Day 7: From Villadesuso to Rendondela - seems right to have the body and mind entangled on Corpus Christi

 If you told me you walked from Villadesuso to Rendondela, I would scold you. I would tell you to slow down, walk fewer km, and let your soul catch up. I wouldn’t be disappointed but worried. I would wonder what was happening within that you would need to walk so far in one day. 

This is what I did on Sunday. I finished the day and didn’t feel accomplished but ashamed. There is no good reason to walk 60 km and 70+K steps in one day. This is easily 2.5 days worth of walking. I keep wondering, a few days later, What happened on Sunday?

I went on my way, and the rain began. I took a short bathroom break at a fancy hotel and asked two pilgrims exiting to provide a cup of coffee and a croissant from their bountiful breakfast. They obliged. This is the closest I have come to a character in a Victor Hugo story. I continued on my way along the coast as the rain pelted my body. I have rain gear but the weather was so brutal, I didn’t want to stop to retrieve it. I put the cover on my bag and kept walking.

When I arrived to Nigran I took a break and finally gathered my rain gear. It was so cold and wet. I found an exceptional little stop, and the waiter was a saint. He walked the Camino with his dog in 2019, and had a tattoo of the shell and a puppy. I do not imagine walking the Camino with Molly (or getting a tattoo - not that I am against it), but his story and ink made me miss her. I ate a Spanish version of eggs Benedict and two cups of coffee. Then I scowled my face and re-entered the rain.

Nigran was 22km from my starting point, and Vigo was just up ahead another 22 km. The stop was a halfway point, but even that was too far to walk without another break. 

The 22 km from Nigran to Vigo were miserable. I walked and never took a break. I wish I could blame it on the rain as Milli Vanilli did, but the rain was a gift compared to the terror occurring in my mind. Somehow I became transfixed on several moments over the past years and began cycling through the terror and paranoia of what could have happened.  To be fair, this was a continuation of the day prior. These are classically called “intrusive thoughts.” My thinking bordered on fear of betrayal and worry of abandonment and the need for belonging. If you know the enneagram, you will recognize these fears as central to the enneagram 8 (the rarest enneagram energy in the population. I thank God it is rare, not because I feel special, but because there are already enough 8s in the world #MyEnneagramEnergyIsForSale(

Instead of having my rosary to pray, which was my sanity in 2018, I just let the thoughts run wild. But they were less wild and more coherent than I liked. The thoughts made sense, and I was terrified they were real and not simply thoughts. I began asking myself if I was in the plot imagination of The Beautiful Mind or if I was seeing a reality I had never before considered. (Side note: In 2018, I wrote a blog post about each and every enneagram energy except E5. I wondered if this was my E5 day, albeit the less resourceful side of E5.) The intrusive and obsessive spinning was exhausting, and I wondered if this was the result of stress from the past year of moving, Madeline’s surgery, and a new job. As I consider the practice and study of leadership, I wonder about myself and others - is this what leading in times of stress looks like? If so, how do leaders discover reality amidst the mind’s capacity to entertain intrusive thinking?

I arrived to Vigo at 4pm, and the mind was still unsettling. Vigo is an industrial and exhausting town. The gray and rain didn’t help. This would become my longest day at 44 km, and I was committed to ending in Vigo. Several kilometers later, I found myself on the far-edge of Vigo. The time had disappeared as I walked in the rain. I was ignoring the coast and the city. I permitted my mind to take over. I was glowingly annoyed by both the sea and the city. 

I wanted out of Vigo, but the next town was 13 or 14 km away. I knew that was too far, so I considered taking the train to Redondela. It did not depart until 6:30pm, and that would mean two hours of sitting in the train station. I decided I could make it by walking. I left Vigo and immediately turned uphill. The elevation went from sea level to not-sea-level in no time.  The first 50 km were a fight between my body and mind; the body knew it would win, but needed to wrestle the last km to quiet the mind. 

It was Sunday as I climbed from Vigo to Redondela. I could hear the celebration of Corpus Christi in the neighboring towns, and worried I would arrive too late to find either food or a place to stay. I finally began descending the mountain into the city and was helped by two pilgrims who were late for their reservation to Redondela. They were an older sibling pair from Porto. He called and secured a reservation for me at a quaint hostel - Albergue Rototunda. Thankfully I had a bed, and was hopeful to find food. 

I arrived in Redondela after 13 hours of walking. I had no sense of pride but mostly shame for walking 2.5 days of my itinerary in one day. I showered and washed my clothes. I finally mustered the energy to find dinner. The town had just finished their celebration of Corpus Christi, and the restaurants were open for Spanish supper. I ate onion squid. Look it up - it was delightful. 

I went to bed and wondered how the body and mind would collaborate in the morning. Seems like a fitting end for Corpus Christi.