It is 5:27am in the morning at the albergue, and I have come to the kitchen to type. I’m convinced that the way in which we position ourselves to think influences our thought, and I know this to be true out of my attempts to meditate lying down. So, the entries which were written lying down with the phone nudged between the boards of the bunk bed were more scattered and rambling (as if I were to demonstrate I’m any different by typing sitting erect: I’m still a scattered rambler!).
I’ve been reflecting upon what I’m writing lately, and I’m wishing that nobody is reading it, at the same time I’m appreciating that I’m doing this, it’s important to work though difficult emotions, though I’m questioning the value of doing it publicly. Not the reader, and not myself, have any benefit from it. I guess I do this because, as of late, I’m alluding to “something terrible” and “if only I could say”, which means say it and get over with it dammit.
I’m also writing in this way because I’m typing on my phone from an external keyboard. This is a new method of writing my entries, and even though it’s infinitely more comfortable than typing on the phone, I still find it quirky enough as to be distracted, especially because the layout is different from my MacBook’s US ANSI keyboard.
So much filler text and I have not get to the point: yesterday we sat for dinner with two Spaniards and she was telling them about the wonders of Mexico they could visit. They were listening politely, but I could tell my mother was dragging on and that they weren’t interested in the topic. I nudged in a gap in her speech and said “mom, why don’t you tell them about your favourite spots in Madrid or the Camino so far”, and one of the guys flashed a smile to me as if to say “thank you” while my mother switched gears and then went on about the wonders of Spain.
The interaction reminded me of one that I would have with a child, my cousin does that when her young one rails off with a detailed account of the latest episode of this favorite cartoon. The kid babbles on such bizarre things it makes me question if the kid is on drugs, and why my cousin is not sharing them. So my cousin will nudge in and say “why don’t you tell uncle Mark about X” where x is something more relatable to me.
I don’t think it is accurate to treat our older parents as children again, because it establishes a position of power and righteousness over them. Here I see my sister’s big mistake, in which they struggle to assert dominance over each other, and then my sister get’s angry in order to dominate my mother. In our family this happens in a small and relatively mild scale, especially because my mother is willing to concede out of her love to us, but on occasion she is willing to go to war over something apparently small and things will blow up between them and they will say mean things to each other.
The reason why I come to this is because I reflected on this same process I’ve already had, with my dad. I went walking and these painful memories emerged and all the bitterness at his absence and failure to protect me because he had stupid outdated ideas that kids should start working as early as possible and how you can allow a grown man to take your 12-13 year old kid to work with him out of town, overnight, repeatedly without even asking to meet him, “here Mr. Pedo have my kid on a sliver platter”, but then you drive over to the home of his only friends where he’s playing D&D and you pull him out because the other kids are two and four years older than him? Jeez if I had hair I’d be pulling it out right now.
But I already had this conversation with my father. I went back to Mexico from Spain in order to obtain my university diploma, which I needed to emigrate to Spain legally. My father had an operation on his leg, the one he had shattered while he was in his twenties, riding a motorcycle. It was painless and symptomless now, but he had a wart that he froze, this got infected and produced an inordinate amount of pus. Something was wrong, his bone marrow had become infected.
Old wounds come to bite us back.
I was glad to be in Mexico for this operation, because it was complicated and he nearly lost his leg. I spent a couple of hours with him alone per day, as I was expected to work remotely and work is a great way to spend time with my dad (he did the same on his computer). I told him: there’s something we need to speak about, but I’m not sure we should do this, given your state. My father has done a lot of psychological and spiritual work, it’s difficult to convey just how different he is now from the father I grew up with. He has a soothing and kind presence, throughly authentic, and it’s immediately noticeable. He listed to my story, he reflected back to me how he had failed as a parent, he asked for forgiveness, we embraced. And I told him “shit, you are not the man you used to be, it feels as if the dad who neglected me is no longer here so I can’t get back to me, I wish we had a catharsis but we can’t, because that dad no longer exists, but the hurting child does”.
My old mother isn’t here either, but not in the same way. When we’ve tried to express the terrible mistakes she’s made as a parent she shuts down, whimpers, it hurts her too much to confront it. She quickly burries it and avoids it altogether. I know better than to try to work though this with her, especially on this walk.
Some days ago I lightly bumped my head on a bunk bed. My mother made an exclamation of hurt and massaged her own head. “Mom, it was my head that bumped, not yours” I said. She replied “well, that hurt me”. There is no point in passing on my hurting, it’s too much for her to bear, especially at this age. I honestly think that if she confonted the magnitude of our hurt she has caused us, she would curl up and die (my siblings have their own stories, but their stories are their own). It is up to me to work through this.
