No Pain, No Gain - right?
“Bravery is not the absence of fear. Bravery is feeling the fear, the doubt, the insecurity, and deciding that something else is more important.” - Marl Mauson
My daughter's printing tattooed on my right foot, “I love you to my bones," a line from an Irish song we love by Wallis Bird - a reminder of our adventure in Ireland many years ago. She has the same tattoo with my printing on her right foot. My son preferred to write in cursive; "I'll love you forever," the title of the Robert Munch book we loved to read together when he was a child. Both of my children questioned my pain tolerance in getting one. “Try childbirth,” I responded, ironic because I had to breathe Lamaze style along with the needlework.
The tattoos gave me something of my children to take with me on the Camino Ingles, the one I fondly call the Camino for Cowards. They would be with me, on my feet and in my heart, every step of "The Way" from Victoria to Sidney, and to A Coruña through to Santiago de Compostella, then onward to Finisterre. I would carry them - my world - to the end of the known world.
Tattoos weren’t the only pain I would need to make gains through. Originally, I’d hoped to walk some version of a Camino with the man who’d been in my life for a decade. The relationship had been fraught with troubles from the onset. I’d met him at a speed dating event that his ex accompanied him to. Yes, she did reappear - along with others. Our relationship was riddled with “breaks” and I hung on because I didn’t want it all to have been for nothing. By the time I did the Camino Ingles, he was no longer in the picture, except for being the man who inspired Farren’s ex-husband, Stephen.
“If you ever find yourself in the wrong story… leave” -Mo Willems
It took a while. Okay, a long while. But leave him I did, and I repurposed the pain.
Stephen, but in a suit.
When I realized that I was going to Camino solo, I began to research the routes and go around to the shops looking at equipment. When I tried on a few backpacks, I realized I could barely carry them empty, let alone full. Instead, I bought a daypack to wear on my hips and looked into transfer services for my luggage. And no, that’s not cheating. It’s self-care. I would be carrying burdens enough.
I’d developed frozen shoulders a few years before on a house-building mission trip in Mexico, trying to apply paint to uncured cement that would come out on the roller. It got heavier with each stroke but I persevered because we were on a deadline. My shoulders never fully recovered and, eventually, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and acute tendonitis. I’d also had surgeries on both knees and had little cartilage left to pad my tests of endurance. The program encouraged “baby steps.” I walked about 3 km a day at that point, the occasional 5 km, and knew that wouldn’t get me far. I stretched that to 5 km and threw in an occasional 10 km loop around a local lake - which I’d feel for a few days. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it felt like progress. And then I signed up for the annual Camino workshop put on by the local Canadian Company of Pilgrims.
As serendipity would have it, the Mayor of A Coruña was giving a talk on the Camino Ingles that started in his beautiful city. As he spoke, I kept wondering “could I?” I even purchased a Canadian Company of Pilgrims Camino passport there. And then I went home and looked into the Camino Ingles route as well as the shorter Muxia and Finisterre ones. I thought that, just maybe, if I went and succeeded, I could inspire other patients in my group.
Something rather magical happened during this process. The Mayor’s talk about his route being the underdog resonated with me. I was an underdog even while my mother carried me, her “tenacious little embryo” that she almost lost several times. Well, I left the session with an embryo of an idea for a screenplay, my fourth, and for the main character, Farren. She’s the character who has been the most like me. I could throw all my baggage at her - only different - and see how she carried it. We went Wayward together.
WWFD? How well do I know Farren? Enough to know what tattoo she’d get!
What tattoo might you give your protagonist? Your antagonist?
What burden do you carry on this pilgrimage called life?
Create a character sketch of someone who might carry it for you in your writing.
Ultreia! Forward, together.
