cultural exchange

Tiznit: this old gentleman rode by on his donkey, i said bonjour to him. he stopped and asked ce va? i said bon! he reached out his hand and i shock it..he asked in french if i was american.... i said yes, surprised he had guessed right, he too was surprised that he was right. he asked, (i think), if america was a good country? i nodded yes, but let him know i did not really speak french...he asked if i spoke american...i said oui, he said 'very well' and checked to see if he had said it right, i nodded yes and smiled...then we wished each other a good day and he rode off....both pleased with our little cultural exchange (nothing extraodinary; but i love these little moments)

my thanks giving....

So, it's been over three months now since i finished the walking part of my pilgrimage.... but it was not finished with me...My body had just started it's recovery process and it would take months to feel 'normal' again....
in France while staying with my friend, i walked in the country side with her... only to return in renewed pain from these walks, at first I tried to be stoic but the fear of my bodie's fragility started making me fret..... my left Achilles tendon hurt a lot...the balls of my feet were always tendor, one of my heels felt like it had a dreaded bone spur...i was switching between now useless hiking boots which where already so thin for months, that i could feel even small gravel through them...and sandals which had questionable traction on steep hills...never mind the lack of ankel support and that i could not wear socks with them because of their design. i learned cold feet hurt more.

We left my friend's family home in the country and returned to the small city of Reims where her apartment was... i had over two weeks of very little walking...and yet the short walk into downtown every eve, and back...would start with me limping stiffly...for a short while, i would loosen up for half hour or so...but then with even short periods of resting, the stiffness and limping would return... i felt i would never really recover from the Camino... at first i did not want to admit it even to myself...but i was scared... in France cars drive more aggressively than i am used to and at intersections one has to yield to them or get out of the way quickly..... i did not have the agility to react quickly.... and would have anxiety explosions in my gut as i got out of the way just in time..
ironically, the whole while i was chatting my friend up, about the benefits of walking the Camino and how she should start in from her home in France, and wasn't she lucky to live in an area that was part of the French Camino.. she seemed dubious for some reason, and gave me an expensive and rare miracle cream that someone had gone through great trouble to provide her. The cream, by the way, did seem to help, i would put it on at night before going to bed, the pain in my tendon was gone in the morning...only to return by evening, even on days with little walking...
once in Tunisia, i still limped a lot but there was more agility returning in my movements..and often i could walk for half hour without pain before it would start up again...A possitive sign, my foot padding became slowly less tendor...much to my relief.
but even with the little walking i did in the sahara on soft warm forgiving sand..on my second day,i had a moment of fear and frustration as i felt like i was slowly falling more and more behind the camel driver and company...and they were walking very slowly...any attempts though to increase my speed only resulted in being in pain... I had to spend most of the remaining time on the camel since my feet where still not right...

one nurse I had met on the Camino had joked that the limping, pain and restricted movements from this, and the weight on our backs, was a good preparation for old age... these words kept coming back to me, during the healing process to remind me... these hobbled movements and the lack of reflex, would be something i would face again as i grew older, so i tried to relax and accept it.. like a good little buddhist, tryin to stay in the moment and all...still uncertainty crept in, when would it,ever go away?...

..now in morocco... again concern... my bags have grown considerably in weight, thanks to a healthy addition of art supplies since Tunisia... i sometimes have to carry my bags for a kilometer or more looking for places to overnight in unfamiliar towns... and that is stress on my feet, joints and legs over all...
within the first week of being in Morocco, i got stomach sick twice back to back which impacted my head as well... feeling like, amongst other things, that I was also carrying around murky clouds in the upstairs, hindering normal thinking...of course it also made me feel weak and tired and a wee bit put out.... to make things worse, i was reading a harsh german book, i'd picked up for free along the way, which pretty much said that being sick is your own damn fault and that you have mental issues that are causing you to be sick...so even though i did not like the harsh tone of the book, it did influence my thinking...so while feeling sick with barely a foot in the new country, i was tormenting myself a little by the possible psychological causes of it all...did i get sick because i was psychologically vulnerable from all the changes in cultures etc, i had undergone, and that caused fear which then made me sick..or did the illness make me feel vulnerable which made the fear arise...eggs and chickens...did all this unprocessed mental stuff from rigours travel cause unprocessed stuff in my stomach? body mirroing mind? i do remember having a tiny moment of strong exsistential angst, right before my stomach dropped out, and continued to for the rest of that night...again not sure which was a trigger for what...

with both my foot problems and my stomach, there where moments sometimes lasting a day or a few hours or less where I really though I had turned a corner...only to have things rebound to previous states of discomfort and unease...and of course, the fretting..

in the last week i was fortunate to have access to pretty beach, and to be able to walk along long stretches of sand and dip my feet in salt water...my friend in France had admonished me to do that as soon as I could in Tunisia, but I did not have the available beach time till now, almost two months later...

today, is Thanksgiving in America.... i walked for 45 minutes to a beach in another part of town, along the single lane highway...and back again...

I realized something... no pain in my body! And no grogginess in my head!

Sandrine, a fellow pilgrim from Paris, had said, one of biggest and yet simplest lessons she had learned from the Camino was: "if you are enjoying yourself right now and not in pain and not suffering, really appreciate this, because the condition can change within the next ten minutes!" and walking the Camino I can attest to the fact that conditions do change at alarmingly quick rates going from glorious to hellish within mere minutes. This constant awareness of the changeability of condition has not left me.
i dont remember ever appreciating walking quite as much as i do now...
I am thankful that i can walk without blisters, without sore foot pads, without swollen ankles, without torn tendons, without joint pain in knees, or hips... and with an agility and lightness of fitness and good health... i am thankful that my head is not sunk in a swamp of headach-ee dullness and that my stomach is not experiencing any disturbances and that i in fact dont notice my stomach at all... that for these ten or nore minutes i am actually carefree! it is so wonderful and also miraculous... i have become very appreciative about the tenuousness of my good health..i know we all say reflexively that we are appreciative of good health...but with the shadow of fear that the conditions of fate could change very quickly, it's made this moment more clear and brilliant and beautiful..

...may i not take it for granted and may i use these lucid and care-free moments in my life wisely... Happy Thanksgiving!!!