San Sebastian, Spain
As I write, I sit on the stone porch of the Cathedral of San Sebastian, a world that seems a million miles from the small towns and countryside of the French “Chemin”. This place is brimming with life, and I have not seen so many children at play in ages. Paloma, a little 5 year old, just made friends with me, asking me all kinds of important questions, like:”What are the names of your mama and papa?…Oh, Cecilia is just like my tia Cecilia!”.
It is a nice balance to a difficult morning. Once I got onto the train in Bordeaux, I entered into that strange anonymity and invincible strangerhood that so many of us westerners impose on ourselves when we travel: minimal eye contact, conversation, or engagement with the other, as if none of us exists to the others. It reinforced my sense of leaving not just France, but a whole world of pilgrims and hospitaliers and cheery “Bonjour, monsieur’s!” and “Bon courage’s”. I especially felt alienated from the non-alienation of the pilgrim life as my train slowly nudged its way across the Spanish frontier and into Irun. As I looked at the dismal train station I almost felt like asking the Lord to send one of his angels to grab me by the hair and drop me back into Saint-Ferme, so I could be again a pilgrim as before.
I caught the much smaller train into nearby San Sebastian, and found myself walking into a beautiful city, filled with life.
I was feeling hungry, so I stopped at a sidewalk café, but got restless about finding a place to stay for the night as I sat there waiting to be waited on for a half hour or so. Feeling still quite “culture shocked” inside, I got up, walked down a street, any street, saw a sign for a pension and headed for it. As I limped along the street, a girl on a bicycle overtook me, looked over, and with a big smile, called out to me:”Buen Camino”, the universal pilgrim greeting along the Spanish Camino to Compostela. It unfroze me, and I became a pilgrim again...and a human being again. It was a new day from then on.
The folks at the pension, just across the street from the Cathedral, were happy to take me in.
After a fine little “Menu del dia” in a café down the street, I walked, (still slowly) to the city beach, and decided to give my plantar fascitis a touch of surf and sand therapy.I don’t know if my walk on the beach helped or not, but it felt very good, and the sound of the waves breaking only a meter away (and sometimes right under me), was restorative, and healing of mind and heart, if not of foot.
So now I await evening Mass in the Cathedral, then I’ll have a bite to eat, then to bed.
I have no idea right now what I will do tomorrow, but feel fine about that now. We’ll just wait and see..
