You need to keep going and, dare I be so brave as to say, you need to take responsibility for yourself. At 61, this is now your time to shine. To own your own mistakes, your shameful moments as well as those little glorious memories you've garnished, you've glossed, you've greatly embellished. Oh... yes, did I mention sleeping on the maternity room floor while Jackie screamed "No more" before Caitlin was born, or even Deadbeat, over time, these memories have been transformed.
Today, as I start week 12, I liken this part of the journey to the meseta, Burgos to Leon, because this is the more meditative part of the Camino Frances. It is part reflection, mostly recognition. It properly ignores the chronological order you might do the Camino in, unless you bus the Meseta first time and go back after Santiago to see what you missed.
If I look back to the beginning the analogy works for me as the start of any journey is in the pubs in the months before.
You've long since talked about doing the Camino, like when you randomly start the conversation that there's a lump in your neck. When the doc phoned and says "the cancer is real, here's your letter for the scan", well to me it is so like when you book your flights to Biarritz. It's clearly happening now you have cancer, you will be treated. You have a flight, yes, you're walking into the unknown.
When you get your scan it's like being in a long metal container, yes, a Ryanair flight. They are expensive equipment, scanners and planes but they don't have much elbow room. Both are taking you on joyous journeys but you've no idea what rabbit you're releasing out of your hat.
Next up is the tonsils as both them and your teeth are wheeked out. The treatment plan, yes the mask preparation, another scan, it's all crazy. It all happens so quickly you feel like you've spent more time floating above yourself watching it, like a voyeuristic looking while another part of your split personality has it happen.
You've done some of the hard stuff getting to St Gien pied du Porte. Who knew that by crossing the Pyrenees that by the time you reach Pamplona your body is prepared. The Camino Can'cerre is so aligned like the stars you follow on the Camino Frances.
The next stage of the Camino Frances is like the treatment phase on the Camino Can'cerre. You lump along to Logroño laughing one minute while complaining the next, how tough the Pyrenees was. You discuss with your new best friends how many aches and pilgrim pains you have. You all reach Logroño, have a pilgrim party in the tapas bars of Calle Laurel. You wonder why you signed up for this, while all the time knowing this is what you needed, physically, spiritually and emotionally. The end of week one on both the Camino Can'cerre and Camino Frances are beautiful. You encounter so many perfect people, who consider themselves normal yet all you see is their absolute perfection.
Next day the only thing you feel is your head. Your legs are on auto pilot and that's how I felt after week one chemo and radiotherapy. Week 2 was autopilot for sure. Get used to this, eat, eat, treat, repeat.
Some days it would be Sleep eat, sleep, eat, sleep, treat, sleep, repeat. It was as this blog diary demonstrates a busy repetitive cycle and like the journey from Logroño to Burgos it becomes your pace of life.
Pilgrims, like the water flowing through Rioja, all moving together with regular bumps, always moving in a single natural direction, together. The odd fish moves upstream, we just all flow with nature, aided by the vino tinto, the red Rioja.
As you approach Navarette you see a town on a hill. It looks magnificent and you stop to take photos. You don't appreciate the descent into the valley until you're out of breath climbing back up again. You've wandered through stage 3 of the wine production phase as the pickers pick the purple grapes. You've nicked a few and eaten them like you'd bite an apple. Like me going for ice cream every day to Cafe Gallo. I've got to eat more to keep my weight on, I'd laugh. Who knew the Camino Can'cerre could give me so much joy. Treat upon treat after every treatment.
After a while I couldn't taste it was a treat but my head knew it was, so of course I said, "two scoops please", one would seem so slimming and this is all about maintaining weight, right?
As you travel through Rioja reaching Najera then Azofra, you arrive at a large 4 storey albergue with no dorms, just twin room dorms. You get allocated the next bed and it's single sex floors until the stragglers arrive and the last floors fill. I felt that way whenever I had an overnight stay at the Western, it was always great basic accomodation.
From Azofra you travel to Santo Domingo de las Calzadas and on to Belorado. I love the stretch after to Villaranca des Montes des Oca. Like week 2 and 3 on the Camino Can'cerre this is a fantastic rolling party. Some days feel so much easier than you were expecting. You realise you've been prepared better than you had thought. The NHS professionals have done a fantastic number on you. Add it to your family, friends, background research, intuitive nonsense and general living, you're feeling great. You climb the mountains, pass monuments to the 36-39 war, you reach St Juan de Ortega, you can stay there, at Ages, Atapuerca or do another hill and arrive at the peerless Santa Fe in Cardenuela Rio Pico before Burgos.
