This photo was taken in the morning as I was striking out for Pamplona. The evening prior, when I found this place, it was cold and raining and very near the end of the day. I was without proper rain gear, soaked to the bone and muddy, my fingers rigid and blue. I'd trudged down what felt like endless miles of muddy forest paths from Roncesvalles on my second day on the Camino.

I crossed the bridge into town and came across a private residence that rents out rooms, the name for which completely escapes me at the moment. In any case, I was rudely turned away. The first albergue I found was full; someone there gave me directions to what I was told was the municipal albergue—which is run by the state, usually staffed by volunteers—but in fact it was to El Palo Avellano, a privately owned and operated business.

Turns out the municipal was down the same street in the opposite direction and it was full as well, I learned later. El Palo only had a few beds left and I got one of them. It was $15 Euro, rather expensive. But dinner (and breakfast) were excellent and the proprietors patient and friendly. I also washed my clothes and used a dryer, which was to be one the last times a dryer was actually available on the trip. They also had free wifi and a modern computer.

I befriended an Australian couple during dinner and we would encounter each other on and off straight through the next month. I also made the acquaintance of very friendly older German couple, in their 60s, whom I'd see for the next week or so (I have a couple of stories about them which I'll save for the book). And an American came in late at night to claim the last bed. He and I walked together the next day and we parted ways in Pamplona. We ran into each other about three weeks later in the city of Leon—where I saw the Australian couple again, too—and then again at the very end in Santiago de Compostela. (He walked much, much faster than I did, but somehow we finished almost at the same time. He also has a presence in the book.)

It was also in this albergue that I got an inkling of how unusual the rain and cold was for the region. El Palo Avellano has an old stone well right in their lobby; obviously a remnant from whatever stood on that spot hundreds of years ago. As I was checking in, I glanced down into the well, which was covered with a clear Plexiglass shield. Far below, I could see flashes of dark water hurtling past. A few hours later, as I waited to collect my laundry, I peeked down into the well again and was alarmed to see the water level had risen to within a few feet of the top of the well. Eep!

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[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Amazon Kindle

2011-09-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

As work proceeds on my Camino memoir, and I plan for a return visit next summer, I've made a little tweak to the blog. You can now read it via Amazon Kindle: CLICK HERE for the blog's page in the Kindle store.

There is a 14-day free trial (otherwise it's $1.99 a month). For the next month or so, I will be updating once a day with photos, anecdotes and sundry to make it worth your while. Everyone who subscribes to the feed kicks back a few coins to me. It all helps; I'm not a bestseller yet. And if you subscribe now, you can lord it over your friends a couple of years from now, when my book is all the rage, that you were wa-aa-ay ahead of the curve.

Cheers! Once again: CLICK HERE for this blog's Kindle page.

[Image © Benjamin Scuglia.]

Into the woods

2011-06-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

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Into the woods we go. The photo is a bit blurry because it was raining and I was standing in the middle of the road. Day two from St. Jean Pied de Port through the narrow, rocky, mud-choked forest paths to the albergue in Zubiri. I was in a very bad mood and left late that morning from Roncescvalles. Consequently, I saw almost no one all day long and barely found a bed that night in Zubiri. Lesson learned. (May 4, 2010).

[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

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Easy to miss

2011-06-10T18:31:00.000-07:00

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I was forever missing these yellow arrows, placed well about eyeline in most towns and villages. This was snapped along the Camino, Day Two from St. Jean Pied de Port, somewhere between and Bizkarreta-Guerendiain and Zubiri on May 4, 2010.

[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

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Yellow arrow

2011-06-08T13:50:00.000-07:00

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Yellow arrow route marker along the Camino de Santiago between Zubiri and Pamplona. Photographed May 5, 2010.

[Images © Benjamin Scuglia.]

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Foggy Finisterre

2011-06-07T21:10:00.001-07:00

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First up, a foggy view of Finisterre—the "end of the earth"—on the way back from the famous lighthouse. I wrote about it in earlier entries. I am continually gobsmacked that it's been a year to the day already since my pilgrimage came to an end with the last Camino route marker. Onward and upward.

[Final Camino route marker, Finisterre, June 7, 2010 © Benjamin Scuglia.]

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Still Walking

2011-06-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

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One year ago today, I finished the Camino, on the eve of my 40th birthday. One last day spent limping over hill and dale, one last close encounter with a speeding taxi. I stumbled my way through the modern portion of Santiago into Old Town and promptly got turned around and lost my way (one last time for everything). I reconnected with old friends from the road, took the best shower of my life, received my accreditation as an official Camino pilgrim, and the days and nights kept spinning.

And here we are, one year later. I have a German publisher who agreed, on a handshake, to publish my Camino memoir, most likely in 2013. That feels right, as I met more Germans than Spaniards along the path anyway.

All of the books tell you the Camino really begins for the pilgrim when he or she returns home. I understand; mine will contain the same information. Honestly, I'm still finding my way. Recently I was introduced to a group of people and one of them, a tall man with a frown, was a bit remote. Our mutual acquaintance told him that we shared a common interest, as we'd both recently finished walking the Camino, and his face instantly lit up, as if a lamp switched on.

He gripped my shoulder and asked how long I'd spent on the road. I told him. And this guy, a stranger, smiled beautifully, with warmth and recognition, as if we were old, old friends. "I'm still walking," he said.

[Cathedral of St. James, photo'ed June 5, 2010 © Benjamin Scuglia.]

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One year later

2011-05-02T22:02:00.000-07:00

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The bustling main drag of St. Jean Pied de Port. We'd just arrived by taxi from Pamplona.

Halfway up the French side of the Pyrnees. Day One. Albergue Orisson looms out of the mist. I was exhausted, dehydrated—with hours to go before reaching Spain.

So a year ago tonight (May 2), I was in St. Jean Pied de Port, France, waiting to start off on a life-changing trek. I vividly remember standing outside our albergue, the Maison Esponda, dictating the first of many diary entries into my digital recorder as the sun set and a chilly rain began to fall. I had absolutely no idea what to expect.

And you know something? I still don't know what's going to happen next. And I'm gonna be 41 in a few weeks...

Most of the guidebooks and memoirs tell you the real Camino doesn't begin until you return home. I understand. My life in the 12 months since I walked the Camino has been taken apart down to the seams. I know how that must sound, but apart from a few days (okay, weeks) of stress, it has been an oddly peaceful year. The goals that were important to me a year ago no longer matter; the bucket list has been torn up.

I am still working on my memoir. And I'm even writing a solo show based on material from the book that will incorporate some of the photos I took. The idea of performing onstage terrifies me; so, naturally, I have to do it. But I was recently speaking to a friend and acting teacher about the idea. He asked pointed questions and listened to me blather on. And then he said, "Ben, you know something? I think the experience is still too fresh. You're pushing too hard to put it all into context. You're rushing it."

Most people walk the Camino under a deadline; they have a plane ticket with a date on it to fly back home to California or Colorado or Ireland, Denmark or New Zealand or Germany, South Korea or Brazil or the Ivory Coast. I did, too. I rushed to meet my 40th birthday deadline. And I missed a lot. It's a bit clunky, okay, but it is the metaphor for my life.

