A Path to Connection
I’d never thought much about the sound of putting one foot in front of the other until I started walking the Camino.
This past week, I spent five days trekking along the ancient pilgrimage in Spain. The sound of my feet and walking sticks was my constant companions. Crunch crunch. Bam bam. Back and forth. One foot in front of the other. Day in, day out. Midway through, rain and mud joined the chorus. Slush slush.
Then there was my breath. Slow breathing mixed with heavy sighs as hills appeared out of nowhere. Crunch crunch. Heave ho.
And don't even get me started on my mind. For miles, it focused on key moments from my past, only to later skip ahead to my present life. Then it would zero in on the sound of my feet, or on the crows screaming overhead. Thankfully I did find moments when I could get quiet and simply reflect on the silence of being alone out on the trail. The only thing that broke the quiet was the occasional cheerful hiker who’d walk by and say, “Buen Camino.” That's what everyone says to each another on the Camino. Buen Camino. Good road. Safe travels. I see you.
I came to the Camino because I felt called to it. Plain and simple as that. I wish I could tell you that I had a more profound motivation, but feeling called is as profound an urge as I can explain. Pope Francis once said it better than I can: “Pilgrimage is a symbol of life. It makes us imagine that life is about walking, it is a walk. Should a person not walk, and stand still, he is not of service, she does nothing. Consider water, when water isn’t in a river, it doesn’t go ahead, but stands still; it goes bad. A soul that doesn’t walk through life by doing good, by doing many things that one must do for society, to help others, and also who doesn’t walk through life seeking God and for the Holy Spirit to move from within, is a soul that ends up in mediocrity and spiritual poverty. Please: do not stand still in life!”
So there you have it. Cheers to all of us who do not want to stand still in life. Cheers to those of us who want to keep growing, evolving, and walking.
There is a name for this type of person, I discovered. A pilgrim. I never knew I was a pilgrim. But now, having completed my Camino walk, which started in Sarria and ended in Santiago, I am a certified pilgrim. And I’m proud to be one.
I knew there were some things I wanted to walk away from when I embarked on this trip. But I wasn't really clear what I was walking toward. So I just started walking. I knew that the week ahead brought an election and my birthday, and that I wanted to step into both with clear eyes and a grounded heart. But other than that, I didn't go into this journey with any preconceived notions. I let the path unfold. And what it gave me, I never could have planned for.
And even though I chose to walk alone, I felt accompanied at every step. I love saying that. Because it's true.
Friends reached out to say, “I’m with you as you walk.” Others left me texts encouraging me forward. My friend Michael said, “I think you're on the Camino, so I said a rosary for you.” My friend Elizabeth, who has walked this trail many times, sent me a series of prompts, quotes, and questions to sit with along the way. Nadine texted to tell me how much she loved me, and my brother Bobby texted to make sure I was okay. My kids did the same. “Are you eating?” one texted. “Did you take electrolytes?” another asked.
Hoda texted, “Send photos. I love you, and I’m waiting for you.” And Oprah texted: “I’m walking with you, and I'm telling everyone I see that my friend Maria is on the Camino. Prayers up for her!”
And then there was Daniel.
I couldn't have walked five days without Daniel, my guide and new dear friend. Daniel walks the Camino every year, and I was his last walk of the season. He's from Sweden, but he married a Spaniard, and she told him that before they could marry, he needed to walk the Camino.
Daniel told me that he was a boy when he walked his first Camino, but he ended the journey as a man. He said the pilgrimage helped him get clear about what he wanted in his life and about who he loved.
Daniel was amazing—always upbeat, always smiling, always with a big poncho ready for when the skies opened. He'd walk alongside me for a while and then drift off, leaving me alone with my thoughts for miles. And then he’d appear again just to check in, or ask if I wanted to stop for a coffee, or to make sure I got my passport
stamped. (Getting your passport stamped is a big deal on the Camino. You can't receive your certificate unless you've walked the required 100 kilometers and collected the required stamps.)
At one point, after talking for a while about life, Daniel told me I had a beautiful mind and a wonderful spirit. He said that I made him think about things he had never thought about while walking the Camino.
I laughed, but he said, “No, seriously.”
I thanked him. For so many years, negative comments have seeped into my psyche about my big, crazy, restless, imaginative mind, and I have given them far more weight than they deserved. That is one of the things I am leaving behind. Negative words I never should have picked up. Criticism I carried too long and too far.
On the Camino, they ask you to pick up a rock, hold it, and think about what you want to let go. And then, when you're ready, drop it. I dropped a lot of rocks along the way, and I also picked up new ones, like the words Daniel gave me. Like the feeling of being accompanied by so many people who love me. I let that fill my heart all the way up.
Daniel also told me something I keep turning over: “Everybody's Camino is their own Camino. So take your time, my lady.” He kept reminding me that there was no rush or need to stress. Just put one foot in front of the other.
On my fifth and final day, as I walked into Santiago, a thought entered my mind. It was one of my favorite quotes from Rumi: “What you are seeking is seeking you.”
And in that moment, something opened up inside me. What I was seeking was connection, and what was seeking me was connection. Bam.
I hadn't set out thinking this Camino walk was going to teach me about connection. I had no plan for what it would give me. But the silence and the solitude handed me something I didn't know I needed: the realization that I had been disconnected. Not just from others, but from myself. From the little girl who still lives inside me that I abandoned somewhere along the way. I thought of the many places in my life where I had lost the thread back to myself. And all at once, the pieces started falling together. You can't walk toward connection with others until you find your way back to yourself first.
