Camino de Santiago

Text from "Every Step is a Gift: Letters to my Children from the Camino de Santiago"

By Fritz Nordengren

January 13^th, 2022

2021 update

In 2013, I walked the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage, leaving my cameras at home to experience the walk in the moment. In 2016, I returned, cameras in tow, or rather in backpack, to capure some of the experience. The text here is from the introduction to my book: Every Step is a Gift: Letters to my children form the Camino de Santiago." The images are from 2016.

There is a photograph of a lone hiker standing at the side of a narrow road in fog and mist so thick, it looks like special effects rendered by a computer program. But the dampness on the hiker’s shirt, the slight bit of fog on his eyeglasses, and the sweat in his hair prove the mist and fog are quite real. The lighting suggests it is midday. His backpack is decorated with flag patches from more than a dozen countries. The hiker, a man in his fifties, is looking into the lens. He has a half smile, and the look in his blue eyes and on his face suggest he is not lost but rather that he is looking for something or someone.

That photograph is of me at the beginning of my pilgrimage across Spain. I would show it to you, but being honest, I’ve never seen it. It was taken by strangers, a couple from Israel who were recently married and hiking the same pilgrimage for their honeymoon. I gave them a small card with my name and an e-mail address they could use to send the photo to the photo-sharing website Flickr.com. It was one of several dozen cards I gave to strangers and new friends during my forty-day walk. The couple was resting when I met them. After the photo, we shared our goodbyes, and I walked on.

If this had been any of my other travels, I would have taken photos myself. You’ll read more about that later. Instead, I wrote a letter each day to my three children in hopes of sharing the experience of my pilgrimage across Spain with them and offering insight to life that I—as a father—might share with them.

Mentally, I had been preparing for this day for about a year. My pilgrimage is officially named the Camino de Santiago de Compostela, or the Way of Saint James. It’s often nicknamed the Way. The Camino pilgrimage is walked by believers to the cathedral where the remains, called relics, of Saint James are buried. Saint James is James the Greater, one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. There are a few different routes to Santiago, Spain, and I chose the most popular and the most traditional: the Camino Frances—the French Way. Of the two hundred thousand or so pilgrims who arrive in Santiago each year, one hundred thousand walk the Camino Frances. So while I felt as if I were walking alone, I told my children before I left that I was “walking with my hundred thousand closest friends.” However, I didn’t know any of those friends yet.

What is the Camino?

For centuries, pilgrims, authors, philosophers, and spiritual leaders have tried to define the Camino pilgrimage. What many agree on is that the pilgrimage is a metaphor for life, that the mental, physical, topographic, and spiritual adventure portrays a life. It’s a sort of experiential theater. You’ll read more about that later, too, but between the guidebook, some Internet postings, and some other travel over my life, I had a general idea of the mental rigors of being separated and in a country where I had few native language skills.

Physically, I had all I needed for the day. A CamelBak filled with water rested in my backpack. If you don’t know, it’s a water bag with a connected drinking tube. This was the first time I’d used one, and from the beginning, I liked its convenience. I had a sandwich. Not just any sandwich, but a sandwich made from a real French baguette. It was wrapped in paper and tucked in the cargo pocket of my pants. The cargo pants were old and a bit worn. They stay on a hanger at the back of my closet between long trips. I wore them first when my twin teenagers were born. Now, they fit snugly around the waist, and the pockets have tiny holes. But they have plenty of life left.

Even at the altitude, I was warm enough without a jacket, and wearing one would trap my body heat and drench me in sweat. But the cool mist had me drenched anyway. My head was putting off enough heat that it fogged my eyeglasses.

After meeting the honeymoon couple and having the photo taken, I tucked the glasses away in the other cargo pocket of my pants. Since I couldn’t truly see much, I was guiding my walk by what I heard in the distance and what I could make out when I got close to see it. I had a guidebook with a pictogram map of the route and a few landmarks noted, along with a sheet of paper with first-day directions given to me by a volunteer in the French office for pilgrims. There are two places on the route that have very specific instructions and accompanying photos. The guidebook said the high point of today’s walk would be 1,450 meters, or roughly 4,750 feet. The photos I’ve seen taken on clear days show an expansive view of Spain and France. I showed those photos to my wife before I left.

She asked, “How many days will it take you to cross the mountains?”

“That’s just the first day,” was my answer.

About the author

Who am I?

Good question. Like you, I’m a lot of things to a lot of different people, but when I wrote "Every Step..." I was the resident writer at Two Mile Ranch, which is also home to the Iowa Writer’s Retreat. I’ve been fortunate to publish two novels. I’ve also written articles and papers in my former job as a university professor. I’ve traveled a bit, and yes, I’ve had my share of life’s ups and downs.

Even living on a quiet, rural retreat in a rustic cabin by two ponds, I knew it was time for a retreat of my own. I looked at many alternatives. One was a thirty-day silent retreat hiking the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Coast Trail. I thought about biking across Iowa.

In the category of “You almost did what?,” I was a finalist, but not selected, for a simulated mission to Mars conducted on the coast of Hawaii, helping researchers learn about food, taste, and menu fatigue. Yes, it was time for a retreat, but I had not found the right one.

I had heard of pilgrimages, and specifically the Camino, but knew very little about it. Shirley MacLaine wrote about it. Pope John Paul II dressed as a pilgrim on the hill outside Santiago for World Youth Day in 1989.

I was reminded of The Way when I watched Emilio Estevez’s film of the same name. The movie, a buddy road trip story about a father mourning the loss of his son, follows four travelers on the Camino. I think it was the introduction of the Camino to many Americans. When I finished the film, I stepped out onto the deck that divides the dogtrot cabin at Two Mile and listened to the sounds in the sunset. In the moment of stillness, I knew I had to go. I had found my retreat. It called to me. As a colleague later said to me, “When you hear the Holy Spirit, you know.”

There is a line in the trailer of the film where the father, played by Martin Sheen, tells the son, played by Estevez, “Most people don’t have the luxury of just leaving it all behind.” I’m not sure you leave it all behind on the Camino; rather, you focus on what is innate and essential. Your life continues. You wake, eat, walk, meet, and learn every day. Your friend’s lives, your family’s lives, your coworker’s lives all continue. Nothing and no one is left behind.

In this modern world, however, traveling across the world for eight weeks does take planning and preparation. For me, that preparation took over a year. I had animals and livestock on the farm to finish growing out, to move, and to make arrangements for their care. I had to find the best time in both my writing and my teaching schedule to be away for two months. My decision to walk the Way and my departure were nearly fourteen months apart. In contrast, on the fourth day of my walk, I met a young Canadian. His preparation was a bit shorter: he learned about the Camino on a Monday, went to the sporting goods store to buy a pack and gear on Tuesday, and was on a transatlantic flight on Wednesday.

In short, this is two stories. In my forty days of walking, I sought each day to learn something, to find meaning in what I experienced, and to find experience in the meaning. The result is these letters to my children, one for each day of my walk. The second story is of my decision to become an adult candidate in the Catholic faith.

Before I left, the most common question I heard about my decision was, “Why are you doing this?” When I returned, the most common question was, “What was it like?”

To be honest, sharing these letters in this book is an answer to those questions. When I left, I was not Catholic, fifty-three years old, distant from each of my children, and separated from my wife. I was carrying weight that cannot be measured on a scale. My pack was twenty pounds; my burden was much more.