a pilgrim's heart
I am writing this as I wait for my bocadillo bacon con queso on my third day in Santiago, but I'm still not sure I've arrived. I cannot process the amount of emotions and happenings enfolding inside and before me.
I woke up on the morning of my last day of walking with the feeling there was an angel in the room, that God had fully healed my heart and that I was ready for Santiago. Early, before sunrise, I walked hand in hand with Anna and Sebastiana through a misty, dark forest, each of us carrying our own loves and victories within us.
I only have one thought on our arrival, the one thing it all boils down to. After weeks of walking, laughing, crying, loving, dancing and going nuts with all the people having their life crisises around me, after wanting to run away, or most of all to love but not knowing how to, I knew, as we, the five of us (out of a pilgrim family of nine or more) who have been piercing eachother's hard surfaces, somewhat painfully but resolutely, though mostly involuntarily, walked into the cathedral hand in hand, in a line, some in tears, some of us with smiles, and I knew:
I woke up on the morning of my last day of walking with the feeling there was an angel in the room, that God had fully healed my heart and that I was ready for Santiago. Early, before sunrise, I walked hand in hand with Anna and Sebastiana through a misty, dark forest, each of us carrying our own loves and victories within us.
I only have one thought on our arrival, the one thing it all boils down to. After weeks of walking, laughing, crying, loving, dancing and going nuts with all the people having their life crisises around me, after wanting to run away, or most of all to love but not knowing how to, I knew, as we, the five of us (out of a pilgrim family of nine or more) who have been piercing eachother's hard surfaces, somewhat painfully but resolutely, though mostly involuntarily, walked into the cathedral hand in hand, in a line, some in tears, some of us with smiles, and I knew:
LOVE HAS CONQUERED
Just so intense, so dramatically surreal and yet more real than anyhting else, is the life of a pilgrim.
As I placed my forehead against stone once more, this time the floor of the tomb, it was my time to cry. I suddenly knew deep in my heart that it is the small things that count. The love of dry socks and apples, an extra blanket and a hug. The ability to love these things, the simple love of dry socks, is more powerful than all the darkness in the world.
From here I fly home to Sweden. I fly from Santiago to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to my home town. I leave on the 10th of December and arrive on the 11th. And then I make new plans after Christmas...
posted by wild rose pilgrim at 3:53 AM
3 Comments:
Well done! You really made it after all this time and journey. Really proud of you.
Ahh, my dear Erikka, I miss talking to you :(
It is the small things. The 'small' manifestations of love that can turn any amount of darkness into light in an instant. You put it so well!
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