I’m an adventurer, thrill seeker, and life enthusiast with a shorter life expectancy than your mother’s cat - Follow my never-ending journey.
Pilgrim Tales - is a series of posts on my journey along The Way of St. James. An 800 kilometre trek across the North of Spain. Read about the adventure, the mishaps, and the strange yet inspiring characters I met along the way.
The Camino isn’t cakewalk.
You’re thirsty, sweaty, and chased by swarms of flies. You battle hills, blisters, and an aching body. Nights are filled with squeaky bunkbeds, chainsaw snorers, and bedbug attacks. On top of that you have to dodge sunburn, dehydration, and used toilet tissue wads that wander the trail like tumbleweed.
Then I met Inge, a 67 year old woman from the United States, who wasn’t just walking the Camino, but was also looking for a cure for her cancer.
I was speechless.
She had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2001, battled the decease through surgery and chemotherapy, and eventually managed to stave it off by changing her diet.
A decade later, in 2010, three new growths were discovered in her pelvis, lung, and neck.
This time she decided to skip chemotherapy and instead carry her sick body to Santiago de Compostela in hope of healing. Her son, Cameron— a writer and life coach— walked with her for support.
I was curious how Inge, being 67, with a cancer ridden body, was able to push herself day after day. Over the past few weeks I had seen many pilgrims bite the dust, but Inge— despite her weakened body— kept moving forward.
When I asked she said:
“It’s simple. You are not your body.”
She explained— in not so few sentences— that the words you attach to your experience become your experience. The moment you use words like; I’m devastated, or I’m crushed, you’re going to feel very differently than if you say; I’m a bit disappointed.
Her body felt the pain with every step she took, but by saying she was not her body; she distanced herself from it, and by doing so she changed her experience.
Unfortunately, at the time I wrote it off as semantics and pseudo science.
It would take another few years of travel, and meeting many more unusual characters, before I would develop the openness to really see the value in what she had shared.
I wished Inge and Cameron Buen Camino, and continued on my journey.
Sadly, years later, I looked her up, and learnt that Inge passed away at age 70, almost three years after she reached Santiago de Compostela.