Have you ever wanted to run away?
This is a familiar threat from young children in many American families. When a child senses there are too many rules, too many chores, maybe too little personal attention, or just too little screen time allowed, the response is, “I am going to run away!” The meaning is portrayed very clearly in The Wizard of Oz movie when Dorothy sings about what life would be like over the rainbow. She wants a place where she won’t get into any trouble, and the only answer is to run away. She longs to find “a land that I’ve heard of once in a lullaby,” so she puts a few things in a small suitcase, picks up her dog and a basket, and walks out the door.
In many ways, Americans are all Dorothy now. We’d like to run away from the political scene, from the bigotry, the discrimination and hatred, from high prices for simple things, and from too much animosity. The French might describe what we have now as a general malaise. We spend our days sitting indoors or working from home, more so than any other country, and we interact with each other over screens instead of face to face. Most of us don’t accept phone calls; we prefer just to read WhatsApp texts or messages. So, we are very much like children with our simple liberties being taken away. In many cases, we are afraid to raise our voice for the first time in our lives. And while we all know this cannot last, I know I would like to run away.
My sister tried to run away once, when she was very small. She put a dress in a small bag, but never made it out of the house. Mother offered to help her pack, clearly indicating that her escape plan had a very small chance of success, and that was it. I had friends who also tried running away – none of them got very far. But needing to go to “a land that I’ve heard of once” may just be why so many Americans are buying plane tickets now, with the idea of walking the Camino de Santiago.
Typically, the main reason for actually needing a pilgrimage is that you have reached an imaginary crossroads in your life: you have left a job, or a partner, you need to change the direction in your life, or you are looking for something and, to find it, you need to step away. The metaphor is also clear: that the road you are on is not taking you where you need – or want – to go, so you choose a road with clearly defined direction. But the impulse behind it today may just be that simple need to run away: to leave the routine, the screens and recycled office air in exchange for a long, and often challenging walk through fresh air and Spanish forests with like-minded companions. It could be that, as the former US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg has called it, we are all in a liminal space now, experiencing the blank page between chapters in a book. We can stay where we are or choose the path forward by simply moving ahead into that next chapter. A pilgrimage to Santiago then becomes that path – the liminal space between where we have been and where we are going. The physical road of the Camino might propel us forward.
It’s easy to think walking will solve everything. Lots of pilgrims will fall into that group – I don’t know what to do next, so this walk will show me. In many ways, it does do that, but pilgrims learn so much more about life, about themselves, about the planet we share and, just like Dorothy, about the true meaning of home.
Living the traditional American way of life is about to become even more challenging on many fronts. There are too many people living in fear, either because of their immigration status in the United States, or food insecurity, job insecurity, housing costs, or the cost of raising children. Even if these fears do not touch us all directly, we can sense it in our neighbors and coworkers. In so many ways, we are not sufficiently empowered to change it. It is the way that child feels when she throws a dress in a bag and decides to run away: powerless.
I have read that one of the principal motivators that drive people both to attend church services or to begin a pilgrimage is this general sense of powerlessness in their lives. It’s too simple to say that people are just looking for answers. It’s more that they are also looking for a retreat. There is a need to back away from the chaos to get a better view, the way camera lenses are used to bring the subject into focus.
When I came back to New York after my first real pilgrimage to Santiago in January 2011, I did see things clearer and I felt empowered. I don’t remember looking for clarity, I simply wanted to see lots of old Spanish churches, but I decluttered my apartment, I started writing more often, and I know I valued my friends in a very deep way that I had not before. I don’t think I was at a crossroads, but the path forward did come into focus. and after just two years, I returned to the Camino and walked again. I liked the way my walking every day forced me to use skills that I wasn’t using every day at home.
I would caution first-time pilgrims though, not to set their sights too high. Even if you can escape the news and social media sites for a few weeks, they will all be there when you come home. The news may even be worse than when you left for Spain. But here’s the thing: take the retreat, breathe in the fresh air, start using more of your skills, and pay close attention to the small things. In the end, you will have gained much more than you may realize. And you will likely come back to Spain, or you may just find that what you were looking for is right in your own backyard.
Just like Dorothy.
Anne Born, pilgrim, poet, editor and writer specialized in the Camino de Santiago.
