A600AASS Day 4 - Léon
17.10.22
Rest day
The thunder rolls above the clouds, sounding like a fireworks show mounted for the gods above.
Every now and then, elegant lighting arcs across the sky, briefly overpowering the lamps that illuminate the cathedral.
By the time I get back to the hotel, insistent rain will have turned to hail, crashing through our open window. I’ll mop the floor of the room with a hand towel, scooching up little balls of ice so they become a pile of rough-cut diamonds in the corner.
I arrived late last night, strung out after a day on the road. Chris was ready to sleep hours before I arrived and neither of us were ready for a four-week reunion. It was too much, too soon. I left the hotel to find beer and space.
When one parter has some kind of awakening, it can be disorienting for the other. The sense of calm or possibility or new perspective can be so at odds with the person you thought you knew only a brief while ago. The stories can be so alien that it’s like suffering culture shock within the confines of the culture you should know best. We’ve gone through a few cycles of this and it gets easier with time, but it’s no less startling when you realise it’s happened again.
Sleep brought us in sync.
For me, the city has too many distractions, too much sensual and intellectual stimulation. I become isolated from my Self amongst the shops, the museums and churches… It is in the solitude of the camino that I seem to reach some altered state and find a deep peace.
Chris has been carrying A Pilgrim’s Guide to The Camino de Santiago by John Brierly. Given that it’s a guide to a pilgrimage, I’m not sure why I was surprised when Chris read out this reflection, but it spoke to a deep longing to be free of my insistent relationship with the city, not just now, but in to the future.
I say to people that I partly grew up in the country. In reality, that’s a bit of a stretch. From 1987 and for about 20 years, my parents owned a 2500 acre sheep farm 6 hours from Sydney. It was a remnant of an escape plan that was scuppered by a recession and a retreat to the known known of my father’s business.
For years, we would drive up on Friday night and do various jobs about the place until mid afternoon Sunday. Then we’d drive home. I never stayed there for more than three or four weeks at a time. But something about the deep quiet of the Australian bush seeped in to my bones and the older I get, the more insistent its seeping in to my soul.
So this evening, as I wandered around Léon, I again tried to square the circle that increasingly preoccupies me. How do I balance my need for stimulation, for cultural dislocation, and the kind of intense, human research I enjoy, and the deep need to be, if not alone, then at peace, far away from cities, and far away from people?