Bringing the Camino Home
Bringing the Camino Home
by Karin Kiser | San Diego, CA
I remember returning from my first Camino as if it were yesterday. After weeks of walking with no cell phone, no camera, and no contact with anyone back home, I took a taxi from Finisterre to the airport in Santiago. It was surreal. Whizzing by in minutes what took three days to travel on foot.
Then there was the flight home. I felt like I was trapped in a tube flying through the sky in a cramped seat surrounded by hundreds of loud talkers with freshly laundered clothes and perfectly coiffed hair. Meanwhile, I was sporting one of the two shirts I had alternated wearing over the past six weeks.
And then came my friends, family, and clients. The most common question: “What was the best part of the trip? What was the highlight?” It’s nearly impossible to summarize a pilgrimage this way.
It’s typical to feel disoriented or even a bit depressed after you get back home. Returning to your corporate job or family life can produce quite a shock. You might feel isolated or restless, even when surrounded by others. People, including family, friends, and co-workers, go about their business as usual, like nothing has happened. And that’s precisely the problem. In most cases, nothing much has happened for those back home. It’s you who has changed. Unless they have also walked the Camino, people at home cannot fully relate to your experience.
The easiest way to cope with the post-Camino blues is to keep walking. Get up early as if you were still in Spain and take a long morning walk. Allow yourself this time and space to integrate your pilgrim experience into your at-home life. Ponder how you might live more of the pilgrim way now. Perhaps now is the time to go through your closet and declutter for real. Maybe it’s time to simplify your life in other areas as well.
The Camino invites us to appreciate the beauty of a simple meal, a single task at a time, and the singular greeting of “buen camino.” We can do these things at home: acknowledge people with a smile or a hello; break our addiction to multitasking; and shop at the local farmers’ market for our meals. It’s in the small, simple moments of our daily lives where we keep the Camino spirit alive.
Editor’s note: This essay is adapted from Karin Kiser’s book After the Camino: Your Pocket Guide to Integrating the Camino de Santiago into Your Daily Life (Camino Chronicles Press, 2019). Find a review of that book in the June 2019 (page 18) La Concha. Also find a review of Kiser’s book Your Inner Camino (Camino Chronicles Press, 2019) in the Spring 2022 (page 9) La Concha.
