I think I'm the Hare

Today I walked part way to Rua. I say part way because I wasn't able to complete my mileage today and it was absolutely devastating. I was supposed to walk 12 miles to my next albergue but 7 miles into my journey on this beautiful day, I had to tap out.

I knew I was in trouble almost immediately after setting out this morning around 8:30 am. My sore knee was stiffer than usual and it was interfering with my gait. I trekked on and tried to focus on other things: nature, song birds, crunching of leaves underfoot. It started to become impossible to ignore the pain so I popped in my earbuds and listened to a podcast. That kept my attention for a while but suddenly I realized I wasn't listening to the story-line because I was refocused on my knee pain.

On one particular descent on a semi steep incline, I made an audible cry and instinctively grabbed for my knee. White hot pain took the breath out of my chest. I got myself together and attempted to push forward. There was no chance of that happening as I was no longer able to bend my knee at all without blinding pain. I stood there wondering what to do. I was on a trail in the middle of no where.

I started to cry. Hard. I was scared. I was hurt. I was not going to walk out of there on my own two feet. Suddenly, around the bend comes a group of gleeful young pilgrims. They stop to inquire about my health. Or at least I think so. We don't speak the same language. I can't understand them and they can't understand me. But there is a universal language that everyone on this planet speaks -and that's love and kindness and knowing when to lend it.

They spoke among themselves as I wondered what I was going to do. And then, without a word to me, two of them flanked me, each took an arm and placed it over their shoulders and they half carried, half dragged me crucifix style into the nearest village. They sat me down in a cafe, asked the shop owner to call a taxi, and told me "Buen Camino" as they walked away.

I never even asked their names. They never asked mine. But there is an unspoken understanding on the Camino - you take care of one another. We are all in this together. This is not a race. It's a pilgrimage to a common destination that we are all suffering our way toward.

Once the taxi dropped me at my albergue, I had a tearful conversation with my mother. I felt so low, so defeated, so depressed, and like a quitter. I wondered if I'd given up too soon. I wondered if I could have powered through if I'd just given myself a few more minutes of rest.

She reminded me of the fable about the Tortoise and the Hare. The hare is very confident, very fast, and therefore very careless. He loses the race because of this. He had no long-game. The tortoise wins because he took his time -slow and steady wins the race. She reminds me, "Except this wasn't a race or a competition and yet you've treated it like one since the first day. You've boasted about your speed and compared yourself to others around you. You are all going to the same place and it never mattered when you would arrive. The only thing that mattered was just that you make it at all."

It's hard to realize that I'm the hare. The hare is foolish. The hare is cocky. What's more is that I think I'm the hare in almost everything I do in life. I do everything fast and hard and put enormous pressure on myself to be the best, the most successful.

I've wondered what the Camino wants from me for years.
I think it wants to teach me how to be the tortoise.