TRAVEL | PHILOSOPHY | STORIES OF LIFE

Camino de Santiago and the Things I Carry

Past wounds, sporks, confetti, and generosity

Photo by author. Street art. Graffiti along Camino de Santiago, in Burgos, Spain.

At the airport security, my money belt somehow sprang open. Don’t ask me how. The woman behind me gasped as my euros spilled over the conveyer belt. I shuffled them together and put them in my pocket. My face was red with shame!

I was the big, awkward tourist woman. An old silly woman wearing a floppy rain hat, wearing the scallop shell of the Camino de Santiago around my neck. I must have looked like that weird kid at summer camp I was so many decades ago.

A magic teleporter Startrek ring, dirty white tennis shoes, and a smear of chocolate on my face. I packed around books like “Little Women” and “Pippi Longstocking.” Books that talk about the values of individuals, and contradict the cruelty of the other girls at camp.

Back then, I wore stretchy striped shorts that hung loosely, rather than the fitted black shorts of volleyball player girls. I was a certifiable nerd and felt it deeply when I was a child. I was a fat little kid. A very round peg that didn’t fit into the slender hole.

At 55, I felt it again now too, in a different way. The way of the old lady wearing the purple hat who snatches samples at the…