Day 11 - My Own Pace

May 11th - Day 11

For Robin’s 30th we headed to Shuswap Lake and rented a house boat for 4 days.  He had just purchased a remote control boat that went 50 mph and he wanted to play.  I was thrilled to be in a place where I could just be in or on the water all day and night.  The house boat slept 11 people but we just wanted to be alone together.....well... we weren’t really alone, we had a 3 ft, very loud and very fast remote control boat with us.  Robin was obsessed, he played with it from the time the sun came up, till the time the sun went down.  I complained as Robin never went swimming with me.  If he wasn’t playing with his boat he was working on it and making adjustments so it could perform better.  If I wanted to spend time with him I had to take pictures of his boat in action.  

Finally after I complained, quite enough, he went into the water and swam around with me for about 5 minutes, until a man in a power boat came along and said, “Was that your remote control boat?”  Well Robin was delighted he swam back to the boat, invited the man aboard, showed him the boat and then gave him a demo.  I brought 2 magazines and a book with me, I read them all and even read all the ads in the magazine.  This is not what I imagined this vacation to be like at all.  After 3 days I phoned up some of our friends and invited them aboard.  I had enough of quality time with Robin or should I say his boat!!

Robin just after he opened up his new boat

Our house boat on the Shuswap.  I even got stuck driving as Robin played :(

Santo Domingo to Belorado - 22.9 km

The nuns didnʼt open the doors until 6:00 am so it feels like a late start. The sun starts to come up at 6:30 so it feels like I am starting at noon. I am really enjoying my time in the darkness watching everything come to life before my eyes. In the darkness I miss out on some of the sights but I think I gain more in my solitude. It is really hot day today so it is always good to start early to miss some of the heat.

I also need to start early as everyone is so much faster then I am and everyone passes me on the trail. I wonder if I would get beds so easily if I started later, I donʼt think so. I can enjoy my slow pace and not feel like it is a race for a bed, as everyone tells me, this is what they hate about the Camino. I donʼt feel this pressure as I always get to places at a reasonable time due to my early start.

I enjoy my brief conversations with people. The other pilgrims chatter is nice breaks from the perpetual dialogue that roams in my own head. I wish there was some way for me to move past this perpetual sadness I feel with every step. But as I said the little conversations help. Mary quickly passes as she is a very fast walker, she will be staying at the parish when she arrives at our next destination, there are only 24 beds so the chances of me getting a bed walking at my speed is slim as I may not get in there in time.  We agree to meet at the parish to boil some eggs for our snacks for the next day. I walk with my head up today and see the amazing view. We are along a highway at some points, many pilgrims complain but as it is so hot I enjoy the swish of wind that the semi-trucks generate as they drive past. A nice relief from the heat.  

Entering the next town I get out my book to find the directions to the parish, I hope there is still room, but just as I am looking Petra comes up behind me and says that Christian walked ahead and is at a private albergue and there is space there. This group of German speaking people all have phones so they can communicate with each other when they get separated. I follow Petra and there is just enough room for me. The nice thing about being with other people is they share a washing machine and then hang the cloths dry. The fresh smell of my clothes coming out of the washer makes me feel so clean and fresh.

There is a quaint little courtyard that we sit and talk in while we are waiting for the wash to be put on the line. The family from Vancouver is here and some other familiar faces. As soon as the laundry is done I will head out to find Mary but then I didnʼt need to as she finds me. Mary, Petra, Christian and I go explore and end up in the square. It feels nice to be sitting with these people and making friends. Maryʼs foot is sore and she is going to have to stay here for one day and maybe take a bus ahead.

Again I feel the ache of separation, I was building a relationship with Mary and now she is not moving on but we say that surely we will bump into each other again. Her foot will get repaired and she will continue on. We get each others contact information so we can stay in touch when we get home. I am happy that Christian and Petra are still here. We head back for a siesta before the pilgrims mass.

Even though I donʼt have a time piece, in Spain it doesnʼt really matter as there is always a church in town that chimes on the hour. At 5 chimes I get up to write in my journal before going to mass at 6 chimes. Christian gets up at the same time, as we enter the courtyard he bluntly asks, “You cry today?” That is the nice thing about not knowing someones language and the hard thing. There is no beating around the bush, things are direct and to the point and sometimes hit me hard. “Yes” I reply. I wish I didnʼt cry everyday. I am getting really tired of crying.

I am thankful for these people around me, Petra and Christian make me laugh and it feels so good to laugh. I said to Petra, there is no in between with Christian either he is making me laugh or he is making me cry. We canʼt have a conversation as we donʼt know each others language enough. But I guess I need to cry and I need to laugh.  It feels nice that through the good byes to everyone else they remain.  

My own pace

It's easier for people to walk at their own pace then someone else's pace.  It is important to walk at your own pace in life and not slow down or speed up to stay with anyone no matter how important they are to you.  It is important to create and lead your own life within the life you spend with other people.  Even though I loved being with and spending time with Robin I had my own dreams that involved him 100% and other activities at different degrees of involvement.

Fortunately I had planned on walking the Camino before Robin died. My friend Sam and I were going to walk together but she had to have an operation on her ankle so there was no way she could do it this year. As we planned and talked about the journey we could see what the finish would be like; we would enter Santiago with Robin there to great us, applauding a job well done. We said he would have gotten there early and met everyone in town, we were confident he would have found all the best places to go eat and drink upon our arrival. We would have been surrounded with his new found friends, because this is what it was like to live with Robin, he was a magnet of people, especially interesting ones.

Now I have no one meeting me at the end. There was no future for me to look forward to. Not just at the end of the Camino but there after. When I had planned on meeting Robin at the end, every step I took would be getting me closer to him. Now in contrast every step I take I am going further and further away from Robin. He is becoming a distant memory and each step feels so painful as I walk away from my past into a nothingness of my future. I can not see any future for myself. Robin was my future. Why  couldnʼt he have stayed alive? Why did he have to die? Why canʼt I just get this out of my head and think of something else....anything else.

I feel so frustrated when people would tell me how hard it was for them to loose Robin.  I felt my pain was so much more intense then theirs.  My life had been totally altered.  The future I had imagined for myself was completely false and has vanished.  I feel like I have no future at all, my future is invisible.  People would tell me, I was not the only one that had lost something...they had lost something too.  Well yes they had.  I was not denying that, but they go on with their lives exactly the way they had the day before.  My life had totally changed forever.  I was not the person to be complaining to.  Robin’s mom, as well, had just lost her only son, she was not the person to be complaining to.  Everyone else lost a person.  There were only a select few people whose lives were completely off track because he died.  

So when some people tried to walk the same pace as me, it hurt me, it scared me, when I tried to walk their pace emotionally it hurt them, it scared them.  We had to walk and recover at our own pace in our own time, definitely without each other.  Just as it is hard to see Mary stay behind or Bianca and Diana gone home on the Camino, they are at their pace and I am at my pace. 

Now when I look back on Robin's and my life together, even the times when we were together, we were still doing our own things.  I had learned through our experiences together to do the things that entertained me because the things that entertained him weren't always something I found interesting.  Most of the time I was walking or swimming or reading or writing or taking photos or weaving or spinning or doing some sort of craft and he was shooting or doing metal work or playing with his remote control vehicles or throwing knives or working on cars.  We did completely our own things but we did them beside each other.  Even though we had two totally different paths they were beside each other all the time.  I find myself walking this new path alone and it feels very foreign, in all ways a thing could feel foreign.