That rushing to meet a deadline is everywhere in my life—literally everywhere. I am a freelance writer and artist in Los Angeles with a ton of debt who has to constantly sing for his supper. Isn't that how it's supposed to go? That's the life of an artist, isn't it? Certain sacrifices must be made.

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. I re-learned that bit of wisdom this past year. As I thought about my experience and resolved, on the advice of my friend, to just let it go—as my late grandmother would say, "Just leave it where Jesus flung it"—it occurred to me to go back to the Camino. But when I return to Spain next summer, I am going to take my damn time doing it (although I probably won't walk the entire 500-plus miles this time). And I think that will probably be the epilogue for the memoir. A return to Spain to really savor the experience.

And that, I think, will be the goal for my life going forward. To somehow grant myself the freedom to really savor whatever time I've got left on this planet. I hope I can convey that striving for freedom in the book and solo show.

My gratitude, once again, to all of you for the support, and a hearty "Ultreya!" to my fellow pilgrims on this list ("ultreya" is heard along the Camino and it means to keep hanging on, to persevere). I will be sending out periodic updates like these as I slowly upload photos and diary entries to my Camino blog and as work continues on the other projects. Onward and upward.

All photos © Benjamin Scuglia.

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Time doth flit

2011-04-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

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I realized with a jolt this morning that it's been almost one year since I set off for Spain (via Prague) and the Camino. Holy schnikes.

Time marches on. I am still banging away on the memoir, organizing my photos, reconnecting with fellow pilgrims on the Facebook. Have also done some preliminary work on a solo show using my photos and some of the material from the book. The idea of proclaiming from the stage gives me the yips. No question. But I'm attracted to the challenge. And I spend far too much of my day sitting on my rapidly expanding ass.

I recently met a guy in the daily course of things. As we chatted about this and that, it turned out he also walked the Camino. We suddenly became like old friends. The smile did not leave my face for days. Onward and upward.

This photo was taken, first day, on the French side of the Pyrenees. You can see a few pilgrims ahead on the trail.

All photos © Benjamin Scuglia.

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Camino Photo Update III

2010-11-06T00:34:00.001-07:00

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A yellow arrow on an old tree in the forest outside Zubiri on the second or third day. The placement of this arrow was clearly chosen carefully, but they were easy to miss if your mind wandered. As mine did. The red and white equals sign above the yellow arrow was commonly seen on the first leg of the Camino, sometimes in place of the arrow.

All photos © Benjamin Scuglia.

Here's an example of the fountains spaced all along the Camino to allow pilgrims to fill up their water bottles. I came upon this one during the first week, I believe, when the rain and wind was so constant. You can see the pilgrim in the background vainly attempting to clean some of the mud from his boots. Anyway, I was happy to see this fountain. So I gulped down the rest of my water and rushed over for a refill, only to discover the damn thing was dry. Not a drop. That was a bad day.

And now a jump to the very end of the Camino—Finisterre, to be exact. Pilgrims rhapsodized about the sun and warm sand, bonfires at the water's edge to burn one's stinking Camino clothes. What did I get? Rain, wind, cold. Naturally! Inclement weather was one of the themes of my Camino. This thick fog rolled in as I walked along the edge of the highway to the famous lighthouse, which you can see at the far left of this photo, almost obscured in the fog.

All photos © Benjamin Scuglia.

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Camino Photo Update II

2010-10-28T18:02:00.000-07:00

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This is another of my favorite photos. It was taken quite near the end of my Camino trek in early June. The scrawled message beneath the yellow arrow pointing to Santiago de Compostela reads, "Thanks for reminding us! I was forgetting." This is exactly how I was feeling at the moment; caught up in my own pain and misery, forgetting that the grand finale was nigh.

All photos © Benjamin Scuglia.

I took lots and lots of photos of the road markers and yellow arrows. This one was snapped on the rainy, cold, windy trek up into the mountains to the haunted monastery of San Juan de Ortega. A couple of Irish and Danish pilgrims I met and befriended can be seen here, trudging along. They usually outpaced me.

Arriving at the albergue (hostel) in the village of Cirauqui. You can tell a number of pilgrims had already arrived and decided to stay the night by the laundry draped over the second-floor railing. This albergue had big, wooden bunk beds constructed by the owner's father that did not creak all night long and were very comfortable, plus a restaurant on the bottom floor (entrance was around the corner) with the best homemade food of the trip (pasta, meatballs, pea soup). And local wine that went down like water.

All photos © Benjamin Scuglia.

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Camino Photo Update

2010-10-28T17:25:00.000-07:00

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A disappointingly blurry shot of the pilgrim's office in St. Jean Pied de Port, France, the evening my companions and I arrived in our taxi from Pamplona, Spain. We were expecting crowds but it wasn't busy at all. We waited only a few minutes for the English-speaking volunteer.

(All photos © Benjamin Scuglia.)

This sheep traffic jam occurred outside Fromista (I think). This happened a lot more than you'd think. Cows, too. And chickens. Lots and lots of chickens...

Crossing a bridge over the deserted Spanish highway with early morning fog in the background. Love this shot. I forget where it was taken, will have to dig through my notes.

All photos © Benjamin Scuglia.

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Photos: Early morning Camino

2010-10-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

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I'm slowly organizing my photos from the Camino trek this summer. For unknown reasons, I tried to delete this one several times. I'm glad I resisted because now it has become one of my favorites. This was snapped outside Carrion de los Condes (I think) with the early morning sun reflecting off the road sign. A Danish pilgrim I befriended and walked with for several weeks can be seen at far left, with the Camino stretched out in a pencil-straight line before him. Wish I could claim it was some kind of artistic eye, but it was a lucky accident I framed it this way. More photos coming this week.

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Camino newsletter 14: Right here, right now

2010-07-12T16:16:00.000-07:00

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Ben's Camino newsletter 14: Right here, right now
Monday, July 12, 2010
Los Angeles, California

Five weeks since I wrapped the Camino and just over two weeks since I returned home. In the last newsletter a few weeks ago, I mentioned a strange, bittersweet melancholy that had settled over me since returning to civilization. I decided to check in with other former pilgrims with whom I'd exchanged email addresses to find out how they were adjusting.

"I am still a bit in lah-lah land," wrote one. "I am usually a news junkie and I can't get up the interest to read or watch anything. I find myself tuning out of conversations. I gave a welcome-home party for myself and didn't really feel as if I were back." Another talked about how he finally learned to relax on the Camino, to really feel it in his neck and shoulders, and especially his stomach. However, "It's getting a bit harder as I get deeper into my everyday life," he said. "But I'm trying to keep it up."

I remarked that the whole experience feels like a dream. "It does seem like a dream I had and you were in it," he wrote back. "So to hear from you is kind of strange, getting an email from someone I dreamed about." A third former pilgrim shared his trepidation at returning "back to civilized society" and his alarm at feeling "adrift in familiar surroundings."

