I Want An Adventure

What do you want for your fiftieth birthday?

Thom asked me this not realizing or ever foreseeing what would come of this question…

“I want an ADVENTURE!” I came back with enthusiasm.

“What sort of adventure?” he queried.

I, having just read somewhere about a pilgrimage trek, spilled out “The Camino de Santiago.” thinking that was the most insane idea I’d had to date and, well, I’m known for my crazy ideas.

I didn’t even know how long the Camino was or what it would take. Just chalk this up to being one of my “inspired moments” which are usually born of my own ignorance of what it would take to accomplish. Like… the time I turned to my best friend and said, “It’s cold, let’s roast coffee and sell it at Farmer’s markets” So we did. Two years later, she’s following her bliss and has a coffee roasting shop and I get free cups of coffee.

 

I had no idea what I had started. I never do. But it always seems to work out.

“That’s insane.” Thom was more than just a little dubious. “We can’t walk five hundred miles!”

“Look into it, honey, people have been doing it for hundreds of years. Yep, they sure have. They picked up rucksacks and walked in sandals from Paris to Santiago de Campostella and beyond to Finisterra, the end of the world. They walked to the Holy Land. OK, there might have been a boat involved. But, they’ve been walking a long time. It’s just walking. Hardly anybody ever dies!”

While I promptly forgot this idea, it grew in Thom’s heart the more he investigated and his Teutonic need to plan became the driving force… When he brought it back up, it was my turn to say, “Are you insane?”

Deviously, he asked me to be his “trainer”. Sure, I can do that, dear. Because I do Zumba! I’m in OK shape. I can run you up and down some hills. But remember one thing for certain… I am not going.

And so began the year of planning, training, and anticipation.

At first, I was content to just let him go be a pilgrim on his own. I am a Catholic but I don’t have that fire and need for evangelization in the same way that Thom does. What did I need or want to go on Pilgrimage for? But, I slowly began to realize that if I let him go without me, I was letting myself down. If I didn’t go? I would be failing to grasp the adventure I had so boldly stated I wanted. I pushed my self doubt aside and committed to a pilgrimage. My pilgrimage. This was my idea, after all. What was I afraid of?

People hardly ever die on the Camino, I’m pretty sure.

Fear is a big factor. There’s always a niggling thought in my head that says, “You know, you might get dead. Then where will you be? Dead!” Have I mentioned that I am a product of overprotective European parenting?

My father was an outdoorsy guy. He led the Boy Scouts for twenty five years. Took them to Philmont Scout Ranch which is Paradise for the BSA.

He hunted, camped, hiked, fished, you name it. He was a sportsman. He grew up doing these things in southern Italy. As an old world guy, he was not keen on girls being sporty, especially a wee person like me. I’ve always been the tiniest person in a room of peers. A hike in a foreign country with a backpack and no other tangible assurance that there would be a bed at the end of the day would have been completely out of the question.

Dad’s gone. I miss him.

There’s still unfinished business. In my head, he’s stopping me. Every day, he’s saying this can’t be done. “Francine! Other people are crazy, you might die!” I have to trust in myself. I have to trust in God. I need to do this. Within me, there is an urgent need to understand something and I have about two hundred or so miles to figure out what that something is.

 

Give me my scallop shell of quiet,

My staff of faith to walk upon,

My scrip of joy, immortal diet,

My Bottle of Salvation,

My gown of glory (hope’s true gauge),

And thus I’ll take my pilgrimage.

Sir Walter Raleigh

“Really, Dad. People have been doing this for over a thousand years. They have wine. I’ll be fine.”