Washington DC, USA to Oviedo Asturias, Spain   5761km (3601 miles)

So in researching for this trip, I came across a lot of “after the Camino” blogs and books and lists often talking about how the Camino changed a pilgrim or how someone learned great secrets on the Camino.  And that is all well, great and good, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I don’t come back touting the great experiential learning of the Camino, but I want to recognize the trip I have taken thus far, and all that I have already learned and experienced before I have even set foot in Spain.

First, I learned, that once you decide you are going to walk the Camino, you are already on the Camino. Making the decision to do something is the first step in doing it.  And I shared this revelation with my dear friend Tory who is also on her own Camino of sorts.  She decided that she would go back to graduate school, upending her life here and starting all over.  It seems big!  But, I think she would agree, that once the decision was made to make this grand change, the next steps just came easier and easier.

Secondly, over these long weeks of the “first stage,”  I have learned, you are always on the Camino. Sure, when people get back from walking the actual Camino in Spain, they talk about how the Camino is a metaphor for life–and I don’t doubt that it is, anything could be, I suppose–but I have already learned that lesson by realizing I have always been on a path.  I don’t know where that path will lead and I don’t know how it will end or who I will meet, but I know I am on a trajectory for myself, not without some design.

Thirdly, I have learned that you always have to rest.  Injuries and ailments can come at anytime and you better rest, even though you may want to go out and take a 20K practice hike.  Sometimes resting sucks! However, if you rest, albeit reluctantly, you don’t know what future damage you are saving yourself from–and that’s good.  I mean, who really wants to know what damage they could have encountered if they hadn’t rested.

Fourthly, people are already walking the Camino with you–literally! And figuratively. In one of my second practice hikes along the C&O Canal, I literally sat down to take a rest next to a couple who were, you guessed it, practicing for the Camino.  They were planning to only take very light day packs and have their “heavy bags’ transported by car to the next hotel, but more on that later.  And figuratively, so many people have called, emailed and texted to give me their well wishes, I know they are figuratively with me as I walk.  And then even more figuratively, people I don’t even know are already walking on the Camino with me.  Just today, on my walk back from work to home, I was ear hustling to the conversation of the men walking behind me, and they were generally talking about wine, but then one started talking about the wines of Spain and how great Riojas were and how the other guy needed to try Tempranillos.  No doubt, I will hear something like this on the Camino–stay tuned!

And number five, you don’t have to walk 200 miles in a foreign country to a Cathedral of another faith to be thankful, to know grace and to see love in your life.  I have been overwhelmed by the thoughts and prayers and trinkets and good graces showered on me as I prepare for this pilgrimage.  I have never felt so supported and lifted.  I have never been so blessed with friends offering their sage advice, their playlist ideas, their hiking gear.  I always try to find the “graceful” solution to something . . .and I have seen that solution to the challenges of the Camino in all the support of my friends. And love, wow, I feel so much love–not that it is something new–I always feel love of my friends and my family.  But it becomes so acute in the face of a great endeavor. . . Thank you!

And maybe that is where I will end.  If I have loved and learned the Camino thus far, Spain should be amazing!