For a couple of weeks I moped around, not exercising or doing much or anything but feel a bit lonely and sorry for myself, and then something snapped, like an old rubber band. And I have been walking and walking through the Hollywood Hills ever since. And reading: Seven or eight books of widely varying subject matter in five weeks. And counting. I can't get enough, burning through one, closing it and picking up another, again and again. It's like my brain is craving something essential that has been leached out of my system.

There is a cranky part of me that doesn't want to accept the responsibility for shaping a new life, a new direction for myself. As a pilgrim I could shift all responsibility onto the Camino itself; there is no opting out when you're lost and stuck in the mud in the middle of a rainy cow pasture in the middle of Spanish countryside. You have to keep going. And I liked that I didn't have to think about anything other than my aching feet and however many miles I had to trudge to get to the next town.

And yet, I am excited as I've ever been about what to do with myself now. It's like being a teenager again, this roller coaster of emotional highs and lows. All of this boundless creative exuberance and yet no interest at all in anything beyond right here, right now.

Perhaps we aren't supposed to really focus on anything other than Right Now. Perhaps that's what my cranky self is straining against. I'm good at worrying and being anxious about my next job, my ever-precarious finances, the oil spill, the heat, the cold, the rain, the stop-and-start progress of marriage equality and my civil rights, being single, whatever drama is occupying my family or friends (I could go on...) Focusing on Right Now crowds out worry. On the Camino, I was Right Now all the time. There were simply too many pressing needs in that moment to fret about tomorrow or next week.

Focusing on Right Now does clear the decks, so to speak. I realize with a startling clarity how much time I waste not doing what makes me happy. I realize how the day-to-day drudgery of bills, deadlines and traffic only has as much weight as I choose to give it. Why is that a lesson I have to experience, over and over? Is it me? Is this a societal issue?

On the flight home through London Heathrow, I joined the endless security clearance queue. Afterwards, as I was getting my shoes, belt and everything back in order, a woman approached. She was sixtysomething, stately and elegant. "Pardon me, but are you a pilgrim?" she asked. I nodded, unable to disguise the surprise on my face. She gestured at the scallop shell I'd left hanging from a zipper on my backpack. Ah, right.

"Did you walk all the way to Santiago?" I nodded again. She indicated an older man sitting nearby. He smiled at us. "My husband and I adore Santiago. Marvelous city. We sit all day long and watch the pilgrims stagger through the plaza on their way to the Cathedral." She chuckled.

"On your way home, then? Are you prepared to throw everything out? We're told that's what happens." At this remark, I couldn't help but laugh. "I might just do that," I told her. "Honestly, I don't know who I am anymore or what I'm going to do next."

The woman nodded and touched my arm. "And isn't that marvelous?" she said.

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[Image source.]

Camino Newsletter 13: Withdrawal

2010-06-15T03:00:00.000-07:00

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Ben's Camino newsletter 13: Withdrawal
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Bratislava, Slovakia

It has been a week since I gave up my pilgrim identity following that final trip to the lighthouse, and the last Camino de Santiago route marker, at Finisterre. Due to inclement weather I had to wear my grimy pilgrim clothes through several days in Barcelona as well as the plane trip to Bratislava, where my luggage was in storage. When I finally peeled off those clothes I simply stuck them to the wall to get them out of the way.

Despite traveling in April, I packed for winter. I have usually visited this city during a howling snowstorm. So I am light on appropriate clothing yet again. There is no doubt an echo there of my earlier Camino lessons about all of the ways, large and small, I have made life more difficult for myself.

Another example: I have wondered why my hands have been turning an odd brownish color and worried about some strange pilgrim's wasting disease that discolored the skin. Eventually I figured out (thanks to Google Translate) that the hand lotion I bought in Spain contains a "gradual bronzer"! I have been slowly bronzing my hands and arms, a problem that could have been avoided if I'd simply asked someone to translate the words on the bottle for me. Oy, gevalt, as my maternal grandmother would say.

The tally of my relatively minor injuries: An ugly bruised toe (the "little piggy who stayed home" on the left foot) that I hope will begin to heal now that I am no longer applying such pressure to it by climbing up mountains and stumbling through rocky ditches; a stubborn rash on my left instep of indeterminate origin; several flea bites (ugh...); sunburn that is beginning to peel on my arms; an array of mostly healed blisters; and various cuts and small abrasions.

I enjoyed my few days in Santiago reconnecting with my Camino "family" as they came off the trail. Despite the crush of tourists and the kickoff of World Cup mania, which gave me the yips (as Dorothy Parker would say), Barcelona was quite lovely. I walked around and around the neighborhoods, up and down the streets, searching for something I couldn't identify. At night, in both cities, I slept poorly. On the road from the airport in Vienna to Bratislava, I kept expecting to see peregrinos marching along the side of the road. I look for yellow arrows everywhere.

A strange and unsettling melancholy has set in. It turns out a friend of my employer once lived in the Pyrenees near the Camino. She introduced herself on Sunday afternoon as I was waiting for my pension apartment to be cleaned. She asked about my trek and how I was feeling. I confessed that I felt at loose ends. "This is normal," she said. "Make no changes or decisions for one month, perhaps six weeks. You must allow yourself to first feel the full impact of this experience. Give yourself time to feel the Camino settle in around you."

An odd thing: I am glad the Camino is over and yet I want to keep walking, walking. Something new has emerged here and yet I cannot feel its dimensions. Actors and musicians talk about how a performance will consume them and they will ride high on adrenaline and the rush of creative expression, and then crash hard the next day, the next week, when they are left to their own devices. I certainly remember how it felt in high school and college when our plays or revues were finally finished: Dragging myself to class or to work afterwards was impossibly, unlivably dreary.

I am working here in Bratislava on writing assignment and when I appeared in the office Monday morning, one of my colleagues wrapped me in a spine-cracking bear hug. "Beno! You are back!" he said. "Look, you are half your size! Where did you go?" I knew what he was asking, of course. But the same question has been asked of me in different ways many times over the past week. The actual answer is forthcoming, I hope. But this time, I just smiled up at my co-worker. "I went to Spain," I said.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino newsletter 12: Fin do Camino

2010-06-07T03:00:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino newsletter 12: Fin do Camino
Monday, June 7, 2010
Finisterre, Spain

Although I am sending this out on Tuesday, this note is being written on Monday from Finisterre ("end of the earth") on the Spanish coast. The lighthouse here is said to be the spot where St. James´ body was brought ashore by his disciples more than one thousand years ago. More and more pilgrims are making the trek to Finisterre, literally where the Camino ends at the water´s edge, to bring an end to their trek. There is even a popular restaurant called "Fin do Camino."

The journey takes three or four days on foot, but once I reached Santiago de Compostela on Saturday afternoon, received my certification, hugged the statue of the saint, checked into a hotel and took the longest hot shower on record, my body firmly assured me that it wasn´t walking any damn place anytime soon.

So I took a three-hour bus ride Monday morning. There was a moment when the bus careened around a mountain curve (drivers in Spain respect no laws of speed whatsoever) and suddenly the ocean spread out before us in a magnificent tableau. Far in the distance one could see little towns tumbling down the mountains right to the water´s edge. Threads of fog hung low. It was lovely.

