Everyday life

One of my readers told me that this blog is not like others he read. It’s not about everyday life so I hope I won’t disappoint him cause today I’ll give you a bit of routine.

6.30 am, I leave and as I’m walking down my street I see the horizon of city roofs with St. Peters tower standing out. Behind the city, the strip of the sea. Depending on the weather the roofs and walls are dark or bright when they reflect the sun. Also the colour of the sea changes but I haven’t deciphered the meaning of its changes yet. I’m dragged down the street by the gravity and the urge to arrive on time. Supposedly 5 minutes before my shift starts. I don’t have five minutes to loose at work! My dreams keep me pretty busy. Anyway, black uniform, shirt and trousers. No, I don’t want to wear a skirt.
I arrive at the hotel, change my shoes in the messy and smelly staff room. Every time I go in there I think what kind of people am I working with... Well basically people of all sorts. Young people and students at the reception and restaurant, older in the kitchen. It’s more or less fun to work with them. The work is easy, no responsibilities. I like my part to be done, my every week pay on my account. I do like some of them, but I’m not naive, few may become friends.
On my way back I walk along the North lane, the alternative one. As I walk, I let the work issues fade away and I relax. Sometimes I go into one of the shops just to have a look, there are still couple of them I haven't seen. I like the one with funny T-shirts: “sex, drugs and sausage roll” - very British; or the kid on a mountain of chairs trying to reach the moon. I know someone like this kid, trying to get to the moon...

I used to live near mountains but I must say that I’m loving the sea more and more, It’s mysterious and unpredictable. It is a strong element and gives this place a background of a fisherman's town that became something completely different now. Now it’s a gay capital, which I deduced, means that it can’t be boring, and it is not. This Sunday there was a naked bike ride. It’s a pity I couldn't see it. Instead I had couple of matches to play. There was a beach volley Hawaian tournament and surprisingly our team made it to the semifinals! I’m playing since February and I love it. My specialty is diving in the sand so I end up sandy, but also tanned and relaxed. Then comes the good part, a beer and conversations, some good laughs. Life is good.

So, here I am leading a very normal life, pretty busy but more or less steady. I follow the path of my dreams however my baggage is not very light.

Have you ever, after coming back from a journey, left your bag unpacked till the next day? And the next day you have to take everything out, the dirty and clean clothes mixed together... I know, it’s a bit disgusting. My emotions are like a bag of dirty clothes I forgot for a couple of days, and now I have to do the washing. For a while I did as if they didn’t exist but there is no way to avoid them. I‘d better do the washing before they stink!

Back to basics

I am a different person now. It’s hard to explain the exact difference. In question of months I understood plain things about the life and family and love. I guess I just learned to walk.

Walking is something we just do, most of the time it’s a nuisance we try to avoid by taking a bus or driving a car. But it’s a simple basic action everybody learns. We don’t realise the importance of it, just like breathing, no need to think about it. But when you have over 800 km in front of you, the next albergue (hostel) is 20 something kms far, and you carry all you think you need on your back, you become conscious of every step taken. In the age of technology, video games and virtual reality I choose to make 800 kilometers to prove myself. The day before I started I didn’t know what to expect and I didn’t expect to learn to walk, to feel with the senses and to see with my heart.

