Resigning from the “Bad Daughters Club” presidency
In search for the “terrenos” (land) that my dad fought every single member of his family about.
Foncebadon to Ponferrada
Waking up in Foncebadon I am reminded of the elevation I just climbed to get there (almost 2000 feet). The peregrinos are walking past the hostel up the mountain behind the village en route to their next destination, I am to follow. My bones and joints seemingly doing ok, the crazy part of this journey has been the muscle fatigue. It is unlike anything that I have ever put my body through so I guess it is to be expected that my body is doing things I have never experienced. The aches are not of those gym sessions that leave you with toilet trust falls, at least not yet I should say. I tend to run on little to no sleep and I forsee this as a problem, especially coupling with the fact that the food offerings in the morning restaurants only sell stale bread or a potato and egg Spanish “tortilla”. Since we’re getting all my weird quirks in this process, why not tell you all. I hate scrambled eggs but I love a good quiche. scrambled eggs must have ketchup, yes, like a 5 year old. But we are in a country who has some serious beef with condiments. At least on the Camino, the looks you get when you ask for salsa… I wish I was wearing my gopro each time I ask. Like I was growing a unicorn horn, or better yet, as if I had a cactus pad stapled to my forehead.
I stretch my legs, hips and back as much as I can, or at least as much as I have patience for. Feeling the need to move before my brain catches up with my muscles and realizes what I am about to put it through, again. I go around picking up my hand washed undergarments from the radiator and the shower towel rod that is heated (favorite EU bathroom feature), fold my Pancho back into it’s tiny bag after having deploy it on my way up. As I fold it I have a flash memory come in from the day before. As I saw the foncebadon sign it’s like something opened the flood gates on my face and I couldn’t breathe from the overwhelming sadness, the sprinkling was holding out but was still nagging at me to hurry. Then, as if in a blink of an eye, the moment I stepped into the hostel to check in the sky opened up and torrential down pour started to fall all over the mountain. The things we like to tell ourselves to comfort us are interesting. Since I felt like I was going back and forth with my dad on the way up I thought, he held the rain up for me. Humans are so self centered haha. Maybe divine timing? don’t roll your eyes at me! It was bloody hard going up that damn mountain and did you forget the dead bird!? let me have this one.
Spending a few minutes to analyze the upcoming journey to Ponferrada, as you can see in the diagram up top. There is a bit of an initial climb up to a key point, the Iron Cross or La Cruz de Ferro (Hierro), the highest point on the Camino Frances or the French trail, 1500 meters above sea level (4921 ft). Before the first of many knee crucible’s on the camino. Descents are a real test of mental and knee strength, especially when it’s not JUST down slope. It is down, over razor sharp rocks, wet terrain and chilly weather. People have asked if there was any training prior to starting the camino. Honestly, absolutely zero. Unless you count the fact that when I work I stand for 12-14 hours at a time.
As I turned the bend I saw the iron cross, on a mound of rocks with petitions from peregrinos all over the monument. pictures, notes, rocks (which is what is best to leave). The history of the mound has several origins, the fact that I did know was that I was to take a rock and leave it with a petition. As a group the night before we talked about the personal labels that get put on us in life that we no longer wanted to carry. “difficult”, “bossy”, “bad daughter” and on and on. I wrote my father a letter and a letter to little Claudette. I am worthy of love, I am destined for happiness. As I was leaving the mound I got a text on my family thread, my mom had just underwent a biopsy on her thyroid, her text read, “They took fluid and tissue from my thyroid to rule out ugly things”… and a picture with a post natal maxi pad (ladies IYKYK) on her neck. This is the same woman who texted to see if I was “busy” after she had a hysterectomy and didn’t tell us. So I walked around the base of the mound until I found a new rock. A perfectly smooth surface rock and I wrote on it, I asked for whoever is listening, watching, to keep an eye on her. They say hope can topple nations, so if placing that rock there did anything, it gave me peace and hope. Nancy has many good things and years ahead, she will be turning 70 as I walk to Santiago de Compostela too.
Remember the hobbit I mentioned on a prior post? As you leave the cross, you start to descend into Manjarin, a templar hostel ran by Tomás “Oso” Martinez. The outside of the place looks crazy, in the most whimsical and feral sense. I felt like a kid running into the Lost Boys encampment in Neverland, or Beauty and The Beast’s Belle’s father’s workshop. The giant red templar cross leads you into the Tibetan flags and the smoke coming out of the chimney is a signal that the kettle is on. It was my second day on the camino and the magic of its angels and characters was starting to show. As if the veil was slowly falling now that I have paid my dues in tears and sweat. At least the first of many veils I would come to know and experience. Have you ever been around someone who makes you revert to being a kid and seeing a superhero? That’s the sensation I had meeting “Oso”. At this point in my journey however I am still unsure of what the protocol is and how high I allow my freak flag to fly. I form a line to have him stamp my passport and see the line behind me growing rapidly and it scares me off. The impression of living so free and emitting such a light however will stay with me for a long time.
