I've had the great good fortune of visiting many of the cities I dreamed about as a child - London, Paris, New York, New Orleans, Boston - and each city in its own way appeared to me as a dream. In New York, the sidewalks glittered like gold. The cafes of Paris were every bit as romantic as I had imagined they would be. New Orleans' French Quarter, with its cobblestone streets and neon lights, simultaneously concealed and revealed itself like a first-timer at Mardi Gras.
I'm still very much a city girl at heart, but the one place I long to visit leaves the modern city behind and is less a destination than a journey. When I was coming of age, Paulo Coehlo's The Pilgrimage made a huge impact on me and since then I've had a dream of walking the Camino de Santiago through France and Spain. Oliver Schroer, an incredible Canadian fiddle player with an equally incredible story also walked the path, and released a CD of recordings he made along the Camino that is the closest thing to God I've ever heard. Though I don't identify with any religion, instead considering myself an agnostic interested in the possibility of a higher power, the idea of spending three weeks on an ancient road with nothing but what fits in a backpack is irresistible to me. These images no doubt add to the mystique of the trip.
I don't have any current plans to walk the Camino de Santiago, but it's definitely on my bucket list. Maybe it sounds strange for an avowed agnostic to say, but I feel as though I'll make it there when I'm meant to make it there, that the details will take care of themselves. I have no doubt that one day I'll find myself on a dusty road in rural Spain, look around and think to myself, 'how did I get here?'
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