Everything changes
“Because I still matter,” one older woman said.
“Because I need to figure out what matters,” said a young man.
“Because I need time to think.”
“Because I think too much.”
There were maybe 30 of us pilgrims sitting on wooden chairs, crowded together in the little interior courtyard of the Iglesia de Santa Maria in Carrión. It was the late afternoon of my sixteenth day walking the Camino Francés. One of the four Augustinian nuns who would be leading us in song had asked us to say why we were on this journey.
“I need to do something to separate the life I’ve been living from the life that is now in front of me,” is what I said. “It needed to be something big.” There are so many moments on the Camino that grab hold of you, that surprise you, that sandblast you. This was one of those moments: Saying those words aloud, admitting the enormity of this transition, the blank canvas of the future. Being in the presence—and oh man, was it a presence– of these nuns, one of whom was so beatific that it was easy to imagine she had been touched by God. Even if you didn’t believe there was a God. Sitting in the fading sun with people from around the world, people you didn’t know but in that moment you knew intimately. Turning my head to see Kiki, our white hot friendship still in its early days, crying as we sang “Amazing Grace.”
And then the final song, the refrain of which went like this:
Todo cambió todo. Everything changes everything.
The song was lovely. But as I sang the words, I thought yeah, sure, I know this. Change is the only constant. The times they are a’ changin’. To exist is to change. Yep, got it.
But then I walked some more, a lot more, and a lot more after that. And I got home and slept in my own bed and made my solo dinners and stood here in front of this computer and did what I do. Then one afternoon I ventured out for coffee. Todo cambió todo.
“When you come out of the storm,
you won’t be the same person who walked in.
That’s what this storm’s all about.” ― Haruki Murakami
9 comments
Un hermoso recordatorio de una simple verdad. 🙏🏻❤️🎶
As the Indigo Girls sing: The hardest to learn is the least complicated.
….and what is now in front of you?
Life with a capital L.
Todo cambio todo indeed, she said with tears in her eyes.
I know, my friend, I know.
Growing up Catholic, I interacted with a lot of nuns, most of whom I don’t recall fondly. The two I do recall fondly were Sister Lionessa (my first grade teacher) who had very recently taken her vows. She was young, sweet and kind to me and made me feel at home in my first school (I had skipped kindergarten). The second was Sister Teresa who was my mother’s teacher in high school. I met her when I was a young teenager. She was extremely frail, yet carrying on her candle-lighting duties before each mass as she had for over 60 years. She too was young, sweet, and kind. Her youth, she told me, was “renewed like the Eagle’s.” And I can only hope that Sister Lionessa’s was likewise blessed after all the years since we first met.
That time with the nuns was so magical for me, too – one of three times on the Camino I burst into tears (I am generally not a big crier so that surprised me). I can still see the nuns and even reading your piece makes my heart ache the way it did then. Superbly put!
Absolute, we are different….
Can we or could we change the “change” or does/did life do what it wants? Always?
Leave a Comment