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Speaking of missing your backpack, I had a similar experience with my sleeping bag 6 weeks after returning from my first Camino. It began innocently enough last Sunday; I had begun to change my sheets but once I had the fitted sheet on the mattress, the thought stole through my mind that I could use my Camino sleeping bag until the original sheets back on when they came out of the wash.Sillydoll, a very generous poster and veteran of many caminos, commented once, "Who would believe you would miss your backpack", but it is true. After a while you will settle, but like many of us, will probably start planning another....and another. We only ever intended to do the Francais but we have just completed our third (now Francais, Via Francigena and Le Puy to SJPP) and, who knows, maybe in a year or two, another one.
Maggie Ramsay
(The Italian Camino - Amazon)
Speaking of missing backpacks I had a similar experience with my sleeping bag 6 weeks after returning from my Camino. It began innocently enough last Sunday; I had begun to change my sheets but once I had the fitted sheet on the mattress, the thought stole through my mind, I could just use my Camino sleeping bag and put the original sheets back on when they came out of the wash. The sheets came out the next day but I stayed in my bag, one night after another until a week had gone by.
I never would have thought I would prefer sleeping in my bag to my regular bedding but somehow it brought back being on the Camino.
Like so many of you, I, too find myself on this forum a lot in addition to spending a great deal of time blogging about my experiences on the Francés this summer. It is still so present and I am already beginning to plan my second camino for June 2015, either the Francés again or the Norte...
Thank you all for keeping it alive for me...
Nice reminder not to be forgotten.Speaking of missing backpacks I had a similar experience with my sleeping bag 6 weeks after returning from my Camino. It began innocently enough last Sunday; I had begun to change my sheets but once I had the fitted sheet on the mattress, the thought stole through my mind, I could just use my Camino sleeping bag and put the original sheets back on when they came out of the wash. The sheets came out the next day but I stayed in my bag, one night after another until a week had gone by.
I never would have thought I would prefer sleeping in my bag to my regular bedding but somehow it brought back being on the Camino.
Like so many of you, I, too find myself on this forum a lot in addition to spending a great deal of time blogging about my experiences on the Francés this summer. It is still so present and I am already beginning to plan my second camino for June 2015, either the Francés again or the Norte...
Thank you all for keeping it alive for me...
Hi Joe,Everything in our lives is affected by our environment. Whether it be our jobs, families, friends, school etc. Each day we awake into these well known scenarios and live/survive/adjust???? The Camino, imo, is a step out of those bubbles. It allows us the freedom to think outside of our controlled/managed/extant/present day routines with few distractions.
Our return home is a step back into an environment we know and have probably given quite a bit of thought to over a 3o to 45 day trip outside of it. The environments we return are healthy/not healthy/somewhere in between. They are all environments we have chosen/been born into/gravitated towards/followed others into etc., for whatever reasons in our long or short lifetimes.
I do not think it is possible to walk a Camino and not be changed in some way if only for a short while.
How do we adjust when we get home? How did you adjust while walking the Camino?
We can go home and embrace our family/friends/jobs etc. or we can make changes (possibly big or small) in our lives.
The Camino, imo, is an annual introspective journey/opportunity for me to grow as a man and become a better person. The side benefits are meeting wonderful people, an improvement in my fitness, enjoyment of nature, beautiful scenery, good food and drink and observing mankind, in general, functioning at it's best.
When I return home, I am hopefully a better husband, father, grandfather, neighbor, friend etc. at least for awhile. Then I need to go back to the Camino and work on my still imperfect self. The Camino, imo, provides an environment for that to happen.
Ultreya,
Joe
I second that although maybe not as early as dawnSome of us never "settle back at home" ! We write books and blogs, contribute to this amazing Forum, and continue to dream of starting out for Santiago once again. Whether this may be or not is up to chance. Nevertheless every morning as dawn breaks I scan the sky, feel the wind and test the air temperature as I think what a great day for walking!
