500 Miles in Someone Else's Shoes

I've been hesitating on what to write about the Camino. I'd thought the lessons would all become apparent to me along the Way, but to be honest, they're only just starting to peek out of the shadows. It is like the ease with which one can solve the problems of others but not one's own: the issue has to be seen from a different perspective. Now that it has been nearly a month since I finished walking, the experience is finally folding together to the point where I can start making sense of it.

That's not to say the Camino was completely free of life lessons learned. In fact, I ran into an Italian hippie in Galicia who pointed out that the roads were paved with cow shit (I'd noticed) and said he had the realization one day that the more time he spent watching the road to avoid the cow shit, the more beautiful scenery he was missing. I agreed and added that, even if one steps in the shit, it can still be washed away. However, it was the "missing" aspect that I've only recently begun to notice.

I've been working heavily on another blog, Bill Beaver's Best Laid Plans, a travel blog. As I've been writing and incorporating pictures, I noticed how few pictures I have of some areas and how few are actually of higher quality. This may be a standard ratio among photographers, but it has only highlighted what has been missing: time.

There are ten commandments of the Camino. I have been unable to locate a full list online, only references to the list I saw but did not fully process in Castrojeríz, but one stands out right now: You shall not change your pace to match another's.

I had mapped out my Camino to start on March 3rd and conclude on April 8th. A day behind in Pamplona, I figured I would sacrifice a day in Santiago to compensate. Instead, I met two other peregrinos with whom I decided to keep pace, not the least reason of which being that one was close in age to me and attractive. I kept pace with both of them for half the Camino, hurrying through some towns I'd originally planned to explore in more depth. I caught up to my missing day and surpassed it. True, we seldom walked together for long, and by the midpoint of the Camino, both went further than they'd said, and I was left behind.

Someone wiser could have seen these two as faces who had entered and left my life, as is the natural way of things, but instead, feeling hurt and abandoned, I continued at the pace they had set. I made photographic sacrifices: it was too much of a hassle to take out the camera, and I was losing time and distance behind them. What if I didn't see them again in Santiago before they left, four days before I arrived? It became this huge, important matter that I somehow catch up with them, so much so that, even on the days where I decided to go slower, I still put in the same distances and made the same photographic sacrifices. I stopped making friends in the same way as I walked. I became hurried and impatient with people who wanted to chat. I was pushing myself to catch up with someone else's Camino and had given no more than a fleeting glance at my own Camino and what it meant to me. That, at least, has affected my journal and work afterward, especially as I read more into these places and learn more of what I missed.

Now, that being said, 480 miles is a long walk with lots to see and limited memory card space. I was subject to the complaints of my body and the more pressing matters at hand than just snapping photos, like where to rest. However, the fact remained that the complaints of my body were directly proportional to the number of kilometers walked in a given day, as set by my desire to catch up to my past friends in the future. This is a very important parallel to daily life and one that demands awareness.

I'm a people pleaser. After a year in Codependents Anonymous, this still presents a problem, especially in the way I pace my life. Right now, I am unemployed, but my biggest concern right now is not that I'm running out of money (I'm okay for a while longer); my biggest concern is that I will have to justify myself to my mother. Each time I get a text message and see it is from her, even if it's a funny picture of the dog, I immediately get ready to explain my actions in a way that she will find acceptable and thus let me off the hook. It is a mentality that regularly takes me away from what I was originally doing. I'm trying to walk her Camino.

On a project level, for the last year, I have been floundering in a field of non-creativity, owing to one of my college lessons that said something to the effect of "You only have a few years to make it in the business." This thought led me to blaze through and submit my first screenplay to multiple companies, a screenplay with which I was not personally happy but which I thought the readers needed to see soon. I jumped to match their pace and sent them inferior work. I have tried to churn out short scripts for my director friends quickly, the idea being turnover, turnover, turnover. Thus far, I have not had anything produced because the work is hurried and inferior. I'm noticing the same in my photography, ignoring lighting and rushing framing to churn out content before I'm overlooked by someone who does not exist. I am walking the Camino of the professional world.

In romance, well, hell, what haven't I already said about romance? To the present, I've operated my relationships on the idea that my date needed constant entertainment, a complete sharing of interests, and anything else they may request, as soon as they request it. Otherwise, they would leave me behind. And this was important to me. I have put down my own work, beliefs, and interests because someone else, whom I happened to find attractive, found them subpar. I have been walking the Camino of everyone I ever dated and completely lost myself in them each time.

So what now? The physical Camino is over, and now I'm almost a month back in Los Angeles. The question now floating in and out of my head is "How do I get back on my Camino?"

It's not an easy process. I've built so much of my worldview on expectation and assumption that the idea of dropping them is confusing. I've lost so much of my ideation process in the grand hurry that I now have to dig deep in order to get it back. I have to find a job that, yes, will pay the bills, but at the same time, I may also need to be a little more picky with what I choose instead of just picking something to be employed again and not have to explain. Hovering over this is the concern that, if I couldn't figure this out with all my alone time on the Camino, how could I possibly figure it out back in the big city of LA?

