Pantry

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Still in Spain, still on the Camino de Santiago, and still walking.  Charlotte read my last post, crossed her arms and glared at me, “Wait, are we not finishing this?!?!  Why did I walk all this way for you to quit, you might be a quitter, but I am getting there for sure.”  So she has been real fun to walk with lately.

Since I apparently love my tween more than my feet, we are still walking.  Still walking early in the morning, still walking past really cool things, still doing it all together.  Lots of together, so much together.

Somewhere along the Meseta, it hit us that we should be about halfway there.  It had to be close, but we didn’t really know.   We walked into Sahagún and into this amazing restored church with the image of Mary of the Peregrina in the front (the protector of the pilgrims), after checking over our credentials they gave us an official certificate.  It says that we made it halfway or at least I think it does because it is in old fancy-pants Spain Spanish, and I am just now able to read a menu. 

However, the coolest thing about this church is up in one of the bell towers there was a baby OWL that had just left his nest and was trying to figure out if he had the guts to make it ALL THE WAY to the bottom.  He was fluffy and puffy and everything that a baby owl should be.  I did not realize that Spain had such a huge display of birds of prey (eagles, hawks, vultures, condors, and some really amazing owls).  Hiking allows you to slow down enough to see them frequently and we have gotten semi-good at identifying them.  Although we don’t have anyone who is double-checking us, so we might be semi-bad.  Anywhooo... (ha!) there he was this sweet little owl trying to figure out what he was scared of more: Claire in the window blowing kisses at him, or taking the plunge and dropping below to see if those wings of his could make it.  He was halfway there, taking a moment, finding his brave.  This was not lost on any of us. 

Here is my new brave, my pantry is gone.  Recently anytime I walk into a store of any kind  (grocery, book, clothing, hardware) I have this conversation with myself:  

Me:  "oh wow that is cute, I clearly need that amazing item." 

Me: "except crap, I am going to have to carry said item for another 400 km”

Me: "yeah... I'm good."

Keeps walking- saves lots of money.

Yesterday I was in this amazing Spanish antique/thrift store in this tiny village.  It was like our thrift stores back on the square in Greenville, but their old junk looks like it is from Restoration Hardware, instead of what I already don’t want in my attic.  Old Spanish junk is cool.  I wanted it all, particularly this antique door knocker.  It was cheap, but it was also heavy, so very heavy.  So I kept walking.  And here is the amazing thing... I’m good.  I don’t have a door right now to knock on anyway.

Here is my current food pantry.  We try to not eat out, so we need to keep food on hand.  But “food on hand” means something completely different on the Camino than it does back home.  We buy exactly what we are going to eat that day, no more- no less, cause no one wants to carry a bag of uneaten chia seeds across Spain, even if it made you feel cool and trendy when you bought them.  I was having a conversation with a bicyclist who mentioned that the tienda (food store) had a better selection in this town than the next, so he was going to buy his stuff here and suggested that myself and a fellow hiker from Israel do the same.  We laughed.  Buy food that you have to carry 20k, because there is a chance you might have better choices... no gracias.  Then cause I was feeling chummy with the Israeli, I made a small joke about only living off our daily manna.  I thought it was hilarious, she stopped hiking with us.  Apparently, it is still too soon.  

I have never felt that my consumerism and materialism were driven by “keeping up with the Joneses”.   I just never bought into that lie, as evidenced by my fashion, but here is where I swallowed it hook line, and sinker.  I have always tried to keep up with my pantry.  “The Pantry” gives me comfort.  The what if I need_______?  Or the this might be my last chance to get ______ and then what would I do without a ______? Or the maybe I will need ______ someday?    Except ...  I never do.  And at home, I am left with 5 half-used bottles of shampoo or chicken/beef/and veg bouillon that all expired in 2013 and our craft closet...   But, today I am walking through a desert with my children and all we have in our “pantry” is a bag of sunflower seeds, some dried apricots, bread, a can of Pringles and a stick of meat.  This will be gone by the end of the day.  Yes, even that stick o’meat, because I have a Jake.  We have not gone hungry AND we have not thrown out food in over a month, it makes me cringe to think about how much we waste at home.   And listen to this, this was revolutionary to me: we can get more tomorrow when tomorrow gets here.