Pilgrimage Course
Of the many things the Camino de Santiago gave me back in the Spring of 2019, three especially still stay with me: 999 digital photos and videos in my “El Camino” Google Photos folder, a sunspot at the base of my right thumb that looks like a speck of dust, and, most importantly, the life lesson to take and appreciate things as they are.
I find it hilarious that I was one photo shy from digitally capturing 1,000 moments in less than 3 weeks. How does one even come across that many things to record? Plus, this number doesn’t include the photos I deleted, took for other people on their cameras, and the few polaroids I snapped. Every time I look back at those 999 photos and videos, I’m immediately transported back to a time in my life that fills me with a nostalgic warmth. I feel immense pride knowing I did something physically and mentally challenging purely of my own volition. And even deeper inside, I feel a sense of yearning to do it all again so that I can capture more moments, meet more peregrinos, and earn more scars/marks to commemorate my time.
Now as a lifelong peregrino, I have a better understanding of what it means to live in the moment and take things as they are because no matter how many other things I’m charged with, the only thing I truly have to do is walk myself to the next destination life leads me to.