For about 500 miles, yellow arrows mark the way between towns, through mountains, across the plains, and eventually to a big cathedral that may or may not contain the mouldering remains of St. James. There are official mileposts with tile arrows, arrows painted on buildings and sidewalks, tags among overpass graffiti and stones, and, not infrequently, tattooed on the limbs of fellow walkers. And if these markings are inadequate, as long as you head west, you're roughly on course.
Conversely, I thought often of the opening lines of Dante's "Commedia." It begins something like, "In the middle of the journey of life, I found myself in a dark forest -- the pathway had been lost." The forest is not a literal one; the "journey" in the original Italian is "cammin," walking. As I talked with more people along the way, most were at a personal junction: changing jobs, getting engaged, getting divorced, kids gone to college, retirement, a significant birthday, organizing ideas for a book, or more simply allowing ideas to organize themselves. Without knowing the direction they would take upon returning home, at least for a few weeks they could wake up each morning, go outside, and know which way to walk.
I ended up walking with a group for the second half (my French friends plus two other women). It rained almost unrelentingly, and we hunched our shoulders as ponchos flapped wildly in the wind and hail pelted our faces. We ate a lot of soup, and collected chestnuts to roast. We piled our laundry together, pooled our cheese and bread for picnic lunches, walked in varying pairs and as a unit. Sometimes all the socializing drove me crazy and felt like managing the whims of high-strung children, but overall I was glad both to share the sights -- yellow and red vineyards, broad rainbows, thatch-roofed cottages -- and also to later remark upon things enjoyed in solitude. And we can continue to talk about the path.
