Reunited and It Feels So Good

Guess who Kevin ran into in the city of Ponferrada this morning? Susan and Nancy, the dynamic sixty-year-old duo! Tonight we expanded our dinner to 19, including Susan and Nancy (who brought delicious almond and coconut cookies), Bradley, Adam, and Matthias. Eggs, chorizo, roasted peppers and onions and tomatoes, cooked potatoes, bread and butter, oranges, and ketchup! We caught up about what had happened while we were apart, shared good moments and scary moments, and laughed, laughed, laughed.

The Camino is strange beast: Families form as fast as they crumble. You may spend days walking with someone, share your story and secrets and dreams, and one day fall a few kilometers behind to get lunch and never see him again. Such intense intimacy, vulnerability, and then such stark loss -- that is the way of the Camino. Most people travel alone or in pairs, and everyone seems impressed that our group of fourteen has lasted this long without splitting up. And yes, there have been moments when we start splintering, when it looks like we can't stay in the same albergue, when some people want to end the day in the same city as new friends while others want to walk a shorter distance, when injury or exhaustion or even loneliness, amidst the camaraderie and the bustle, threaten to tear us apart. But some strength surges through us at the last moment, in the form of compassion or compromise or tears, and holds us fast. We walk onward, westward, towards Santiago, towards ourselves and toward each other.