The Camino Gypsy Chronicles: Camino Love

"The most precious gift you can give to the one you love is your true presence." - Thich Nhat Hanh, From "True Love"

There is a very special phenomenon that occurs on the trail, as you walk with your vulnerability on your sleeve. We pilgrims call it 'Camino Love'. On the Camino you can be nothing but yourself. There are no vices or carefully constructed personas to hide behind. No job or car or friends from home or busy schedules or designer clothes at hand to help disguise your true self. At first, this can be frightening. What will others think of you? What do you think of you? Existing in this manner is such a unique and humbling experience. And it's also an amazing time to meet someone. There's no trivial small talk first date on the trail. On the Camino you jump right into the deep end, arms and legs flailing, sharing with strangers your deepest thoughts, past mistakes, reflections and dreams. The intense level of sincerity and honesty this breeds leaves the journey ripe for love.

I have witnessed many a cute Camino Love story. The woman from Washington and the man from Italy traveling together with Spanish as their only mutual language in which to connect. The German girl and the boy from the Netherlands. Hong Kong and California. Israel and France. Time after time, I meet people who found one another on the trail. They discuss their lives and clink beers in the bar. They eat picnics by the side of the trail and help each other through lakes of mud. They compare injuries and, if separated for a day, reserve a bunk for one another at the albergue that night. Camino Love is a surreal experience - a bubble, a dream, a fairytale apart from life at home - but it's also, perhaps, the most real of loves, as you fall not for a person's guises, but for the person, themself.

Camino Love also extends to those couples already together who decide to take this incredible journey hand-in-hand. I have seen the sweetest of pilgrim duos on this trip. Those who massage one another's tired legs. Who give each other pep talks when the other is feeling low. Who whisper "I love you" in a hundred languages as the lights go out in the albergue. While walking yesterday, I met an elderly English married couple. The man had flies swarming his hat. I offered them bug spray, but they declined with a smile. Later when I saw them again, the woman had found a tree branch with broom-like wisps at one end, and as she followed her husband, she lightly fanned the flies from his hat. A simple but perfect Camino Love act. If that isn't true love, I don't know what is.

Sometimes Camino Love works the other way around. Couples fall apart when they see the other clearly for the first time. I have watched bitter arguments unfold, irritations arise, eyes roll, hearts close. But an enlightenment of this sort, while sad, can also be freeing. It too is a Camino gift.

No matter how it works, Camino Love is something to cherish. To be loved in your truest state is a rare and most precious gem. And it's one I will guard close to my heart for a long time to come...

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Rabanal del Camino to El Acebo to Ponferrada...