MM
Well done Crusader!! You seem to have brought the Camino home with you. The feelings I felt after my long stint in June 2014 was very different to my recent short walk from Santiago to Muxia and Fisterra. I'm glad I didn't wait until next spring to go back. I left myself as open as I could have done and I didn't focus on any physical or organisational part of the journey. I was rewarded and returned feeling satisfied, grateful, humble and ready to plan another stint for next year. Best of luck with your recovery, you will return to the Camino.I returned from my Camino at the end of June and for six weeks my return to the norms of work and home was constantly interrupted by flashbacks to the images and the people who shared that special time with my wife and I. As the months have gone by and i await the knee surgery that is required following the Camino my only question for the doctor is will i be able to return. The Camino has changed me more than i could ever have thought possible and in so many ways and those changes have improved me as a person and my relationships with the people in my life . Life will never be the same again and that in itself made the return to normal life a joy and now while life goes on my dream is to return and experience the wonder that is the Camino again.
OMG! What evil thing have you done that you must walk the Camino again? ... to require walking another Camino for Penance.
It's been a week tomorrow since leaving Spain. As Rebekah Scott said "culture shock does not begin to describe what happens next".
In some ways, one could say that I am blessed as I have had nothing to return back to. No job, no real fixed address, no commitments apart from my dog who cost me a little fortune in vet fees since my return.
With total freedom, ironically comes anxiety and feeling overwhelmed. Which path to take?
I wish someone would come and paint yellow arrows to mark my way.
I found myself in almost the same scenario. No job, no real fixed address, no dog. The only commitment I have is my undergrad study, I'm a mature student at UBC. Coming back after 18 months in Europe during which I walked 4 short and long Caminos, was tough. Upon coming back I've felt completely disconnected with my life before Camino and it has been a constant struggle to return to normality for the past 2 months. I thought I am crazy because I can't stop dreaming about doing another camino. The people in my life might think I am crazy though they don't want to say it to my face.
Yes, I can totally relate, I feel overwhelmed and lost without the yellow arrow in this mundane life. Is it weird how I never felt lost on the camino, by myself, walking on unknown paths to never-heard-before places in a foreign country without speaking the language??? I just calmly follow the signs and face the unknown every day of the camino.
How I wish for you and me to find that kind of symbolic yellow arrow in our daily life, one day. And that we could calmly face the unknown everyday of our mundane life too! Buen Camino
Cheers,
Great to read all your reflections. Sharing is good, but the experience is different for everybody. Amazing things happen, but you need to open yourself for it. And don't compare to quickComing back was for me, very difficult. I see walking my camino as a great therapy. A phase that should fit into a learning process in my life that continues. Still trying to understand the lessons. A deep inner process. Back at home it is the challenge to translate it into your life. It is too easy to write it as a success story. For me it is a long process, it is changing my life ... but slowly. Making a pilgrimage again, feels good, to recharge myself. But for me it does not to be Spain. It can be any path, also nearby home. Like the Jacobspath from Koln that I walked this spring. Leaving home again with my backpack and give up security, don't book your sleeping place and walk in trust. That is special. But 'you' may do it on your own way
Ditto missing my new friends. Ditto gratitude for social media. Ditto friends and family tired of hearing me talk about the Camino (and post Camino blog updates almost daily).I have found that the most difficult part of returning home after 6 weeks on the Camino is missing the many new friends that I met along the way. I'm VERY thankful for social media to keep connected.
I know my family, friends, and co-workers are tired of hearing me talk about the Camino. It's great to connect online with my Camino friends, share pictures, and comment on how much we miss the trail.
Hi hans2hike,
When I found it difficult to adjust to home I found the forum helpful in that I was not alone. I agree that everyone's experience has to be different and each journey different. Like you I am planning a home Camino in Ireland on a very beautiful trail through Part of Dublin, Wicklow southwards, 132km. But still plan to do maybe the Portuguese way next year.
This.By living your life now from what you learn on the Camino....
One of the things that occurs to me when I read through this thread is how suddenly modern pilgrims are thrust back into "real life" after their extraordinary caminos.
The camino developed over time, in an era when EVERYTHING took a mighty long time to happen. If you went anywhere, you probably walked, or rode a slow animal. And once you got there, you had to turn around and go the whole way home again. Life was short and brutal. Going back to Spain for another go was not an option.
Ergo, people who made the "original" medieval camino had an extraordinary journey to an amazing place. Then they had a journey of weeks or months to process the whole thing before they got home and resumed their old lives -- assuming they survived.
Modern people have 4 or 8 or 24 hours or so between their camino and their home airport. "Culture shock" does not begin to describe what happens next.
