Finding Connection by Disconnecting on the Camino de Santiago

have you ever been in a room

full of people but felt completely alone

i mean besides with close friends and

family how often do we form deep

connections

with the people we cross paths with

i’ll tell you now the answer is not

enough

not even close and we have no idea what

we’re missing

until recently i had no idea what a deep

connection with a stranger felt like

and if i’m being honest i just never

thought about it

i’m a generation z teenager you’ve

probably seen us sitting together

with our faces buried in our phones

we’ve grown up with screens all around

us i never realized

i wasn’t having meaningful connections

even with some of my closest friends

all that changed for me the summer

before i started seventh grade

i went for a walk on something called

the camino de santiago

a pilgrimage where i learned what real

connections are

and how your life is so much richer when

you realize what you’ve been missing

pilgrims have been walking the camino de

santiago since the middle ages

it’s made up of a series of paths that

end in the spanish city of santiago de

campostella

at the tomb of the apostle saint james

today one of the most popular communal

paths is called the camino frances

which translates to the french way in

english

this specific trail starts in southern

france and heads west over to the

pyrenees mountains and across northern

spain

its total distance is around 485 miles

and it passes through major cities small

towns and villages

all along the way this was the route i

took

when i went on my camino journey

pilgrims today walk the camino for

different reasons some may walk for

spiritual reasons

others may do it for the challenge but

many use this journey to find their way

after suffering perhaps an emotional or

challenging event in their life

no matter what though the camino is a

chance to reflect

and find meaning and direction in life

i remember sitting on my couch at home

my dad started giving me

what i would describe as the worst sales

pitch

ever here’s what he said you’ll be

walking 12 to 15 miles

every day sometimes in the rain with

lots of hills

it’s going to be hot your feet are gonna

hurt and you’re probably going to get

blisters

you can take anything you want though as

long as you

carry it all day also

i don’t know exactly where we’re going

to sleep at night but you’re going to

want to bring

earplugs because apparently tired

pilgrims snore like freight trains

you’re gonna have to talk to adults all

the time

oh and you’re gonna have to wash your

underwear in the sink every night

now i don’t know what gave it away but

this seemed

absolutely horrible it was like every

teenager’s worst nightmare

but something else sparked my interest

this unique opportunity may not come my

way again

so i was left with two options i could

stay home for the summer

and do what most teenage boys do so

binge watch netflix and play video games

or i could get out of my comfort zone

and see what this crazy camino was all

about

my dad wanted me to know that it was

going to be challenging

but that along the way i might learn a

lot about myself and seen experience

some pretty cool things i thought it was

going to be a fun adventure

and it really was but what made my

camino experience

absolutely amazing and unforgettable

were the incredible connections i had

with the people i met there

i met people from all over the world and

of all walks of life

for example i met a man from syria who

had lost his son that was my age in the

country’s civil war

and through tears he told me about their

story

i got to share the trail with a woman

who was singing amazing grace in korean

and i surprised her when i started

singing in english as we were walking

together

now we couldn’t understand each other’s

language and we could not carry a tune

but we made each other smile one of my

favorite stories about connections

happened on a day that my dad and i had

been walking uphill in the rain for a

couple of hours

as we were walking we came across an

australian woman who was pushing a baby

stroller up the rocky trail

to give her a break i offered to help

push the stroller to the top

in that way she can hold an umbrella

over her husband’s head who was pushing

a second baby stroller up the trail

we learned that their names were sally

and phillip and that they were on a

mission to push their two small children

over 485 miles across spain

we walked with this family for the rest

of the day stay in the same town that

night

and even had dinner together our

conversation stretched into the next day

i learned a ton about australian history

but my favorite part

was when philip shared he was a

beekeeper back home

i was so fascinated by this and i had a

million questions that he answered in

one of the coolest accents

they even taught me some australian

slang like the words bloke

sheila and good eye and in turn

i taught him the proper use of the

