I Blame The Pyrenees For This
I promised myself I would have made something of my life. Something meaningful. Two months later I started an office job I couldn’t care less about.
When my mum was about to receive her master’s degree the whole building suddenly crumbled, reduced to a pile of debris. Everyone was safe but all the archives were destroyed and there’s no proof she ever went to uni. At least this is the story she’s been telling us since we where kids.
No one in my family managed to get a degree, and because war and poverty everyone had experienced were decades behind, my sister and I, we just had to. We were the first ones in our entire genealogical tree, but there wasn’t a big fuss about it. It was a given.
When you finish writing your dissertation and print it, you can dedicate it to someone. Anyone. That’s the closest you can get to be a published author without really being one. Who you dedicate your work to is also the only part of it your friends and family will ever read, hoping to find their names. Mine was a disappointment to everyone since I dedicated it to my uncle. One of my Mum’s five brothers.
We used to drink and smoke together. Uncle would always leave packets of cigarettes everywhere. Just in case. Creating an involuntary treasure hunt. He was one of those hypnotic storytellers you could listen to for hours. My uncle taught me how to listen. We drank and smoke. And then we didn’t. Because his stomach hurt too much and it turned out something in his blood was killing him, just no one could figure out what it was.
In the few months leading to my graduation my parents had to drive him back and forth to the hospital. One of his packet of cigarettes, he forgot it in the door pocket of my mum’s car. The one your phone always slip into. We didn’t notice until weeks later after he was dead and no one wanted to smoke them. No one wanted to throw them away.
So they put a crown of laurels on my head and the day after my graduation, I wake up with no clue of what to do with my life. By then I had never been camping and I had no idea how to pitch a tent. So I did what seemed the most nonsensical thing to do: I packed a bag with a squeezable sleeping bag, an extra-light camping tent, a couple of underpants and I flew to the south-west of France.
A few years before I had read a book called The Pilgrimage by Paulo Coelho. And I swear, I couldn’t remember a single scene or character in the whole novel. Not a thing. The only thing that stayed with me for years was the name of the pilgrimage: the Road of Santiago de Compostela in the north of Spain.
One of the official paths started in the south of France. You’d walk all the way up the Pyrenees saying Bonjour, Enchanté, and arrive on the other side saying Buenos Dias, Mucho Gusto. Then you walked for five-hundred miles all the way to the ocean. So while my friends were looking for a job and planning a successful career after their Masters, I found myself with a fourty-pound backpack on top of the Pyrenees, on my own and no idea on how to pitch a tent.
I took with me a diary and the packet of cigarettes my uncle left in the car. The diary was a sort of my first attempt to write something meaningful. I didn’t have a camera so I sketched people’s faces. They didn’t look that great back then, but looking at them now, they’re even worse. The diary, I told myself I would have published it. But I didn’t. Over the years I realised that what is special for you, might be absolutely meaningless for everyone else. Most of the time you’re only special for the people you love. And that is more than enough.
Anyway, I find myself on top of the Pyrenees. So high up you can stick a finger in the cloud and realise they’re not made of cotton candy like they told you at school. No one around but a few sheep minding their own business. The air so thin and fresh that stings your nostrils and hurts your brain so much you can’t figure out if you’re suddenly turning all spiritual or you’re just hallucinating. I kept walking surrounded by white peaks and mountains sprouting in every direction. And then I saw a statue facing a cliff. A white marble statue of a woman, her feet covered in handwritten messages and cards. Small presents. Tokens. One of the messages, it was a prayer, a blessing for someone who had died. Another wished some friends to find a job. Their parent to recover from cancer. All those cards wishing happiness and good health. There were thousands of them. Some of them brand new. Some others all faded out. Years and years of prayers and wishes flapping in the wind on top of a deserted mountain, you’d wondered if any of them worked out for real. With faith and spirituality, you never have the right answer.
So I took a cigarette out of my uncle’s packet and smoked it. Facing the infinite nothingness of the mountains. That cold breeze hurting my nose and the white statue next to me. I made sure no one was around to watch and whispered a few words to the statue. You never want to have people around when talking to inanimate objects. I told her that it was not for me. I told her that this thing I was doing, it was for someone else. I wrote a note, took a photo of my uncle out of my backpack and stuck it inside the cigarettes. The packet, I squeezed it between the stones so the wind didn’t blow it away and I left it there. I also think the statue winked at me but that could have just been the lack of oxygen. I put my backpack back on and left tried to figure out where and how to pitch the damn tent.
I walked for more than two months. People who see pilgrims on the road feed them with fruits and vegetables. It’s all very primitive. In the end I figured out how to pitch a tent and, I’m happy to admit, it’s not as hard as they make it sound.
When the trip was over, I walked into the airport with a walking stick I had been carrying for two months. My T-shirt ripped in half. I looked a bit out of context. Around me everyone was busy living with their own lives. Texting on their mobile phones. Listening to pop music too loud for their ears. Chatting about things that didn’t matter. I felt like my eyes were changed. I was looking at things differently. So I made this silent vow, one of those pivotal moments in your life. I promised myself I would have made something of my life. Something meaningful.
Two months later I started an office job I couldn’t care less about.
Every now and then, my mum and I still talk about it. About my uncle, me sleeping on top of a mountain and on the street by myself. The statue and the packet of cigarettes. It’s a happy memory we find comfort in. Although she’s never been there, Mum always says it’s like she had. And when she says it she cries her eyes out and always sobs too much.
In the last few weeks I brought it up a couple of times. Mum is looking a bit too sad on our video calls. Counting how many people got sick. Checking who’s still alive and who’s already dead. Every time I talk about the mountains she smiles in silence.
Mum smiles thinking of those cigarettes still there in the wind after so many years. She smiles, without knowing what I whispered to the statue. Without knowing what I actually asked for. These days, I’ll keep bringing it up because somehow it helps her cope with everything else. Because if you can’t find comfort in a toxic present, sometimes you only want to cradle your memories. Just until you can make new ones.
