October is over and, with it, the tenth anniversary of our Spanish pilgrimage. Over the past month, The Spouse and I have told stories, sat with old words, written plenty of new ones, and been fed by those remembered days. So it felt utterly fitting to celebrate the end with a feast.
I hit the market and had a chat with the butcher there about good stock bones. He talked me into a ham hock and a beef marrow bone, so we had some pretty amazing stock for our Caldo Gallego. It’s a rich beany, cabbage soup from the northwest of Spain – the kind of thing warms you right through no matter how rain-drenched or weary you are. Then came the lamb chops, which were just beautiful, and we mopped up the juices with plenty of thick brown bread. Then dessert was Tarta de Santiago – a rich almond tart covered with snowy icing sugar and the shape of Santiago cross. All gorgeous food. The recipes came from Jenny Chandler’s first book, The Food of Northern Spain – if you can get your hands on a copy, do. Everyone at your table will thank you.
Our kids caught our spirit of celebration, and helped with the preparations while we listened to Oliver Schroer`s Camino. It turned into one of those beautiful meals when the table is peace-filled and everyone wants to linger. With stories, symbols and good, rich food, it was a beautiful way to end the month.
But that none of that is the road. It was a good celebration but, of course, it wasn’t the experience itself. To steal words from the Spouse, it was on that pilgrimage that we walked into a new way of experiencing life. How do you share that without actually walking?
We do hope to walk at least a portion of the Camino with our children someday. It is likely that we are now closer to that someday than we are to our first pilgrimage. There’s a strange thought. But there is still plenty of growing and training to do before we’d all be ready to spend the days in our boots. In the meantime, we’ve been telling stories and trying to convey something of our experience to the kids without being ham-fisted or deadeningly didactic. Because, of course, we want them to find their own way on the walk.
I wonder if the disciples had this feeling, too. Because, they too, had walked into a new life. They even called themselves followers of The Way. And as they spread the word about what they had seen and who they had met and come to follow, they told stories. They used symbols. They celebrated around the table with food. And they, too, knew that none of that was the road they had known. The road is beyond the telling, even with the best of feasts.
But they also knew that there was an intersection. Stories of the road might just be the place where the walking began and encounter with Christ might happen anywhere. Paul taught them that, with his own strange road story. And Peter, too, along with Mary, though they might have seen things differently. Silas and Timothy and Lydia. And the more stories the disciples told and the more meals they celebrated with others, the more encounter stories they, too, heard and experienced. This, too, is why we need to let the story unfold. This, too, is why we need to tell our stories.
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You can read the Spouse’s reflections on our pilgrimage at An Earth Without Grammar. And he’s sharing some Camino photos, too.