It's no wonder so many people feel they are not finished. They probably aren't!
I may be very wrong, but my theory is: for some people (many of them on this thread) the camino clears you up, it gives you a new lease on life, a re-set. It is designed to, over time, show you where you came from, where you are, and what you can be... and from there, it takes you right out of YOU and says it's not about YOU at all, now that you've cleared up your mess. It's about what you can do for other people, other creatures, the world around you.
I think medieval people who really deeply experienced the pilgrimage went home and changed their homes and towns and churches into places of kindness and giving and service, modeled on what they experienced on their camino. They brought that spirit home with them, and did what they could to recreate it in "the real world." We are obviously having similar "conversions" while on the camino. We just don't get the time and journeying needed to apply them!
So, for the sake of world peace, and the peace of mind of all pilgrims, the airport at Lavacolla should be immediately shut down. All pilgs from now on should walk, paddle, hitchhike, or skateboard back home, or at least as far as Madrid Barajas.
Hi Silvester,When people ask me how it was, I've been saying that it was wonderful to live life at walking pace, and quoting the story of the explorer who hustled his porters for 2 long days and remonstrated with them on the third when they refused to walk any further. They replied that they could not move, they were waiting for their souls to catch up with their bodies. I think the pace of life does leave us a bit disjointed. It's strange though - before and during my camino - I was focussed on being, and journeying internally so I was content to have people come in and out of my life each day with no thought of initiating contact post-camino. Recently I've been reflecting on some of these folk and appreciating them and wondering about finishing some of the conversations we started - but can only continue by serendipity.
Hi Stephen,"We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,"
My 'no longer at ease here' manifests itself as a severe case of itchy feet. Maybe some day...
- See more at: http://allpoetry.com/The-Journey-Of-The-Magi#sthash.FUwioXnv.dpuf
This is exactly what I am doing this very moment.How do people adjust to home after their return from the Camino?
We don't, we dream about the next one and check the forum to see who is doing what.
Perfectly said! I am tired of hearing "return to real life," because the Camino was the most real thing I've done in a long time!!!Wow... can't believe all thes posts!! What a pertinent question though! When I came back, with one of the most experience I have ever lived, I told myself and others that were asking, that I would not go back. Been there, done that. Wonderful, but want to go elsewhere, discover new places, new people... Now, a year later (came back December 3, 2103), I want to go back - will go back. It took a while before I was ready to digest all of it. Sure I thought about it all the time, almost everyday. Didn't show my photos until this past week and just to chosen people. Not sure I want to share all of it, because... not sure why. I think for most of us, the Camino is such a disconnect with our lifes that this is why it is so "disturbing". Even if we like our curretn lives, the life on the Camino seems so "real", so natural, so "the way it should be".... simple. No stress. Firendly. People is also waht really makes the difference... meeting people and sharing the days with people. I assume that a lot of us have a reason to be doing the Camino, so we also bring that back with us - in a different way, transformed, but still we bring it back. The Camino is not a healing process as such. It is the beginning of a process I would say. what you do with it can be even more changing. Did I change when I came back? Of course. But I change every day when I wake up. ... ok, I getting to philosophical and English not being my first language, I'm not sure I make total sense... :0) ... But I know I do...LOL All this to say, all is good, enjoy, take what you can from it, be positive and for sure you are better off having done it than not.... I'm going to Peru in 2015, but planing a second Camino in 2016!! Take care all of you good people!
So true, that would be a very powerful gift.With any luck they don't just have to come back another time
Now there's a thought...............With any luck they don't just have to come back another time
Best of luck, enjoy.It is done! I purchased my seat on the plane and will be arriving in Biarritz on October 31st.
I am excited and frightened in equal measure and thanks to all the wonderful insights here I'm adequately prepared, physically - the work starts now to get my head right so that I can "be" my Camino
Why are you repeating this post on multiple old threads?It is done! I purchased my seat on the plane and will be arriving in Biarritz on October 31st.
I am excited and frightened in equal measure and thanks to all the wonderful insights here I'm adequately prepared, physically - the work starts now to get my head right so that I can "be" my Camino
In 14 threads or so. I guess it's the excitement about having booked a ticket and starting in SJPP in a month's time from now. Brace yourselves, nearly a dozen zombie threads are now awakened.Why are you repeating this post on multiple old threads?
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