“I’m Celeste.”

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We would talk for a bit, just about the dogs or her cats, or about the book club she and a few others formed at the library. A few times, I saw a family member come by; that was rare. I would see her by her house or just down the street, never too far away, except that one time she misplaced her phone and was returning from the restaurant where she had left it.

Last summer, as I was driving home one afternoon, I saw firefighters and police at her home. It was hard to tell what exactly was going on. A small crowd had gathered around the property. I went by a second time but could not tell what had happened. There was no smoke or smell of fire.

The next morning, I learned the awful truth: She died alone. One of her neighbors told me. I asked about her family.

“No, I don’t know any.”

There was no one to claim her or her things. Or her home. Her cats continued to come around looking for her, but the door was boarded up. Soon after, a notification was pasted to the wall near the front door. The house was slated for demolition.

It was torn down just a month ago.

An excavator sits atop what once was a neighbor’s house.

All that’s left is a sandy, empty lot.

We never exchanged more than a few words, and yet I’m saddened by how little her passing meant to many of the people around her. I pray for her eternal rest.

I came across a copy of the book about a year ago at one of those Little Free Libraries. It took me back to Mrs. Montoya’s classroom and to the many lessons that would follow in college and through my own study afterward. I earned a minor in Mexican American Studies. The readings, discussions, and deep dives into history gave me a sober view of the United States, Mexico, and world history in general. I can no longer buy into the official, Hollywood, Netflix, or Disney version of events. Movies and streaming series are not documentaries, although they are often treated as such. Many of us behave as though cameras had been sent back in time. We have to turn to books and other sources for a fuller understanding of history.

Perhaps that is why Mexican American Studies and other ethnic studies programs, including those labeled as critical race theory, have been gutted, minimized, demonized, or disappeared altogether. They open our eyes to other perspectives and to a broader, deeper, and truer understanding of history and its effects on the present, one that is often painful and not easily explained away or glorified.

Lorenzo Salgado Araujo was killed by ICE agents in Houston, Texas, on July 7, 2026. It did not surprise me, especially considering all that we have lived through over the past 18 months, but also because of what I knew from history. Sadly, he becomes part of a long list of Mexican people killed by law enforcement or private citizens throughout the history of Texas since it became part of the United States. Lynchings and killings were common and peaked between 1910 and 1920, when as many as 5,000 people were killed across the state.

Is there official recognition of that horror? Not much, which contrasts with what I saw in Germany. When I visited Berlin, I was surprised to find a vast memorial to the Holocaust. Nearly 3,000 concrete slabs stand in the middle of the country’s capital like coffins or grave markers, honoring murdered Jews and reminding the nation of what it was capable of carrying out. It was, and remains, a painful, uncomfortable reminder of what had been done. It tempers nationalism and pride, but it also makes a people more human.

That is what is missing from the narrative now: people. My neighbors, those in detention, those sent to El Salvador or to countries in Africa, those already killed, are people, Mexican, Guatemalan, Black, Venezuelan, and so many others. They, we, are people who dream, who love and are loved, people with a personal, ethnic, and racial history, people who work and who possess, above all, God-given dignity. Those critical lessons from Mrs. Montoya helped me see myself in the words of Tomás Rivera. They also taught me to recognize our shared humanity and, by extension, the humanity of everyone else.

When he started feeling ill, his family took him to the local hospital about 10 minutes away. He had been dealing with the pain for a few days, so there was no waiting any longer. He showed up at the hospital but was turned away. He was undocumented. No service was made available to him right there, close to home.

“Yes, I don’t have papers,” he shared.

“You don’t?”

“No, but we went to Illinois, and they took me in over there. I’m almost done with chemo. One more month,” he said, smiling.

To this hospital system, the state of Indiana, and the federal government, Juan was just another undocumented “criminal,” a person who didn’t deserve care or whose care would be too expensive. Thankfully, he did find treatment, but at a hospital in the Illinois Medical District, a 45-minute drive from his home.

He walked on. I hoped he would get better so that I might be able to tell him about natural medicine that could help him recover from the chemo. I had a list of supplements on my monitor, but it was not to be.

I was out by my garage about two weeks ago when I asked his oldest son, “How’s your father?”

“He died.”

“What?”

“Yes, he was at the hospital, and something went wrong.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

His son held back tears, and we talked a bit about how his family was holding up and his plans for the future. I gave him some career advice and told him I would be praying for them.

Juan was a nobody, a plague, or a criminal in the rhetoric of certain people and in certain places. In truth, he was a loving father and husband, and a hard worker, too. He was a neighbor I wish I had gotten to know better. There’s a pall of sadness over his former home. His family has been quiet, as expected, during this time of mourning. My hope is that his love, example, words, and very worth will echo in their hearts forever.

Descansa en paz, Juan.

St. Francis of Assisi marched into battle, was captured, and experienced a deep crisis before his conversion. Then he stripped off his clothes, left his family, and dedicated his life to serving God and the forgotten poor. Pier Giorgio Frassati loved the outdoors and gave much of his time to serving people on the streets. When he died, also at the age of 24, those very people crowded the church at his funeral. However, I find Dorothy Day’s innate rebellious spirit, which did not change after her conversion, most inspirational. She spoke truth to power throughout her life. She was a writer, opened her home to those in need, and marched with workers on picket lines. In some sense, they all challenged the status quo.

In contrast, St. Thérèse, often called the Little Flower, seemed like someone for little girls and pious grandmothers to admire and imitate. Prissy. Prudish. Goody-goody. Too good for me. I never thought I would find a connection to her. I don’t recall why she piqued my curiosity a couple of years ago. Maybe it was because she was so different. But I began to read more about her, and now I’m even reading her autobiography. I’ve just started it, but even before I began, some of her words resonated with me:

“You know well enough that Our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.”

These words hold such simple wisdom that, even in a time as complicated and troubling as ours, they can offer hope. It’s not that we should surrender or stop caring about the world and people, but that we should care even more about our actions—and the love with which we do them. Now is the time to live in this way.

How do we prepare our meals? Who do we share them with? Have we called that friend or relative we haven’t heard from in some time? Did we send them a birthday card? Have we reread that book that once moved us? Did we pray for the person who asked us to? Do we serve our neighbors? Have we checked on someone who lost a loved one, to death or immigration enforcement? Did we make sure those striking workers have groceries?

We all carry some version of this list. St. Thérèse reminds me that love makes our response to these questions great, not the size or scope of our actions.

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I returned there last month. I caught a mid-morning bus from the Observatorio Bus Terminal in Mexico City and texted my cousin as the bus passed Toluca. I hadn’t told him, or most anyone else, that I was going. The last time I saw him, his father — my beloved tío Javier — had passed away. I went to say my final goodbye. After the burial, I helped out at the bakery, where I had spent hours talking to my uncle and cousins as we rolled out dough into conchas, bolillos, and other breads.

“Compadre,” I texted.

“Hola, compadre,” he texted back. “¿Cómo estás?”

A few texts later, I asked him to wait for me at the old train station in Pátzcuaro.

“Con gusto,” he answered.

We arrived at their home, surprising my comadre, his wife. After the welcome-home hugs, we sat down for la comida, the main meal of the day. My goddaughter joined us, too. She was one of the few people I told about my trip, and she has often told me, “Come back for good.”

We caught up on the news, changes, and health concerns. My comadre had been dealing with kidney disease for most of the last two years. We all thought she was going to need a transplant. We were scared, but thankfully, she had healed. Her kidneys are not functioning at 100 percent, but they are functioning well enough. To achieve that, she and my cousin had completely changed their diets: zero sweets, no junk food, no soft drinks, no alcohol, no processed food. No bread except homemade bread made with very limited ingredients.

It was after the diagnosis that my cousin resurrected masa madre, or sourdough, the breadmaking process he had learned during the pandemic. He had mostly failed at it, as he was used to working with commercial yeast. But he tried again.

He corrected his mistakes, figuring out how to make proper dough with a masa madre leavener. He experimented with butter, animal fats, olive oil, sprouted seeds, cacao, dark chocolate, cheese, and various herbs, and finally scaled up production to make more than a few loaves for their home.

A new business was born. They now travel around that region of Mexico, selling loaves at markets and wine festivals.

After the meal, they brought out some loaves they had baked earlier in the week. Now, sourdough was never one of my favorites. The name sourdough said it all. It was sour and smelly. That is not what they served me. It had a deep wheat and dark chocolate scent, two rich, deep flavors. I could not stop eating it.

