Chapter 5: I'm Totally Listening

I stumble into a secret network of lodging for pilgrims, am invited to sleep in a village churches, and get my first taste of the deep support system for Camino pilgrims.

I cannot have made it any clearer to myself that the ten weeks of the pilgrimage are to be project-free.

The plan is to stop: to stop inventing, to stop creating, to stop planning, to stop becoming somebody new and better, to just take a breath – but every day or so, a subtle project idea slips in on autopilot for how I can use this pilgrimage time. I throw out one set of devils and a legion race in behind.

For example, at first, I decide not to take a camera, because that’s exactly the project nightmare waiting to happen that I’m trying to avoid. I know how I am. I will immediately set a goal to learn every single electronic command on the interface so that I can “master photography” because the opportunity for mastery is hidden in everything. And besides, the little camera instruction book is “small” and “doesn’t weigh much,” and “maybe when I’m being so still and focused, and all I can pay attention to is was in front of me, then I’ll take beautiful pictures of it.”

And at one point,…