But by the time we arrived in Finisterre, the skies had clouded over and rain began to fall. As I began the three-kilometer hike uphill to the lighthouse, fog had set in! Just like my first two and a half weeks on the Camino. Pilgrims had rhapsodized about gorgeous sunsets in Finisterre and lounging on the warm sand. Nope, none of that for Ben.

But it was all worth it, truly, for the scallop shell road marker (the scallop shell is a symbol of St. James) that read "0.00 kilometers". No more walking to do. You have arrived at the road´s end, peregrino.

It has been a joy these past few days to bump into my Camino "family" as they arrive, one by one, in Santiago. Some that I have not seen in several weeks, others who were thorns in my side (I even saw one of those pushy French women on a side street), I am genuinely happy for them all. There was a very handsome Irish or American pilgrim (I never actually heard his voice) who kept pace with me virtually the entire trip. He seemed to be traveling with several girls but was often walking alone. I tried to engage him in conversation early on, but he never responded with more than a grunt or two, so I left him alone. He was not particularly sociable and that´s fine.

We stayed in the same hostels, ate in the same restaurants, walked the same trails, and always acknowledged each other with a nod. Sunday morning, as I limped into the Cathedral for the Pilgrim´s Mass and looked around for a seat, I spotted him. He made it, too. He was standing in the back with his original group and several others. When our eyes met, he broke into the brightest, warmest smile I have ever seen. It was a fantastic birthday gift.

One more story: On the final leg of the Camino into Santiago, I stopped in a local bar for a quick break. There I met a girl, an American from Alaska. I told her I live in Los Angeles. She said, "Wait, are you Ben?" Um, what?! "You´re Ben from Los Angeles! I´ve heard about you!"

Um, what?! She explained that some Korean pilgrims mentioned that they had met me and were impressed that I walked so quickly and carried such a small backpack (perspective is everything). Later, an American pilgrim mentioned to this girl that she´d met several folks from the United States, including, yes, a guy named Ben from Los Angeles who was writing a book.

Amazing. I wrote several weeks ago about letting go of a primal fear that I am ultimately alone in the world. And here on the Camino I had an impact on people (there are other stories, just wait until I tell you about the "American in Black" stuff) without any idea I´d done so. The Camino provided a beautiful example of how all rivers ultimately run together. I needed to hear it again.

I am here in Santiago until Friday morning, then to Barcelona Friday night and Saturday. I fly to Bratislava, Slovakia (via Vienna) for several weeks for work early Sunday morning, June 13, and return to Los Angeles on June 26. I look forward to getting my hands on my laptop and luggage again. Clean clothes! I now understand and appreciate the ritual of burning one´s travel clothes in Finisterre because, frankly, I reek. While walking into the mountain town of Acebo, we descended through field after field of wildflowers and blooming flora, including wild lavender. I picked whole bunches of the stuff and crushed the buds between my fingers, inhaling the sweet fragrance. Now, I realize this is somewhat of a poncey image, but when you have been washing the same three pair of underpants, two pair of socks and three T-shirts in a grimy hostel sink for a month, you take all the help you can get.

p.s. These emails will continue periodically as I settle into processing this experience and begin the process of writing my book. Folks have asked if they might forward these emails. Please do! Send them this blog link if you think anyone would find them to be of interest. I am happy to share. Know anyone in publishing? Send it to them, too.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino newsletter 11: Santiago

2010-06-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino news letter 11: Santiago
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Santiago de Compostela, Spain
(Day 34 of 34)

Five weeks, 34 days, 764 kilometers, from St. Jean Pied de Port in Southern France all the way across Northern Spain. I walked the final six hours to Santiago de Compostela today. Got lost in Old Towne, turned a few corners and finally there it was, the magnificent Cathedral of St. James. I got my credencial noting I have officially completed the Camino. Stood in line to hug the statue of St. James. Said a few prayers in front of his tomb. Checked into a hotel. There is a medieval festival going on this weekend with strolling musicians, actors in period garb, art and food stalls.

Now, we sleep. No, wait, now we have a long, hot shower and then we sleep. Wait, actually, first we eat, then shower, then sleep. Many, many more details to follow.

Thanks to all for the support and encouragement over these past 34-plus days. I could not have completed the Camino without you, Constant Reader.

Cheers!

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino newsletter 10: Greatest Hits

2010-06-04T03:00:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino newsletter 10: Greatest Hits
Friday, June 4, 2010
Arzua, Spain (Day 33 of 34)

The final days of my Camino adventure have been a greatest hits package: I´ve developed a small blister after two-plus weeks. I had a terrific pilgrim´s menu dinner and reconnected with a few peregrinos I met way back at the start of May. I had two nights of fitful sleep in hostels and spent a day walking with an American that was absolutely magical.

This final week I´ve met more Americans than I have the first four weeks combined. There was a group of college professors and their husbands from Connecticut, a woman and her two kids (20 and 13) from Alaska, two college students from Kentucky. I spent yesterday walking with a woman, a grandmother (also from Connecticut), with whom I instantly connected. We walked 22k together through the morning fog and into
sweet-smelling eucalyptus forests and across manure-choked cow pastures, shared a bag of cherries fresh from the orchard in Palas de Rey and drank fresh orange juice in a little bar in the middle of Nowhere Special, Spain.

Gabriela was another gift from the Camino: After we were nearly knocked into a muddy ditch by a group of bikers on the footpath, rather than their own route, she remarked, "You know, I have to say, as we get closer to Santiago I am not feeling particularly charitable towards my fellow man."

That brought a hearty laugh. Because the night before in the hostel I had been driven fairly close to homicide by my old nemeses: The group of four pushy French women I mentioned in a previous newsletter, who made it their mission to antagonize everyone in our dorm by talking in loud stage whispers at midnight, hogging the bathrooms for over an hour at a stretch, cutting in front of others in line at the bar. I lay in my squeaky, rickety bunk bed that night and reprimanded myself for feeling so murderous just several days before the finish line.

So Gabriela and I happily passed judgment on the rude bikers and the daytrippers walking only the final 100k, who turn up with teeny packs and clean clothes, draped in scallop shells, who clog the path and overwhelm the hostels. And we talked. She guessed I was an artist or writer. She gave me advice on subjects I hadn´t yet verbalized. She diagnosed anxieties I hadn´t realized were playing across my face. It was a fantastic, cathartic day.

In Sarria many daytrippers begin their trek. It´s also where those who only have a week or so to walk the Camino also begin walking. At dinner, yet another American overheard me order in my halting Spanish and asked if I spoke English. She nearly fell out of her chair with relief upon learning I am American and peppered me with questions: How do I order red wine? (¨Vino tinto"). Should I wear short pants or long pants tomorrow? How do I get a bed at the albergue? What did you do about blisters? How fast should I walk? What if I lose my pilgrim passport? And on and on.

As we spoke, other pilgrims I´ve met along the way stopped by to say hello. It was bittersweet. Some of us have exchanged email addresses but most of us know we will never see each other again. As I sat in that plaza in Sarria, drinking my wine, watching the swallows careen overhead and answering questions about the Camino like an expert, it did feel like an ending.