That night, we gathered again just to share a light dinner of tea and more bread. We talked until late. They shared how they had grown their business. They made me reflect on how, even in the most difficult times, we can find light and life if we step forward. Even while making mistakes, we can learn a new skill or expand a part of ourselves. Bread wasn’t simply bread anymore, but a symbol of hope and healing. And for me, it confirmed that I was home.

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She blessed me with the sign of the cross, “En el nombre del Padre…” and kissed me. “Te cuidas mucho.”

I hugged them, then boarded a plane for Paris, where I would spend two weeks with a group of classmates from grad school. Afterwards, we would scatter across the globe. Some went to Ireland, others to England. One went to Brazil, and another to India. I left for Prague, where I lived for three months, working as an intern at a small online magazine that covered Eastern Europe and the Baltic states.

And then, the Camino found me.

There, I found the purpose of my meandering around Europe alone. My heart healed, not all at once, but certainly on that ancient, sacred path I found a salve for my wounds.

It has been the enduring lesson of the Camino, one that I carry and seek to revive even now in this present darkness. I walked with people who came from all corners of the world, broke bread, and broke my heart open to pilgrims of all faiths or no faith, and again to light, to hope, and to God. I saw the world with new eyes, even if the world itself hadn’t changed.

It is impossible to ignore the evil going on around us. Many people in power ignore the value of most human beings, here and on the other side of the world. When I was walking to Santiago de Compostela, people were dying in Iraq and other places. We spoke about it. And yet, the small acts of love I lived on that path rekindled a light that has remained lit.

Remember the moments that watered hope within you. Nurture and share them at home and with your neighbors. We may not harvest the full fruit of this work, but the future of our world depends on it.

Ultreia et Suseia. Buen Camino.

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In the 1960s, he was drafted to fight in Vietnam. While there, he saw and heard the Vietnamese and felt as if he were looking at his own people back in Puerto Rico, good people, poor farmers living close to the land. He could not understand why he was expected to hate them, much less kill them. He also knew that Puerto Ricans were treated as second-class citizens in the United States, especially in Chicago, where his family was living.

When he returned, he became a community activist and later joined others in the struggle to free Puerto Rico. This country has never had full autonomy to decide its status or destiny. Some took up arms in that fight. Ultimately, he was charged with seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 70 years. It was the same charge that sent Nelson Mandela to prison. There was no evidence linking him to any acts of violence, but the federal government wanted him to die behind bars, seeking to smother his ideas.

As he grew older, the calls for his freedom grew louder. Puerto Ricans from all walks of life demanded his release. I had learned about him only a year before the trip. And though Puerto Rican people, their culture, and their food had always been part of my life in some way, traveling there, being with them, and learning from them, from their joy, their tears, and their love of the land, felt like discovering a new place through a distant cousin. Their pride moved me.

The marches and calls for Oscar’s freedom culminated at El Morro, the 16th-century Spanish citadel in San Juan Viejo. There were signs and banners, music and poetry, and of course, hundreds of Puerto Rican flags, some historical, dating back to the mid-19th century.

But the one that stood out to me was the flag with sky blue surrounding the single star. I was told that it was the flag Puerto Ricans adopted in 1895 as part of their continuing fight for independence from Spain and later from the United States. It was the flag Benito Martinez Ocasio held after Ricky Martin sang, “We don’t want them to do to you what they did to Hawaii,” at Super Bowl 60.

A song of protest and a once-illegal flag remain. The current flag, created in the 1950s, more closely resembles the colors of the United States flag, with navy blue. That moment in the performance moved me. Ricky’s cry of resistance. Benito standing with the once-illegal flag. The struggle continues.

And thankfully, Oscar was freed after President Obama commuted his sentence. He returned to Puerto Rico in 2017. Unfortunately, we never finished the documentary. It was hard to get funding.

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I’m sure many are making similar memories, but the innocence is thin in the air. The feeling is different because the world is different. We are cloaked in a profound darkness. The militarism and blind nationalism that were marched into professional sports a generation ago are now part of something far more menacing and more widespread.

Although I’m enjoying the games, there is a feeling that, despite the athletic feats of beauty and talent on the field, there is blood on it too, and all around it. War, death, and disappearances are taking place across the country (and the world) at the order of the president and his underlings.

Maybe I should fast from social media or YouTube, but there is no way to ignore this reality. Could we pretend that nothing is happening? You’d have to move to one of the poles or to outer space. This moment reminds me of what the Italian journalist and philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, wrote: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.”

We have monsters, indeed. Their leader is Trump, their lair is the White House, and their forces are faceless people prowling the streets, stores, airports, churches, schools, and hospitals. Weapons at the ready, they claw other people into their vehicles or kill them without consequences, all wrapped in lies.

And so I write to resist. Mexican people, Black people, Native people, and many other people who are not white have always been treated differently. I recognize that progress had been made in the past 60 years, and that change had been won by blood and struggle, but now we face another great battle, which I know still part of the same unsettled work for justice and equality.

Last night, I drove past a sign for homemade soup. A restaurant was hoping to draw people in with the warmth of home from the cold and snow. But nothing is the same. Not football. Not that soup. Not my home or community. Not me. Not us.

I found some time to pause, or rather, it found me, and these words from the first chapter of the Gospel according to John returned to my mind:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

Driving home from Thanksgiving dinner, I passed neighborhoods I once knew during grad school. I remembered the intensity — a test of heart, mind, and soul. I was glad to be on this side of that time and surprised by how quickly time had passed. The neighborhoods were all familiar and strange at the same time.

Many had already decorated their homes with Christmas lights in red, or white, or multicolored sets. As is typical, some people blanketed their homes with hundreds of lights. Others decorated windows, railings, and doors. But the lights that always catch my attention are those that adorn a single window in a massive apartment building — all dark save that one tiny window twinkling far up in the dark sky.

It’s obviously not done to show off, and I don’t know what their intention is. Still, I like to think people do it to hold a candle to the darkest days of the year, to remind us of hope, and to say that a few tiny lights can illuminate the most oppressive despair.

Tomorrow is the twelfth day of Christmas, the Feast of the Epiphany, when we celebrate the three kings who visited the newborn Jesus. They weren’t Jews. They were of different races and places and came to show us that Jesus came for everyone, all around the world. They followed a light, a very bright star, far up in the dark sky.

They encountered darkness in the heart of Herod. But after they encountered the Light and went home, they changed and left on a different path.

We are living in a time of darkness, too— in a time of a new Herod, just as insecure and just as dangerous. His cruelty has ripped families apart, created concentration camps, started wars in our cities, and led to wars abroad for oil companies.

But today, tomorrow, and as this new year unfolds, Jesus’ light continues to shine, and we must carry it into the world on a different path. Remember, no act of love is too small to dispel the darkness.

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Mamá

y el amor

por todo el trabajo

Papá

y la paciencia

Mamá

por toda la luz

todas las noches

Papá

por ser el consuelo

y la ternura

Mamá

todos los días

por la sabiduría

Papá

por la fuerza

y la alegría

Mamá

y todos los sabores

y toda la energía

Papá

por ser constante

y enseñarme a rezar

Mamá

todo lo diste

todo lo exigiste

Papá

por todo lo que dieron,

sus heridas y cicatrices

sus flores y espinas

Gracias por todo Mamá, Papá

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We were all in the water—all of us except my father. He was fully dressed in his formal style from back then: black shoes or boots, dress pants, and a short-sleeve, button-down shirt, usually white. His watch was simple, a black leather strap, a white face with plain black numbers. The black square glasses framed his handsome face but made him seem older. Yet, they affirmed his quiet, serious nature. His square jaw matched his glasses. His simple short hair was never really styled in any way, except for the slight part on the left side of his head. He stood against a retaining wall in the heat.

There was no shade on the beach, and he had no desire to be in the water. In contrast, my mother was a fish. She grew up swimming in the rivers that surrounded her hometown or at the swimming pools that popped up around that area, and even the ocean, which was hours away. Despite having to help raise her youngest siblings and run a household, she rode horses, picked mangos, cut sugar cane, picked oranges fresh off trees, and pulled up jícama from the rich red soil. It was a reflection of her hunger for life. And she was always up for a swim. The water would run down her arms and legs like the juice of a mango, and she savored the water as much as she did that fruit. I know that’s why we ended up at the beach.

“Vamos, viejo.” It is one of my earliest and most enduring memories.

