About

Bettina's Camino

Twenty or so years ago, my colleague Linda invited my mother and me to her house to see photos of her pilgrimage on the Camino Santiago. I was intrigued, but was a mother of young kids and it seemed like a nice thing... for someone else to do. 

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Twelve or so years later, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and was midway through treatment when Kate Savage invited me to a talk by a man who regained his health on the Camino Frances. We shared dinner afterwards. I woke the next day resolved to make the pilgrimage to in gratitude for my graduation to survivor status. That target moved from five to ten to seven years as the research data changed. 

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And there was life. A lot of it... divorce, moving, kids starting and finishing high school and college, COVID, a long-term relationship beginning and ending. Above all, a growing understanding that I was ready for a new chapter that fell outside the boundaries of an exclusively home-based life, school year and school structure. 

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In 2019 I took the first step by enrolling in ITMI - the International Tour Management Institute. My plan was to work over a few summer breaks before moving to full-time tour guiding/directing after finishing my 25th year at Sayre. COVID and other factors delayed the plan. I interviewed for travel jobs, but my school-centered schedule kept knocking me out of the running.  I felt stuck In my job, in my life. I needed to shift my perspective

I realized that if I wanted my dream to come to fruition, I had to take a leap of faith and make myself available. Like really, terrifyingly available. I announced my retirement. I got a travel job, only to have it fall through a week later. I finished teaching in June. No career-path job lined up, other than my fun distillery guide job. I lined up som e student travel jobs, made plans to go on the tour guide/director job market in in November. But what to do in between?

The Camino had been calling me for 8 years, and now I found myself with six open weeks in the fall. I began to plan, but had a hard time thinking that it would really happen. 

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The first months of the year involved a complicated process of discernment. Since February I simultaneously prepared and doubted myself. I had enthusiastic encouragers and very open critics of my plan. I bought the gear, walked a lot, but still was not sure if I was actually going to make it happen. SO many doubts - about my injured ankle, arthritic toe, the ascent over the Pyrenees from St. Jean Pied de Port, and the voices (mine, and those of my doubters) who said that I wasn't cut out for this and would fail.

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Then something happened.

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It was gorgeous August day, and I went for a training hike at Shaker Village. Being there always brings me peace. The hike was lovely. Not too hard, also not too short. (For once I didn't get lost.) 6.5 miles of trail, saw three people until I walked through the Village.

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Hike completed, satisfied with my progress, I sat in a chair facing the Old Turnpike and treated myself to lunch. Silently contemplated the many changes happening in my life, still questioning my ability to navigate them at all, let alone with grace.

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And then, up walked Bill Berryman, my colleague of the past 26 years and longtime depicter of Shaker Village in his drawings and paintings. One hangs in a place of honor in my home - a retirement gift from my beloved Sayre colleagues. 

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I don't recall a better conversation in my life. Hard to say what it was, other than transparent, honest and rooted in its context. We sat looking at the historic turnpike, talking about the energy of the place, and the many souls who did such hard spiritual work there. We touched a bit about our own work and life paths. I didn't want that moment to end. I began to see that the things standing in my way lost much of their power as we sat. Something shifted, and what had been in question was now certain and right.

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I knew my Camino was a go. But I was still doubting myself. That first day over the Pyrenees from St. Jean still loomed and troubled. Would I make it? If I didn't, wouldn't I "fail" on the first day? What does it say about you if you fail a pilgrimage?

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Then Sayre alum and former colleague Charlie Dalton messaged me that for every Peregrino/a on the pilgrimage, there is was someone who started someplace further away. There is no objectively "pure" Camino. Each pilgrim has their own path. You start your pilgrimage where you are. That's what makes it yours. I was fixated on one thing in my way, and it was utterly in my control to avoid it.

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I drove home, knowing my path. The cloud of doubt lifted as I realized that I have been on the pilgrimage since I started to plan it.

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Doubt isn't an impediment, it is part of the pilgrimage itself.

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I'm doing this, and starting from Roncesvalles. 1 day in from St Jean. To Santiago de Compostella, at my own pace. Maybe to Muxia and the Atlantic... or maybe leaving that for my next Camino. Taking it day by day.

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This is my Camino. 6 weeks, mid-September to late October. And then a new life path starts.

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PS: That day, I got home to find my Camino Credencial (passport) in the mailbox. What a day.

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