St. James Way

60th Hiking Day

On the way from Portomarín to Palas de Rei. 4 more days to Santiago. I'm afraid that it will turn out to be 4 rainy days. Shelling again. I preferred acorn shelling. By the way, yesterday I passed Brussels sprouts the whole time. Also an American woman walks this way reading the Bible while walking. According to her own statement, 100 pages each day. Hats off to whoever can pull this off. I think I can deduce a certain madness from her eyes and the condition of her teeth. Certainly a poor foundation for such a thesis. But I stick to it. A carefully dosed amount of madness can also be charming. Also, I'm very relieved that I don't know what other people think of me. For some I sure run under the radar but others must have made a few assumptions that I don't want to hear even in a whispered tone. As mentioned yesterday, I started with a “cerveza muy grande” “Arbeit und Struktur”. It reads like sliced bread and I'm starting to feel like buying one of Herrndorf's pictures. Since his death, the prices - if pictures are for sale at all - have definitely went through the roof. Oh man, not only an excellent writer, but also a wonderfully doubting person. I know from myself that writing is one thing and behaviour in real life is something completely different. And so it remains a – no longer resolvable – small concern, even fear that he might not have liked me in real life, or - just as bad - that he would have totally ricocheted off me. Well, it's just a little ghost I don't want to call. Despite this, »Tschick« + »Arbeit und Struktur« are really important stories, regardless of whether they are made-up or actually experienced. Apart from that: nothing new in the west.

My wish: have some nice pulpo with the Spaniards today.

If I briefly review what I have written down here so far, very briefly, then there are many ups and downs in this short period of time (61 days). And sometimes it feels like I'm starting from the beginning again. Nothing dramatically life-changing I have learned. All snapshots. Change happens bit by bit and takes a long time. Sometimes a lifetime is not enough. The end is near and we are shocked. The curtain falls and one might feel mocked. But maybe also like this: anyone who has a good and proper start into the Camino and who can say: "My life is actually quite alright" doesn't have to make the U-turn and turn everything inside out. On a small scale, I've learned tricks and gimmicks here, I've become more streetwise. Günter Grass once put it like this: that everything is always in the process of becoming and a final state can never be reached. I want to put it a similar way: when in my stories the end has come, the characters still have to eat breakfast the next morning, do laundry and generally get back to work. Even if nobody notices it anymore.