My wife today reminded me about my anxiety over the weather.

I planned to walk the Camino in early April. But I’d been following the weather reports, and it was a shocker. Late late winter, snow and freezing temps, and the Route Napoleon was closed because of heavy snowfalls.

Not only that but a pilgrim had just died trying to get to Roncesvalles going the Route Napoleon. It took rescuers four days to find his body.

Several times each day, in the weeks leading up to my departure for France, I’d check the weather reports, and I’d go onto the forums that were monitoring the situation. It was bad. And it was freaking me out.

So I went out and I bought gaiters, at $85 a pair, and I bought a reflective safety vest too because it looked like I’d have to go the Valcarlos route, which meant walking on roads. And the forums were stating categorically that anyone who walked on the roads going via Valcarlos needed to wear a reflective safety vest, otherwise they’d get hit by a truck.

Closer to my departure, the bad weather wasn’t easing up. I was avidly following the day by day blog of a woman walking with her two young daughters. Each night I’d look at her pictures of snow, and mud, and rain.

I’m from Australia. We don’t do snow here. Or if we do, it’s for the wealthy and the indolent in some far flung ski fields.

I started to seriously consider bumping my trip back a month, to give the winter storms time to abate. I didn’t relish the prospect of tramping through snow. But my PGS told me to stick to my dates. It told me that it would be a mistake to change dates.

So I didn’t change my flights. I stuck to my dates, and I landed in Biarritz to coldish overcast skies, but no rain, and no snow.

The Pilgrim’s Office in St. Jean told me, when I went to pick up my passport, that the Route Napoleon was still closed, and would be for the foreseeable future. The next day I walked to Roncesvalles via the Valcarlos route.

I didn’t wear my vest, and I didn’t get hit by a truck.

That night, I left my vest in the albergue in Roncesvalles.

From then on, I had delightful weather. Truly delightful. Clear blue skies, cool refreshing breezes, absolutely perfect weather for walking. Yes I had a couple of rainy days. Particularly as I approached Galicia. But I counted eighteen straight days without any rain. Out of the 31 days, I had maybe three days of rain, and two of those days were just drizzle.

My mate Steve, who contributes to this blog, left a month later – coincidently around about the date I was considering, had I rebooked. He got horrible weather. Rain most days. And mud. If I’d changed my flights, I would have copped that bad weather.

As a filmmaker, weather is a crucial issue. If you’ve shot half a sequence in sunny weather, you need to shoot the rest of the sequence days or weeks later in the same kind of sunny weather, otherwise when you put the shots together in editing, it won’t look right. Cut from sunny sky to rainy sky to sunny sky again – you get the picture.

What I’ve learnt as  filmmaker is not to worry about what I can’t control. I can’t control weather. So there’s no point worrying. All I can do is prepare. So in preparing for my Camino I loaded my backpack with thermals, with gaiters, with raingear, with reflective vests, and with warm gloves and a beanie. I HATE beanies.

Like I say, I left the vest at Roncesvalles. When I got to Pamplona, I posted off my thermals and my gaiters and beanie to my pre-booked hotel in Santiago. I didn’t need them, and I was convinced that I wouldn’t need them from Pamplona on – even up around O Cebreiro.

And I didn’t.

Each day while I walked, I refused to look at weather maps or listen to weather reports. Why worry about what you can’t control? I would make a final decision as to what I was going to wear each morning when I stepped outside the albergue. If it was raining, I’d put on my jacket. If it wasn’t, I’d leave it off. Simple.

My weather forecasting consisted of looking up into the sky to see if I could see stars. If i couldn’t, it meant there were clouds. Clouds didn’t necessarily mean rain. Clouds meant it would probably be warmer than if there were no clouds.

I put aside my fear of the weather. I did that in Australia, before I left. I trusted that I would walk in the sun. And I was determined not to walk the Camino in fear. As it turned out, I had the best weather…

Today I finished the first draft of the book.

It’s come in at 83,000 words.

Now comes the hard work – revisions and editing. The final word count will probably be around 72,000.

Already I have a literary agent interested in reading it with a view to possible conventional publishing, but in the first instance I’ll keep to my plan and eBook it.

It’s quite funny in parts – and looks more deeply at the experience of walking the Camino.

Its tagline is: How a microfibre towel got me through the Camino. 

It’s probably another 6 weeks or so before it’s ready for publishing.

I’m handing over the blog today to Steve.

Some of you might know him. He and his wife Jill walked the Camino about a month after me. He got rained on most of the time. Even when his wife was a hundred yards ahead of him, he got rained on and she didn’t.

🙂

He’s been a regular contributor to this blog. He’ll bring a fresh perspective to these pages.

By the way, my PGS The Way Forum is now up and running. This forum won’t be about albergues and equipment and bed bugs etc, it will be a forum which, like this blog, discusses the spiritual and religious aspects of the Camino, as well as the emotional and psychological side of the pilgrimage. And health issues too! The tagline for the forum is –

Discussing the spirit of the Camino. The link is:

http://www.pgsthewayforum.com/forum

Please join up and start posting topics there too – I want it to become an active place where these deeply felt issues can be openly discussed. I will be active there as well. There should be no technical issues now, but if you encounter any, please let me know.

So now Steve, over to you mate…

I had the MRI done today, then the plates and the report were sent to the Neurologist, and I had an appointment with him this arvo.

It seems there is a small “indentation” at the root of the S1 nerve on the lower spine. That's what's causing the numbness in the left foot evidently.

The Neurologist thinks this indentation was caused by aggravation during the walk. What's odd is that I had absolutely no back pain, even though I have two metal plates screwed into my lower spine from a car accident many years ago.

