Inspired Journeys by Brian Bouldrey

Author:Brian Bouldrey [Bouldrey, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780299309480
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Published: 2016-10-12T04:00:00+00:00

Buen Camino

Sharman Apt Russell

It feels like the screws are coming loose,” my friend April said. She and I were on the Camino de Santiago in northwestern Spain, walking a pleasant ten miles a day for the last twelve days, with fifty miles more to go before reaching the tomb of Saint James in Santiago de Compostela. Behind us, my husband, Peter, murmured with April’s husband, Merritt, about Carlos V of the Holy Roman Empire, reputed in 1520 to have visited the church we had just visited. We were passing thickets of yellow gorse and purple heather, passing fields of white-flowering broom, accompanied by the high-pitched click-click-click of a bird—a stonechat, the sound of stones clicking together. We were following the sign of a scallop shell posted and painted and imprinted in cement to mark the road, the way of Saint James, the shell the apostle used in his posthumous miracles (saving princes from drowning, removing goiters from knights), the shape of an open hand from which good works flow, a symbol that pilgrims on this route have worn or followed for over a thousand years. We were walking through eucalyptus, oak, fern, cities, vineyards, in rain and sun. “Buen camino,” we said to other pilgrims. A ritual greeting. “Buen camino,” they answered back.

Nine months earlier, a surgeon had made two small cuts in April’s thigh, removed arthritic bone and cartilage from her sixty-two-year-old hip joint, and replaced the head of the femur and socket with new parts made of titanium and polyethylene. These artificial parts had a porous surface that allowed remaining bone to grow into them. Only one screw was actually used.

“Maybe I should take a bus,” April said, “just to Palas de Rei.”

But taking a bus just to Palas de Rei would mean that in the climactic moment of reaching the end of the pilgrim’s route, after pausing to stare at the great Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, after waiting in line up the winding staircase in the Pilgrims’ Office, when ceremonially questioned by some official of the scallop, the way, the open hand, “Did you ever take a taxi? Did you ever take a bus?” she would have to say yes. And so would not be eligible to receive the compostela, a certificate of completion issued only to pilgrims who had walked at least the last sixty-two miles (one hundred kilometers).

Taking a bus might also suggest that the metal and plastic in April’s new hip were loosening, which causes pain, and which might mean that she needed “a revision,” a replacement for the replacement. This surgery would be more complicated than the original with the outcome generally not as good.

“Look!” My husband spoke with some reverence as we turned a corner and saw yet another small café. The plastic chairs and colored umbrellas over outside tables were another sign of the camino: the promise of food and drink, la limonada or una cerveza, every few miles. We were not, after all, in a hurry. We had pledged

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