Half Caminos and Irony

Last Saturday was our final #caminotraining of the season. As we headed up into the hills, Christina Rosetti's poem "Up-hill" ran through my head; the rhythm matching my footfalls. It consistently comes to mind at a certain point of the trail when the switchbacks stop and it settles into a long, relentless climb:

Up-hill

Does the road wind up-hill all the way?
Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
A roof for when the slow dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
They will not keep you standing at that door.

Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
Yea, beds for all who come.

It's a pilgrimage poem short enough to remember and deep enough to encompass both my actual physical hiking and the metaphor for life and death that pilgrimage in general and hiking in particular have become for me.

We were supposed to fly to Spain today: one more coronavirus detour among the billions made by people everywhere. In spite of that particular disappointment we still wanted to celebrate the fifth anniversary (of me being alive? of us all making it through? of cancer held off? surely not the diagnosis itself) in a real and really embodied way. A pilgrimage seemed right, and still does. Instead of the full Camino Primitivo in Spain we are walking a half-camino here in the Santa Barbara area. Over the course of the time we would have been walking in Spain, we hope to walk every other day matching the mileage of that particular day on the camino. We plan for 8 days of walking and just over 100 miles. Some days will be hiking through the glorious mountains behind us, and other days we'll walk the coast: we will have walked most of the coast between Carpinteria and the Ellwood butterfly preserve by the time we are done. 

It will be a very different pilgrimage from what I had planned. We'll be doing the physical labor, yes, but will still be very much tied to the domestic and mundane--all of it while hoping for some sort of space for deep reflection and transformation. Oh the irony! When I teach my course on Christian pilgrimage, I often find myself encouraging students who are embarking on their own pilgrimages (and worrying that God won't show up in a meaningful way): "He's already there!...but we are not guaranteed mountaintop spiritual experiences." I'm grateful for how often I have already plowed that row of thinking. Being tied to the responsibilities of laundry and feeding people and tidying up feels far-off from a mountaintop-like divergence from the routine. We will be coming home every day, and of course spending the days in between at home with the children. 

Adding to the irony is that this season falls after 18 months during which I have felt the call to stay put and tend rather than build, to try to follow-through rather than envision fresh pursuits. I really enjoy coming up with new plans and how to go after them: but am not as excited about the (sometimes quite boring) day-to-day faithfulness required to see those very things through. So it is hard to contemplate the pilgrimage with all of the work and exhaustion of 16-mile days in the hills without many of the perks: the thousand-year-old churches, Spanish food and drink, and time with J away from the daily round. Hard, and also just right.

Christian pilgrims through at least the last 15 centuries have gone on pilgrimage for a variety of reasons: devotion and repentance, but also but also a longing for adventure and a break from limiting circumstances. So I find myself in good company.

As I reflected on all of these things during our hike last Saturday, I was put in mind of a poem by Eavan Boland (it was obviously poetry day on the trail):

The Necessity for Irony

On Sundays,
when the rain held off,
after lunch or later,
I would go with my twelve year old
daughter into town,
and put down the time
at junk sales, antique fairs.

There I would
lean over tables,
absorbed by
lace, wooden frames,
glass. My daughter stood
at the other end of the room,
her flame-coloured hair
obvious whenever—
which was not often—

I turned around.
I turned around.
She was gone.
Grown. No longer ready
to come with me, whenever
a dry Sunday
held out its promises
of small histories. Endings.

When I was young
I studied styles: their use
and origin. Which age
was known for which
ornament: and was always drawn
to a lyric speech, a civil tone.
But never thought
I would have the need,
as I do now, for a darker one:

Spirit of irony,
my caustic author
of the past, of memory,—

and of its pain, which returns
hurts, stings—reproach me now,
remind me
that I was in those rooms,
with my child,
with my back turned to her,
searching—oh irony!—
for beautiful things.

On this particular hike I especially meditated on the end. Here I am in beautiful Santa Barbara county. Here is an opportunity to turn around, and look. Accordingly, I think one of my "words" for this pilgrimage is a confirmation not to despise the everyday tending of life.  I have in fact been given the opportunity to walk my pilgrimage right here in the very midst of it, and starting as I have taught that pilgrimages always begin--right at my own front door.

We start walking on Saturday! 16 miles in the mountains above and coastline below Carpinteria. 👣 

H/T to TK for pointing me to EB ♡