southern phrase y’all

we became a part of each other’s camino

family and we would come

in and out of each other’s lives all

along the way

like the many other pilgrims i connected

with along my camino

whenever i came into a town or village

and ran into them again

it was like reuniting with long lost

friends

the bonds we made were really deep and

we still keep in touch

there was another day on the camino

after walking for a couple of hours in

the sun

that my dad and i came across the ruins

of a huge

church we stopped to rest and refill our

water bottles

and as we step through these large gates

i realized

we were standing in what used to be the

inside of a large cathedral

the walls towed around us but the roof

was almost completely gone

i was then greeted by a smiling italian

woman named mona

she was a volunteer that helped programs

that wanted to spend the night here

she explained to me that this place was

called san antone

and was built in the middle ages as a

church and hospital for pilgrims

nowadays most pilgrims either walk on by

these ruins

or probably decide not to stay at them

because there’s no electricity

there’s no hot water there’s no wi-fi

and there’s no air conditioning but you

see

none of that mattered to me because i

was in awe that i had the chance to

spend the night

in the ruins of a thousand-year-old

church

only two other pilgrims chose to stay

for that night there was a man from the

netherlands named geiss

and a young woman from finland named

saga

over about the next 12 hours i got to

know these people better than a lot of

my friends back home

i just felt like i had known him for

years saga

taught me how to find and prepare an

edible plant called stinging nettle

then we all cook supper and we ate

together by candlelight

after sharing stories around the dinner

table we gathered firewood

and built a campfire right where the

altar would have stood 900 years ago

with no modern day distractions we just

opened up

and shared from the heart we talked for

hours into the night

and we were just strangers from totally

different backgrounds

yet we found real connections when our

paths crossed on the camino

to this day it blows my mind how close

you are to missing this entire

experience

meaning mona saga and geiss have been

chosen just to walk on by these ruins

i still keep in touch with all of them

mona shares recipes with me

and i send her pictures of all the

dishes i cook guys

he encourages me from halfway around the

world and saga

even came to stay with my family in the

united states

while she was here i got to take her

trick-or-treating on halloween for her

very first time

which she said was one of the craziest

things she’s ever seen

when i got back home i went through

withdrawal

i began to realize that i had never

taken the time or in fact

really make an effort to connect with

others in a deep meaningful way

like i did on the camino every single

one of us

are on our own camino called life we all

start at birth

and will all end in the same final

destination

no two pilgrims have the same experience

even though we share the same stretch of

trail

because we bring our own unique

individual perspectives

these differences are what make our

stories better

a library filled with a million books

that are all the same book

is not worth going into we should want

our stories to be different

because that is what is interesting and

fun

we are those library books and i want my

book

to be filled with great chapters and

unique characters

we are each at different points along

our camino of life

sometimes we’re going to share the trail

for a while but other times

it’s just a small moment we can choose

to walk in silence

or we can connect with the pilgrims

we’re lucky enough to share the trail

with

these connections can be one of the most

enriching

and joyous things about our journey

through life

to experience deep connections we have

to put down distractions

and open up our hearts and our minds at

the end of our lives

i doubt we’re going to look back and say

man i wish i’d watched more tv

no what we’ll say is that we’re glad we

made those memorable connections with

others

along our communal of life if we can all

just take a moment

and truly connect with those whose past

we cross

a whole wonderful world will open up to

us

we have to stop chasing things that

don’t matter like

material things or the opinions of

people who don’t really care about us

life isn’t about how many followers we

have or how many likes we get

we tend to focus on things in the future

at the expense of missing what is

happening

right here in front of us if we keep

moving the goal line

we can’t appreciate the moments that are

passing us by

this makes life go by way too fast

life it’s about the journey make it the

best communion you can

choose to deeply connect with the

pilgrims you’re lucky enough to share

the trail with

i wish you all a good journey a buen

camino

you