The first thing I felt was pain. The blisters on my feed and the weight on my shoulders made me calculate every step I took and the effort I was able to do along the day. It made me reconsider what was expendable in my backpack. After a week I got used to the 7- 8kg backpack and the approximately 20km every day distance. And I realised that what was weighting was the emotional baggage. I remember the moment after a day of walking when I was sharing a table with other pilgrims. I laughed and a big grin appeared on my face. I though that I haven’t smiled like that for ages, not the courteus smile to answear a polite question during an empty conversation, but a real expresion of joy. There was something seriously wrong with my almost perfect life, I thought.
Since the first day, in spite of the pain I was aware of the beauty around me. Far from the city, its blinding noises, odours and lights, my senses started to wake up. The smell of the forest and the sea, the sound of the wind, the pure beauty of the landscape touched me deeply and made me be there in the moment. One afternoon, in Comillas, sitting on the beach i played with the sand, I simply existed without running and worrying about the future or moaning about the past. Present moment was all I needed and all I wanted to enjoy.
Some of the pilgrims would wake up even before 6am and hurry up to the next albergue. I would meet them in the afternoon laying in the bed and contemplating the ceiling or the matres over their head. Well, I guess everyone meditates in their own way. I preferred to enjoy a swim in the sea or a nap at midday. Or I just walked at my own pace so I wouldn’t get injured. Somehow getting a bed in the hostel was not so important. Once, I spent one of the most beautiful nights under the protection of sky with Maciek and Justyna, a polish couple I met on the Camino. Knowing that 38km in a day were to many for me I decided to stop in a town. I found them exhausted so we decided to stay near a beach and had an improvised dinner together. When everything got dark, lying in my sleeping bag, I could see the sea of stars. No way you could see something like that in Madrid! In the morning we climbed a hill to see the sunrise, and then before starting again I used one of the beach showers to wash myself, it was freezing. After walking uphill for half an hour I stopped to feel the warming sun on my face.
That’s it. There was plenty of resources to use when needed, and I know for sure that a shower in a hotel, and a comfortable bed would never make me feel so alive. I was feeling with all my senses awake, there was only one more to be used.

Connections

Today I'm in get-out-of-my-way mood. No specific reason. It just seems that everything is going wrong: the weather won't be sunny, the Internet connection won't work at the cafe and the coffee I bought there was awful. Everything is out of my control and even if I remind myself that this is the way things are, I'm angry with the world around me. I know there is no point in it and I know at least in part I'm just trying to protect my emotional self, the part of me which I try unsuccessfully to keep under control. And there is no way I can control what affects me, and pretend I don't feel anything about people I meet and things that happen.

These days my unconscious is playing funny games with me, I guess I deserve it. If I'm waiting for a night out, I forget my keys at home and get just what I wanted: an adventure night. I also have funny dreams with people I don't intend to think about.

Some dreams are completely absurd, like the guy I danced with and just kissed because I was quite drunk. In my dream he would become a waiter who didn't want to give me my dessert! That was really mean, even in a dream, and I can still remember the taste of the vanilla ice cream that so desperately needed to be topped with hot chocolate!!!!
Or a dreamt conversation I didn't have with someone who I wanted to be friends with, but I guess was not up to it.
Why some people get through to me? I won't think about them for a long long time, and years after, suddenly, I would remember a night spent together, a kiss, a conversation. Like the moment I had speaking about life with John in a Chinese restaurant in Barcelona. I was looking into my cup of jasmine tea, where two leafs where dancing around like two dragons just before the force that bound them together in a flight disappeared slowly and they fell to the bottom of the cup. I was thinking about my relationship at the time. Now behind me, I dreamt about him having a new girlfriend, a posh one, just what he used to say he didn't like. Just as he used to talk about other things but in the end he actually wanted something else. Conning himself or me? I guess it does matter to me, even now after months.
It made me wonder about the way the connection happens. I meet many people these days and even if I don't know how the things will turn out I can see the instant connection or a lack of it. Sometimes a conversation with a stranger becomes more meaningful than the exchanges I had with people I used to spend time with back in Madrid. That's the difference between connecting and just spending time with someone without affecting each other at all.
During the Camino, a fellow pilgrim asked me what would I change in my life and it could be only one thing. There were many changes I wanted to make but the one I decided then was the people around me, or rather the way I was relating with people, safely unconnected, keeping the important thoughts to myself.
I'm giving a thought to my friendship relationships. Some of them are very loose, because of the distance or just because the way I am, always keeping lots of space for me, or avoiding to get too close. I use to protect myself with layers, that at the end only oppressed me and made me sink.
So now I promised to show who I am and not push away people I appreciate. It's a struggle I believe is worth making the effort.


