Camino, the road that takes you home Those who survived the moment of death state that all their lives, like a film, was being shown to them within a few seconds. The essence, the clue , the message gets clear immediately. However, you do not have more time than these last few seconds, obviously too late for anyting. I was rewarded 40 days by fate to see the film of my life from the beginning to that point. Still just in time. As if some kind of light had unexpectedly been switched on in the dark. I was able to see the clue and I even had time to stay with certain moments , which, in the past, I had never considered essential ones. I went on a pilgrimige and it turned out to be a painful penitence. All this for a sin I did not even realize I had ever committed.When at Cruz de Ferro I was putting down the stone I had brought with me from home, I begged and prayed that God, in the ultimate moments of truth when all the former deeds of my life are put on a scale, should judge that the plate containing my good deeds weighed heavier. San Juan de Ortega… I deeply knew I would have to go right into it, not just passing through like in the case of many other villges. This place, even before seeing it, seemed as important to me as Santiago de Compostella to other pilgrims. I could not explain why. However, when I caught sight of the first bedbug at the dormitory of the shelter, I immediately began to prepare myself to leave. I knew there was another village six kilometres away, another albergue and I could reach it within a couple of hours. At this moment a young Japanese boy sat up from his bed. – Are you leaving? – he asked. We met again the following day. He had somehow caught up with me. When I saw him he was just taking photographs of a sheepfold. He, the buddist pilgrim was photographing a dog resting innocently and piecefully amidst the sheep of God. It obviously imagined being a sheep itself. I was touched by this image. He noticed my presence and from this morning on we were walking together. He told me about Japan, his family and also mentioned that a few weeks before he had visited Budapest. While in Europe, surprisingly, he had not gone to Vienna or Paris he skipped Rome and London and Venice but he did go to Budapest. – Why? – I asked. – I just felt Budapest should mean something special to me, I could not help visiting it – but I still am not able to explain the reason - he replied. Then, as he said, from Budapest he had gone to Paris. There he walked aimlessly five hours in the rain when he caught sight of a bus with a sign „Barcelona” on it . He got on. Sitting on board, somebody told him about El Camino. We never met in Budapest but we got to San Juan de Ortega at exactly the same time. From this point on wherever I stepped, Kaito was around. We grew close and though I could be his mother by age, I felt that he was growing more and more attracted to my body as well. One evening we put up at San Bol. In the middle of an endless plain the albergue was the only single building. The Cuban couple who owned the shelter was not too happy as there were altogether four tourists int he large, two-story house. As there was plenty of vacancy they offered us a room with a double bed upstairs. - Why do you say no? - Kaito was hissing to me – when he heard my definite refusal. – I could be your mother -, I said laughingly. He made a very strange grimace. Firmly got hold of my shoulders, he almost shook them and said: You COULD be, yes. But you are not. Then he turned his back to me and went out to the garden. It was evening I saw him again . I did not understand his emotions , how could I have thought that he was phrasing the words of a drama. After some days, however, I grew impatient to him. This boy had got too close to me, and though I was deeply interested in whatever he said, I felt he was distracting me from the camino. While with him, I did not talk to anyone else, the other pilgrims just all outwalked me.On the other hand , though we had walked together only for a few days, I liked Taiki a lot. The camino can be very intense, sometimes every single second counts many times more, so it seemed as if we had been together for long months on the road of Saint James. Still, I was afraid that, unless I make him separate from me, I would miss a lot of important things on my camino.– He will have to break off me ! Yes I put it like this : I want him to get detached! It took us days before we were able to separate. I saw he was sad and though he said he understood what I was saying, he did not seem to be able to continue his way without me. Right after we finally said good bye in Calzadilla de los Condes, my foot began to hurt . While putting down my regular daily notes, I realized I was using the phrase „, detach” again: Kaito ultimately got detached today.” Suddenly I felt very very said as there was a fair chance of never seeing him again in life. It felt difficult and painful , however , I doubtlessly thought I had needed to make this decision in my own interest.. Exactly from this day on I was scarcely able to walk. It felt like I had a sore ankle though I realized there was nothing wrong with it physically. Kaito and me tended to catch up with each other practically all the time. In vain were we trying to avoid each other ,he would turn up along the road every now and then – mostly int he company of other pilgrims, boys and girls of his age. During the first few encounters, he would run flying towards me the moment he would see me. _ Mum! – he would cry out – he had called me Mum earlier while embraicing my waist like a man in love…- Mum! I realized he was missing me a lot and I had to admit myself I was missing him terribly, too. I had deeply regretted my decision, was trying to get close to him again but it seemed I failed to… Later, he began to keep distance from me, he even looked angry when we happened to meet somewhere. – I miss you – I told him once. – It was you who threw me away – he replied angrily and walked away . My foot hurt more and more and my soul grew bitter and bitter. I could not explain why but I wanted to get Kaito back. In my inner vision I would see his huge green backpack just moving off, I couldvisualize his tiny feet - like those of a child . With my mental ears I heard the story he had told me about his 140- centimeter -tall mother who ,according to Japanese culture, never kissed or embraced her sons - however much she liked them . I felt his arms around my waist, I knew he was learning how to embrace and that is why I did not tell him not to do so. Silently, I would call him little Kaito, and sometimes I realized while thinking of him I was moving my own body as if nursing a baby. I was longing to be with him , still I was scared I would have to hurt him again as we would definitely have to part when we had completed the camino. So I said to myself: let it be the way which is best for him. My feelings do not matter. And I burst out crying. My foot hurt to an extent that I felt I would not be able to complete the strech of the road leading to Burgos. I took a local bus . I got seated behind the driver and when the bus had gone off , I looked out of the window, upwards to the sky, where we imagine there is a higher intelligence and asked : What has it been good for? Why did I meet him? And then, quite unexpectedly I got the answer from above. It was not like lightening or thunder, the reply was silent. As if someone was dictating the words…
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 15:09:41 +0000
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