Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life
It was a difficult day, but a satisfying one. The steepest climb yet. I passed a couple of gum trees on the way up, one of them trying hard to shed its yellow arrow, and then picked my way around a narrow path on the side of a hill, nettles to the left, plunging chasm to the right, onwards and upward to to a little church, and then a gentle descent down a bitumen road, slimy black slugs on the surface, a very holy way with large concrete crosses every 30 yards, but no statuary or inscriptions and too many crosses to be stations. I passed a little taberna but decided not to stop in mid-climb and kept on going up to the summit at more than 1100 feet.
Then down into a deep valley giving up much of the height I had gained, where, next to the ugliest church I have ever seen (I'll spare you the photo) was another bar. This time I stopped for a cafe con leche, the tranquillity shattered by the cracked bell on the ugly church sounding eleven o'clock, but restored somewhat when a couple of chooks came visiting.
And then it was a very serious climb out of the valley and up and around a mountain at 1,600 feet. I walked for most of the day with the young Quebequoise, Carolanne, and we talked of everything from Harry Potter to Edith Piaf to Quebec separatism. Like so many other Quebecers she had fallen under the spell of Jack Layton, but wasn't sure how she would vote now, other than ABH. She was inclined towards independence but had voted for Action Solidaire in the last provincial election. I hope that our conversation may have given pause to her separatist leanings. She is only 22 and studying to be a Phys. Ed. teacher. She will be a asset to either Quebec or Canada, or both, I hope.
This is one of the beauties of he Camino: you become quite close to someone you will never see again, and your lives are enriched just a little by the encounter.
Along the way I came upon a very creative cairn. I should explain that pilgrims build piles of stones on anything that doesn't move. This was one of the smaller ones.
I wondered about the symbolism here. Was the artist saying something along the lines of, if life gives you a lemon then make yourself a lemonade? Or perhaps,
If you find you're in the poo,
Then make your way to Santiagoo
This leads me to a more serious question. My Aussie mate John, with whom I shared my first bottle of beer and sang the songs of Tom Lehrer at a Presbyterian Youth Camp more than 50 years ago, is of a philosophical frame of mind and gives me these questions to ponder as I plod. Every year they get a little harder. Here is his question in full.
Some months ago I asked a friend of mine to state in one sentence or so, based on his observations or experience, how he would sum up life. He eventually replied: life is unfair. I don`t think anyone would disagree with him, but I felt it was insufficient and needed qualifying. However I have been unable to think of anything. Perhaps you can give it some thought as you stroll along.
It reminds me that many years ago Malcolm Fraser, a former PM, famously said, "Life was not meant to be easy" and was then crucified by the media. Much later he pointed out that he was only quoting Shaw who had gone on to say, "But take courage. It can be delightful."
I doubted whether his current prime minister or mine would be able to quote Shaw, or Shakespeare for that matter.
The question preoccupied me during many a plod, and sent me off on many tangents. My response is neither original or profound.
I kind of like Tom Lehrer's image of "the razor blade of life". A bit hard on the bum, but better than toppling off on either side.
One joke has it that life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends on what you put into it. But of course, what you put into it depends on the resources at your disposal, and these are not handed out fairly.
To different people, life is gift, a boon, a comedy, a tragedy, or to someone I knew, a vale of tears. That some people encounter the miseries and others the wonders of life is not fair.
What is life? Even to ask the question evokes those lines:
What is life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare
which are perhaps not so trite after all. Life is nothing, if we have no time to stand and stare. That's the unfairness, but if we have the time, we see that it's a bloody wonder!
Life is certainly unfair. As I have been walking, hundreds have suffered an earthquake in Katmandu and a consequent avalanche on Everest. Atrocities have been committed in Syria. Thousands of migrants have drowned for trying to seek a better life. In responding to one unfair hand, they were dealt another. Some countries receive an unfair share of typhoons, earthquakes or floods. Some people live on islands that will soon be submerged because the rest of us don't care what we are doing to the planet.
And individuals in every country are dealt uneven hands as well. Some lives are cut short by ill health or accident or poverty.
But much of the unfairness of life is the result of our own selfishness. And in consequence we need a principled government that does not pander to individual greed but which seeks a just society. Balance the budget, because not to do so is unfair to future generations. But do so by raising taxes, and not by cutting social programs which redress inequities and give every body a fair start in life. How any government can allow the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor, and the planet, is beyond me!
I used to be an optimist and think that we were gradually creating a better world. And strong social programs, and well managed overseas aid without an eye on what we could get in return might have produced a fairer world. Instead, well, you know what happened, and we now face the possibility of a quick end from a disenfranchised maniac with a nuclear weapon or a more lingering one from the pollution caused by carbon fuels. Hardly fair to future generations!
But life is still a wonder. We are only here at all because gravitational and other consonants were just right to prevent us from imploding or exploding. And somehow life has evolved into the wonders I see and hear all about about me as I walk: the cuckoos and the songbirds, the blackbirds and the magpies and the swallows that sweep under the eves, the bluebells and the buttercups, and the newborn lambs and foals and kids and calves that love to be alive.
Today is my last day of walking. I took a bit of a risk in coming here, because I have to catch a train from Hendaye tomorrow afternoon, but people assured me that the bus service would provide.
I had been giving Spanish churches a miss. Garish baroque does not appeal to me. But the hexagonal church of San Miguel de Arretxinaga just outside Markina is quite unique. A photo does not do it justice, as I could not back up far enough to encompass the interia. The church was built in the 11thcentury around three megalithic stones which occupy half the church.
Another curiosity in the town is this piece of artistic graffiti. Like Guernica, this town suffered terribly under Franco's bombing, and the artist depicts the evolution of our species into a monster. It stretches for perhaps 30 yards around a wall.
I had the pilgrim's menu tonight at a local restaurant. Now there's value for money: three courses including a monster salad, three slices of very thin beef fillet, a bit tough, but so what, it's probably grass fed, and dessert. And of course, bread and wine, wine being a bottle to drink at will. It was only 10€. Eleven years ago, it was typically 8€.
I did not know when I walked this last step how I would get back to Hendaye for my afternoon train, but it was really quite simple: one bus into Bilbao, which was two days ahead on foot, and then another back to Irun, which in fact continued on to Hendaye and dropped me there. Travelling with me on the first bus was Victoria the Floridienne, who had found the Camino del Norte a bit lonely and was going over to Logrogno to join the crowd on the Camino Frances. As it turned out, a Belgian had come over from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port because he had found too many people there, so she is taking his place. Since she had finished with it, she gave me her guidebook to the Camino del Norte. I take this as a sign that I must come back and finish this walk.
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