Last Thursday…. this Thursday

Last Thursday... our last walking day on the Camino. We set off from Osebe for our final 8.5 mile walk into Santiago. It rained. A lot. We walked into the square in front of the cathedral, took some soggy selfies then headed to the Pilgrims Office to get our certificates. Exhausted and exhilarated, we had completed our journey.

This Thursday... I'm back in North Carolina. It’s early, I’ve been awake since around 4am. Jet lag and the remains of recovery from a heinous stomach bug that delayed our flight home for a day have messed with all that my body considers normal. I am not feeling normal.

As expected, I've returned to a pile of work. I am back in front of my two big screens, attached to my laptop.

The Word document open in front of me is not operating in the manner I prefer. Bullets, tabs and indentations seem determined to misbehave, no matter what I do to try and steer them in the right direction. This is not making me happy.

Once I’ve dropped the F-bomb twice I realize an intervention is needed.

I grab my half-drunk mug of lukewarm tea and head to the porch.

Stop, sit, breath, restart... as Anne Lamott said "almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you."

It was me that needed unplugging not my computer.

I take a short walk and sit on a bench on the other side of the Lake. From this vantage point I can see the windows of my study. I imagine my soon future self at those windows, back at the aforementioned screens with the wayward Word document.

I’m not sure there’s any landing gently back from an experience like the Camino. A gentle landing would imply that nothing of substance happened. That the whole enterprise could be brushed off with a shrug. Carelessly dismissed.

I have a slight feeling of desperation. I don't want lose whatever was learned from the pilgrimage. I don't want to just slide back into normal life and forget the lessons of the days on the path. It feels like some of the lessons are still emerging, they need a little more time to gestate.

I’m doing what I can to notice. Everything. It was not hard to notice me swearing at my computer screen. Other evidence might be more discreet, this was not.

So after my reset, I headed back to the screens, with a plan and hopefully a less combative heart. It involves coffee, a plain text file, a brand new Word doc and breathing.