The fanfare of finishing

What do you do when you’re done?

Perhaps you’ve been wondering what happened—did she go into labor? Is everything alright? I’m here to reassure you the Camino is complete and I am safely back on American soil, baby still firmly in utero. I’ve been writing (finishing?) this letter about finishing the Camino for more than 10 days now and the irony isn’t lost on me.

I’m a starter not a finisher. Endings are challenging and emotional. They demand stamina. And they almost always deliver some degree of disappointment.

Of course, this 480 mile journey wasn’t one I could leave unfinished.

On Sunday, May 1, I made my final nine mile walk into Santiago de Compostela. About six miles from the Cathedral, my left shin started hurting. Aside from the persistent ache in my feet, I’d been blessed not to suffer any injuries, but the day before, I tripped, scraping my right knee. In the two remaining miles of that days walk, I didn’t feel any pain in my left leg, so its appearance the following morning was surprising. My body seemed to resist the conclusion of the journey, trying to slow me down to further challenge me before I could reach the end. It seemed appropriate somehow that the last five miles would be a struggle, a reminder of just how much ground I had covered and the scope of the endeavor I was about to complete.

The air was cool and the sky cloudy. Though the weather report had clearly promised clouds without rain, a fine mist wafted down over me, seemingly a warning never to trust predictions in the weather. But the cool air made walking comfortable and easy. As I walked, the trail grew increasingly crowded.

I approached the outskirts of Santiago around 2:40 and became concerned about finding lunch. Here was another delay tactic: one more meal, one more stop, before the end. But a miscommunication with the server meant the meal he delivered was something I couldn’t eat, and I wound up leaving 30 minutes later, still hungry for lunch.

I guess a meal before arrival isn’t part of God’s plan, I thought, sardonically.

I approached the Cathedral from its north side, passing a Galician bagpiper playing Amazing Graceunder a medieval archway. I arrived almost suddenly in the Cathedral’s large plaza. Still hungry for lunch, I took a deep breath and stood taking in the Cathedral’s looming facade. There was no confetti or ticker tape, no trumpets or cheers. Just the melancholy sound of the bagpipe and my stomach grumbling a reminder that it was well past lunch time.

I snapped a selfie and made my way to the pilgrim’s office a block away. I took a number, waited to be called to a desk, submitted my credential filled with stamps, and quickly proceeded to the register to pay. By 4:15, I was finished. The process of receiving my Compostela took less than 10 minutes. The Camino was done.

I arrived a few minutes later at the hotel Andy and I had booked for our recovery days together before we embarked on the eight-day vacation with his parents that had originally provoked the possibility of me walking the Camino at this time. I ordered a salad from the hotel cafe and savored the feeling, both familiar and strange, of eating alone as I had done so many afternoons before, knowing this would be my last solo meal before being joined by Andy, his parents, and soon, a larger group.

Having lived as a pilgrim for six long weeks, my mind struggled to recall what it would feel like not to carry that epithet. After my meal, I sat on a bench in the sunshine outside the hotel waiting for Andy and his parents to arrive, scanning myself for feeling—excitement at the prospect of reunion with my love, some small sadness that the journey had reached its end, a mix of anxiety and anticipation that the journey into motherhood was closer than ever. As a pregnant pilgrim, I’d often received comments of both surprise and support, but now I’d simply become just another pregnant person. Later that evening, walking to dinner in a loose maternity dress and cardigan, I felt the truth of this set in as the eyes of passers by moved over me without notice.

The next day, Andy and I went together to the midday pilgrim’s mass in the cathedral. We joined the entrance line at 11:45 only to discover that more than a thousand people were ahead of us. We felt fortunate to find a seat on the stone steps at the very back of the left side of the Cathedral.

The presiding priest opened the mass by welcoming the pilgrims who had just completed their journey, listing off our countries of origin and the starting points of those who had received their Compostela the day before. I wondered how many other American pilgrims who had begun their journey in Saint Jean Pied de Port were among the congregation. The lector read the Gospel of Jesus about the bread that fed five thousand. In his sermon, the priest reminded the congregation that the bread of the sacrament provides each of us with a direct connection to the body of Christ.

Though the rules of Catholicism technically limit communion to confirmed and confessed Catholics, the priest issued no such warning, and I rationalized that six weeks of walking this ancient spiritual path had surely earned me some indulgence. I joined the other pilgrims in line for the sacrament, reaching the altar rail with hands outstretched, and placed the wafer in my mouth. I let it dissolve slowly, wondering how such a plain object had come to carry such meaning and weight.

As other pilgrims knelt on the stone floor of the Cathedral, I returned to my seat on the steps and bowed my head. I closed my eyes, remembering the journey I had just traveled, the people I had met, the conversations I had had about life, love, and creativity. I marveled at all the ways my body, mind, and soul felt different than they had at the start. This, I thought, was the real end of the journey. But the habits of the journey still clung to me, even as I mentally understood it was finally over.

The following afternoon, we began our vacation, a week of activities that provided helpful points of perspective on the life adjustments I’d been called to make. Instead of walking for distance, we walked to destinations, like mountaintops and waterfalls, just for the sake of the view. At the end of the day, Andy would report our distance—usually between six or eight miles—which felt paltry compared to the weeks before.

To survive so many weeks on the Camino, I had quickly built a pattern for arriving at and departing from my albergue each day, the container of continual motion that one needs to inhabit the pilgrim lifestyle. Dressing, washing, eating, packing, finding the right time to journal, being sure to care for my feet. I used packing cubes to hold my clothes and sundry items to ensure nothing was forgotten, and each day returned them to my pack in the same order. The absence of that familiar pattern often left me feeling anxious that I’d forgotten something. But the system I had built was no longer needed. It had served its purpose.

Forty-three days is a long time to do anything, and it’s ten days longer than most pilgrims takes to complete the journey. (Some young and fit pilgrims I met would finish in less than 30 days.)Bringing that motion to a halt is challenging. Perhaps that’s why it’s easier for pilgrims to roll on to Muxía or Finsterre. One woman I met had given away her clothes at Finisterre—a variation on the pilgrim tradition of burning one’s clothes on the edge of the world and jumping naked into the sea—and turned around to walk back to France in the opposite direction. The Camino has a momentum all its own that is comforting, a version of “daily life” that is distinct and removed from the daily life each pilgrim leaves behind to find themselves on the Way. Yet, it still has its own quotidian rhythm that must be broken, a rupture that can feel abrupt and jarring.

I hadn’t planned on making it to Finisterre, though I secretly hoped our group vacation might include a visit. When I learned it would not, I was initially disappointed, but I realized skipping that part of the pilgrim experience also held some relief. There was still something undone, an incompleteness that could call me back there again in the future. There would be future Caminos, and better opportunities (rather than 36 weeks pregnant in early May) to shed my clothes and jump naked into the sea.

Of course there is relief in the return—to loved ones and familiar patterns. But sadness too. A pilgrimage occupies an extended moment in time that will never be replicated or reclaimed. While the Camino is always waiting for the pilgrim, every Camino is different, uniquely shaped by weather and season, people and places, and the synchronicity begotten of the choices a pilgrim makes as to where to eat and sleep. In this container, a seed of transformation begins to sprout. It is my responsibility to carry that seed from pilgrimage back into the patterns of daily life, to nourish it with care that it may take root and yield the change God intended.