Pobaño – Islares – 24 km

Hello peoples of the world,

Many healthy cats seen today, none of which would submit to pats. Three cats seen licking a homemade casserole of ham and bread (bread not so popular among the diners.) Everything smelled of sea and freshly cut grass, except for the goat shit. We ate white rose petals.

Today I learned that ambient cow noise is not a’mooing, or even bellowing. It’s cowbell. This part of the Spanish countryside, the Northern region of Cantabria, tinkles.

As of today I understand my God a little better. I posed this question to myself a few days ago- so [regarding God] what do I believe?

When I get really tired, it’s easier to slip into a ‘trance’ state. It can be as simple as letting your eyes glaze over- but the trick is what you’re thinking about as you glaze. If I’m doing it right, maybe I’m not thinking about anything. Just feeling content.

This happened to me last August. I went camping with a friend in Colorado. Neither of us were prepared for how cold it would be in the mountains. We drove for hours to arrive at the most perfectly isolated site, last used months ago. Our campite was beautiful in a fierce way, and I’m sure there wasn’t another human being for miles. The sun went down. I began to get a bad feeling about being cold. Even in our socks and thick sweaters, we huddled around our campfire as the sun went down and we kept our minds off the cold by convincing ourselves bears were worse. Then, putting a brave face on it, we went to bed. There was nothing else to do.

We both woke up in the middle of the night so cold we had to move. I was scared. I think my friend was too. We went to his car and turned it on to warm up. A lukewarm trickle of air onto our freezing blue hands, and ten minutes later we had to turn it off for fear we’d drain the car’s battery.

There was nothing else for it. We built a fire, starting with a Cheeze-it box he had in the backseat. At first it seemed dubious we could pull off this survival task. We hadn’t gathered wood (like I said, we didn’t have much experience). So instead, we burned the huge wooden logs some adventurers before us had kindly left as campfire benches. All night we tended that fire.

Obviously we boh survived, but it was a long might. Before dawn I entered into that trancelike state. I stared into the fire and I was happy we were cold. I was content with the fire and the chance to see the sunrise. To build the fire together and sit together, even though we didn’t say much of anything. I called it a state of grace. That’s how I recognized it. It happened again on the Camino today. Staring out into the oceans waves, an impossible amount of water, I began seeing double, then waves moving through each other at the center of my vision. Eventually, they looked like the single wave on the cover of the Arctic Monkeys album AM.

Then I began to understand the sea a little bit more, how the sea likes to have rocks jutting out, so it can rush over the rocks and submerge them, playing with the submerged rock and then going away, and then coming back, like a game, playing. Like a kid, or a dog.

Then we visited a famous church in Asunción and I began to understand God a little better. Think of it like this. You live in a community, and everyone in your community has a tiny house or maybe just a bed in the house or maybe just a shared bed and a cup of soup in the house or maybe you have no house at all. Pretty much nobody has a big house. Then many people in your community gets together to build, maintain, and gather at a huge stone flower on a hill where you can see the ocean. You sing. That’s church.

You need a name for what brings you together, and that’s God. God is what brings us, communities, together.

That’s how my feelings are today. Maybe a bit naive and romantic, but we’ll see. It was a good day. I enjoyed the brief apperance of God and I enjoyed the many languages games we played. I’d like to write about that tomorrow.

I’m not Catholic anymore, but I guess I did come on the Camino to seek God, in my own way.