La Concha Newsletter

I have a story published in the Americans on the Camino newsletter, La Concha!

Dawning Awareness
by Robert C. Deming, Fredericksburg TX

I could hear rain through the open window, though it was too dark to make any other kind of appraisal of the weather.  I was feeling apprehensive, and I wished again for that pair of rain pants I didn’t have.  Of course there was no coffee or any kind of breakfast to delay my start, so I put on my rain jacket and broad-brimmed hat and stepped out the door onto a dark cobblestone street. I had by this time become accustomed to starting my walk an hour before sunrise, but at times the Camino seemed to be a survival exercise, maybe like one of those TV reality shows I don’t watch. My pack had a nice built-in rain cover and my boots had kept my feet dry in previous rainy days, but everyone else seemed to have rain pants or long ponchos and I just had a pair of wet nylon pants.  I walked up the hill, sort of following my German trail friends Willie and Erwin who walked so much faster than I, worrying about all manner of problems – cold legs from rain-soaked pants, the overall gloominess of the rain in the dark, and my mood becoming blacker with each step.Quickly the rain slacked off, and just as I was getting warm I came across Willie and Erwin packing up their jackets and ponchos.  I took the cue and stuffed the rain jacket into my pack.  It was still dark but not so gloomy without the rain, and my apprehension gradually subsided as the sky lightened. The Germans soon outdistanced me, but there were other pilgrims on the trail, which lightened my spirits further. To improve my mood I went to an exercise I had begun using in those quiet lonely times; I made myself aware of the world around me in every detail.  I paid attention to every sound, every smell, every sight; mindfulness I had read about but had been too busy to practice.  As the first rays of the morning sun threw my shadow on the trail, the trail turned beside the canal out of Fromista. The trees were still enveloped in mist, and there were birds singing, and it was magical.