Mona with the children

It has been some big days of walking, so when I wake this morning yearning for adventure it doesn't take much to answer the call.

The first day of thirty kilometres was sort of a test to see if I could still push my body if I wanted to. It was also rooted in a ghostly night alone in a very large pilgrims hostel that I had no desire to repeat back to back.

The second day of twenty five was a combination of half way hostel closing down for winter; the pleasant surprise that my body was rising to the challenge; and getting caught up in the old busyness of life: If I walk this far today it means I can be in Santiago by this day, which means I can keep walking to Ferol and be there by this day, all dates of course, made up in my mind and with no immediate significance.

I achieved some beautiful encounters and purchases on the way, but I also ended up completely overloaded on noise, with destination Vigo a much larger city than I had imagined and most of the two days spent next to a decent sized road.

I'd decided to stay on the main road after a betrayal by the Camino which took me down a very steep hill only to walk some hundred meters and climb an even steeper hill, back up to the same road I had just left. I mean there's scenic detours and then there's simply taking the piss.

Setting out this morning I am mentally prepared I still have some effort left in the noise department. Although I traversed most of the city getting to the hostel, it is located in the middle of the port and it is hard to gather how far until stunning water views replace soulless concrete buildings.

I awake to the sound of those kind of backpackers - I din't think they existed among pilgrims; big lights on at 10pm; leaving it on as they head out to party; three beds for two people; the realisation that I am still too people pleasing to tell them the effect they have on me and I'm guessing at least four other people in the room - and to the gift of three songs from Tom Francis, a local Melbourne artist whose Patreon I follow.

The divine timing makes up for the self-centred and I wow to continue my practice in assertiveness without having to first hit myself on the head about my shortcomings.

In the absence of noise cancelling headphones, I attempt to drown the noise with 'Mona with the children'. With the first notes, attempt becomes surrender and I have no idea if the people rushing from the ferry to catch the green light even notice the tears of connection with the world streaming down my face.

I get a clear sense that the place from which they rush, doesn’t lead 'the way' I am following, but having already found the first yellow arrow of the day, I feel safe to look for my way.

Twenty seven steps and somehow the unknown origins of the ferry with the hurried folk seem more interesting than a concrete walk to Redondela. A man boarding the ferry appears to have more time than those getting off and tells me where I can buy a ticket.

Destination Cies catches my interest both because it absolves me from my concrete nightmare and because it was only yesterday I had to google cis in a what's app conversation about gender that nearly had me run over by a cyclist (my fault of course for walking and texting - and maybe the boredom of the same endless footpath for so many kilometres).

I was hoping I'd run in to Fili, the German again - at the very least to agree upon the Camino betrayal, but I'd chosen hostel based on closeness to water in Baiona, instead of price and the brief view I had of someone that looked like her in Vigo was distracted by a suredness the next hostel would be smaller, making it easier to reconvene. My two day detour makes her yet another pilgrim left in front by slow travel, a price I’ll willingly pay (with an element of ’it would have been nice’) to not get hooked by busywork.

I catch the 9am to Cangas where my ferry to Cies (a well preserved gem of a Spanish island, it turns out) leaves tomorrow. Find a perfect hammock spot on the foreshore, it is still cold even though the sun is out. The warmth of my minus ten sleeping bag helps some, but it is surprising how the cold air where hammock meets skin and bag, makes it hard to stay warm even in full morning sun. I awake again at 1.30pm in a haze of solidary jet lag and fibromyalgic exhaustion.

Hammocks are good for sleeping, pondering and apparently also for writing. I consider the homeless person who with much appreciation received my leftovers of squid and peppers that I doubt I'd have had the courage to eat today and the hairdresser who wouldn't receive my tip, much less with thanks, perhaps out of a lack of self worth. I've always found it easier to give than to receive, but these two experiences in the same day make it very clear how important it is, for giver and receiver alike, to do both with equal gusto.

A sudden realisation hits me: How far I have come in the receiving department and also in the asking for help department that on this trip is manifesting as asking for water when I need some. Simple perhaps, but not always to me.

Hammocks are also good for listening to online courses and Vibe of life's 'Inner journey' has me considering another kind of trip that my soul became aware of in a dream a few nights back. Synchronicity returns.

I write in the hammock and I write in the bath at the hotel, each time only interrupted by my bodily needs. From the hammock by my neglected bladder and the bath my neglected stomach.

At dinner there’s another lesson for me.

A loud man and his quiet wife both sit down on the same side of the table, leaving me, the only other person in the restaurant, on display like an animal at the zoo. He talks to me, I sense out of kindness, but comes across a little aggressive. Now my job is to keep my strings close and enjoy my meal without giving away all I have to the differing of personalities. He is too forceful about his needs, I too timid. In fact, I most prefer to telepathically communicate mine. Two sides of the coin, neither are in balance.

The lesson from earlier helps me: Draw your attention in and stay in the body. I breathe in. Then out.

The hunger for power reflected in this man is a big reason I am afraid to have needs. That thing, which was about to board me on the train of getting to Santiago ‘on time’. Where the ego and flow dance such an intimate and intense dance that it’s sometimes hard to remember who is who.

I struggle for attention of the waiter while he yells from the other side of the room.

I’m paid up, but there’s still something to be achieved here, so I stay a little. Close my eyes and reel in a whole fishing net of strings attached to power and lack of. Energy from lifetime upon lifetime returns and I have started a process much bigger than the dance between a power-hungry man and a power-‘fraid woman. A process where balance can return, so that one doesn’t need to choose power-greed or power-less. The reel is on auto, so I leave the zoo with a nod to my human angel friend and his doting wife.

Still thinking about the ‘trip’ to bring me closer to me, I get in the elevator and brace myself for the panic if it stops. As I get to second and third I start to look for the emergency stop to provoke it, but haven’t found it by the time I hit fifth, so I digress.

Small spaces, heights and large abandoned pilgrims hostels all arouse that sense of panic that I am leaving behind, but perhaps the way for me isn’t to provoke, but to allow. I’ve taken the long, hard, treacherous road for SO long. My new road is full of roses and butterflies and rainbows and it isn't about getting anywhere but about being.

On my last day in Portugal I saw a rainbow in the mist of the waves, a culmination of two things I love. It told me the road I want, wants me too.