My brother was about six years old, my sister was about two, and I was three or four years old. We stood in the shallow water, the waves lapping at our legs as my mother called to my father, “Vente, viejo.” But he didn’t, at least not that time. He didn’t even remove his boots. He had lived near Lake Michigan for more than ten years but had probably never set foot in the water. In contrast, those days were probably some of the first times my mother went to the lake, and she had already been in the water more times than him. We would run up the burning sand to the wall where my father stood, pick up some towels, and dry off. Water dripped from our shorts, forming what looked like tiny bowls in the sand.

“Viejo, vamos al agua,” she would call again and again.

It was always my mother’s invitation to my father—her thirst for life, her greatest virtue. He eventually bought swimming trunks—blue, with white stripes on the sides. They were more befitting of his age than his regular clothes. Or was it my mom who bought them at Sears? That detail I don’t remember, but I do remember the day he stepped onto the sand barefoot and shirtless, wearing that pair of shorts. He looked at the water, pulled back his broad shoulders, and inflated his white, hairless chest, gathering some courage for the dive.

“Papi, mira esas piernas flacas y blancas,” we laughed.

He did have white, hairless, skinny legs.

My mother pulled him into the water.

He never became a fish, but he did learn how to doggie-paddle. In fact, it’s the only way he knew how to swim. In contrast to my mother’s childhood adventures, he worked from very early in his life: picking cotton, beans, chirimoyas, peaches, gathering firewood, harvesting corn, or tending to farm animals. My grandfather would rent out his boys for work to local landowners. In the waters of Lake Michigan, my mother helped my father become a boy, to reclaim part of a life he never had.

She, a painter, a gifted artist.

We loved each other and art, too — paintings, murals, film, music, just being together, and food.

We ate it all: Sushi, tapas, pizza, tacos, White Castle, and breakfast for dinner at local diners. Sometimes all we did was eat. Sometimes we danced. We never became more than friends. I think we both feared losing our friendship.

Once, sitting in a diner, I shared a poem that had come to me. I don’t recall where I placed those words, but I’ll try to remember them as best I can, with some changes. I don’t even remember the title. On this day of remembrance, this is my ofrenda for her.

I miss you, dear Lili. I always will.

_______________

A mother carries her little boy

past me,

and I remember

clutching my mother,

trembling from the crash of thunder

I see a child on a bike,

and I remember

the joys

of racing through the park, and

staying out past dark

I spot a young man

hurrying through a

hallway with a backpack,

and I remember

a bag full of books tearing at the seams

a head full of dreams

An old woman takes a seat

next to me on the train.

She shuffles through a grocery bag,

and I remember

my tía — her Sunday meals,

a love that still heals

I see a tombstone,

and I remember

who I was,

I think about

who I am, and

who I am to be.

This is for you, Lili.

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“Welcome, pilgrim,” a voice boomed behind me.

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“Hello.”

“Peregrino,” he continued. “You walk alone, but remember, your loved ones walk with you in spirit.”

He stamped my passport and mumbled a short prayer.

“Buen Camino.”

“Gracias.”

Mom and Dad, I want to see you. I want to return to you feeling whole—to see you with eyes unaffected by the despair that held me prisoner. I also realize that I don’t want to walk alone. Where is Anna?”

She had almost given up. Did you? No. You wouldn’t give up, not after such a long struggle. You were stronger than you thought. Zoom! A car blew by. And then another. The days I walked with her seemed like so long ago. Had I given up on a relationship that had potential? No. The air grew dry as I walked past Valverde de la Virgen and San Miguel del Camino. After that, the trek would take me past the area of Villandangos del Páramo and its flat dry grasslands.

Two routes were available. I followed the older one, though that meant walking on asphalt. Many pilgrims had mentioned that leaving León would be difficult: There are no hills, mountains or rocky slopes and there is little to please the eye. I had not seen many pilgrims ahead of me, but a bar by the side of the road was full of them. I ducked in for lunch. I heard French, and spotted a South Korean flag neatly stitched onto a backpack. Italian was flowing as was English and Spanish, but with a Caribbean accent.

“Hola, where are you from?” I asked.

“Hola, we are Dominicans.”

“Amigo, would you like one?” they said offering me a beer.

“No, no gracias, I have to eat and continue.”

“Have a drink, Miguel.”

It was Laura again, behind me, though she quickly whipped around and gave me a beer. She seemed more like a twenty-year-old than the crow’s feet and gray locks of hair would lead anyone to believe.

“Thank you, but I’m waiting until I get to Hospital de Órbigo to have one.”

“Why wait?”

“I want to enjoy it.”

She placed her sunglasses on the table.

“I see. You really want to savor it.”

“Yes, I’ll enjoy it more there.”

“Oh, you old, young man,” she said laughing. “Well, it’s too late, because you have to drink this one.”

“¡Salud!” cried the Dominicans.

The Korean pilgrim lifted a sweating glass of water and smiled.

“¡Salud!” we replied and I reluctantly drank the beer.

After lunch, a small group formed: Laura and a few Italian pilgrims, and Blanca, a Spaniard; Sun, the Korean pilgrim whose name was pronounced soon, joined us too. One pilgrim looked through a dog-eared guidebook. “We are about twelve kilometers from Hospital and four and a half from San Martin del Camino,” he said. To our sides were field after field of unknown plants hugging a beige, thirsty earth. We marched in single file.

I never took the lead, and just trailed behind most of the group and wondered what my family was doing. They would be on the road to México. I had stopped counting how many times we had driven down and back by the time I started high school. Those road trips from East Chicago, Indiana down to Laredo and through northern México into her heartland had created an eternal longing for the road, a wandering heart—not so much to sightsee or check places off a list to trumpet and compare with others, but to see, to taste, and to know the world intensely and intimately. They had given me the courage to enter the unknown, and to make new people and places part of me. I whispered a prayer my grandmother must have said many times kneeling before the cross in San Juan Nuevo, Michoacán: “Keep them safe.” I imagined that my parents said a similar one for me.

A French pilgrim also joined our small group just before we reached San Martin, where a tall, spaceship-looking water tank welcomed us to the forgotten satellite of León. There were few cars and few people there. By the refuge, some pilgrims slept on a small patch of grass shaded by a tree. I looked around and down the road at some of the houses. I’m not staying here. The French pilgrim (I never did get his name) slipped his backpack next to a tree and lay down.

Maria, a petite Italian woman with eyes the color of honey and long straight black hair, asked, “Miguel, did you want to stay here?”

What she meant is, “Let’s get out of here.”

I shook my head.

“Va bene,” she answered.

The others in the group echoed her feelings. Without looking at anyone, Sun went in to register, then came back out and pointed at her right foot. A blister? Maybe. Her bright pink arms and calves indicated that she had recently begun the pilgrimage. The French guy walked in to register, too. The Spaniard, the Italians and I packed up and left.

Sun waved to us, “¡Salud!”

“¡Salud!” we replied.

Puente y Hospital de Órbigo, another town with Roman roots, takes its name from the Órbigo River and the pilgrims’ hospice that was run by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. It no longer exists, but the Gothic medieval bridge over the Órbigo River still stands—a testament to what might have been the last medieval tournament on a large scale. Any year when Saint James’ Feast Day, July 25, falls on a Sunday is a Jacobean Holy Year—as was the case in 1434, when there were many pilgrims and adventurers on the road. A broken heart was the seed that spurred the legendary tournament. That year, it was Suero de Quiñones who had to quell his pain. When the woman he loved scorned his affection, de Quiñones vowed to wear an iron collar every Thursday as a sign of his undying link to her. To free himself, he organized a tournament for July and August. The contest started two weeks before July 25 and concluded two weeks later. Jousting, music, and dancing filled Hospital de Órbigo. When the contest closed, de Quiñones went to León, where he vowed to make the pilgrimage to Compostela. When he reached the saint’s burial place he left a gold bracelet, a symbol of his newfound freedom. Maria read this from her fat guide on the Camino.

There had been recent reenactments of medieval contests. Gold and crimson banners stood next to temporary wooden stands. The breeze picked up, blowing through the poplars and the Orbigo’s banks. “All that for a woman,” Laura said, shaking her head as we stepped off the bridge.

“You’re young,” said Laura. “Would you have done such a thing for a woman?”

“Me? I don’t know,” I said, and then paused. “But I don’t think it’s a matter of age; it’s a matter of heart, of listening to what the soul asks.”

“Romántico,” she said, giggling and shaking her head. “But maybe you’re right.”