Yesterday I was showing some pics from the blog I wrote when I was in US. I realised that it was exactly 3 years ago when we said goodbye. It seems an eternity has passed, so many things have changed, other remain the same. Finally I got to the last post with Mika’s song “happy ending” in a way it’s a goodbye song for my friends there. I still feel some of them very close and I wonder how is it possible to feel so close to someone you haven’t seen in a couple of years. Instead just some messages, sometimes online conversation, but you still have so much in common or rather so much to share. Probably what we had in common was the sense of adventure and the willingness to go for it and discover that strange country. We lived together the discovery of the unfamiliar culture with so many extremes and different things mixed up together. Just like us, a mix of nationalities, faces and dreams. When I think about my friends there is no one group, it is this mixcure of origins languages and experiences. No one is like the other, they are unique in one way or another. It's good to be one of them.

a journey

My life is a journey, I can’t just define myself according to my origin country or my host country. I’m a nomad (an immigrant) and I learned to adapt to any place I lived in. When one arrives in a foreign country the whole world of differences clashes agains one’s identity. Some people find the world out of their accustomed familiarity an inhospitable environment but I just feel in my element. When I came to England and saw the strange world around me I breathed in and felt that this was my thing, not necessarily comfortable and easy but it was like the fresh air in the face. The journey implies transformation of the self. I let the differences impregnate me and I make them mine. It’s the constant creation of oneself in contact with the world around and the self is a work in progress not a stable entity defined and delimited, limited by the definition.
A pilgrimage implies the idea of transformation along the way even if your motivations on the Camino are not religious. Most of the people I met did it for many other reasons. I read a sentence I used to repeat almost every day, when the emotional luggage made the walking difficult: “A pilgrim is anyone who walks with a free soul, a light baggage,
a heart full of solidarity, but above all, the pilgrims follow spontaneously the path of their dreams”.
I decided to change my life in Valdedios, a beautiful valley with few villages and a monastery with IX century church. I walked alone that day and left behind some of the people who were taking the route through Gijon. Few days before I met a woman from Poland who was going in the opposite direction and she told me about this special place so I decided to stop there and then continue to Oviedo. It is definitely a special place, silent and peaceful. It felt as if the valley kept the beauty of the life through the centuries. Maybe the monks filled it with prayers or maybe the valley inspired them to live there. It definitely inspired me. That afternoon thousands of thoughts where storming through my mind and I knew that the experiences on Camino were shaking my assumptions and my plan for life. When I arrived there were no more beds free in the albergue. Thanks to the bed rolls some pilgrims lent me I slept comfortably after a long day’s walk. The following day the sun was filtering through the morning mist and the first part of the track was all the way uphill. When I started to walk I knew I would risk the stability I had for the search and the adventure. I started climbing the hill with light heart that morning. My soul was free and I was walking on the path of my dreams.
I left behind good and bad things, I left behind people who meant a lot, but I don’t look behind anymore. I look forward and see all the uncertain possibilities in front of me. I feel completely alive and happy.
I spent 14 years in Madrid and I became an adult there but at some point I got stuck. I used to think that I just needed to find the right place and then I would be able to settle down. These days I think I was wrong. I don’t want a place to live, I want to live the World. And there is a new project on my mind ;)

A Walk in the Clouds

Everything we do is question of faith. Every decision made, every step on the way it’s based on the believe that this is the right way to go. If you doubt every single step becomes harder.
Couple of years ago I made the worst thing one can do, not taking a decision. And then I went along the marked path, I started a life doubting now and then that it was the right one. For a long time I was unable to see what was wrong. The consequence of not being strong enough to do what I really wanted was hurting myself and the person who was next to me.

