Poor wayfaring stranger

Thirty years  ago I took a trip…

Well, let me go back a bit to explain.

In May of the summer between my junior and senior years in college, my mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She’d been acting, well, not like herself for some months—she was fearful, which was the antithesis of her normal self. And for the first time she’d let more than a year go by between annual exams.

A lifelong smoker, she’d been afraid the verdict would be emphysema, but instead it was so much worse.

Diagnosed in May, dead by December.

During her final hospitalization (which we all knew would indeed be final), my sisters, father and I took turns staying with her. Since I was going to school 30 miles away, I’d drive there on a Monday, stay two nights, return to take the night shift on Wednesday, out to Claremont on Thursday and then back that night. I also took Sunday night, so Monday morning, when my sister relieved me, I headed out to school again.

On Saturday, 2 December, I turned in two papers for different classes to the library, where they would be read and critiqued by classmates. On Sunday, Mom died. On Monday I defended one paper and on Tuesday I defended the other.

And then, from the 5th on until the beginning of February I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what I did, where I went, who I saw. (And, you understand, I didn’t have any recollection even in February of what I’d done for the previous two months.) I had my final semester of classes to take, a thesis to write; and basically I just soldiered on putting one foot in front of the other, without really knowing what was going on around me.

Around March, I happened to be in a church with a chapel devoted to Saint Francis. Francis always struck me as being a standup guy. For one thing, ya just gotta love a guy who tweaks the nose of Pope Innocent III. And then there’s the recognition of animals as something more than just creatures to be exploited by humans. Even his mysticism is something I can get my head around. With Francis, pretty much what you see is what you get.

So I, feeling pretty haggard on all fronts, made a vow to Saint Francis: get me through to graduation and I’ll go on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela.

Well, blow me if I didn’t make it to May—even graduating Phi Beta Kappa. Go figure.

But then, as is my wont, I embarked on a campaign of equivocation. I mean—I’d just graduated, I had to find a job, I had to get my life in gear, didn’t I?

Well, let me just say that you shouldn’t mess with a saint. Nothing in my life was going right. Couldn’t find a job—wasn’t even sure what I wanted a job to be; so I worked temporary gigs. The men in my life…well, ’nuff said.

And then, in October, I was eating dinner at the Hungry Tiger with a friend, whining about how I couldn’t seem to organize my way out of a paper bag, and I didn’t even go on pilgrimage and now it was too late and blah, blah, blah.

He just looked at me and said, “Well, you’re not doing anything right now that you can’t leave and come back to later. Why don’t you just go?”

Oh. Right.

So, within about a week, I’d put my stuff in storage (thanks, Leilah and Colleen for helping; we’ll all never forget the sight of the two of you whizzing down the hall with my black fake leather sofa-bed, laughing like lunatics), prepped my Motobécane, emptied my savings account (I didn’t have a credit card) and bought my ticket on the Laker Airways Skytrain.

It was an extraordinary, for me, journey. Wonderful things happened all along the way. People offered help in a multitude of ways. And it turns out you meet the most interesting folks when you’re riding a bike. (At least in France; not so much in the north of Spain.)

If you’ve been following my musings in this blog, you know that this past year has been rough on me. So, along about August I thought I’d like to replicate at least part of that trip, see if I can reconnect with that brave and hopeful young woman who was open to all sorts of things. Who persevered when her knees were damaged (her own fault, as it turns out) and when it was chucking it down rain (I learned that after a certain point you can’t get any wetter than you already are, so you might as well keep pedaling)—even climbing through Roncevaux, in the Pyrénees (on the advice of Colleen, sofa shover and medievalist, I kept a sharp eye out for my baggage train, to avoid that whole Roland thing).

I delayed this trip twice due to work issues (and when I advised my manager that I was taking it the last two weeks in November, she actually asked, “You wouldn’t consider December?”), but now I’m ready to head out.

Thursday I’ll be on Air France flight 309, Seattle to Paris. I’ll pick up a rental car and start my abbreviated pilgrimage. (No, I’m not riding a bike and no, I’m not staying in youth hostels.) First stop: Chartres.

I’ll be referencing my journal of 1979 as I make my way along the Route de Saint Jacques de Compostelle. And I’ll be posting every day as I progress.

I invite you to come along with me—in a vicarious sort of way. And have a good thought or two that I achieve my goal.