We made our way to the refuge, about 800 meters from the town. It was by the side of the road surrounded by a small grove. We stepped up to the door, where the caretaker was waiting. “Buenos días.” She opened the door, stamped our passports, showed us the rooms and stepped away. The Italians took one room. Blanca was a euonym for our Spanish companion, as her curly, black mane made her ghostly pale, and she walked around in a quiet, graceful manner. After showering, Blanca coated herself in sunblock. I did my laundry. And dinner? Dinner was uneventful, a serving of trout with potatoes, wine and water. Bland and bad.

The sun slowly surrendered to the black; light’s outstretched arms held up the mantle of our days until very late as the solstice approached. Maria and Laura whispered. The glow of small flashlights came over the edge of the wall while they searched for God knows what. I lay back and closed my eyes in my own room, thinking of all the events that had brought me to the Camino.

When the university had asked us to decide where to do our editorial residency (as they called it), I opened up a map of the world and scanned it from Asia to Africa to Europe and then to South America. I eyed Brazil, then Argentina and swept across the ocean, to South Africa and then India. I could have gone anywhere. My heart was divided between India and somewhere in Europe. I went to sleep and woke up knowing Europe would be the right choice. “Go to Europe. Go to Europe. Go to Europe.” So I listened and the choice became the Czech Republic—a country I knew little about and whose Slavic language would be enough of a mystery to make for some adventure. I was beginning to understand why my intuition had told me, “Go to Europe.”

For me, it sparked a lifelong desire to learn about and see the richness of Mexican people on both sides of the border. Indeed, some of the best teachers in my life were my professors of Mexican American Studies and my Spanish teachers. I also lived and worked in Guadalajara for about three years. But it was my mother who was my greatest teacher in this learning: her love of cooking, her insistence that we learn and understand Spanish as well as we did English, and her determination that we know about Mexico shaped every part of my life and vision of the world.

Her pride, however, was always evident, especially in her love of music. She loved many artists—too many to list here. Music was always on, whether she was cooking, doing chores, or whether we were on our road trips around the Chicago region, or on our drives south to Michoacán and back north again.

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It was on one of those trips that she reminded me always to keep my head held high. We had been on the road for some 24 hours and had stopped somewhere in Texas for breakfast. I was embarrassed, so I bowed my head as I ate. I was a teenager and felt self-conscious. We did need a shower, but we weren’t that bad. I know I had bedhead, but nothing worse. The restaurant was full of white folk.

She noticed my posture.

“No, mijo, no,” she said, shaking her head, looking right at me.

“¿Qué?”

“Raise your head. We have no reason to lower our heads.”

Being Mexican or Mexican American has always come with difficulty in the United States, a country that doesn’t fully understand or accept its own full history, much less the history of people it considers outside its central narrative. Even as a child, I had some understanding of being outside that main story. We were missing from school lessons and on television programs. And those stories were missing when we visited relatives who had eschewed or diminished that part of their background and identity. To them, those Spanish-speaking tías and abuelas were just part of the past. In those gatherings, we stood out as the newest arrivals. Those relatives had moved on from the culture, its language, and baggage. My mother would have none of that.

And music was one of her vehicles to transmit her love and pride. One classical album piece stands out in my memory because of an uncle who played the French horn. He was part of the orchestra that recorded that album in Toluca, Mexico. The record featured pieces from the Carmen opera, among others, but also included Huapango, José Pablo Moncayo’s masterpiece.

During the 1930s, Moncayo traveled throughout Mexico in search of inspiration for his compositions and found the material for his masterwork in the huapangos of the Veracruz region. These often improvised pieces of music are born from native and African rhythms—poor people’s music, so rich in beauty, it inspired the piece below, which debuted in 1941.

José Pablo Moncayo, Huapango. Alondra de la Parra directing the Orchestre de Paris.

Now, when I listen to it, I remember the lesson from the breakfast in Texas and from throughout her life—Mexicans are human too, and beautiful.

At the pharmacy, Maria bought a prescription for her inflamed joints, and two thick silicone inserts for my heels. The translucent u-shaped pads fit perfectly in my shoes. We returned to the refuge. The air smelled of mud and grass and the fading sun dissolved the contrails of jets into pink foam. Santiago was closer, but it was no longer my objective.

“Gracias, Maria Cristina.”

“Prego. Prego. Buona notte,” she said, kissing me on the cheek.

“Buona notte.”

As I lay down to sleep, my stomach grumbled and whined.

*

Stabs to the stomach opened my eyes to the black. What? Saliva on my lips and chin. Get to the bathroom! I ran, accidently ramming a chair with my right pinky toe. Ouch! The vomit kept coming; some dripped onto my shirt just before I kneeled at the toilet to heave my dinner, liquified.

A man’s voice asked, “Are you OK?”

I nodded and coughed, closed my mouth, gathered saliva and spit.

“Yes, I feel a little better.”

“What did you eat?”

“Meat, I think it was some old meat,” I answered as I tore off a piece of paper from a roll on the floor. I slouched back without facing him.

“Do you have medicine?”

I nodded, “Yes.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be OK?” he asked again.

“Yes.”

He walked away and returned with mouth rinse. My right pinky toe grew fat and purple. Maria tasted the meat and left it. It was spoiled. The pilgrim walked to me and over my legs to press down the handle. The whoosh brought on a headache. I rinsed out my mouth and he handed me two pills and a glass of water. It was only midnight. I limped back to bed with his help; I lay down and fell sleep.

In the morning, I rubbed my forehead and closed my eyes then limped back to the bathroom, though my toe didn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. My arms and legs ached and I felt a pulse in my temples.

“Hey young man,” someone said. “Young man!”

I turned. It was Laura.

“What are you up to?”

I smiled awkwardly, lifted my hands and pointed to the bathroom. She giggled and waved me away where I sat for about ten minutes, then got up disappointed. The pills had done their job, but too well. I brushed my teeth and washed my face.

“Miguel,” Laura called. “We are taking the bus to León.”

“Qué?”

“Yes, we want to cover more ground, move forward faster.”

“Really?”

“Yes, we have to catch a flight to Italy at the end of the month and we can’t walk fast enough to get there on time,” she said while getting a better look at me. “What happened to you? Did you sleep?”

“Yes,” I said while I tried to pat down my hair. My eyes betrayed me. They burned and felt puffy. “Not well,” I said touching my stomach.

She paused and smiled.

“You should come with us.”

What about Maria Cristina? She was going to see the doctor today, but I knew this was right. I didn’t know if following Laura’s invitation was correct, but we certainly would cover a lot of ground.

“The bus stops over by the train station.”

As I packed my bag and prepared my shoes, I looked over at Maria Cristina. Her gray head lay on a worn camping pillow. Should I wake her and thank her? Her breathing was steady and quiet. I decided to leave her a small note.

Dear Maria Cristina, 

 Thank you for sharing a small part of your path with me and for telling me about the miracles that saved your life. I know it was meant for us to meet, and I hope to receive a note from you someday. I’m leaving this morning because I must continue moving forward. God bless you. ¡Buen Camino!

Love,
Miguel 

It was only 7:15 am, and Sahagún was not yet awake. I walked over to the train station expecting to see the Laura and her friends. A single light bulb illuminated the empty room. A tug on the door. Locked. Nothing moving and no one around. The ticket window was closed. Where the hell are they? They left without me? I looked at my watch again, 7:20 am. Laura said the bus would be stopping by here, but this isn’t a stop. I figured I would find them and took off on instinct, and remembered seeing the exit to León on the opposite end of the town the day before. 7:25. I ran. My injured toe protested.

As I rounded a soft curve, the bus was pulling away but I kept running, waving my staff until it stopped. I jumped in and walked up the stairs. All the pilgrims cheered, “¡Viva Miguel!” I laughed and my stomach twinged as I looked out at the thick fog that enveloped the road. The gears shifted, the bus slowed down, and I soon fell asleep.

*

“Miguel, Miguel!” said Laura, shaking me. “We are here. Let’s go.”

I rubbed my eyes.

“Let’s go!” called Laura.

I allowed the group to lead me to the hospice where I hoped I would quickly stand under hot water and crawl into my sleeping bag, but that was not to be, at least not immediately. When we arrived a Spanish hospitalera came to the door.

“Please understand, the refuge is not ready. You have arrived very early. By bus, right? We understand, but please be patient.” She held one finger up and said, “una hora.”