That night in the albergue, the hospitalero came and dragged me out of bed. She and some other pilgrims were doing shots of orujo and singing songs in their common room. How could I refuse? Orujo is a 50-proof liqueur that makes grappa look like water. I tripped off to bed, belching little clouds of alcohol that could power a small generator, and slept as well as I could. The next day on the trail, I shared pained expressions with those peregrinos in the albergue who came to the party, too.

That was a counter-balance to the terrible time I had finding a room in Melinde. As I stood in a hotel lobby and realized I was being mocked in Spanish by two teenage morons, I not for the first time wondered what the hell a grown adult was doing on this trip, grimy and sweaty and sunburnt, and exposed to abuse.

So Week Five has been reliving the highs and lows of the previous month in all sorts of ways. Tomorrow I should reach Santiago about 1:00 p.m. local time, which is early morning on West or East Coast time, U.S.A. Sunday is my birthday and Monday I will take a bus trip to Finisterre, to a lighthouse on the beach where the body of St. James is said to have first been brought ashore to Spain. There I will have my own little bonfire of the vanities and my Camino adventure will be finished. Miles to go yet, however. The road beckons.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino newsletter 9: Does a body good

2010-05-31T03:00:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino newsletter 9: Does a body good
Monday, May 31, 2010
Triacastela, Spain (Day 29 of 34)

If nothing else, this Camino adventure has conclusively answered the question: "Does a pilgrim shit in the woods?" In fact, I would like to take this opportunity to apologize to the Spanish government on behalf of myself and the Irish pilgrim called Declan for the environmental damage we inflicted on the wetlands outside Castrojeriz several weeks ago.

Today (Monday) is Day 29 of my Camino trek. I will march, hobble or crawl into Santiago de Compostela on Saturday, June 5. Five days. Insane. Today was a grueling hike: Some 35k up the daunting O Cebreiro peak and down again, way down, to the tune of the cartilage grinding in my right knee. However, I am dead chuffed (picked that phrase up from a Brit hiker) that I can hike 35 kilometers and not have a single blister on either foot. I am righteously impressed that I caught myself saying, "I really think 25k is my limit." I can claim that I have crossed not one, not two, but three mountains on foot.

I do look different. I hardly recognize the chubby guy photographed way back on May 3, just as he was about to climb that damned French mountain, with no damn idea what he was about to endure. I left most of him in the Pyrenees. I dropped more pieces of him those first two and a half weeks of unending rain, cold, wind and mud. I melted off more of him over the past several weeks as I crossed the insanity-inducing meseta, delirious with sunstroke and dehydrated.

What remains is something old and something new. I found him again in Burgos, as I lay on my bunk, feet throbbing, and stared out my window that offered a full view of their grand cathedral. Hotels rent out rooms for hundreds for that kind of view. And I got it for just three Euro. I found more of this new/old Ben the other night in Acebo, a quiet little one-street town whose casa rural (essentially a bed and breakfast) has a garden with a breahtaking, panoramic view of the lush, green mountains I´d just crossed.

And what´s more, this ancient, converted farmhouse had a poofy mattress that conformed to the curve of my back, and a shower massager in the bathroom straight off the deck of the Enterprise. I lay in bed that night, the curtains billowing softly, a pony whinnying next door, clean (well, relatively so) for the first time in weeks, and had as close to an idyllic moment as I´ve ever experienced.

In Carrion de los Condes, the hostel was stuffy and hot and I kept sticking to the rubber mattress cover. Earplugs made no difference in the snoring Olympics underway. I grabbed my blanket and slept fitfully for a couple of hours on the cold floor of the common room downstairs. I awoke to the sounds of four bossy French women doing squat thrusts at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m.

This quartet has bedeviled me for several weeks. They are compact and lean, skin tanned a leathery orange, and equipped with all the latest hiking gear. They operate with Swiss efficiency and probably each carry the parts of a Jeep in their neatly arranged packs. They view me as some kind of shambolic beast that ought to be put down. Inevitably I find myself sleeping in the same room, even the same damn hotel, as this group. They gaze at me with open disdain. And that morning, as I sat up yawning and scratching myself as they performed squat thrusts in unison, it was hard to imagine how I could have possibly hiked so far in less than a month.

Eventually they left. And I sat on the stoop of this albergue as the sky brightened and drank my fruit juice and watched storks gliding overhead through the cool morning air. (There is not a church tower in Spain without a stork´s nest.) One of these huge, graceful birds landed with a quiet thud across the street, fluffed his feathers, glanced at me in what I imagine was suprise, then clacked his beak and took off again.

I´m not sure the Ben from a month ago would have allowed such a moment of relaxation. I am not entirely convinced he would have known how to simply exist in that moment. And I am acquainted now with my body in a way I have never experienced as an adult. I´m glad I found him.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino newsletter 8: Burnt by the sun

2010-05-24T03:00:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino Newsletter 8: Burnt by the sun
Monday, May 24, 2010
Leon, Spain (Day 22 of 34)

A few nights ago I was in a Spanish town called Carrion de los Condes. Slept in a four-person room in an ancient monastery that is also now a museum. It is a sign of the rigors of three weeks of long-distance hiking that I was most excited about sleeping in a room with only four beds rather than a preserved monastery crawling with ghosts and the whispers of thousands of forgotten psalms.

The next morning I met my traveling companions in a local bar that actually opened at 6:30 a.m. (I know, right?) Fresh croissants, right from the oven! Heaven. I used the facilities before hitting the road. And although I slept well enough the night before, I was sitting there contemplating my sunburn and the roster of aches and dull pains in various parts of my body and, well, I sort of dozed off. And was jolted awake moments later by the crow of a rooster right outside the bathroom window.

I ask you, Constant Reader: When was the last time you fell asleep on the throne, only to be awakened by the full-throated cock-a-doodle-doo of a rooster in your ear? This is Spain for me. Check that one off the bucket list.

In another town called Castrojeriz, eerily empty of inhabitants save for those few serving pilgrims, I happily reconnected with Sue, an Australian woman from Australia walking the Camino with her best friend. Both older women, they are in search of adventure. She has become a constant source of support and encouragement for me here. Just when my spirits are at a low ebb, Sue somehow turns up around the bend.

We hadn´t seen each other in well over a week, and had met on Day Two when I was still traumatized from crossing that damned French mountain. She exclaimed at how thin I´ve become and how my face looks different. I thanked her and in my time-honored habit of refusing any compliment whatsoever, told her that I wasn´t so sure and that I am a bad judge of myself.

Sue frowned with just one side of her mouth. "I don´t know, Ben. I think you´re an excellent judge of yourself," she said. "I´ve listened to you talk and you´ve got yourself pretty well figured out. This is going to sound la-dee-dah but what you choose to believe about yourself makes all the difference in the world."

A friend from the States emailed to express her pleasure that I´d finally kicked my pity party. It was quite a self-indulgent two weeks, wasn´t it? Week three was about reforming, cooking on the back burner. And now week four has begun with more sunburn and a circle back to the beginning.

A woman from a Camino forum to which I´d been posting sent an invitation to stay at her private home in tiny Moratinos, Spain, when I passed through. She and her partner, Paddy, have 3-4 beds and she trains hospitaleros (albergue, or hostel, volunteers). They upended their lives in 2006 and moved to Spain to find more fulfillment and happiness and to dedicate themselves to the Camino.