No matter our age, we are experiencing record levels of loneliness, yearnings, longings, and isolation. We look at social media and listen to people who tell us to do more, do this, do that, to get love, to get whatever we think will make us better, whatever will fill that void. But what if the void is our disconnection from ourselves? From our own authentic spirits, our own minds, our own bodies, our own beliefs?
We have all built up walls from life. I get it. I've done this myself. Walls we falsely think will protect us. But in fact, those very walls disconnect us from ourselves and others.
Reconnecting—to your own heart, your own body, your own spiritual self, your own physical self, and loving that which is you—is the way out of loneliness, yearning, and longing. It is the first step on the path toward humanity and toward others.
Other human beings are the only cure for the anxiety that encompasses all our lives. Othering will never keep us safe. Walls cannot protect us. They only deepen our isolation. People cannot accompany us if we don't hold out our hand or ask for help. And you don't need to come to the Camino to learn this truth.
I watched my mother refuse help her entire life, thinking it made her appear to be a weak woman, which was her biggest fear. I've struggled with this myself.
But on this pilgrimage, I needed Daniel's help so many times along the way. Accepting it actually made me feel connected to another human being. If I had batted it away, we never would have had the conversations we had. I never would have made the friend that I did.
In fact, Daniel told me a beautiful story that I wanted to share with you. He said that he was once the guide for a man who came with his blind wife. The entire way, the husband held his wife’s hand, telling everything he was seeing, even describing how the grass moved when the wind blew through it. Then at the end of the Camino, when they arrived in Santiago and reached the Cathedral of Saint James, she thanked Daniel for such a beautiful walk and for how much she had loved everything they had seen along the way. I loved that story because that was her Camino and connection forged on the route.
As for me, I spoke with people along the way from the U.S., Puerto Rico, South Korea, Spain, France—every country you can imagine. No one compared their miles to anyone else’s. They just said, “Bravo.”
And as for Daniel? He gave me the biggest hug at the end and told me how proud I should be of myself.
The morning after completing my journey, I had coffee with Father Christopher Robinson before Mass. Father Christopher is from Chicago, but he's in Spain on sabbatical. He has walked the Camino four times and is a true devotee. In fact, he’s been working in the Pilgrim's Office and talking with pilgrims about their journeys, about the end of one and the beginning of another.
He said something I won't forget, which is that “the Camino gives you not what you want, but what you need.” He also told me the Camino is a parable for your life. You get up every day and put one foot in front of the other. And he told me that the ancients said the end is the beginning, and that the Camino reverses that idea. The end of your Camino is the beginning of the rest of your life.
I left Father Robinson and went to Mass. In the church, “Amazing Grace” rang out from the speakers. People stood and introduced themselves one by one, all pilgrims, each dedicating their Camino to something or someone. It was beyond beautiful. It was connection to the whole of humanity.
One more thing Father Christopher said stayed with me. He said, “So many pilgrims finish their walk wanting to know just one thing. That they are good people. That they can go forth and continue to have a good life.”
That hit me hard. Isn't that something? When all is said and done, when we've walked all the miles, climbed all the hills, and carried all the weight, we all want to know if we are good. If anyone will walk beside us. And the answer is always, always yes.
As I walked, I reviewed my entire life, mile by mile, in silence. I thought about myself as a child, as a young girl, as a teenager, as a young professional, and as a young mother. I had empathy for the woman who struck out on her own in midlife. And I have empathy for the woman who stares back at me today.
I am lucky to be my age. I know that. And I regret the years I spent beating myself up and allowing comments to hold too much weight. Please do not do that to yourself. Esteem yourself daily. Honor yourself. Be proud of yourself. You have earned it.
No one—and I mean no one—has lived a perfect life. But being able to look back at your whole life, from the very beginning, and land right where you are on the eve of a new year and feel grateful for all of it? That is something. And that is where I find myself.
I look back at my younger self with compassion and empathy. And I look at the woman staring back at me today with the same. I am letting go of being so tough on her. I embrace her now for making it here.
In the end, Rumi and Father Christopher were both right. What you are seeking is seeking you. And the Camino gives you not what you want, but what you need. I needed to reconnect to myself, to the child inside me, to my heart. I needed to remember that connection to others flows from that. I needed the silence to tell me so.
What I want to leave you with this morning is both practical and profound, because the Camino gave me both. Get yourself the right shoes. The right walking sticks. The right companions. And then put one foot in front of the other. Up the hill. Down the hill. Through the rain. Into dark forests and out into open fields. One step. Two steps. One foot in front of the other. Believe in yourself. Walk toward what you love. Drop the rocks that are weighing you down.
And so, even though my knee is killing me, and my back is too, I am grateful. To God. To myself. To all of you. And to every single person who accompanied me at every step that brought me here.
Here’s the truth: you don't have to go to Spain to be a pilgrim. You only have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going until the message meant for you appears. Everybody's Camino is their own Camino. So, Buen Camino, everyone.
P.S. Happy birthday, fellow Scorpios. I’m so excited to be back stateside so I can see Hoda tomorrow evening for the first stop of our friendship tour. How fitting is that?! Connection, connection, connection. And last but not least, happy Election Day on Tuesday. May we vote with the same courage it takes to walk into the unknown. May we vote for those who want to connect us and bring us closer, not divide us. One step at a time. We are all pilgrims, trying to find our way.
Prayer of the Week
Dear God,
Help us find our way back to ourselves. Open our hearts to one another, let go of the walls that keep us apart, and remember that we were never meant to walk this journey alone.
Amen.
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