That hour turned into two, and the quiet hum of waiting became the buzz of an annoying fly going from person to person. I had to shower, clean my bag and wash clothes. Sleep called. When the door finally opened, my intestines churned and tightened, and a fart tried to escape. I bit my lower lip and whispered, “Hold it. Hold it,” as I scribbled my name in the log and got my passport stamped.

I waddled as fast as I could up the stairs and into the sleeping hall. I spotted the toilet and rushed in. The rotten egg farts echoed.

“Thank God I’m alone.”

Just as I said that, another pilgrim walked in, and another one exploded. He quickly took care of his business, and left. I covered my face with my hands and exhaled in embarrassed relief.

I guzzled a half-liter of water, downed some anti-diarrhea pills, unfurled my sleeping bag and collapsed onto the bed. I was so weary; no sounds bothered me. I didn’t dream, but fell into such a deep sleep that when I woke up about three hours later, I forgot where I was. The cots around me were still empty. A few pilgrims walked in and out. Oh, León… León. I gathered my towel, my pants and underwear and Maria Cristina’s bar of soap.

Hot water streamed down my head, shoulders and back, and felt so refreshing and energizing, unlike any before that day on the Camino. My stomach had grown quiet and hollow. I felt whole. As I wiggled my toes in the stream of water, my feet felt like flesh and bone instead of pulp, except for the pinky toe, though it was only bruised. I inhaled through my nose and exhaled loudly through my mouth, thankful for the solitude.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

My mind returned home to my parents. On that last day in Chicago at O’Hare, I hugged them as they blessed me with the sign of the cross. “Qué Dios te bendiga, hijo.” I boarded the plane, took my seat and thought about Paris—the two-week stint before an extended stay in Prague. I remembered thinking, “Just be open to whatever you find.” There was precious little time to prepare for the trip or even read the guidebooks that were in my carry-on. I had always wanted to travel to Paris for her history, her beauty and her art. Prague, on the other hand, I knew little about and chose her to force myself to dive into another country’s language and culture. The burg’s central location also put me near other cities.

Wandering through Europe had rekindled a wanderlust I was born with. After Paris, and once I had settled in Prague, I ventured to Krakow, Warsaw, Berlin, Bratislava, Budapest and Istanbul. They had all somehow brought me here to this path by reconnecting me to walking. When I lived in México, my cousins and I spoke about walking to the Basílica of the Virgin of Guadalupe with a group of friends and family. We talked about dates, times, and preparation, but they remained words and nothing more. That idea was born in Guadalajara, where I would walk aimlessly for hours, just wandering until the sun set and I had to eat dinner and go home. Once I entered grad school that disappeared. This walk had never been in my plans, and yet when the couple mentioned it in Prague, I could not shake its call. I guess I was a peripatetic, a wanderer.

The water gush slowed and dripped when I shut it off. I buttoned the pants around my slender waist. I had not washed them in several days, but they were the only clothes that were somewhat clean. They would have to do. I then tied my sneakers and grabbed the journal, the bar of soap and my dirty clothes, and walked down to the laundry room, where the peace of the refuge disappeared in the hubbub of machines and people clamoring for their turn to wash.

One of the nuns stepped in, followed by a caretaker, and they made us form a line. They took our clothes, separated them into baskets and sent us away. It may have been the easiest way to keep a crowded laundry room in order. That gesture gave me the opportunity to explore.

León, a 2,000-year-old city, is a product of Roman conquest, though recent archaeological findings place its beginnings further back. Still, the burg takes its name from the Sixth Roman Legion that established itself there in 68 CE. and helped gather other forces between the Bernesga and Torio Rivers. Their mission was to protect the gold transports from Las Médulas mines—the largest of the ancient European world. Today they are part of a cultural park and are quite a ways from the city, closer actually, to the city of Ponferrada.

I walked through the tight ravines of ruas toward the white bell towers of the the skyscraping Cathedral of Nuestra Señora de la Regla that stands before an esplanade. Designed in the thirteenth century by French architects, its construction began in 1250, and is the product of many minds. She remains the shining example of Gothic architecture in Spain—arches lifted my eyes upward with soaring filigree. The statues became icons for worshipers, travelers and pilgrims on their way to Santiago. La Pulcra Leonina, as she is called, is a meticulously crafted jewel of stone, glass and faith. Her white Virgin Mary at the main entrance holds the holy infant over the central doorway. Scenes of torment and glory adorn the archway, as does a statue of Santiago wearing scallop shells. Christ, above them, divides sinners from saints in final judgment.

Inside, a tour group provided more details. I figured they were from the United States, given the conversion from meters into feet—“40 meters or 131 feet wide and 39 meters or 128 feet high over the nave.” My eyes and head followed the guide’s arm down and across. She turned back toward the group and paused when she saw me, scanning me over her round glasses. She saw my awkward attempt to look away, but she continued nonetheless. Her uplifted left hand swept from right to left showing off both sides of the building. “…125 large windows, 57 small, round ones and 73 massive rose windows.” The group walked on while I stood there trying to make them out, my mouth agape. I turned back toward the rose window of the main entryway: blue, red and small fragments of white light filtered through the glass as if through a fixed kaleidoscope. Its colors touched me and held me in a trance. The exiting tour group broke my spell.

I ambled over to a gift shop and went through multiple postcards. I wanted to take my time writing them because I wanted to share the miracle that is the Camino through handwritten words instead of email. The shop owner helped me pick out the ones she considered most representative of her city. “Ésta, ésta está bella,” she would say as she handed them to me one by one.

Back at the refuge, I sat down to write to friends, to my parents and to my professor who had so encouraged me to do this when she was in Prague. It was if she had been asking me to do it for her, as a promise to her for the both of us. On our last night before her return to Chicago, she hugged me and whispered, “Have no fear. Go! And please send postcards.” Her postcard was the last one I wrote.

Dear Mindy,

 I decided to rest for a day at a nun’s refuge in León. It is peaceful here and you can feel the love they have and want to share with everyone. It has confirmed one of the best aspects of the Camino for me, it is open to everyone and it opens all hearts.

Love, 

Miguel

It shouldn’t surprise me, but it doesn’t make this moment feel any less painful. How can we live through any more days or years like this? It has been hard to write or think about anything else, to give form to the rage and heartbreak.

He aims to drown out our words with the constant clanging of war, parades, tariffs, threats, and fear. It seems to be part of the plan — smother our words with a torrent of noise and lies. He, a false messiah, cheered on by blind, cowardly prophets, has made crooked the paths of many lives.

How do we respond? I don’t have the answer, but I do find that memory can be a place of resilience.

Remember.

The words of Viktor Frankl’s seminal work, Man’s Search for Meaning, keep coming back to me, though I only read it once. Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, emphasized time and time again how valuable memories can be, not in a nostalgic sense of pining for better days. No, memories remind us where we’ve been and how the strength and growth from difficult moments cannot be taken away. The defeats cannot be removed either. We bear those scars, but they should not define us or the future.

Frankl carried within his heart the memory of his wife and his profound, life-saving, life-giving love for her. It was often the memory of her that kept him going through the punishment and starvation of concentration camps, that kept him writing, often on scraps of paper in those gray barracks. And because of that love, he found hope with other prisoners. They shared food, tended to the sick, organized plays, and remembered scripture—shields against the destruction of their souls.

They cannot take away our memories, our words, stories, or history. We must come together. Tener un reencuentro—a reencounter with who we are and where we come from, in an act of affirmation and resistencia. On March 1, 2025, the president issued an executive order declaring English the official language of the United States—a policy with the obvious intention of diminishing the value of other languages. It is more than a symbolic gesture. It’s aimed at doing with languages what he wants to do with many communities—erase them.

And that’s why we must write down our stories. Gather and speak about who we are and who we were—in Spanish, Portuguese, Creole, Náhuatl, Maya, Lakota, and other languages. And in English, too. Escribir. Recordar. Resistir. Write, remember, and remind others of the strength that comes from community and the sharing of our stories. Silence won’t save us.

I don’t know where this road will end or if we’ll see each other at the end of it, but I know where we’ve been. And in that, I find hope.

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Sit in the silence.

Wish it were different? Hope that these days would disappear? That he would just change?

Stop.

Surrender, not in acquiescence, but in acceptance. Drink from the cup as it has been served

here, and now.

Listen and respond as He did …

pray

provide

protect

protest

reform

repair

rebuild.

Love.

Walk with this cross,

the story does not end here…

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“I can make excuses, but I was afraid of moving to Italy, of completely changing my life. I began looking for someone back at home and I found someone, but it didn’t work. Another girl left me after ten days. I should have been in Italy, but I ignored her pleas and calls. I cut her off.”

