Day 0 + 1: Stockholm to Pasajes via Irun (recap) (10k + 20,4K)
- Frida Stavenow
- Sep 13, 2022
- 5 min read
As you can tell, the grand, hand-rubbing plans from April of starting a non-anonymous blog to practice accountability and achieve the synthesis I’d been told to pursue on an Ecuadorian mountain-top didn’t really pan out. Full disclosure, I only posted those particular ramblings now, on the 13th of September, from a public computer at a hostel in Bilbao, Spain. How did this come about? Well, it’s a long story, but we can try.
I am walking the Camino de Santiago. I decided to do it because I didn’t want to do anything else. Not because the Camino was calling me so strongly that everything else “paled in comparison.” I wish. No, literally – I ran out of care juice for everything. Some people call this depression. I did start looking into going on antidepressants, actually. I’ve never done that before, preferring to self-medicate with psychedelics, deluded schemes of grandeur or other fun ways of chasing kicks in the name of mental health. But part of my learnings from my last relationship, which I (not coincidentally to the depression-or-whatnot) ended in July, is to “stop chasing and start building.” So I thought maybe some stability wouldn’t be totally out of order.
Long story long, I didn’t do it, because time for hitting the Camino before it got too cold rolled around sooner than the Swedish state psychiatrist could give me an appointment. So I made my way down to the Camino del Norte, running from Irún, just south of the French border, to Santiago. 865 km of walking and sleeping in albergues, a type of hostel catering primarily (or exclusively) to pilgrims, which is what the walkers of the Camino are called. I had very low expectations. When I told friends, they got all excited and started talking about “Camino families” and “trip of a lifetime” and stuff. I had literally chosen to do it only so I wouldn’t have to do anything else. In August 2022, my one desire was to not exist. Just walking seemed like the next-best thing.
Well, spoiler alert, walking the Camino is fun as fuck and I’ve barely been alone a second. I try to make sure I do a bit of walking on my own, cause I do have stuff I want to think about. But it’s now been a week and I’ve made so many friends and I haven’t been depressed at all, except for maybe a few hours around San Sebastián, but more on that to come.
Because, what do you know, the Camino has inspired me to write. As in, I’ve just started doing it. Nothing too crazy – just diaries, really, written in first person present tense. I didn’t decide to do it. I just found myself starting to do it, and as I’ve been unable to write anything at all for about two months, I’m going with it. Hence, anonymous strangers of the internet – welcome to my Camino blog!
I’ve written every day so I will shortly publish all that here. The only day I didn’t write was Days 0 and 1, which I will summarise at some point. Okay maybe now. I flew to Paris, had some pretty dope impromptu Duras-related experiences, wrote all about them on the train to Hendaye, walked across the border to Spain and checked into my first albergue in Irun. Got my pilgrims passport, had some vino, went to bed-o, was awakened at 6am by the most incredible churchy, choir-y music (as you can tell, I’m a connoisseur of both music and religion), and set off on my first day. I didn’t want to fuck myself up on day one by being overambitious, so I didn’t walk the 27 km that my guidebook recommended to San Sebastián, but stopped about halfway in the cute little village of Pasajes de San Juan, to where I’d been guided by a 74 year old local who took me under his wing after watching the hiking pole I’d stolen from my mother BREAK on hill fucking one. I figured the 39 year age difference between us would make up for my lack of training, but lord did Joxe Mari know how to walk. I arrived Pasajes at 11:45, which was four and a half hours before the donativo (pay-what-you-can albergue) opened, so headed into town where I had a beer with JM the Speedy Mountain Goat and then, ill-advisedly, ordered a Spanish menu del dia for lunch that included hidden pork (which I don’t eat), a whole fish and a non-negotiable full bottle of wine. I drank two sips before my dehydrated ass got near blind drunk and I decided no more menu del dias for me. Had some bread and tinned fish from the local minimart (EROSKI) for dinner with some new pilgrim friends overlooking the beautiful harbour and felt very happy. Felt like this was a great decision. Wondered if I’d been depressed at all, or just appropriately sad and disappointed for someone who 1) just ended a relationship and therefore found herself with no plan as the previous plan was aborted, and 2) standard for a not very successful artist felt dejected cause none of the projects she’d dedicated her heart and soul to had become what she had hoped they would.
I mean this last one is big. I’ve written four bloody novels. Three dozen short stories, a handful of scripts, even some plays. And while a small percentage of them have been produced and published, the vast, vast majority haven’t, and I regularly question whether I’m just kidding myself and should stop wasting my time by trying to write new things. Every time I do is a huge investment of time and energy. And to see it yield no results (though I realise how I define “results” is a relevant question) is heartbreaking. I keep feeling like on the one hand, this is normal, JK Rowling was rejected 36 times etc etc, but yeah, also having moments of realising that, in terms of measurable results, it’s been a complete fool’s errand.
I think at the end of the day it comes down to what Deborah Levy / Louise Bourgeois said about being an artist, and after which I named this blog, already in April, when I wasn’t even that depressed yet. “We either die of the past or we become an artist.” In August, I really felt like I was dying of the past. It was not fun. And like I said, my one forward impulse was to head to Spain and walk.
And so far, it’s working. It’s making me write, which is art. Good or not – this isn’t even the point. It’s just something to do instead of dying. Surely, that’s the right choice?
Alright, I’ve spent a few hours setting this all up, so I’m gonna have some lunch and head to the Guggenheim with two new friends whom I already love very much, and after that, I hope to come back and publish all the things I’ve written in the last week. But who knows. Energy is scarce in this Camino life, so this blog may have to come together a bit piecemeal. But then, as we have already established – it is not the result that matters here. Just the process. The road is life. Santiago is not the point.
Life is fun. I write things. To feel this after only seven days is fucking magic, so gracias, Camino. Here’s to five more weeks.
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