Stowing our Demons and Muses

When packing for a day hike, a small rucksack with a few things thrown in will suffice--a water bottle, a sweater, a picnic lunch, sunscreen, maybe a camera and a hat if you remembered to grab them on the way out the door.  It's easy to keep your pack light and carefree for a day hike.

Well, what if you are planning to walk 35 day hikes back-to-back?
Would you pack any differently?
Some pilgrims who have walked the entire 500+ mile Camino Frances insist no, you would pack virtually the same items, with the addition of, say, perhaps, an extra set of underwear and socks.
That's it!  You're done!  Off you go now!

For some prepping pilgrims, myself included, this short list strikes an arrow of fear directly into the heart of their sense of material security; the "what-ifs" immediately descend like a penetrating, cold rain to flood the peregrino's mind.  What if....
I get a blister?  I sprain my ankle or my wrist? My pack gets wet?  I get bitten by mozzies, ticks, or worse?  I get chased by a mean dog?  I need extra meds,  electrolytes, allergy pills, my teddy bear?   My clients/boss/patients have a crisis in my absence which only I can solve?   (Ahhh, so this is how the lesser demons begin to gather and mumble to themselves.  They think they are going to be stowaways on your journey to Santiago!)

Those are just some of the fear factors that one will try to guard against should the looming Camino become too challenging to bear.

And what, too, about the little enthusiasms we'd like to tote along to magnify, enrich, or commemorate our journey?  What if I want to....
Take pictures?  Call my family and friends?  Sleep outside in a tent under the Milky Way?  Have an entire bottle of vino tinto to myself for a picnic lunch?  Play my guitar in the evenings?  Write in my journal or sketch the scenery?  (Our personal muses dance in our heads, joyfully begging to be carried along the Way!)

So I am coming up against some hard decisions!  And while I am in the final throes of packing for the Camino, they are also reality checks, particularly since I have experimented with hauling some of my tidy but tangible fears and joys on my person in the form of the ubiquitous backpack during a practice hike or two.  I have begun to understand viscerally and precisely what those fears and joys weigh....in kilograms!

 Many of us may not be able to bear to shed these things which weigh us down like so many inessential appendages....that is, until we have dragged them on our backs halfway up into the Pyrenees mountains.  I imagine that after that first long day of slogging ascent one might begin to balance the desire for security very harshly against a quickly growing desire for freedom.