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Lost and Found
“Just an hour,” we gently coaxed. “Just for an hour.”
In front of me stood six of my 14-year-old students. We had traveled to Spain during an early heatwave in June to hike the final 115 km (71 miles) of the famed Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile path that winds its way through some of the country’s most scenic and rugged terrain.
Wide-eyed and eager, my gaggle of ramblers had made quick work of the first few days on the trail. But by the midway point, they had started to wilt. The hills, the temperature, and the weight of their bulging backpacks were beginning to take a toll.
I recognized this same emotional precipice with a weary familiarity, for twelve years prior I had come to Spain with the intention of walking the Camino in its entirety. That decision had all the hallmarks of a full-blown midlife crisis. I was on the cusp of turning fifty. My mother had died a few months earlier. Suddenly the trajectory of my life felt predictable and staid. Overwhelmed with sadness and missing the cornerstone on which I had always relied, I was like a fish out of water, flailing and gasping for air. But instead of turning to Botox, or indulging in shopping sprees, or distracting myself with work, I told my wife I wanted to walk 500 miles.
Somehow, she knew enough not to try and talk me out of it.
