March 24 - 25: Into Spain (Villa Praia da Ancora & A Guarda)

Tomorrow, we reach Spain. We passed 550km and I am nudging 800,000 steps. Carey’s at 720,000, with his longer legs. The official distance so far is 484km.

Today, we stopped about 8km short of the border to enjoy the beautiful beach of Praia da Ancora. Too cold for a swim, Carey flew Droni. I enjoyed the sun on the water. We also did proper laundry and had a beer, before hitting the supermarket and heading back to our hostel.

We spoke to no one today. We passed a few other pilgrims, shared a smile, but they were in their own space. It was a blowy, overcast day, weaving in and out of the foothills along slippery paths that were sometimes streams, frequently old, stone-paved byways between prosperous villages. Stone bridges crossed strongly-flowing, clear streams rushing downhill to the fertile, tidy fields on the plain. We followed the “Caminho dos Burros”, whether because you must be stubborn as a mule to make it, or as sure-footed, (or both), we weren’t sure, but it was aptly named.

Things bubble up on the Camino. For me, it is this: in Calgary, literally hundreds of my job applications and dozens of offers to volunteer have been rejected.

Being me, I keep reframing: “what can I do to be “better”?”. Of course, it takes Carey to say it: “Take the hint. Maybe they just don’t like you.”

He’s not wrong.

I am a challenging person. I try hard not to be, but people feel what they feel. In the past, being useful has been my passport to inclusion. Ultimately, all strategies fail. It is part of the great work of living to come to accept other people don’t think about you when you’re not there. It’s why the ancients (and us moderns) seek fame, even infamy – the memory of others equals existence, even before value. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: “the only thing worse than being talked about, is not being talked about.”

As a childless traveler, a middle-aged white woman of unremarkable achievement, I do wrestle with invisibility and erasure, but I recognise their inevitability.

Active rejection is as painful as always, but has a cure: don’t step up, don’t insert yourself. The loss of identity that comes with no one even thinking about you is harder to address. Our website is an interesting case in point. When we were on Facebook, we had 80, even 100 likes to our posts. Our website requires an active interest in us. Our views are in the single digits. That’s as it should be. Few of us are as important to others as we imagine and, in that, there is safety. There is forgiveness in forgetting that we cannot give ourselves.

It is not a sad or morbid thing to sit with: how the world does, and will, thrive without you. If it is challenging, there will be the relief of removing another piece of ego, or so I believe. I’ll let you know if I get there.