I started my pilgrimage in Irun, a town on the frontier between France and Spain. I was full of expectations and fears. It was a challenge of 840km and I was going to give it a try. The simple action of walking taught me some basic truths about life. I don’t pretend them to be universal I just saw things in my life under a different light.

At the beginning of the pilgrimage, going through the Basque Country, I got lost couple of times and I was worried about following the signs, the yellow arrows that mark Camino de Santiago. Every night I would read through the description of the following day’s track, I would try to remember the towns on the way. But sometimes you miss a sign and then for a while there are no more signs and you don’t know if you are on the right track. Every step might be leading you in wrong direction and you don’t know if to go back or continue.
For the first few weeks I was worried about getting lost but little by little, I found out that no map was better than the directions local people could give and my own build in GPS, as a priest I met in Guemes called it. The build in GPS is a mix of orientation and intuition, together with the certainty that there is no fixed path you are supposed to take. So if you get somewhere else than where you were supposed to get that is because it is your way to go. I started to use my GPS when I stopped worrying about things like where I was going to eat or sleep at night. Simple and difficult to do, but it made my pilgrimage a walk in the clouds. I believed.

My life was full of yellow arrows, things I was supposed to do and achieve. And in spite of my rebel nature I kept following them. I had a good job, I had a stable relationship, a nice place to live and a car. But was it really my way? Sometimes the signs on the Camino, where guiding the pilgrims along the roads while there where alternative paths along the coast. Sometimes few more kilometers made a wonderful walk along the cliffs. My life in Madrid was like walking on the right road but on one that was hurting my feed. So why did I follow it? Only because it was supposed to be the right thing to do? Or because I was too scared to risk, to worried about loosing comfort and security?

In the last few months I felt I grew up years. I let the earth disappear under my feet and I opened my wings and started a real flight. No matter what have happened I met the challenge and accepted the risks. I put an end to my “safe” life in Madrid, and I started this adventure... It didn’t turn out to be what I wanted but it is more than what I expected. I keep my faith and keep walking in the clouds, this time seeing more clearly than ever. Thanks to all of you who have been part of it, pilgrims and friends.

Changes happen

The present moment is the result of what have happened since last summer, eight months ago. That means that telling about now implies going back to my personal roller-coaster journey from Madrid to Santiago de Compostela, back to Madrid, briefly to Alicante and to UK. I passed through many places but the most important changes didn’t take place in the geographical space, but in the personal, where everything happened at the velocity of light and shook me all the way out of the lethargy I was living in. I won’t begin at the beginning of the journey, I will just go back and forth in order to talk about what is relevant to the Present. Because, one of the lessons I’ve learnt is that live happens now, not in the past, not in the future. I can feel it right now and I feel real happiness. It has nothing to do with my live being perfect, all the contrary, it’s an authentic mess.

I’m sitting in the kitchen with the view to the hill filled with terrace houses of different colours, just as one I live in now. It’s a blue house on the top of a hill, near the city center. There is something in this city that makes it different from the other places I’ve been to. This place is full of energy and liveliness, with people of all possible kinds but without going to extremes of American freakiness... well maybe there is a big amount of strangeness in the British culture as well. The light is different here, it’s brighter, it’s changing all the time turning the city into a kaleidoscope of urban shapes, colours and natural elements. The light plays games on the buildings, turns the colour of the sea from after storm lead gray to blue of all shades or dirty greenish. The afternoon sun on the real pure spring green of the trees and the walls of St Peter’s Church. It’s the city of light. Here things just happen. People keep walking the streets, the lanes where you can have a look at the second hand vintage shops, cafes that close before seven and pubs open till late.

For me it’s the land of Merlin and fairy tales and here I’m living my own fairytale that started when I fell in love. Then it turned into a nightmare of a broken dream, just to let me discover what was actually meaningful in live. And I know I needed it to overcome my fears. So here I am with my wings wide opened, the wind in my face and courage to be who I am...just to be happy ...
I'm in peace.