The Camino de Santiago

I don't quite know when I decided I want to walk the Camino de Santiago--a 500 mile pilgrimage trail from Saint Jean de Pied in France to the Santiago de Compestela Cathedral in Spain--but I would assume that at least the germ of the desire began during my Sophomore year at O-State when I wrote a paper on how the pilgrimage kept Spain European during the 700 year Moorish occupation of Spain. Quite a long time for an idea to germinate if you ask me. But I guess the full blown desire to walk the route has been with me for about 7 years now. I don't know when I will be able to fullfill the desire--there are some complicated praticalities involved such as bills, job, cat care, etc. I would need at least 30 days to do the walk and probably at least 5 days to travel and recover. Let's just go with the sufficient amount of time bibicle number of 40 days. That is not an easy amount of time to just take off from my everday life. If I get a different job, then I could do the pilgrimage between the two jobs--but then timing is a factor there since the route crosses the Pyranees and much of it is at higher elevations winter includes ice and snow. I have no desire to walk 20-30 miles a day in the freezing cold. Part of me wonders why I want to walk 20-30 miles a day in any weather but I think that it best not to explore that. If I ever get on the route, I will have ample time explore this train of thought. So in the mean time let's just say that I want to do it suffice.

This month, I have chosen The Camino by Shirley Macclaine as the selection. I wanted to do a Camino book, but I was unsure about Shirely. I hadn't read any of her books, but the reputation alone made me wonder if my book club people would respond to her. But we only had enough copies of The Camino for a book club so I opted for this title. Last week, I started the book and right away I began to question my choice when on her first day the Angel Ariel gives her advice. Trippy. And it continues to get trippier and trippier all the way to the end. But my real complaint is that about 65% of the book is about the visions she has on the trail, 10% is about get accosted by photographers, leaving only about 25% of the book about the trail itself. So I felt really short changed. I decided I would approach next month's book club slightly differently, rather than read one book and discuss it, I would order what ever copies of other books about the Camino and we could discuss the topic and how it was broached in each of the books.