I need to stop for a moment and plug one of my favourite Albergues on the Camino. It has ensuite double rooms, twins, also, 5 and 6 bed, dorms. It's been my favourite since 2013 when I kicked the ball across the Camino. The wee laddie, son of the hopitalero Miriam, was probably aged 8 at the time and so insisted I play football not bask in the sunshine with my beer. That day we had so much fun passing a ball back and forth across a the lawn and patio. Simple pleasures of miscontrolling a ball with boots on, kicking the table with your beer glass, never mind kicking it into the Rio Pico and watching it float downstream. The communal pilgrims meal was superb, I had taken the double room, my sleep was divine. I would recall this moment later on when I was given one of the ensuite rooms reserved for the younger people with cancer at the Western. It was one of the rooms funded by the Teenage Cancer trust, a fantastic charity I'm always happy donating to. When I was admitted and there was no room on the ward I was given this room.
It made me feel like I'd just paid €70 on the Camino treating myself to a little bit of luxury.
You wake up with a wonderful feeling. You go forward with a jaunty little step on your journey. On the Camino Frances that's a nice easy flat walk into Burgos for another night of tapas in several of the bars, not least Jackie's favourite restaurant. On the Camino Can'cerre it's towards the end of week 4 when the treatment starts to rack up.
In comparing the two caminos I'd say this is when you take a stumble in Burgos and twist your ankle. On the Camino Can'cerre week 5 sees the radiotherapy start to really bite and you have another overnight with the chemo. This was the night I stayed in the Teenage Cancer trust room with my fluid drip in all night. It was a great night but it was the start of the toughest and unknown to me the roughest part. Looking back now it's definitely something you can be prepared for in your head but still not ready for it.
I won't bore you all again with the tales of weeks 5-8 as they are the tough ones and now I'm at week 12. My taste buds are returning while my weight is being maintained. I've never been under 100kg since my smoking habit went into remission along with the smoking ban. My love of the Camino has stopped me getting too obese, but I've rarely dipped below 110kg since 2006 except that glorious first Camino in 2007 when my waist went from 43" to 34".
Today though I'm puzzling like you do on the Camino or often after it, about what just happened. You try to relive moments along those physical, spiritual and humbling navel gazing experiences to understand what just happened. You know you achieved something you didn't think possible but it not particularly tangible so there's an element of ticking a box to say done it, whilst also saying how good you felt doing what at times felt brutal. Exestentialists would probably articulate better than I how that grotesque painting of Guernica is so beautiful in all it's brutality or maybe not.
I do feel when I look back at moments on the Portuguese way when we stopped in Porto, how crossing a bridge with my vertigo was so nerve jangling and yet now I've had a free 6 week training course with a mask on receiving radiotherapy.
I remember climbing the curvy bridge in Ourense when we did a section of the winter route from Ponferrade. I got so far before my legs went and I had to retreat.
I knew looking up was bad enough, but now as a consequence of the Camino Can'cerre I've improved.
More details to follow later but I'll post this now and add the rest later.
I just realised that I've never mentioned the rabbit hole that I'd just disappeared down owing to a podcast. Alison Moyet has always made me chuckle at how superbly articulate she and her lyrics are. There's the thing about what pub conversation do you want to be invited into and the answer is the one where she is talking ten to the dozen. She's so full of wisdom, articulate and humble beyond belief. She has no obvious filter and happily lets rip in any direction but mostly in relation to her experiences. There was a stack of observations I loved but the one when in her solo career the record company just wanted more of the same please as she wanted to develop her range had me rolling in the aisles had I been in a supermarket.
I may be paraphrasing but she said I didn't realise I'd planted a flag and now I had to dance around it. That phrase will love a whole with me and was my experience of the A & R community in London during Deadbeat days. I remember taking the tape down and one guy saying we're looking for this sound as he played me the latest chart #1. I said yeah, Ive seen TOTP and there are a few bands like that I've seen in Scotland. In my world they're yesterday's sound. I was horrified but then I realised as it was on my bus back to Edinburgh that this was a money making racket not an Artistic and radical movement. It was unashamedly about making money that kept these boys and expense budgets in place.
My naivety in thinking this was about giving a leg up, producing a platform for performers to make the world a better place was wholly misplaced. The last thing I would encourage was going a deal with these people. The main thing would be to get a trustworthy manager to help you navigate it.
Slowly, I lost interest in this aspect of life although being a Hibs supporter we persevered with putting the fanzine out, it just seemed to slowly grind to a halt. Something about the foundation feeling like a castle built on sand to borrow from The Only Ones remains springing to mind. With hindsight I do wonder whether they wanted the album out or whether some greedy greasy record company guiser saw an opportunity to milk one last drop out of the classic band.
Alison Moyet is such good value and her newest stuff is straight out of the same influences as Bowie had when doing his Low album to these ears. Her you tube channel had me down that rabbit hole for ages. I also had to relisten to "invisible" to understand why she wouldn't sing it anymore. Wow, it really was so derivative and must've been during that going around the flag again period. She had some great early solo stuff and I liked the Yazoo days but I hadn't heard this song for a long long time. It's not quite the birdie song but it's one I'd certainly keep buried when you have so many more worthwhile songs from the past and present.
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