Rebekah is American, her partner a Brit. They are both former journalists. Their cozy home was packed with bric-a-brac, four dogs, a cat, a bunch of chickens and a cartoonishly territorial rooster. I had a warm bed, incredible cheese, eggs right from a hen (which tasted somehow richer) and other home-cooked meals and mint tea at night. It brought on a strong case of homesickness and was a welcome respite from the trail.

Over dinner, Rebekah casually mentioned that she used to write and serve on the editorial board of the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette." And that she was born and raised in Pittsburgh and graduated from Apollo Ridge high school. Yes, people, I travel thousands of miles across the globe, spend three weeks trekking across Northern Spain to teeny, tiny Moratinos (pop. 20) and find a fellow Pittsburgher.

"You´re cycling back to the beginning," Rebekah told me. "That´s pretty cool. The Camino is guiding you back to the start of it all." And from there I ask: When and where and why and how did I decide to believe the worst about myself? And as my Stateside friend gently asked, Why did I have to go so far to root out these weeds? When did the pursuit of self-improvement and knowledge become an indulgence, not a necessity?

Obviously, we all have bills and kids and deadlines and responsibilties. We´re all proper adults. But when did it just become easier to not think about my own happiness, to tuck it behind another to-do list? Forgive the florid prose, but I want to know where and when I decided sunburn meant I had to stay in the darkness.

p.s. I have been whipped with a wet noodle for asking for donations without providing a clue as to how to do so. Point taken. PayPal.com is most direct (use FilmTurtle@aol.com) or my snail mail address otherwise. Let me know if you need it. And thank you.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino newsletter 7: Interregnum

2010-05-19T03:00:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino Newsletter 7: Interregnum
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Fromista, Spain (Day 17 of 34)

Today was Day 17 of my Camino trek, the official halfway point for me if I am to march into Santiago de Compostela on Saturday, June 5. Counting tomorrow, I have another 17 days. By the weekend I will have reached the geographic halfway point on the Camino. It boggles the mind to think I´ve hiked nearly halfway across Northern Spain.

As Week Three progresses, the theme is that there is no theme. I get up in the morning, eat something, get dressed and hike for six to eight hours to the next town on my map. I check into an albergue (hostel), dress my feet, eat some dinner, do the laundry, trade war stories with fellow pilgrims (cursing the snorers and 5 a.m. bag-rustlers) and go to bed. The next day, I do it again.

Someone recently asked about the day of the week and I honestly didn´t know. It just doesn´t matter right now. It´s shocking how quickly those attachments to schedule, to a time table, just vanish in a puff of smoke when you don´t give them any attention. That ache in my left instep matters. My meager finances matter (donations gratefully accepted if you are so inclined). Getting my socks dry (!) matters. About the day of the week, it took a minute to work up a schedule. Another pilgrim asked what books I was currently reading and, again, I couldn´t say. And I am always in the middle of five different books!

It´s been startling and instructive to live a boiled-down life. And Spain simply operates on its own time. If a bar is scheduled to open at 8:30 a.m., that means, maybe, 9:15. And the coffee machine won´t get fired up until 10 a.m. Sure, they serve bocadillos. That is, unless the old lady who makes the sandwiches decides she doesn´t want to come in today. And if she does, senora might feel like whipping up a pot of pea soup instead. Quite a change for an American accustomed to 24/7 get-it-when-you-want-it.

The Camino has been boiling off that spoiled sense of privilege, a side of my personality I didn´t anticipate would surface simply because I don´t think about it. I spent the better part of two weeks on the verge of my first temper tantrum in about 35 years. That wasn´t a side of myself I expected to see reflected along the Way. And yet what is reforming has not coalesced. I´m excited to see what happens next. I hope I will be a better man as a result. I am curious. I feel a sense of creative anticipation that I have not felt in a long, long time.

And you know what? I like my crazy, modern life. That was another Camino epiphany. If you´d asked me that question as recently as April, I would not have had a definitive answer. But the parameters of my life, its structure and melody, will change when I return. It already has changed.

The other day our group hobbled into Hornillos (I think), a village so sleepy that a dog was literally asleep in the middle of the road when we arrived. I thought that only happened in movies. We collapsed into chairs outside a bar, drank water and Cokes, ate oranges and bread, nuts and that amazing Parmesan and chorizo, complained about the dust and the heat (no more rain!), and then gathered up our packs and hit the road again.

We separated off, walking at our own pace through town. Ahead were my new Irish and Danish friends, and a Dutch girl we call the Terminator because even with sunstroke the previous day she beat all of us to the next albergue. Irish disappeared for a moment and we waited for him at the edge of town, leaning against the wall, contemplating another 3-4 hours of hiking.

Irish reappeared with four ice cream bars he´d acquired somewhere. He handed one to each of us and Constant Reader, you would think it was Christmas in May. "What do you say, lads and lassie?" (Yes, he really talks like that.) We praised the Emerald Isle and all of her fine children. "Shall we hit the road, then? The Camino awaits. The American can´t hog all the visions. Seen the Virgin Mary yet, have you?" (I have not.) We raised our melting ice cream bars and toasted Ireland, Denmark, Holland and the U.S. of A. and then we walked on.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino newsletter 6: "Good for Americano"

2010-05-14T03:00:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino Newsletter 6: "Good for Americano"
Friday, May 14, 2010
Belorado, Spain (Day 12 of 34)

Today turned out to be a short day on the Camino. Yesterday was all rain, mud, sleet, wind and cold. Today was blue skies and a slight chill in the air. I walked into Belorado, Spain and randomly encountered a group of pilgrims I hadn´t seen in a week. We greeted each other like war veterans. They are an Australian couple, a perpetually baffled German woman who speaks no English and carries all manner of lotions and pills for wounded feet, a deadpan hilarious Irish TV/film editor, and an angelically beautiful 20-year-old Danish boy. They are all staying here in town, so I knocked off for the day and decided to give a break to my aching feet.

The pilgrims are all charmed by the opportunity to get to know an American, of whom there have been very few on the Camino. Most of the time conversations around me go like this: Remember the teacher´s voice from the Charlie Brown cartoons? ¨"Mwah-mwah-mwah-MWAH Americano mwah-mwah! Hahahaha!"

At one point I was complaining about my backback and an older German man remarked, "This surprises me to hear you say such a thing." When I inquired as to why, he said "Americanos are the best at everything, yes? HAHAHAHAHA!" One Polish couple on the trail was absolutely thrilled that someone from the United States was making this trip. "Good for Americano, yes! Yes, yes, good for Americano to see the world!"

All this by way of noting the international cameraderie among pilgrims on the Camino has been a shining light of this trip. We all want the same things. We know this, of course, but to see it in practice has gladdened my shriveled, blackened heart.

The trail has been so crowded there is rarely more than a few minutes of alone time before someone comes around the bend. The other day I was walking along, thinking about nothing much, when I felt a rush of what I would call honeyed energy, for lack of a better description. It felt warm and golden. And I thought that it would be nice if the next hostel had internet access so I could check if my friend Joyce Singletary had emailed me.

