I need to make this work. I need to get this done because it’s 78 degrees. The first rea
hot spring day in southern France. And I am driven. It’s April of 2023, and my husband
and I are hiking The Chemin de Compestella , a 500 mile pilgrimage from LePuy en
Valley, France, to St.John Peire de Port, also in France, over the Pyrenees, then
another 500 miles thru Spain to Santiago de Compestella. Our retirement trip, a trip
that had been in the making for eight years.
But today, May 6, a 78 degree day in southern France, I am driven.
I am driven, on a mission..I want a space on the clothesline. It’s more than a mission,
having a place on the clothes line is my obsession.
When you hike The Chemin, there are 3 important realities: 1. Each day, over 200
people are hiking the same trail 2. Everyone has the body odor of a prepubescent boy
who has, for the past week, refused to bathe or shower 3. All 200 of these hikers wash
out their socks and hang them on a clothesline to dry, especially on a 78 degree day
We arrive in the city of Limogene at a wonderful gite, places that have bedrooms,
showers, and a communal meal. Natalie, our hostess has hiked The Chemin, so she
gets it. She understands wanting to make this work, the simple task of washing two
rancid smelling t shirts and three pair of socks. Not just the washing , but procuring the
much coveted space on the clothesline. It’s an obsession of wanting desperately,
desiring with fiber of your being a space on the clothesline...Natalie would get this.
rejoice at this...
Natalie takes us up three flights of stairs to show us a room sized for Hobbits, then
the backyard. “This garden is for you to enjoy and here you can hang your laundry.”
And as she sweeps her arm towards the clothesline like Vanna White revealing the next
vowel, I literally wince. There is no way that this piece of rope is long enough. There are
12 of us staying at this gite and it’s already filling up -fast. Socks, shorts, t-shirts an
towels already hang there, flapping in the breeze, taunting and mocking me “Ha
Stafford, we got here first.”
And I had yet another hour before I am ready for drying time...this isn’t merely rinsing
out socks in the communal sink..no I need the washing machine...because our clothes
are in desperate need of a deep clean. And as the clothes take their bath, more folks
will arrive, and their socks and their shirts and their towels would take my space on the
clothesline.
But it didn’t happen that way.. Natalie gave me a wire drying table to lay out the wet
clothing. Mark a fellow hiker his clothing was dry so he removed his stuff from the lin
and helped me hang our wet things.
Yes more people arrived at the gite, and they all washed socks and t-shirt..after all it
was 78 degrees, a perfect day to dry out wet laundry on the clothesline. And there was
room on that clothesline for all of us.
There’s an old saying among people who hike The Chemin or it’s Spanish counterpart,
The Camino. “The Camino provides” ...the Camino provides.. it’s true. It always
provides...it provides what every hiker needs, not what they want, but what they need.
We were never without... a hot shower , a hot meal, a bed to rest weary feet.Always
surrounded with fellow hikers, sharing pain meds, red wine, and philosophical musing
of hiking 500 miles with nothing but the clothes in your back.
And yet I am always surprised, blessedly surprise by this ...my needs are always met.
We’ve hike this 500 miles before, I’ve experienced the provision of The Chemin and
The Camino..but I still am blessedly surprised.
And instead of being driven and obsessed, this journey had taught me to be
surprised...surprised that my needs, your needs , our needs, the things I need for life, a
life of joy and peace are always, always there...a good meal, a glass of wine, good
friends to share the joys and sorrows of life..and at the end of the day, a place to rest.
Surprised too that getting it done, what ever that “it” maybe, that getting it done,
making it work, is something that I can’t do on my own. Which is not so much a
blessed surprise , but a harder lesson to learn.
Making something work, completing the goal, whether the goal was chairing a
community fund raiser to buy more books for the local library or organizing my kids
picture perfect birthday parties, or washing out dirty socks in the south of France, I was
the one tasked with getting it done , making I work . I was the one tasked to make “it”
success.
It was going to be on me, my responsibility, my leadership, my skills , because, by god
I was the only one who could get “it” done the right way. And people knew i could
make it work, I could get the job done, that’s why people would seek me out to, make
“it”work. The problem is that thru the years making it work, getting it done morphed
into “it’s my way or the highway”, and Ill just do it myself cause one else can get done
So the other surprise is that it takes community to make it work. Community means
more people and more people lighten the work load, but community also means more
ideas, more creativity, more paths to getting it done. Community means that there are
more experiences who can testify that yes this new way making it work really works!
Inviting other into the process of making it work is still a growing edge for me. It means
letting go of my ego, trusting creativity and hard work of others. The new surprise is
that it actually gets in more beautiful, exciting ways than I could have ever imaged.
There’s even a place on the clothesline....