Essays about places that aren’t my home.
On the 15th day of walking I walked to Burgos with Jon and Martin of fly-killing fame. We parted ways because they wanted to walk on and I wanted to see the city today. I saw the Burgos Cathedral, which is second in size only to Seville’s. I saw the Museum of Human Evolution which…
On the 14th day of walking, I walked over 30 kilometers with two men, Jon and Martin, who started walking ten days ago and now are best friends. Jon is my age and from Colorado. He had an engineering job involving 650 helicopter engines, and Martin is British and retired after a career in IT.…
Tuesday: ~Walk to old basilica and eat dates and cheese outside it. ~Check mass times. ~Research La Rioja wines and buy a bottle after siesta. ~Read one of the two English books in the albergue, a writing textbook or The Handmaid's Tale. ~Buy face wash? ~Shower and do laundry. ~Buy another baguette and more biscotti for…
I prayed I would meet someone on the Camino, and I met someone. On the morning of the 9th, a German we will call Mike, because that is his real name, asked to walk with me. He said that I wasn’t like the typical American with my big sunglasses and dorky hat and I said…
Above Villamayor de Monjardin, on the peak of a conical hill, there is a ruined castle. I climbed it to eat dinner and watch the sun go down. I didn’t realized how famished I was from eating only baguettes and espresso all day until I got to the top, and I sat on the castle…
On the 7th, I decided to walk backwards for a few kilometers to a small intermediate village, Villamayor de Monjardin, where I stayed in an albergue run by “earnest Dutch ecumenicals.” When I arrived I heard wholesome laughter, acoustic guitar, and the unmistakeable refrains of Hillsong and Jesus Culture. A chalkboard by the door announced…
Continue reading ➞ Slowing Down, Being Late, and Pinchos with Protestants
September 1 was the first day of walking. I set out with Igor and an Austrian gal, Magdalena, and we left the municipal albergue at 6:30 and clip clopped down the cobblestones, past the cathedral, over a bridge, up a hill, up a mountain, past sheep with bells and paint on their asses, past asses,…
Travel transforms me. It transforms me from a happy person to a horrible person. I start long travel days with affection and fresh eyes for Sea-Tac (“Oh, they’ve installed new bad art in Terminal A!”). My hair looks good and my clothes are clean. When I see my reflection, I see a woman who is…
Tuesday is the day I fly to Newark, then Madrid. Like every great trip, once it's this close to departure, I don’t want to go. I want to stay. I want to stay in Ballard and go to pub trivia and pick blackberries in alleys and drink Trader Joe's wine with siblings and play piano at church and eat the garlic from my garden. And I want to bike to Sunset Hill after dinner to see the blue and yellow sky over the Olympics ooze into preppy pink, and then coast…
So today is August first (or it was), and the idea is that on September first I'm going to start walking across Spain till I see the bones of an Apostle and the end of the earth. It's a journey much has already been said about, and my own words on it came when recently…
My father, our guide Prescott, and I were driving from Red Bays to Stafford Creek after fishing the West Side, and Dad and I were sweating and drinking sweaty Kaliks with the windows rolled down and the boat trailing behind us when Prescott slowed the truck in front of a dingy pink cinderblock house and…
I don’t crave food very often but last year I started craving colors. I craved blue most of all. I don’t know why I got to craving blue. I saw at Whole Foods that blue is the color of the throat chakra, and that energy center is in your throat and it's related to speech and…
Chelsea the Writer 