“You didn’t tell her what you did?”

“I couldn’t, but I would eventually because I had to tell her the truth. I hoped that would help us heal. Damn, I was selfish. I just thought about myself. By that time, she had stopped talking to me and even blocked my emails. There was no way for me to get in touch with her except by going to see her.”

“And you did.”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

“I saw her just for one afternoon, and that was it.”

“Mm.”

I could not believe I was sharing this story with a stranger, but by some miracle she was from Modena and she was here sitting with me in the middle of Spain.

“Please continue, I want to listen. I need to listen. It’s really beautiful. ”

I bit my lower lip.

“Yes, I understand what you’ve been through,” she continued. “But it’s beautiful to see and know that there is still love, and that it still moves people beyond their familiar world and comfort and even their mistakes to something new.” She touched my shoulder. “Please continue.”

“I wish I had never made that trip. I missed my flight, waited for a later one that flew me first to London and then to Rome after five hours. The airline lost my luggage.”

I stopped talking. The wound had begun healing when Lupe called me, but there had been no true closure. Maria and I were silent for some time. She got up to remove her blue jacket, fold it and then sat back down. She was thinking, and it seemed as if moving around would help her jog the wisdom of her experience.

“Please continue. You need to talk about this.”

“I, uh…it’s…it’s just that I thought we had a chance, that she would see me and change her mind, but she didn’t…. she didn’t.” My throat tightened. “She nearly passed out when she saw me and she complained about her hair and clothes saying I should have told her I was coming. That initial shock became anger. I kissed her on the cheek, but she pushed away before I could embrace her. She shook my hand and sent me away after an hour. I called her from the hostel that night asking her to see me for breakfast and she said, ‘No, no, no. It’s too late Miguel, it’s too late. It’s too late…’ She cried. Before the sun rose the next morning, I was waiting for a train to Florence, where a storm welcomed me and soaked my suitcase. I walked about in the rain before leaving to Siena. I was alone in a country of strangers. The night before returning home, I wandered through Rome, but never walked in or prayed at any of its churches. I had been a coward and a liar. There was no one to blame but myself. I couldn’t speak. Nothing came out. I sat at random cafes or stood by old doorways staring, just staring. I forced smiles to people at the hostel, the cafés and at the airport. When I got back home, I said nothing about her or Italy to anyone. I started drinking.”

“Madonna!”

“I gave up hope until a friend called me,” I said and then paused. “Until a friend called me to tell me an angel had given her a message for me.”

“Madonna!” she gasped, and stood up covering her mouth in disbelief. “What?”

“I said my friend…”

Maria Cristina cut me off. “No, I understand.”

She stayed quiet, still eyeing the floor. She got up and walked to the window. “I understand. I understand. Please, please continue.”

“One morning I woke up suddenly, just wide awake, like I had never been asleep. It was a little bit before 6:00, and that surprised me because I had stayed up until 2:00 finishing homework. You see, I had gone to a friend’s birthday party the night before, so I had to stay up to finish. Anyhow, I woke up before I had planned to and when I was in the bathroom, my cell phone beeped telling me someone had called. It was too early for anyone to be calling. I hadn’t heard it ring because it was in my jacket hanging in the closet. I didn’t recognize the number, but the area code was familiar. I thought it might be my mom or sister calling from a hospital. I expected bad news.”

“Who was it?”

“My friend Lupe.” I paused.

Maria Cristina continued looking at the window, her hands over her mouth in prayer or worry and I didn’t know if I should continue talking. She lowered her hands, and without looking at me said, “Continua Miguel… per favore.”

“I…I…recognized her voice and asked, ‘Lupe is everything alright?’ She answered, ‘Yes, is everything alright with you?’ I told her, ‘Yes, why?’ She inhaled and said, ‘Miguel.’ ‘Yes?’ I answered. ‘Miguel, an angel came to me in a dream and told me to tell you to not give up. He said that your future is full of hope... don’t give up.’ I was stunned. I tried to speak, but I couldn’t. My voice cracked as I leaned against the closet door and shut it with my weight. ‘Miguel, were you looking for a sign? What’s wrong?’ She began crying too.”

“Oh my…”

“All the those tears I had held from the moment I left her in Italy came out. Lupe asked, ‘Why are you crying? Why was this message given to me Miguel? Please tell me!’ I told her everything about the lies, the drinking, the hopelessness. I was so surprised. I couldn’t stop crying. I don’t even know how she made out what I said.”

I couldn’t believe I was sharing this.

“The angel had given her two messages, one for me and one for a friend whose grandmother had recently died.”

“Oh my, Miguel…” her voice trailed off.

“I know. I know.”

“That’s… why you’re here?” Maria Cristina said. She hadn’t turned to face me. Her voice was quiet. She was crying.

“Yes, in part, yes. And then there were just so many other things that led me here. I had to come, but when I left Chicago this past winter… this pilgrimage had never entered my mind. I had simply gone to Prague to finish my studies.”

She wiped her eyes then closed them. “I can’t believe this. I mean it’s just so... Miguel, I’m here because the same happened to me.”

“What?”

“Senti, I loved my husband deeply and he loved me and when he died, I was angry with God and at myself for loving with all my heart, but that is how we must love. There is no other way, and it took me some years to recover. There were many lonely days and nights. One morning my friend Valentina called me and asked me to her home for lunch. It was not unusual, but it came after I had trouble sleeping for several days.” She paused, holding back tears and sighed. “It was… it was the most difficult moment. A year, yes a year after Gabriele passed away.”

“One year later?”

“The entire year was difficult, but because he died near Christmas, on the fifteenth, it was even more difficult. I avoided going to Mass. I avoided church and many friends, except Valentina.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t know, but I would find out that day. I got ready, had a coffee and went to her house. It smelled wonderful. I had not eaten well that year either, and had lost a lot of weight. It was hard to eat alone, staring out the kitchen window at our garden where we had shared so much love. I felt as if I were eating stones except when I went to her house. That day, I can’t believe this… I, she sat me down and said, ‘An angel came to me in my sleep and told me to tell you that God sees your pain. He saw you looking toward the garden a couple of nights ago as you whispered his name. He saw when you shattered the shell, the one he gave you the first time you went to the sea.’” Maria Cristina buried her face in her hands and sobbed, “Non lo posso credere. Non lo posso credere.”

I sat on the bed and wondered what to do or what to say next. She asked for a tissue from her bag.

“Miguel, please don’t be alarmed. I’m crying because you reminded me of how my life changed since that day. Valentina had several dreams like this throughout her life, but they were always unexpected. She and her husband listened to me and helped me escape the loneliness. They reminded me that my love for Gabriele would never die, but that I had to allow life to continue in me. She was the first to mention the Camino several years ago, and she took me to the airport a month ago.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Miguel, you have to forgive yourself. You can’t continue wishing and wanting another chance at the past or to work and remake it somehow. It will never return, and life will continue coming, bringing new people, new paths and opportunities to follow and you can’t make the past return no matter how bad you feel about it.”

I pulled her letters out of my pocket and handed them to Maria Cristina. She examined one envelope carefully, holding it up to the light while softly saying, “Emilia Est, that’s where she lives?”

“Yes. She is probably living far from there now.”

She folded the letters and replaced them in the frayed plastic bag.

“I will do you a favor if you promise to help me this afternoon. I will even buy you dinner.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve been here two days and you’re the first person I have really spoken to.”

“Two days? What?”

“Yes, my knees became so inflamed I was unable to walk, but I’m better now, although I need my hiking poles to get around. I have not been out of the refuge because I have been afraid of falling. I’m tired of bread, ham and cheese. That is all I have received. I’m thankful, but I need to eat something different and I must go to the pharmacy.”

“You don’t have to explain anything or buy me dinner. I will be glad to help you.”

“I am asking for a simple favor. Listen, I will contact her and send a letter to tell you how she is.”

I wanted to believe she would, but deep inside I was afraid of what in all likelihood had taken place. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to know anything anymore. Maybe her silence was the best she could give me to keep me from hurting more. I pursed my lips. Maria Cristina noticed my apprehension.

“Miguel, no matter what news I give you, you have to make peace with the past.”

Maria shuffled through her bag again, took out a pen and grabbed the bar of soap. She copied the information from the envelope into her notebook, asked for mine and gave me hers.

“Ecco, let’s meet at 6:00.”