Anyway, the specialist believes it will heal itself in a few months. He wants to see me again in three months.

He told me not to walk long distances until then!

So it's a good outcome, and I have to say the health system worked very well. No waiting, consummate professionalism, and with the Medicare rebates, surprisingly it wasn't expensive.

Because of all the tests today, and driving back to Mudgee, I've been off the blog, but thanks to you all, especially Sister Clare and Steve, for furthering the debates in my absence!

(As I walked out of the doctors' rooms, I saw this on the road in front of me!)

Fear is pain’s oxygen.

Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of disappointment, fear of lack, fear of pain itself.

The pain I got on the Camino, when I think back on it, was fuelled by fear. I was scared of the Pyrenees. I was scared of not completing the walk. I was scared of failure. I was scared of letting myself down. I was scared of letting others down, those who believed in me and my capacity to do what I set out to do.

My fear gave my pain oxygen. It allowed it to breathe, and grow.

Fear also fuels anger. And pain LOVES anger. If fear is pain’s oxygen, then anger is its gasoline. Anger ignites pain. And rising from those raging flames, like a fetid black smoke, are injury and illness.

If I can rid myself of fear and anger, then I can rid myself of pain, injury and illness.

The Camino has helped me begin that process.

Not sure whether this is of blog-worthy interest…

But, I had an EMG today. I told them they should call it the Abu Ghraib clinic… Didn't get a laugh.

Needles into the muscles, turn up the voltage. “Do you need something to bite down on Bill? No? After this we'll try water boarding…”

Haha – not quite that bad.

Seems its not an entrapped nerve in the leg, it's something to do with a nerve coming from my spine – the S1 nerve. Aggravated by the walk, they suspect.

So I have to have an MRI tomorrow. Then back to the Neurologist again.

So anyone thinking of doing the Camino – budget airfares, accommodation, meals each day, and medical bills afterwards!

I’m handing the blog over to Sister Clare today –

I need some time to finish my book, (hopefully I will finish it today, or at least this first draft), and I have these further medical tests later today as well.

I have told her she can post any topic she wishes…

So thank you Sister Clare –

Today I had an appointment with a Neurologist about this numbness in my foot, as a result of my walk.

He did extensive tests, and now wants me to have an EMG (electromyography) to check the electrical conductivity of the nerves in my leg.

He suspects it’s an impaired or damaged nerve somewhere in my knee. This is my left knee, not the right knee that gave me so many problems.

So, waiting to see when those tests will be.

I’m relieved at this news. It could have been a lot worse…

PS – just found out I will have the EMG done tomorrow arvo…

Anyone who’s walked the Camino will know this – after you return home, weeks and months and possible years later, you get flashes of moments during your pilgrimage that, at the time, seemed inconsequential. Yet later, those moments take on new meaning.

That happened to me just now.

I remember walking out of Ciraqui early one morning, before sunrise. It was at a stage in the walk where I was in enormous pain from my knee. I was walking along a very narrow track, studded with rocks. An old Roman track. And each step hurt like hell, because I was treading on these big clumps of rock.

Because it was dark still, I had my headlamp on, and I could only see a short distance in front of me. But it seemed that this track just went on and on… It wasn’t going to end soon.

But then on the edge of the lamp’s throw I thought I saw a track running parallel. A paved track. There was brush in between though, and a big ditch, and I couldn’t quite see it clearly. I certainly couldn’t get to it.

I kept walking on this hard and difficult rock strewn track. That’s where the yellow arrows had pointed me, and they were still there, letting me know I was going the right way.

But still every now and then I got a glimpse of this level paved track on the other side of the brush and the ditch.

I finally found a gap in the brush and I climbed the ditch, and looked ahead of me. The track was paved. It was level, and it seemed to be running parallel to the rocky path.

But there were no yellow arrows.

I was worried that it might veer off and lead in the wrong direction, and then I’d have to back track.

So I went back through the gap in the brush and continued on the hard and difficult way. Each step excruciating because of my knee.

Finally, I thought: This is really stupid. The clear path must be a new path. It must be part of the Camino. So I found a way through the brush. over the ditch, and I began walking on the paved track.

Immediately my knee felt better. And I began to walk with greater ease.

After about a kilometre or so I saw a yellow arrow. It had been a new path, and it was the Camino, and all that time I’d been trudging along the rocky difficult path.

So this morning, it came to me out of the blue, (my PGS!) how like life that was.

We spend all our time struggling through difficulty, hauling ourselves painfully along a particular path because we believe that’s the right way to go – that’s the way we’ve been directed to go. And yet right beside us, within our sight, is a clear level path that we can travel on, without pain and difficulty.

But to get there, we have to believe.

And we have to overcome our fear.

(Sometime after my Camino, it’s still reaching into my soul and teaching me.)

I’m into my third day of my fast now and I’ve been invited to a dinner tonight.

My daughter’s boyfriend has spent the last two days preparing the meal. And he’s invited other guests too.

Here’s the dilemma – I don’t want to break my fast, particularly as I’m nearly past the worst stage, the first few days.

Equally though, I don’t want to sit around a dinner table and be rude by not eating. Particularly as he’s gone to so much trouble preparing the meal. Also, I don’t want to make a fuss about the fact that I’m on a fast.

So I’ve decided that for tonight, I’ll break the fast.

I could easily continue my fast, sit around the dinner table and only drink herbal tea. But it would be ungracious to my daughter’s boyfriend, who is cooking this dinner especially for me.

There are times when we can be too fixed and rigid in our beliefs or endeavours, and forget that we’re living in the real world.

I will put my fast on “pause” and continue it tomorrow.