Homecoming
Yes. Walking the Camino is a life-changing experience for almost everyone who ventures onto the path. I stopped walking on 31 July, as per my original intention and reached St Jean Pieds du Port, the final stop on the Via Podiensis – beyond my expectations.
I must say seeing the huge mountain climbing away from this small town with a string of ant-like pilgrims weaving their way slowly to the summit and the border with Spain, I was sorely tempted to continue. My body felt toned, in gear, and for a moment I thought I might get a good night’s sleep and continue the next morning.
But my body gave me a reality check on the outskirts of the town, with perhaps a kilometre to go, where I’d stopped for a glass of water. As I stood up from the table on the pavement and stepped onto the street my hip gave way, and I collapsed in a bundle in the middle of the road!
A motorist stopped and asked if I’d like a lift into town.? Really? Thanks but no thanks. I’d walked 770 kilometres, and I was certainly going to use my own two wobbly legs to reach my final destination.
I found a very comfortable guest house for the night, and it felt amazing to have a long soaking bath and curl up in a real big bed. Early the next morning I heard the familiar clicking and clacking of poles on cobbled streets as the first group of early walkers passed my window. I sighed and rolled over!
Negotiating my re-entry into ‘normal’ existence after these 6 and a half weeks was not straightforward. Firstly, I had a different conception of ‘time’. I planned to take a small train from St Jean Pieds du Port and changing at some place to a more major train to Toulouse where I would overnight at the home of a nice woman I’d come across a couple of times on our journey and who had extended an invitation to me.
No big deal? Well. I got the first small train which departed from this station and got off at the next station where the TGV was going to pass en route to Toulouse. I sat on the platform, feeling an unfamiliar sense of pace and aware that I would need to change my body rhythms and reactions. I sat there and watched my TGV rush into the station, stop for a few minutes, and leave. I’d missed it !
I let it leave without me – just observing – and then the delayed reaction set in. A feeling of stress as I jumped the long queue of holiday travelers at the guichet where I had to negotiate a new ticket.
There was now time for a coffee and an ‘integration pause’. Clearly there has to be some kind of transition between these two different ‘tracks’, and I was stepping back onto the fast track.
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During the second half of 2012 there were two further journeys – extensions of my personal transformation.
In September, Beth and I travelled to Ireland with a large group of EarthKeepers with James Tyberron. We needed two coaches with 30 people in each. A far cry from my solitude and experience on the Camino 6 weeks prior and fairly difficult to adapt to. I found myself seeking quietude and alone-time as soon as the coach stopped anywhere.
Another highlight was the ‘Mastering Alchemy’ conference we attended in Arizona for the 12.12.12 celebration. I had started these generous online teachings with Jim Self in 2011 and had even managed to listen while on the Camino, using my newly acquired cell phone when there was internet access.
Thus 2012 concluded eventfully and satisfactorily with much under my belt. The main thing outstanding was to find a base back in Kalk Bay and get my piano to a new home after three years of storage in J’s cottage, where I had come and gone, and then gone.
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And the perfect cottage appeared. No 10 Windsor Road and by my birthday in early February 2013, my 300-year-old piano stool was waiting expectantly in the large empty ‘voorkamer’ for the Bechstein to arrive the next day. The cottage dated approximately 1900; the same vintage as my 1901 piano. It was a good fit.
Seven months after completing the Camino and acting on the insights and decisions arising from it, I was ready to settle back in Kalk Bay.
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It felt like a homecoming.
I could reconnect with my early morning swim and chanting ritual, my sunrise walks on Fish Hoek beach. Coffee at Olympia Cafe at the bottom of Windsor Road, glasses of wine with my neighbours. The street community of Windsor Road was rich with characters and colour.
I was happy. I began to feel less inclined to travel back to Switzerland, which as usual was scheduled for early April. In fact, I voiced this at least twice two days before my planned departure.
‘I’m not really ready to go… I’d like to stay longer.’
And then, that fateful Sunday night walking home alone at 11pm, I had an encounter which left me concussed, seeing beautiful stars, lying in Windsor road with a double fractured ankle and several cracked ribs, which committed me to a wheelchair for some nine weeks. And a delayed departure. Another ‘wish’ granted in mysterious ways.
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Such was the chain of events which unfolded with my Camino walk and my return as Marilyn. And my wish to stay longer before my regular visit to Switzerland had been granted.
With hindsight, I see how the Universe responds with an outcome beyond what one asks for. It was important that I stayed in Kalk Bay at that point, to get to know my new community. And being in a wheelchair really put the brakes on and allowed me to experience kindness and the generosity of my new street.
Serendipitously, I was supposed to meet my neighbor Dr Dawn Garisch for breakfast the morning after I returned from my night in hospital. She now visited me and propped up my leg. I had not had surgery, on the understanding that no weight would be put on my ankle for nine weeks. I was now under the regular scrutiny of my local GP who became a friend and offered to get me and my wheelchair to the memoir writing workshop she was running in a few weeks. And this was the impetus for beginning to write on a daily basis.
For the first week or so, there was always someone who slept over and provided a meal for me/us. I believe they created some kind of ‘roster.’ And like this, over a meal, I got to know each of my neighbours and they got to know me, surprised I think by my positive response to the drama which had put me in this situation. There was clearly no need for post-trauma counseling.
Another important outcome, particularly for someone as independent as myself, was learning to accept offers of kindness. Just saying ‘Thank You’.
We, women in particular, need to be able to receive, to say ‘Yes, please’ and ‘Thank you”.
So, overall, this was a positive experience as I slowed down, beginning to delve into the corners of my life, exploring the moments when my path had been altered, often gently and in quite subtle ways. But sometimes, as in this case, rather firmly.
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This period of my life was fecund, very creative and by the time I returned to Switzerland I was ready to breathe life into the Amani Harmonic Foundation.
The structure was in place and had been registered with the Swiss Authorities in 2011 but had not yet received tax exoneration and was rather dormant.
But now, I was ready.