true life planet

To pick up where I left off two entries ago…

I spent the next morning delivering beer and Coca Cola in a delivery truck.

How this happened is somewhat difficult to explain exactly; Or, rather, what I mean to say is such interesting things as this happen to me often in my travels. I often find myself having totally different adventures than everyone else-perhaps because I am open to whatever the day brings.

What happened is this: I awoke in the morning, completely exhausted. The snorers had outdone themselves the night before and sleep came and went. When I got up in the morning, I decided to go find a cup of coffee.

I went into a coffeeshop, and a local man who turned out to be a carpenter struck up a conversation with me. I explained I had to hang around his village for a few days, due to ankle problems..and said I wished I could see some of the nearby villages. He offered up his cousin, who apparently was delivering beer and sodas to Caseljeriz and all of the surrounding villages. A call was made, and before I knew it, I was in the front seat of the cab, between two very nice and extremely conversational Spanish men(one of whom was his cousin).

Due to the fact walking was difficult, I didn´t actually get to unload any beer from the truck. My job was instead, to smile alot and hand the owners of the bars and or tiny shops a clipboard to sign that the delivery was made. Then, we all drank coffee. By the end of the morning, I was so highly caffienated I had to switch to orange juice.

By about 1 oclock, I had seen what there was to see-churches(old, falling down); houses(old, falling down); alot of sheep; alot of sheepherders; alot of trucks of sheep manure; and, huge packs of sheepherding dogs.

I told them that I wanted to go to Mass in Caseljeriz, so they stopped a woman riding by on her bicycle and asked her if there was going to be a Mass. It turned out that there was none. There was going to be a Rosary, though, and did I want to go to that?

The Rosary was going to be at the same church that currently held a big exhibit of Mary art. It turned out the woman on the bicycle worked there. In fact, she was the only person in town who had the key to the church, other than the priest. Great. So, I got dropped off at the church, she opened the door and let me in.

There was a charge to see the artwork, but she didn´t charge me. She said that this was because I was coming to the Rosary. Apparently, they never have pilgrims at the Rosary. This is too bad-they are really missing out, as I would come to find out.

Anyway, I walked around the museum-which was interesting, sort of an erratic collection of Mary things-from paintings to sculpture to odds and ends. The place was freezing cold, and I was sort of jogging in place to keep warm. That´s when I began to notice the beautiful poems, all with a Mary theme, on the walls.

Here´s one(it´s in Spanish of course. English won´t do the poem justice, I am sorry):

Mesaje de Dios te traigo

El te saluda, Maria,

Pues Dios se prendo de ti,

y Dios es Dios de alegria.

LLena de gracia te llamo

Porque la gracia te llena;

Si mas te pudiera dar,

Mucha mas gracia te diera.

El Senor esta contigo,

Aun mas que tu estas con Dios;

Tu carne ya es tu carne,

Tu sangre es para dos.

Y bendita vas a ser

Entre todas las mujeres,

Pues, si eres madre de todos

Quien podria no quererte?

-Frederico Garcia Lorca

The whole place was full of poetry. I spent the entire rest of the day there, writing it all down, and talking with the caretaker about the place. While we were talking, many pilgrims came in. Some took the time to look around, while others just asked for the stamp and left. One woman pilgrim spent almost one hour looking at one statue and praying. One man came in and left awhile later, wiping tears from his eyes. One couple came in and talked so loud you´d have thought they were in a stadium. One man came in and walked into the museum without paying(it was one euro)..He told the caretaker that he,¨would look around first and see if it was worth it¨!

The Rosary was awesome. The whole place filled up with tiny village women, all dressed dark sweaters of navy or grey with heavy coats. All the women had the same haircut (short and practical) and the same length skirts( just past the knee). One sprightly woman wore a daringly red scarf. I felt quite wild in my orange tshirt.

The Rosary was literally the fastest Rosary I´ve ever heard-it literally lasted all of 15 or 20 minutes. I have never heard anyone speak Spanish so quickly-there were two women in particular who everyone seemed striving to keep up with. I gasped at their seemingly nonstop manner of prayer-the moment the priest paused, they were already at it. I gave up saying anything and instead looked at the artwork.