Joyce, my dear friend and mentor and one of the most significant people in my life, has been dead since 1999. But in that moment, eleven years of knowing that she is deceased was wiped from my brain. People we love die and for awhile we forget, right? We pick up the phone to make a call and are brought up short. But eventually how we think of that person transforms. We start thinking about them as separate, someplace else, not here, right now.

And there on the trail, a flat, gravel path flanked by a busy highway traveled by tractor trailers on one side, and an onion field on the other, I saw Joyce. She smiled at me. I couldn´t tell you what she was wearing. She was not a ghost or an apparition, but something else. There was a light around her like a sandy wind and she was simply...what´s the word? She was just present, she was there, really there in the moment. She was present in that space in a way I cannot describe.

Joyce looked like how I remember her, healthy, with all of her hair, before cancer ravaged her body. She raised her eyebrows in an expectant way, cocked her head to one side, smiled serenely, and then she was gone. And the knowledge that my friend has been dead and gone for eleven years was simply wiped away. We all know, as proper adults, that our loved ones are always in our hearts, right? Isn´t that what we tell our kids? Isn´t that what adults told us when we were children?

But never have I had a more direct example of how we are never truly alone. This has been one of my primal fears. I think I have cultivated a solitary persona to directly confront this fear. Constant Readers, if you have never felt alone in such a way, I envy you. Tell me your secret.

I shrugged off my pack, sat down on a rock and wept (I have never cried as much in my damned life as I have on the Camino). I was not crying for the loss of Joyce, or my mother and relatives gone, or my dear friends lost to AIDS or suicide, but for the loss of some part of me that held on stubbornly to the notion that I am really alone in all of this.

After awhile, I collected myself and continued on. Perhaps 20 minutes later, I was feeling hungry and had pushed this vision, this revelation, to the back of my mind. And I encountered two older women, one from France and the other Jamaica, sitting beside the path and sharing a feast of bread, cheese, nuts and oranges. They invited me to join them with a loud voice. But I kept turning down their offers of food and wine and nibbled forlornly on my dry cereal bar. Eventually, the Jamaican woman grabbed a hunk of bread and carved off a piece of luscious Parmesan cheese (so moist and buttery, nothing like the dry, salty crap we get in the States) and forced it into my hands. "Eat this," she said. "How many times must I ask before you accept?"

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino Newsletter 5: The Endless Muddy Mile

2010-05-09T06:02:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino newsletter 5: Week One: The endless muddy mile
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Los Arcos, Spain

Today ends Week One on the Camino and I am sorry to say it has not been a pleasant experience. Endless muddy mile after endless muddy mile. Snow, cold, rain, wind. Today was a seven-hour hike from Estella to Los Arcos through one gloppy, rainy onion or wine-grape field after another as the rain sleeted sideways. As soon as we reached our destination (its magnificent cathedral rising above the fields like a vision) the damn sun came out.

I imagine the forest pathways and gently winding country roads the past few days would be quite lovely, even beautiful, if not for the weather. Many local relics and ruins and other spots of interest, such as a world-famous fountain that spouts only red wine, have been closed due to the inclement weather. Yes, I am whining a little...

The hostels, or albergues, have been quite crowded. This is a Holy Year so many more thousands of pilgrims are making the trek for religious reasons, to coincide with St. James´ holiday in July. They are essentially like living in a barracks. Although the pilgrims have generally been respectful, the crowded conditions can be trying. There is often inadequate shower and laundry faciltities. And the snoring, my god... Some try to keep their personal bodily symphony under control. But others, such as Our Man from Romania (as I call him) has annoyingly been keeping pace with me and rips off farts in his sleep that roll like thunder across the verdant hills of Navarre.

I have had a lot of time to think about the varied and insistent ways I make life harder for myself. Hiking 6-9 hours a day quickly becomes a lesson in efficiency: How are you packing? What exactly do you need and don´t you need? Try to even up your strides so your right foot doesn´t keep erupting in blisters.

And beyond that, what am I doing on a daily basis to make my life harder? I had my first breakdown of the Camino Thursday on the road to Uterga. I had just hiked down a steep, stony hill and was covered in mud from the other side of said hill. My feet were throbbing with pain and, not for the first time, I wondered what the hell I was doing so far away from home.

I cried. I swore. I cursed my life and everyone in it and all the saints in the heavens, starting with St. James, the patron of the Camino himself. And just like that, around the next bend, the town of Uterga appeared with a big damn sign pointing right to the pilgrim hostel. Why am I making it so hard? Worth pondering.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino Newsletter 4: Day One (Sucked)

2010-05-03T03:00:00.000-07:00

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Ben´s Camino Newsletter #4: Day One (Sucked)
Monday, May 3, 2010
Roncevalles, Spain

Today was the first day of my Camino hike. I walked nine hours from St. Jean Pied de Port, France to the hostel here in Roncevalles, Spain. It was up thousands of feet into the Pyrenees Mountains and down again. It was the hardest, most horrifying experience of my life. I staggered out of the woods a couple of hours ago delirious with hunger, soaking wet, covered in mud, bruised and banged up, furious, angry, self-righteous and swearing a blue streak (God doesn´t mind if I say his name in vain, as long as I say his name.)

The hostel here sleeps 2000 (!) and it is full. You can tell the pilgrims who walked up and down a mountain like refugees from Southern France. They are lying about covered in mud, wide-eyed with shock, swearing in 12 different languages (almost none are Americans, that I have found).

Was it astoundingly, breathtakingly beautiful? Without question. I´ll write more about that later when I am not feeling so sorry for myself. I am sore, bruised, starving. I thought this day would never bleeping end. It was without question the most terrifying, physically taxing thing I have ever done. The whole time it rained, snowed, sleeted, fogged. The mud at times was thigh-deep. I slipped and fell about 30 times, once coming down hard with my left knee on a rock. Once I fell flat on my back and became stuck in the mud and had to have help from other pilgrims walking by to get up. I tried to maintain a positive attitude, I really tried.

I had befriended two Danish women. Their children are grown and they had been thinking about the Camino for awhile and now seemed as good a time as any. They had gone ahead a bit. A third of the way up there is a hostel called Orisson. When I staggered around the corner, traumatized and gasping for breath, I saw the ladies sitting there gulping water. One of them, Susannah, took one look at me, jumped up, ran over and threw her arms around me for a bear hug. "You made it! I am so proud of you," she declared. And she hugged me while I gulped back tears. I´m not afraid to admit that. For as horrible as this day became, there were a multitude of small moments that showed me the glory in the pain.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino Newsletter #3 (April 29, 2010)

2010-04-29T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ben's Camino newsletter #3: What Falls Away

Thursday, April 29, 2010
Bratislava, Slovakia

In the two weeks or so before I left for Europe, things began breaking down: The filter popped out from the bathroom faucet several days before its twin in the kitchen faucet did likewise. The kitchen faucet also took the opportunity to begin leaking. There were other small incidents: A wheel on my desk chair suddenly went to pieces. The TV remote control began flashing randomly and then stopped working. My expensive, new Bluetooth computer mouse gave up the ghost. And some type of spring holding together the anti-theft club I attach to the steering wheel in my car sprung itself and the entire thing came apart. Who knew one tiny little spring held everything together? (There's probably a lesson in there.)