“Form a line,” she barked.

We did.

“Take the top bunks and leave the bottom ones to the pilgrims who walked.”

No one responded.

“Be quiet as you go up. There are ill pilgrims who need to rest. Please show respect; this was once the Church of the Holy Trinity. ”

We all kept quiet, but ignored her bed orders. We found several pilgrims sleeping; others were awake and moving about, putting clothes away or taking inventory of their belongings. One, a woman of about twenty-five, was wearing a fresh cast on her right leg and talking on a cell phone, wiping away tears.

“… my dream. My father did it before he died,” she said quietly. “I don’t know when I will be able to return.” Her pack was at her side with a train ticket.

Compared to her, we must have seemed like a bunch of tourists making the Camino entirely on a bus or with assistance from a car following us along the path.

I staked out a lower bunk away from the rambunctious Italian and Spanish group and away from the window too. The box-like bunks provided some privacy and could also make nodding off a bit easier come nightfall. The lump on my left ankle remained, but the pain had diminished as I worked and kneaded it with Alcohol de Romero hoping to relax the tender muscles and joints, but I avoided touching the heels. They were so pliable; pieces of flesh might tear off like fresh dough. I needed new shoes—better ones—or some way to add padding to absorb the shock. The sneakers had taken a beating. I was flattening the inner sole into a sheet of paper. I lay down pondering how to solve the problem. A fog enclosed Sahagún in a cocoon and lulled me to sleep.

An hour later, I rubbed my eyes in the dark and figured a shower would wake me up. In the pack? One clean pair of underwear, but the rest reeked of stale popcorn and soap. I had tried to wash my clothes the night before, but failed. Beige soap stains streaked across the chest and armpits of the T-shirt. The shorts gave off a fetor of cheese. Thankfully and because of the day’s short walk, the clothes I wore could be recycled. Washing would come after the shower. Where’s the soap? There was nothing in the plastic toiletry bag. I emptied the pack onto the bed and spread my clothes, the repair supplies, the first aid kit, the flashlight. It wasn’t in the small bags or wrapped up in the socks. Where did it go?

I got up and picked through all the items again. The soap was gone. My sunglasses? Gone too.

“Where did I leave them? The bus? The bar? I left them at the bar!”

God knows I would not find a single store open at siesta time, so I sat on the floor. The “lost on the Camino” list grew longer: towel. Feet! Soap, sunglasses, Anna. Sanity. Damn. You are a joke. You’re misplacing things. You can’t wash clothes. Then you’re looking for signs from God. Really? I got up, faced the ground and lunged my guidebook against the back wall of the bunk. It bounced and fluttered onto the ground. Several pages tore, and the pilgrim’s passport slid out and across the floor. The thud didn’t alarm anyone. What was wrong with me? I had been fine. Why would missing soap and sunglasses set me off? I looked at the floor, eyeing the torn guidebook and passport, the scattered clothes. Calm down, the sunglasses you can buy later today. And the soap, well, someone here should have some. I looked toward the window where an old woman folding clothes blocked the sunlight. I hope she didn’t see me. I quickly gathered everything and tossed it on the bed. I walked over to her. Her face was fresh, her cheeks a bright pink, and she smiled as she worked. Her gray hair was pulled back in a long, girlish ponytail. Her khaki shorts and green T-shirt gave her the air of an accomplished backpacker. She has to have an extra bar of soap or at least some shampoo. Either will work.

“Hello, do you speak Spanish?”

“A little. It’s not too different from Italian. I’m Italian,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Swiss, but I married an Italian and I really feel more Italian than Swiss.”

“Really?” Not another Italian.

“Yes, what is that you need?”

“I forgot my soap at Frómista and was wondering if you had any extra?”

She smiled. “Yes, I do.” Reaching across the top bunk, she grabbed a new bar from underneath her bag.

“Another Italian,” I said.

“What?” she said, putting the soap down.

“It’s just that I’ve met so many Italians on the Camino.”

“You don’t like Italians? What are you?”

“I’m from Chicago. México originally. No, no, no. It’s not that at all. It’s just that...”

I paused and looked toward the window.

“You’re what?”

“I’m trying to forget an Italian girl…”

“What?” she said, taken aback.

She continued looking into my eyes and her smile faded.

“And that’s why you’re here on the Camino?”

I paused again, looked at the window and then into her eyes.

“Yes, yes...”

I wanted to continue talking, but was unsure about telling a perfect and old Italian stranger about my life—the lies, the remorse, the insomnia, the drinking. How is this going to help?

She sat, looked around, and said, “There is no one else around. Why don’t you tell me about it?” The sunlight coming in through the high window grew brighter, filling the entire nave.

“My name is Maria Cristina Grazia,” she said softly taking my hand to reassure me. I sat next to her and looked at the floor.

“It has been so difficult.”

“The relationship?” she said. “Maybe it was the cultural differences. You are from very different cultures.”

“No, it wasn’t that. I...I was afraid of taking a complete risk for her, of giving us a chance to make a whole life together instead of the summers and holidays we had shared. We met in Modena.”

“Modena?”

“Yes.”

“That’s where I’m from.”

“What?”

“Yes. I can’t believe you met there and that now you’re here. Like I told you, I’m originally Swiss, but I married a wonderful Italian man and we made our life in Modena. It is not a very big city, but it was ours. He worked for the government. We had such a wonderful life.”

“Had?” I asked, turning to face her.

“Oh, yes…yes, about my husband. He died about seven years ago,” she breathed. “I’m not going to lie. It was very difficult, very difficult, the most difficult moment of my life. He was so loving, so caring and hard working, and we loved each other though we could have no children. We made a great life. Cancer took him from me. When we met, I had to leave my family and friends, but it was worth it. I have no regrets. I will always miss him, but we lived such a wonderful life.” She paused and said, “I’m sorry. I interrupted you. Tell me about the girl from Modena.”

“No, don’t worry. I don’t mind you telling me about your life.”

She nodded. “Please continue.”

“We met in Modena and it was an instant connection. I didn’t speak much Italian and she didn’t know any Spanish or any English.”

“Oh, we Italians. We want the entire world to speak our language.”

I laughed nervously, trying to understand how this woman and I had crossed paths.

“Please continue,” she said.

“I don’t remember how we began talking or how we understood each other, but we did, and we discovered a common passion for art and poetry. I was with a group of friends as we were making our way to Rome, but we had to make a stopover in Modena and spent about seven days there. That’s how we met. We were all trying to meet girls on the trip. My friends and I would flirt with most any girl we thought was attractive, but when I met her it… it… it was different. She had a quiet way about her, a beautiful smile and welcoming eyes. She was shy, but confident. I guess it was that mystery that drew me to her. It’s funny, we were in Modena for about a week, so we were able to explore the city. We walked around with a group of Italians who were our guides. She was always there. One night the host families of the Church of San Francesco, the ones who had organized our stay there, held a celebration for us in the church’s courtyard. There was traditional music and food. There were about 200 people there. We were really grateful for their hospitality.”

“Mm, we are very giving people.”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“She called me over to the table. All the families had prepared a dish or dessert for the event. She lifted a gorgeous cake from the table to show it off, then she cut a piece, and then a smaller piece from that. She placed both in my hands and looked into my eyes. I took the small piece and ate it. I smiled, ‘It’s delicious.’ She smiled.”

Maria Cristina smiled and nodded.

“After that we sat to watch the performances, but then I asked her away from the crowd. We walked to a bus stop where I had seen some poetry, though I didn’t understand it.”

“Sí, sí, sí.”

“I asked her to translate it or rather to help me understand some of what it was trying to say.”

“Did you?”

“Just a couple of words. After a few failed attempts at literature in Italian, we returned to the crowd, and so many of her friends stared as we sat to watch the performance, which then became a dance. They pulled many of our hosts onto the dance floor.”

“Really?”

“Yes. And I stood up and simply extended my hand to her to ask her to dance; she placed her hand in mine and I led her out to the floor. She had never danced in her life. We laughed when she nearly tripped over my foot when we went off beat.”

“That is funny.”

“Everyone joined in. I considered staying in Modena when the rest of my group went to Rome. Instead, we met at the train station in Rome just a few days later. It was early in the morning, and she brought a pack with clothes for a few days. We shared a breakfast of cookies and juice. Then we went to pick up my bags before we went to search for a hotel.”

“Such passion.”

“It was happening so fast, but it was right. We walked through Rome. We didn’t have a lot of money, so we shared some sandwiches and more juice boxes she had brought from home. I had some fruit.”