After they said the Rosary, they did something spectacular-something I have never seen. All of the village women stood up and began to sing Ave Maria. Thankfully, this was not done at a high speed, but at a slow, measured pace which I could keep up with. Then as they sang, they formed a procession-with me in it-and we all proceeded to walk around the chapel three times, singing Ave Maria. God, was it beautiful. (Although I´m sure it looked interesting to anyone watching-me, 20 or so tiny round village women!Oh, and the priest-let´s not forget him-he was there, too!).

After the Rosary,  a few of the women came up to me and introduced themselves. I got invited for coffee to one woman´s house, which turned into dinner, which turned into dessert….and what a dessert it was…

It was some sort of creamy, insanely delicious pastry, the color of clouds, with this creamy filling that tasted of vanilla and almonds. When I took one bite I thought I had died and gone to heaven. It was that good. It did not even seem like it could be food.

It turned out that the pastry was made by the local convent of St. Clare nuns-and that they actually sold the pastry every morning. My new friends told me to go the following morning, and sample to my heart´s content.

I looked at my watch..it was late! I had to get back to the refuge, or I would be late for my dishwashing duties. I said goodbye, promised to visit the convent the very next day, and went back to the refuge.

The next morning, I went to the convent as soon as it opened.

One walks thru the town to get to it, and then once there, one walks thru these beautiful doors into a sweet courtyard, where there is an old well(used by pilgrims in the past) and benches and so on. There is a little door to go thru to buy the pastry, and there is a case showing all of the different kinds, all featured on little plates, with little carefully lettered signs telling there names. It turns out the pastry I had had the night before was ¨St. Francis of the Assisi¨ pastry.

I found a buzzer, and pushed it. I waited…. seemingly, nothing happened. I sort of heard a mumble, but I could not discern from where. I hesitated, and then pushed it again. Again, the same mumble, but no sign of life.

Then a woman´s voice said, ¨Open the door.¨

Which door? There were two. There was a sort of little cupboard door, and then a big door. I was stuck between trying to decide which door to open, when the large door opened, and the sweetest, most beautiful nun came out, beaming at me.

She was probably about 70 years old, but she was ageless. She had a beautiful face, very rosy mouth, and was wearing a just past the knee habit of blueish grey, with an white apron over it. (Just looking at her, in fact, made me want to be a nun-at least temporarily.)

I was thinking, ¨Uh oh. Now I am in trouble. Now I´ve done it. I´ve seen one of them. Now what to do? What do I say?¨ (The Order of St. Clare nuns is a cloistered order-which means they don´t go out into the world-nor are they allowed to be seen by people in the world.)

The nun, still looking at me with a very kindly expression, said, ¨Are you Gigi?¨

And I,  astonished, thinking I was having one of those God-moments when angels sing at any moment and trumpets are heard and so on, whispered, ¨Yes.¨

And then she smiled even wider, and said, ¨Good. I´ve been expecting you.¨

And I thought to myself, at any moment trumpets will sound, angels will appear…

And she said, ¨They told me you would come today. The women in the village.¨

And I, smiling like an idiot, said (quite weakly, as up to this point I was thinking she might levitate or something, and was somewhat confused), ¨Ah..yes.¨

And then she said, ¨Well. Come in, come in!¨

And in I went. ( It turns out the Order of St. Clares-at least some of them-can be seen by women. Yet again, another opportunity happens traveling  for me because I am a woman that would never happen for a man. Interesting.)

I spent most of the afternoon there. What transpired while I was there was of the most private, spiritual nature, so I won´t share it here. But I will say that I tried alot of pastry-alot. And I will be making those heavenly pastry of St. Francis when I return to the States, because they are something that everyone I know should try at least once.

As evening approached, I told her I had to go. My dishwashing duties were about to begin.(Note to self: Do not volunteer for dishwashing duty three nights in a row in the future.)

She told me to come back tomarrow, on my way out of town. There was something she wanted me to do, she said.

¨Ok, I´ll come back in the morning¨, I said, and happy, full of pastry, cookies, and cakes, I walked down the road back to the refuge, thinking what a perfect day. I had really gotten into the village groove.

It´s days like this that make me see my injury as a blessing-I mean, who would have thought? So yet another lesson from the Camino: It´s not what happens to me that is all that important, it´s my attitude about it. And..my attitude is one of optimism, absolutely shining optimism. I think it may be because of this attitude that such wonderful experiences are coming my way, everyday.

¨Coming Up Next: ¨An Act Of Faith at Alto de Mostelares¨

gigi

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