As I continued to trekking to Ponferrada and navigating the increasingly difficult terrain. My feet, not knowing to trust even me with each step. The jagged rocks rolling my ankles if I don’t get my poles down for assistance. I am so grateful for deciding to purchase and use those poles! My heel blisters are getting worse and worse, they had begun to grow as I reached Foncebadon but the pizza helped me forget about them. I can feel my skin filling up with fluid and I am starting to dread removing my socks. Everywhere you read, vaseline! Rub that shit all over your soul! But more importantly, your feet! I did as prescribed the first day but after seeing my feet still get thrashed I ditched the plan on slipping around in my socks with lube and raw dogged it. I figure, the blisters are already happening, I know how to triage my heels. After 23 years in kitchens and breaking in kitchen shoes the wrong way, you develop a system.
Molinaseca is the next town that met us with water stations and food, 223km from Santiago left. Like the day before, I am not hungry in the day. It is cold and I am so incredibly uncomfortable that I rather grind my teeth and get to my hotel as soon as possible than potentially not being able to stand back up from a restaurant chair after eating another f%*{%|^]*] Spanish “tortilla”. One of the other women who is in the group that I am there with catches up to me. As if we were each other’s balancing scale, I helped push us when she needed it and she helped me stand still to notice shit. Literally, there were butterflies everywhere and one in particular was sitting on a pile of cow shit. I stopped and took a picture of it and laughed to myself at the juxtaposition of those two things. Like a metaphor for life, you can be the most beautiful butterfly but sometimes you land on a pile of shit and get stuck until you get unstuck or something more poetic, you get what I mean. Needless to say I identified hard to that beautiful little butterfly.
As the road and the trail become parallel, I hear people and turn the corner and see the most glorious plastic table with the reddest watermelon I have ever seen. It looked fake and in the middle of nowhere. My imagination spiraled for a second and thought of every movie that lured people to eat something somewhere sketchy and it didn’t end well. But then I see the woman behind the table, Lucía, giving refills of the most neon, pulp laden orange juice from a tupperware pitcher. I thought, shapeshifters surely don’t have Tópper?! (What Mexicans call any plastic food containers). As she hears our accents she immediately starts gushing about Mexico and how much she loves us. As I hand her 2 euros for my watermelon slice and juice she starts to sing in a beautiful big voice, “Mexico Lindo y Querido” and I lose it. I drink my juice as fast as possible to not make it weird, explaining my rawness is still not easy for me. So I turn and take a giant bite of my watermelon and my stomach and entire body thanks me for some nutrients. Eating makes me giddy, I start skipping and swinging my arms. Food man, it has saved me in so many ways.
Walking with another person next to me and talking with me about life & our journey is something that I begin to notice has me distracted enough to not think about the shadows that I am there to make friends with. The other side of me desperately wants to connect and belong and the two sides, as they have my entire life battle it out. Today I forge ahead, appreciating the company. Lending an ear and being a girlfriend that maybe she needs. Service to others is after all one of my biggest love languages, p.s. you can have them all bring you happiness, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
After Molinaseca the hills seem to be smaller and the flatter landscape is easier to navigate on my bones. My hip is still holding on, aching but not seizing. I’m still feeling the high of Tomás and Lucía (and butterflies) and do what I do best when I feel uncomfortable, make jokes. If you are Mexican or have Mexican friends, I bet you have heard the term “terrenos” (land or property) and I can bet my entire shoe collection that your family has fought or speculated on where they are and who has a claim to them. Spoiler, there is no land and there is no unclaimed crown waiting in Spain for us, but I did say out loud in case he [my dad] was listening, “¡perdón Apa, seguimos buscando los terrenos que nos chingaron!” (sorry pops, the search for the land we got screwed on continues!) my friend laughing as if we were to escaped asylum patients. After another bridge crossing we are met with the most Metal 🤘🏽 castle, few things are cooler to me than gothic architecture and a sculpture of a Templar on the corner. The sight of these men can be alarming to a person who is familiar with the south and its oldest hate group. The pointy hat and draped dress cloth trigger something uncomfortable for me, as does the red iron cross if I am completely honest. As a border kid during the 80’s and 90’s the general consensus was that we were not wanted, nor any other ethnicity other than white Americans. “Beaner” and “wetback” were regularly hurled at us in our school or in the apartment complex once we migrated from Tijuana. Seeing the templar shook that scar to the surface and a feeling of dread and back in the mental cave I went.
Reaching the hotel felt so good and at the same time my body was starving. I don’t suggest ever doing what I did and prioritize arriving at an earlier hour to avoid the hard sun or bland food. I proceeded to fall onto my bed and I stared at the ceiling before reaching for my journal. In it was the lavender that I had plucked and the feather that had crossed my path and the couple of stones that caught my eye for being beautiful, in case I need to leave them like the Cruz de Ferro. I started to shake and let out a heavy breath in between tears. The grief wave crashed against me and my beat body with the might of the angriest storm waves crashing against a bluff.
My father’s departure is a part of that grief, but even bigger part is the weight of how I found out that he was “gone”. He had been bouncing around Mexico for some time, the last time that I saw him in person was in 2016 when he begged me to take him to the store to buy alcohol because he needed it for his health. My kids were uncomfortable and I called my mom to pick him up. From then on, he would move around from Nayarit to Mexico City to Guadalajara to Tijuana on one or two occasions. More on the how on a later post.
If you or anyone you know has any history of addiction or poor mental health in your bloodline, I hope you allow yourself some time and space to go through the work that it takes to understand those individuals or even yourself. Onto Villafranca Del Bierzo.
X-Clau