We have passed the darkest day of the year, and the day in which the son of God was born, who came to redeem us from our sins, is on the horizon.
When I came back to Mexico after quitting the job for which I had come back to Mexico to seek my university diploma (unsuccesfully at the time), I came back to my mother’s house in Puebla. COVID lockdowns happened shortly after, and we would spend our evenings together. I would do chores or prepare dinner while my mother read the New Testament to me. She has a very pleasant way of reading, with a lot of emotion and emphasis. What a man Jesus must have been, not a word he said is reproachable, espousing a philosophy befitting to the son of God. How could a man know so much about the deepest Truth? I feel awkward trying to articulate what was understood, pure love in action. I can only use the words of others to describe him. Khalil Gibran describing Jesus though Mary Magdalene:
MARY MAGDALENE On Meeting Jesus for the First Time > It was in the month of June when I saw Him for the first time. He was walking in the wheat field when I passed by with my handmaidens, and He was alone. > The rhythm of His steps was different from other men’s, and the movement of His body was like naught I had seen before. > Men do not pace the earth in that manner. And even now I do not know whether He walked fast or slow. > My handmaidens pointed their fingers at Him and spoke in shy whispers to one another. And I stayed my steps for a moment, and raised my hand to hail Him. But He did not turn His face, and He did not look at me. And I hated Him. I was swept back into myself, and I was as cold as if I had been in a snow-drift. And I shivered. > That night I beheld Him in my dreaming; and they told me afterward that I screamed in my sleep and was restless upon my bed. > It was in the month of August that I saw Him again, through my window. He was sitting in the shadow of the cypress tree across my garden, and He was still as if He had been carved out of stone, like the statues in Antioch and other cities of the North Country. > And my slave, the Egyptian, came to me and said, “That man is here again. He is sitting there across your garden.” > And I gazed at Him, and my soul quivered within me, for He was beautiful. > His body was single and each part seemed to love every other part. > Then I clothed myself with raiment of Damascus, and I left my house and walked towards Him. > Was it my aloneness, or was it His fragrance, that drew me to Him? Was it a hunger in my eyes that desired comeliness, or was it His beauty that sought the light of my eyes? > Even now I do not know. > I walked to Him with my scented garments and my golden sandals, the sandals the Roman captain had given me, even these sandals. And when I reached Him, I said, “Good-morrow to you.” > And He said, “Good-morrow to you, Miriam.” > And He looked at me, and His night-eyes saw me as no man had seen me. And suddenly I was as if naked, and I was shy. > Yet He had only said, “Good-morrow to you.” > And then I said to Him, “Will you not come to my house?” > And He said, “Am I not already in your house?” > I did not know what He meant then, but I know now. > And I said, “Will you not have wine and bread with me?” > And He said, “Yes, Miriam, but not now.” > Not now, not now, He said. And the voice of the sea was in those two words, and the voice of the wind and the trees. And when He said them unto me, life spoke to death. > For mind you, my friend, I was dead. I was a woman who had divorced her soul. I was living apart from this self which you now see. I belonged to all men, and to none. They called me harlot, and a woman possessed of seven devils. I was cursed, and I was envied. > But when His dawn-eyes looked into my eyes all the stars of my night faded away, and I became Miriam, only Miriam, a woman lost to the earth she had known, and finding herself in new places. > And now again I said to Him, “Come into my house and share bread and wine with me.” > And He said, “Why do you bid me to be your guest?” > And I said, “I beg you to come into my house.” And it was all that was sod in me, and all that was sky in me calling unto Him. > Then He looked at me, and the noontide of His eyes was upon me, and He said, “You have many lovers, and yet I alone love you. Other men love themselves in your nearness. I love you in your self. Other men see a beauty in you that shall fade away sooner than their own years. But I see in you a beauty that shall not fade away, and in the autumn of your days that beauty shall not be afraid to gaze at itself in the mirror, and it shall not be offended. > “I alone love the unseen in you.” > Then He said in a low voice, “Go away now. If this cypress tree is yours and you would not have me sit in its shadow, I will walk my way.” > And I cried to Him and I said, “Master, come to my house. I have incense to burn for you, and a silver basin for your feet. You are a stranger and yet not a stranger. I entreat you, come to my house.” > Then He stood up and looked at me even as the seasons might look down upon the field, and He smiled. And He said again: “All men love you for themselves. I love you for yourself.” > And then He walked away.
Today, in our walk towards Sarria, I shall keep Jesus in my heart. At night we have a Christmas call with our siblings.