Let’s Pick This Up Later
Let’s Pick This Up Later
by Jennifer Elsdon | Clinton, SC
Thumbing through Brierley’s guide during the pre-flight oxygen mask demonstration, I reminded myself of my Camino’s purpose: to be no one’s safe place.
It was June 8, 2013. I had exhausted myself on the rubble of a broken marriage and spent more time in my classroom than anywhere else as avoidance.
My family, adults, young and old, were devastated by the most self-destructive, painful behaviors imaginable. Each one had a knack for carving the most intricately patterned misfortunes out of the stone trapping them, and my chisel dulled by repetitive, futile attempts to set each one of them free.
They were Michelangelo’s squirming Captives, trading a handful of hard-earned good days for an entire cemetery filled with bad ones, a cemetery whose mossy epitaphs glistened for all to read in the light of the Gulf moon, if only they had chosen to do so. No one else slowed their quickened pace to read what was written there; no one else stopped when moving on a dare through such a scary place in the dark. It was simply too much.
Wracked with worry, I knew I needed respite to keep trying.
Let’s pick this up later.
A reset. The Camino delivered.
My pilgrimage from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago was not unique but still miraculous. Like scores of others over hundreds of years, I dropped the heaviness and walked. I soon discovered that being a caregiver defined me, even away from home. Along the way, I mothered younger pilgrims who needed knees wrapped or a listening ear. I led some on a Romanesque architecture tour in Carrion de los Condes. These were not my own children or students, but temporarily reprieved I had something to offer. I was fulfilled.
“Let me carry that for you.” The words of Mark the English pilgrim, offering to add my sleeping bag to his rucksack as we walked together into Puente la Reina, lightening my literal load.
Eleven years later, kind pilgrim Mark is now my husband, and I am grateful to the ancient route that brought us together. Unencumbered, my heart had room for someone strong enough to help bear the weight of my life and those I care for.
All pilgrims should offload what they can shed physically and emotionally: heavy jackets, books, stressors, responsibilities, and pain. All pilgrims, ultimately, need to prepare for the magic that comes from extra space in the rucksack.
