Pilgrim Profile: The Magic of St. James

Note from the Camino Team: This post is the first in our new series entitled “Pilgrim Profiles.” If you’re interested in sharing part of your camino story in a Pilgrim Profile, please email us at caminodoc [@] gmail.com. Happy reading and ¡buen camino!

The Basics

Name: Maggie Cech

Country: USA

Which route did you take: Camino Francés

When did you start & end your Camino? July 29, 2014 – August 9, 2013

Where did you start your Camino: St. Jean Pied de Port (SJPDP)

Where did you finish your Camino: Itero de la Vega

Miles traveled to get from your home to where you started on the Camino: Roughly 5,331mi/8,579km by plane

The Questionnaire

1. What was a challenge or struggle on the Camino? What was a triumph on the way?

My biggest challenge was paradoxically my biggest triumph: finding and using my voice to tell Meesh that I couldn’t keep walking with her at her pace.

I began my Camino walking with one of my best friends from college, Meesh, who is like family to me. After walking from St. Jean to Roncesvalles, the next three days she wanted to walk between 35-38 kilometers (22-24 miles), so we did. I figured “I’m only walking the Camino for two weeks, and she’s walking the whole thing, so I’ll walk with her as far as she goes and then just turn around and go home from there.”

Well, over those three days, I began to build up resentment and exhaustion as my pinky toes became two big painful blisters and tendonitis threatened to flare up my leg.

It was her Camino that I was walking, and I was killing myself trying to keep up. “How would you feel about waking up at 3:00am to walk 40 kilometers tomorrow?” she asked me at the end of our 4^th day of walking. I burst into a waterworks show for everyone in Los Arcos to bare witness to.

“No,” I said through teary eyes. “I just can’t keep doing this. This is your Camino. You want to get to Santiago by a certain date, and that’s fine and valid, because it’s your Camino. But it’s not mine, and I’m killing myself trying, and I need to walk my Camino.”

The physical aches remained, but I had unlocked the door to something deep inside myself, and in my heart of hearts I knew I was forever changed.

2. In what ways did your life change when you got back home?

The Camino quite literally changed the trajectory of my life. Let me elaborate:

From May 2011-July 2013 I lived and worked in Mexico. After my 15 days on the Camino in July 2013, I flew back to my hometown of Portland, Oregon. When I was back in Portland, I was trying to decide whether to go back to Mexico (where all of my belongings and tight-knit community of friends were), or move to Portland. One day, I just decided to buy a plane ticket to go to Mexico, pack up my belongings, and move back to Portland. I had nothing to go off of; I just did it.

The day after I bought my plane ticket, on Friday September 6, I went to go see Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago on its opening night at the Hollywood Theatre. It captured the essence of the Camino for me in a profound, deeply moving way.

I went back the next day, on September 7, to volunteer; I met Lydia, I told her how much I loved the doc, that I believed EVERYONE needed to see it, and I would be happy to spread the word. A job never crossed my mind, but the employment wheels were turning in Lydia’s head.

We sat outside of the Hollywood Theatre at the end of the night, and going off of her intuition, without looking at my resume or checking any references, she offered me a job as the Outreach Coordinator for the film. By that Wednesday September 11, I was on payroll, and I’ve been spreading the word about the documentary now ever since.

If that’s not magic of St. James, I don’t know what is.

Check out the links below to see never-before-seen videos of the Camino Mobile (RV) being revealed for the FIRST TIME! (Commentary provided by yours truly!)

VIDEO 1

VIDEO 2