The process is already starting. It takes a return to the old world to see what has been picked up from the new one (or is that reversed?). Writing Bill's adventures, above all things, is highlighting how much is lost in trying to walk someone else's Camino. The point is, people will wait if they know it's worth their while, and if not, it is no catastrophe. I have walked to the End of the World, and I remember enough to know that this is not it. So the plan, as of now, is to finish the blog, to focus on writing a good book instead of a quick book, and to find a job that lends itself to both of the previous. It may take until May to accomplish; it may take longer. I have time, and I have my lessons to back me. However, I have to stay on my Camino now. The plantar fasciitis reminds me of that.

In Training

I haven't written much about my physical health in a while, suffice it to say that sitting for 9 hours a day, 5 to 7 days a week, takes its toll. The back aches, the eyes blur, and the... well, we'll leave it with back and eyes for the time being.

In any case, things are about to be shaken up in a few short weeks. I'm going to be unemployed! Huzzaaa... what was that again? Yup, after being extended from 4 months to 13 months at Disney, I am about to reach my last extension. Then the playing field changes, and for at least one month, I will no longer take my seat in the shitty chair with the corroding back support and the poor lighting that magnifies the deleterious effects of an otherwise thoroughly adjusted computer screen. Instead, I will fly to Spain. On a plane. To cross the plain. In the rain. AND NOT ONCE COMPLAIN.

I've had a hankering, ever since Junior year of high school, to embark down the French route of El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. For those unfamiliar, it's a roughly 500-mile pilgrimage route that starts (among many places) in St. Jean Pied-de-Port in France, traverses Basque Country and the high meseta, and settles into stormy Galicia, ultimately culminating at Cape Finisterre, considered in Medieval times to be the end of the world. Is it ironic that I finally have the time and resources to walk there in 2012?

This morning, I completed my first 14-mile training walk to test out my mettle and my Merrells. I walked from Glendale to Chinatown to Silver Lake and back to Glendale via Los Feliz. To my advantage, the weather was pleasant, the hills minimal, the way familiar, and the feet new to the experience. I completed the trek in four and a half hours, stopping along the way to watch a brown widow spider kill a caterpillar and to buy a lunch of my own. Mapquest told me I should have finished in 5 1/2 hours... Umm...

One of my constant concerns with my body is overdoing it. I've screwed up my shoulder doing weights and my hamstring during Capture the Flag (getting old sucks), and Vishnu knows I've had issues with the heat on the track. As I sit here typing this, I've been back for five hours. My fingers are no longer swollen, though my legs and feet are not used to this degree of walking. I managed to avoid blisters but did feel hot spots. I will probably wake up tomorrow and hobble into work as the stiffness sets in. I remind myself that this is training, but will the little training I can manage over the next few weeks suffice? I mean, I will be repeating this walk every day of the week for four weeks. Actually, I take it back; this will be a mid-length walk.

As much as the pilgrimage itself is about faith in general, I suppose it will also be a test of faith in my body. Lately, with all the sitting, I have begun to feel a lot older than my coworkers remind me, and I wonder if the Camino will make this better or worse. It then begs the question of what comes after? More sitting? Most likely... But, perhaps, I will one day find a place with better chairs and better lighting. Who knows for sure? Those are things to address on the long walk. In the mean time, it's time to rest and plan, rest and plan.

Aether

It's easy to forget there are stars when you live in Los Angeles. Let me rephrase. It's easy to forget there are stars in the sky when you live in Los Angeles. Night in the city doesn't really turn dark, just orange.

I ended up spending the weekend at my grandparents' house in southern Utah. The total population of the town where they live is approximately 120. The air is clear, the sounds are soft and natural, and there are stars. There are so many stars.

I stood on the deck for about half an hour, gazing up at them, feeling overcome with an emotion I thought I'd lost: wonder. They're still there. The Milky Way still flows. The Big Dipper still points north to Polaris. There are still tiny, blinking satellites weaving among them like alien ants.

I think that most people, myself included, spend the majority of their lives looking ahead, looking back, or looking around. It's easy to forget to look up, past the glass and rooftops, into the deep vastness, wherein lives the grand Mystery that puts all one's own tiny problems into perspective. There, nestled in the star fields, sits a profound peace that only requires a glance. I have been gone too long. That's a trend I do not wish to continue.

You Know... (Part Four)

You know you're giving off the wrong vibe when young, attractive, Chinese students flock to your brother and even your parents to have pictures taken with them over the course of the trip, but the only photo request you receive is from a grinning 60-year old man.

You know you're hanging with the wrong crowd when after two minutes of recounting your adventures in China, you're interrupted by a half-hour monologue on personal drama and food, and the conversation is over.

You know there's a good reason for being paranoid when your boss hides a camera on his desk, films you brushing crumbs from your shirt into the trash can, and shows the entire office how, from that angle, it looks like you're taking a piss.