Today we walked in the high fog and mists of the inversion layer. It was a gift to be out of the heat. We slept in until 5 and hada leisurely morning. We commenced on our pilgrimage for the day to Mission San Buenaventura just before 7am.
The mists hide the daylight. Hide the time and passing of the hours. We spoke briefly. We talked about the man we met the night before. He asked "where you packing in from?" I told him we are walking church to church. He was really asking, who are you and what are doing here. Next he gave us a warning to move on disguised in causal conversation. "There's a lot guys around here who end up in prison." "What for? Drugs?" "Yeah. Mostly. But there's violence, too." His tone was neutral but I have dealt with gangsters before. I knew this was his way of telling us, it was not safe here and we should move on.
In reviewing this conversation I thought about my run ins with gang members in my youth. They were never good.
My thoughts turned inward. My mind unearthing the past. My memory alighted on a particular violent run in of gang member initiation. A night I was lucky to escape unscathed. It was in talking it out that it was revealed in a therapeutic kind of way by my husband when he said "You didn't." I am keeping it short here but the realization of this new information was painful.
I walked like a zombie for many miles. I didn't care about the cars, or the distance we had to go, or even where we were going. I felt the deep old ache I did not know was there. My mind was tilling the soil for new growth. And it hurt.
Gerald told me I needed counseling. He talked to me about the benefits of counseling. I deflected. Avoided. Said how could it help? What good would counseling do for me? I just want to get to the mission to pray.
At Mission San Buenaventura I did pray. I read the Missal. I prayed some more. A woman putting flyers in the back of pews worked around me. She was loud and interrupting. I kneeled and resolved to ignore her. She then drops dozens of her pamphlets, scattering them underfoot and under pews. "Oh my God!" She exclaims and rushes to pick them up. She got all but one that I saw as I kneeled to make the sign of the cross to leave. I reached for it to give it to her. When I turned it over it was a pamphlet titled "The benefits of counseling."
God you are too, much sometimes.
That would be enough of s Camino lesson for the day. But God is far from done with teaching me. We lounge and rest in the Mission courtyards. Finally, we ready ourselves to go. Then a man with a heavy foreign accent that reminds me of our friend Elvis from Romania engages us in conversation. We talk to him and his wife for a while. It's a light friendly interaction. We take photos together. It turns out Mike is from Romania. He tells us "We collect memories.Not things."
We shake hands and go our separate ways.
As we are about to exit the mission I realize that we don't have our Credenciales with all our stamps from hiking the Missions. We retrace our steps. We look all over. We ask for help from others. We check trash cans. Check lost and found. Nothing. No luck. This mission does not even sell Credenciales for us to replace them. I begin to accept the loss. We leave the mission and I hear in my mind, in our new Romanian friend's voice "Collect memories. Not things."
"Really Camino?Really?" I say aloud. My husband understands immediately and says "We came to get wet." Yep. We did.
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