Dispatches Del Camino

My morning began at 7:12 a.m. My eyes opened beneath a quilt-work of eye boogers. My head, still on its pillow.

My eyes first caught the sight of a rosary, lying on my nightstand. The rosary was given to me by a nun, a few villages back. The rosary bears a hieroglyphic-like symbol on it. I have no idea what this symbol means.

The first thing I heard upon arising was a choir of human noise. This is the Camino de Santiago. The symphony of morning sounds within a Camino hostel or albergue is a concert of shuffling, thumping, squealing, thrumming, ticking, flopping, and multiple conversations, simultaneously taking place, in 7,000 international languages.

A soprano section of backpack zippers. A tenor section of rubber soles, squeaking like the boys’ basketball team on a gymnasium floor. A bass section of bodily orifices, clearing themselves in the form of nose blowing, throat purging, sniffing, spitting, sneezing, coughing, grunting, moaning, and of course, explosive flatulence.

I spent the morning fiddling. I was sitting in bed. Icing both legs. Playing my fiddle with a mute attached to the bridge. My wife was still sleeping. Her tan is deeper brown than most pilgrims. Her unspoken Creek ancestry is showing.

Medical professionals recommended two days' rest for my wife’s idiot husband inasmuch as his calves look like water balloons. I told my wife to keep walking the Camino without me. I would catch up eventually—even if I had to take a bus.

She told me to, quote, “Go to hell.” Unquote.

So we have become fixtures in Rabanal Del Camino, a town with barely enough residents to form a baseball team.

Each morning, the village empties itself of pilgrims, and the cobbled streets are empty and there is nothing to do but fiddle.

This is my second day here. If there is a more tranquil place this side of heaven, I don’t want to know about it.

Across the street is a Benedictine monastery. It is the only place open in town, save for a café and a mercado which is about the size of a guest bathroom.

So, after fiddling, I got dressed and crossed the desolate street. The church is small, with ancient fresco colors on its 12th century arches. I sat in the pew, in penultimate silence. And I prayed.

I have been praying a lot since we began the Camino. Truthfully, I didn’t expect to do much praying out here. In fact, I didn’t expect much of anything.

Looking back, I suppose what I actually thought the Camino was, was a really long, amazing, restorative hike. I thought we’d see Spain at eye level, eat tortas for breakfast, beer for lunch, wolfing down heaps of carbs for supper. I thought we’d enjoy the spiritual company of pilgrims, and deeply enrich the quality of our iPhone photo collection.

But it hasn’t been this way at all.

The Camino is not a hike. The Camino is a living thing. It has a mind, a personality, and even a will. I can’t explain this. I realize I sound like a complete nutcake.

But it’s almost as if the Camino sees you, knows you’re on it, feels your soles treading its dirt. And as long as you’re connected to the Camino, in some way, it owns you. Out here the Camino controls the elements of your daily life. What you will eat. Where you will sleep. Who you will meet, and why. What you will see, and whether it will have meaning.

The Camino plans your education, ordains your catastrophes, and orchestrates each lesson you must learn along the way. And it does all this with the same seemingly impassive love a mother bluebird uses to nudge its babies from the nest.

So anyway, I prayed in the church of San Salvador del Monte Irago for nearly an hour. Whereupon I opened my eyes and found I was still sitting in solitary confinement. Only a few flickering candles lit the ancient domed, stone room.

That’s when I noticed a symbol emblazoned on the altar candles.

It is the same symbol on my rosary. I’ve been seeing this symbol everywhere lately. In small churches. In little nooks. The symbol is never in your face like a crucifix, a Mary statue, or the Nike Corporation logo. This symbol is often hiding, tucked away, painted upon something almost out of view.

I can’t remember when I started noticing this symbol on the Camino. But now I see it all the time. Yesterday, I caught myself drawing the symbol on a bar napkin. I even saw this symbol in one of my dreams last night. Again, I realize all this sounds very woo-woo. And well, maybe it is.

The symbol looks like this: ☧.

After my prayer, I found one of the monks in his office. He was an older man. Cropped hair. Black robe. He was busy making bracelets.

“Excuse me,” I asked. “What is this symbol?” I drew the symbol in the air.

He smiled.

The monk’s accent was thickly German. “This is the Chi-Rho.”

“What is the Chi-Rho?”

“It is ancient Greek.”

“How ancient?”

“The very first Christians invented this symbol.”

“What does it mean?”

Another smile. It was the kind of smile that originates not on the face. “It is mankind’s oldest way of writing ‘Christ.’ Why do you ask?”

No reason.