Oh, yes: The widget that attaches the chain from the toilet handle to the stopper inside the tank snapped off. Easily fixed. But as I was sitting on the throne one morning, blearily contemplating my fate, I felt a small snap and then a slight pinch beneath my left thigh. Lo, the seat had actually cracked. Let me repeat: The toilet seat cracked as I was sitting upon it. That's quite a blow to the ego before 8:00 a.m. in the morning.

Anyway, I am in Bratislava, Slovakia on assignment for a production company. The long-haul flight from LAX to London Heathrow, and a puddle-jumper to Vienna (which is down the road from Bratislava), were mostly uneventful, the volcano gods quiescent for the moment. I have spent the week writing press releases and DVD insert copy, conducting and transcribing short interviews, and other similar bits of technical writing. (My previous visits have been scheduled as winter howled. On my last trip, I remarked that it would be nice to visit Bratislava when the weather was warm. My host replied, with typical Slovakian deadpan, "This has never happened.")

Tomorrow morning my flight leaves from nearby Vienna airport to Barcelona. I will take a train to Pamplona, where I have a room booked for the night. Sunday afternoon, I have hired a taxi to ferry me to the tiny French town of St. Jean Pied de Port at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains, where my route, the Camino Frances, begins.

I like to have a plan. I am more comfortable with a list of items to tick off. Packing up for a three-month absence and then closing the door on my dingy, bachelor apartment in West Hollywood was an unexpectedly emotional experience; you'll pardon the maudlin twang of a violin right now, but in the process of packing boxes and shrouding furniture in drop-cloths, something shifted and floated away. I couldn't put my finger on what it was. Does it matter?

Anyway, I snapped right back into get-to-it mode: Airports and airport security — where my special (meaning "pricey") hand lotion for the Camino was confiscated; yes, we're still doing that —boarding flights, getting set up in my Bratislava pension apartment, working, deadlines, jet lag, etc. Plenty to think about and distract myself.

And now it's finally here. I've found you can plan and plan and plan some more for the Camino, but ultimately there is something unknowable about it. Read all the guidebooks you want — there are dozens and scores of them in multiple languages, not to mention a multitude of websites — but as I've learned, it comes down to this: Just shut up already and start walking.

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Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Step onto the road

2010-04-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.'"
— Gandalf (via J.R.R. Tolkien), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.

Email: It's Hot in Topeka
Twitter: 500Turtles

Camino Newsletter #2 (April 21, 2010)

2010-04-21T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ben's Camino newsletter #2: Patience, Money & Volcanoes

Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Los Angeles

So you work and plan and dream, scrimp and save, and finally the day arrives and you're all set to hop on an aeroplane and head to Europe for the adventure of a lifetime and then...wah, wah, waaah. A cranky Icelandic volcano throws a massive hissy fit, belching out massive, continent-spanning clouds of jet-engine-clogging particulate that results in the grounding of every single flight in and out of Europe.

Like I'm going to let a little dust stop me! Not after this much sacrifice. So my original flight to Europe was canceled. I'm currently rebooked for Sunday, April 25. The British Airways reps have been so friendly and accommodating it is almost surreal. ("You keep on dreaming, hon," chirped one agent when I inquired about a flight for later this week.)

So now I have an extra week to come up with things to worry about. This whole trip has brought up a great deal of money anxiety. I have been a freelance writer for 18 years in Los Angeles. I have always eventually managed to pay my bills and I am happy to pat myself on the back for that accomplishment. But only for perhaps four, maybe five, of those years have I made more-than-subsistence-level money for a single man with no dependents.

Until the Great Recession hit, a freelancer like me could scratch out a modest living. Not anymore. Over the span of about 14 months in 2008-09, I was fired or laid off from three of my steady gigs. Job insecurity comes with the territory as a freelancer, but getting the boot from three jobs in just over one year? That's impressive, even for me.

I've managed to land replacement work that I enjoy. But I also found myself dealing with money woes that I believed were behind me. It's a lot less charming to live this way when you're 40 as opposed to when you're 22. So taking six weeks off at this point in my life to hike across Northern Spain means some bills aren't going to get paid. Am I being financially irresponsible? This goes against everything I learned growing up in the middle-class suburbs of Pittsburgh, a no-nonsense, no frou-frou kinda place where the needs of the bill collector come before the needs of the soul.

Much to think about. As I mentioned last time, please feel free to forward these emails to interested parties or delete them (I'll never know). By popular request, I will be setting up a temporary Camino blog to archive these newsletters. When next we speak, I shall be in Central Europe, pending any further fits of volcanic temper. Onward!

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Camino Newsletter #1 (April 12, 2010)

2010-04-12T03:00:00.000-07:00

Ben's Camino newsletter: Three Weeks and Counting

Monday, April 12, 2010
Los Angeles

Folks — If you're receiving this email, then at some point in the past two or three years I've yammered on to you about walking the Camino in Spain. The time has almost arrived: Three weeks from today, I'll be there.

The Camino de Santiago is a 500 mile pilgrimage across Northern Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostela and the Cathedral of St. James, where bones of the Apostle James are said to be located. Google "Way of St. James" for more information (there is a lot out there, lemme tell ya).

For more than 1000 years, the Camino has been a religious journey. Tens of thousands of pilgrims from around the world walk the Camino every year. It is now a path protected by the Spanish government, marked with yellow arrows painted on trees, rocks, fenceposts and buildings pointing the way to Santiago de Compostela. Hostels, or albergues, are placed along the way offering one night's accommodations. Whole towns have sprung up along the Camino offering everything a weary pilgrim (weary in body and spirit) might need.

Many thousands walk the Camino merely for the exercise or for an adventure. Nevertheless, pilgrims are given a "credencial" that you must have stamped in every town. Once you reach Santiago de Compostela, you present your "passport" to the Pilgrim's Office and receive your official certification as a Camino pilgrim. A mass in the cathedral is given in your honor, where the names of pilgrims and their home cities are read aloud.

I'm doing this for a variety of reasons: I'm turning 40 on June 6 and want to celebrate by doing something very out-of-the-box for me. I'm conflicted about the religious aspect; I do want to ponder my spiritual growth and relationship to god (small "g" or large "G") outside of a Church hierarchy that has rejected me. And to be honest, I've been ground down by 18 years of working as a freelance writer in this impossible city. I've lost some essential spark. I hope to find it again as I trudge over hill and dale across Northern Spain.

I am writing a book about this adventure and I've set up a Twitter account (@500Turtles) as well that does not include links to some of my saucier (ahem...) freelance work. You'll be receiving periodic emails like this one keeping everyone up to date on my Camino experience. I'll be testing out ideas for the book and just putting my fears and epiphanies and impressions down on paper. Read the emails, forward them to interested parties or delete them (I'll never know) as you see fit. Another reason I am doing this is to bring various threads of my life together and that includes all of you. Onward!

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