Saint Jean Pied-de-Port, France, February 27
It’s an early, 5 AM wake-up in the dorm. Somehow, this room that looked bright and airy yesterday, with a lovely view of the mountains, feels like a thick-stone-walled dungeon in the darkness. It’s filled with metal bunks, now creaking exceptionally, as pilgrims begin to rouse and start packing out. I’m not entirely certain that I've slept at all, between the sounds of this snoring, coughing, restless band of hikers. (My first surprise when I arrived at the hostel in town yesterday was the sheer number of travelers, as my main intent for choosing a winter Camino was to avoid the crowds.) Sleep is something I was anxious about with this trip. I’m a bad/light sleeper on a good day in my own bed with Benadryl and Ibuprofen for my shoulder issues. At some point during the night, I had a couple of thoughts about sleep related to pilgrim-life: 1) Sleep is a gift, not an expectation. I’ll be grateful for every bit that I get. 2) Eventually, I’ll get tired enough that I’ll sleep through anything. Who knows, but maybe it’ll be a cure that I can take home? Lastly, I made a little pact with myself: if I don’t sleep at all on any given night along the way, I’ll splurge and get a private room the next night. Somehow, the combination of those thoughts and ideas made it possible to lie awake for hours without anxiety, an unusual feat for me. Not that there weren’t moments, at least of significant annoyance/frustration, but overall, I was surprisingly relaxed and taking in the whole of the experience that is likely a sample of a normal/average night in a municipal hostel.
Apparently, there’s a good majority that are eager to start (it’s day one for all of us, after all, and the energy, anxiety, and excitement are palpable), even though it’ll still be dark for hours (sunrise isn’t until at least 7:30 AM). Not me. I’m in no rush. I preplanned a short day to ease into this new life on the road. I roll over and wait, listening to zippers opening and closing, the rustling of sleeping bag packing, the crinkling of plastic bags, all amidst the erratic glare of headlamps, realizing this is my initiation to a normal day on the road. One of…? I don’t have an end date or return trip planned, just a destination. I’ll take however long it takes, but I’m walking to Santiago, Spain (official endpoint), then on to the coast at Finisterre, nearly 600 miles from here.
It takes most of two hours for the dorm to finally quiet, and only then do I finally realize that I’m now wide awake, but “trapped.” (I can’t be that person that waits for silence to make my noisy pack-out exit, not when a few are still trying to sleep.) Ah, already so much I didn’t know or think through! I compromise and slip out without packing. Now that I’m fully alert, I know that I don’t want to miss the sunrise from the top of the citadel across the street.
I stop at the kitchen for coffee, meet some of my fellows. One person is stalling, waiting for “breakfast,” which was advertised as included in our stay. I break it to him, based on what I was told at check-in, that we already got it: the awful coffee we’re all sipping on (or make-your-own tea). That’s breakfast here on day one, and good luck to us all. I climb the stairs to the fortress, take in the sunrise while stretching, and try to begin to process the enormity of what lies ahead. Why am I here? What do I even want or hope to achieve? Perhaps most of all, what lies ahead?
I pack out of the dorm just shy of the 8:30 checkout deadline. I thought that was quite early last evening, especially after learning that I couldn't find dinner in town much before 8 pm, but I’m the last one out. Maybe I’m stalling, but I walk 50 feet in the wrong direction to where the road runs through the city wall. The first shell marker lies embedded in the cobblestone street. (This is the official traditional start of the French Camino, so where else would I begin?)
I sit on a bench outside the city wall, lean my pack against it. This pack is all I have for the months ahead. Hopefully, it contains everything I need, and nothing I don’t. All 16 pounds of it (that I agonized over and tried to shave to 15). I pause and pull out my journal. I’m bound and determined to capture this experience, not for anyone else (I’ve been off social and don’t intend to change that anytime soon), this one is for me: alone. I write, if only for the sake of fully taking it in and making sense of it all somehow.
Finally, already sleep-deprived and bleary-eyed, I set out on this quest. (And yes, very likely a private room for me in Valcarlos, Spain tonight!)
And so it begins.
A walk down the steep, cobbled street of this charming start-point town.
The Pyrenees Mountains loom large straight ahead on my course. How will I ever traverse those?
It’s day 1 and I’m off.
One [fragile] foot in front of the other.
Only a literal million steps to go.
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