“It sounds like you were starting to fall in love.”

“Yes, yes, we were. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. She felt the same way. We just had a connection unlike anything I had ever felt with anyone before. We spoke in a mix of Italian, Spanish and sign language.”

“And after that?”

“After seven days, I returned to Chicago, but I flew back for Christmas and the following spring and summer. We traveled around Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany. We even went to Ischia, to Cinque Terre, over to Trieste and into Slovenia and Croatia. ”

“Beautiful. How beautiful! It sounds like something out of an old movie.”

“I was there during one autumn. We went to Montepulciano, too. We had talked about marriage and children and making a life.”

“Ah… the wine. Sí, sí, sí. I’ve been there several times. What a story! It all sounds so good. What? What happened?”

“Yes, from here to Carrión de los Condes it’s about nineteen and then another seventeen to Calzadilla de la Cueza.”

“I can’t walk with you guys. Not like this. It is too rushed and I really need to rest tonight,” Sakura said.

I was hungry for rest too. Sleep had simply numbed my feet for a few hours and pain returned once I got up. The lump on my ankle had grown to the size of a fat grape. I had to stop, but how to tell Sandra? I needed time. I would start out with her, but then break the news to her as we went along. Most of the path from Frómista to León was flat.

Sakura hugged me tightly.

“My friend, may you find what you seek,” she said.

“You too.”

I thought about asking her for her scarf, as I had given mine to my aunt who was suffering through chemotherapy when I returned from that first trip to Italy. I had prayed for her in Rome, and I placed it in her hands once I returned to Mexico City. She used it to cover her head after all her hair had fallen out. I didn’t ask Sakura for hers. Instead I gave her a slip of paper with my email address. She gave me hers, a small green origami crane along with a pin of the Virgin of Guadalupe. I put it on my hat.

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“I’ve shared much of my faith with Mexicans in Japan; please have this.”

“Thank you.”

I hugged Sakura tightly one last time and kissed her on the cheek.

“Gracias amiga. ¡Qué Dios te bendiga! Buen Camino.”

When we had walked for some time, I looked back at Frómista, and to the south where the clouds smudged out the light. Sandra said the rain was far enough away that we could make it to Carrión de los Condes before it began to reach us. The lump on my ankle continued to grow and I fell behind her first by two meters, then by four and five. Sandra slowed, and then steadied her speed after she had pulled ahead by some ten meters. The storm was getting closer to us, crawling along on the sails of rain.

I thought, “Now. The moment to break away is now.”

My inflamed ankle confirmed my thoughts. Tiny raindrops glistened on my arm. I pushed on, looking to my left and then ahead of me, scanning the horizon where two white wires violently sliced through the rumbling thunderhead. Sheets of water poured down just as we entered Carrión de los Condes and a black mantel enveloped us. Every person walking by us rushed around a corner into a bar and the clamor of multiple languages: Japanese, Portuguese, French, German, Italian and Spanish. The bar had become a temporary post for some forty squawking pilgrims. The Spaniards and Italians were the largest and the loudest groups. Most, I imagined, were over fifty.

“Hey, young man, go in, all the way.” An Italian pilgrim waved me in. She stood near the door.

“Va bene,” I answered.

“You know how to speak Italian?” she smiled.

“Poccho,” I answered.

“Mm… e io poco español,” she replied. “Come in, come in for a beer.”

The rain rushed across the intersection and toward us—pushing everyone near the door all the way in.

“Vai, vai, vai!” she said, waving to me.

More pilgrims scurried into the already crowded bar. Sandra resigned herself to the fact that she would have to wait. She grabbed a chair in a corner and sat by herself to watch World Cup updates. No speed could protect her from the downpour. The Italian woman ordered a beer, handed it to me, then led me to a table where a group of Spaniards and Italians were talking and drinking. I counted ten empty glasses—six half full.

“Sit down,” she called to me, pulling out a chair.

“Grazie.” I nodded to all at the table. “Ciao.”

I sipped beer, but didn’t really listen to the conversation—as I was still trying to figure out how to “break up” with Sandra.

“Ragazzo, what’s your name?” asked a woman between sips of beer. “And where are you from?”

“Miguel, my name is Miguel. I am from Chicago, and México.”

“Aha, un mexicano,” she said. “Good, very good.”

“I’m Laura,” said the first woman I met. “You should take the bus with us.”

“What?”

“Yes, we are taking the bus to Sahagún. We need to rest, and to not worry about the rain. It might rain again.”

A bus? Take a bus to Sahagún? The thought had never crossed my mind; I had planned to walk the entire path, wanting to know it and experience it only on foot. I had imagined that, but her words made sense. I had to tell Sandra. I sipped the beer and eyed my new companions. They all seemed to be on a getaway. One man with a huge belly drank three beers in about fifteen minutes. Others drank with more patience, but they all seemed like fifty-year-old college kids. I guess they were old enough not to care what anyone thought. After forty minutes or so, the rain had slowed to a silent, intermittent sprinkle, then disappeared altogether. The puddles mirrored the clouds that had dissolved into tiny specs of slate. Steam rose from the asphalt. Sandra asked if I was ready. She was already wearing her pack. Everyone at the table looked at me and fell quiet. I stood up.

“No, I’m staying, and then I’m taking a bus with them to Sahagún.”

Her eyes widened and she took a step back in shock. She was angry and she could scarcely hide it.

“Boa sorte,” she said begrudgingly, and extended her hand toward me.

It was more of a shocked reaction than a polite gesture.

No smiles, no goodbye, hug or “I hope to see you again.” She turned around and walked onto the wet pavement. I felt some guilt, but I had to stay.

“Miguel,” someone called from the table. “Miguel, buy your ticket at the bar.”

“Yes,” I called back. “Yes…”

Was I doing the right thing? Is there such a thing as signs or am I just crazy? What about that voice? You’re losing it.

“What are you doing?” I said to myself.

“¡Muchacho! ¡Muchacho!” The bartender handed me the ticket.

I slid the Euros to him and walked away. Signs or not, I had just chosen a different path.

“Give yourself to the Camino. Don’t ask for anything because it will give you what you need,” Luis had said.

I had made a choice. The bus pulled up, I got up to grab my bag, and we all ran out. “¡Miguel, la cerveza!” A rebuke for leaving the beer. I ran back, took one drink, licked the foam off my top lip and ran out the door. I was the last one to board the bus.

Wine and beer bottles were freely passed from hand to hand. “¡Salud amigos!” A couple danced to a rhythm of one, two, one two claps. Wine spilled. Laura came up to me again, squeezing by the dancers.

“Why are you so sad?”

She was a little drunk.

“I’m fine. I just don’t know you.”

Her eyes widened and her smile grew wider. She turned away from me.

“Hey, not only is he the youngest person on the bus, he’s also the loneliest. Everyone say hi to Miguel.”

“Give him some wine.”

“Yes, what he needs is wine.”

“¡Vino! ¡Vino! ¡Vino!”

Everyone joined the chorus. Three wine bottles were passed from hand to hand, and two ended up on the floor next to me.

Laura put one in my hand. “You have to finish it.” The bottle was full.

“What?”

The chorus began again.

“¡Vino! ¡Vino! ¡Vino!”

“I can’t do that. I haven’t had anything to eat.”

She laughed and shook her head and turned back toward the crowd.

“He acts like he’s fifty, Íria, come here!”

A Spaniard came up behind her.

“Do you have a problem?” Íria asked.

“No,” I responded, almost cowering.

“Then have a drink. Relax!”

Three more gathered around my seat. One passed me a corkscrew.

“Bien,” I said, uncorking the bottle.

Was Luis somewhere telling me to loosen up?

“Come on, you’re the youngest one here.”

I lifted the bottle to drink, but someone quickly handed me a plastic glass. I poured the red wine and held it up.

“Salud.”

“¡Salud!” the entire bus responded.

“You have to stick with us, you’ll have fun,” Íria said. “I am cooking for us. Real food, you know.”

“Sí, gracias.”

The festive mood continued as I finished the glass of wine and set the bottle to the side. The bus stopped at Terradillos de Templarios and I thought about leaving, but no one moved. Fifteen minutes later we arrived in Sahagún, where everyone stepped off. A mere twelve kilometers separated Terradillos de Templarios from Sahagún. A few days before, we had suffered crawling into Burgos to complete a forty-one kilometer day, nearly the distance of a marathon.

“Híjole,” I said, closing my guidebook.