37: pilgrim or busker, that is the question

I sat down on a bench at the entrance to Ondarroa. I needed to think.

What sort of trip was I making? I'd been cursing the weight on my back since the second day of this walk. I hadn't really used the guitar at all. My knee and my back seemed to be sustaining injuries from the feel of it, and it was only the 6th day. The guitar bag was falling to bits.

It is interesting to see what sort of expectations we bring to something, even when we try not to bring any at all. I had vague images of trotting from one Spanish town to the next, spending summer evenings playing the guitar on their plazas and making a bit of extra money and maybe doing some of what people sometimes call "connecting with people through music".

This was looking less and less like the trip I was actually taking. To be a busker means to be under no time constraints, to be flexible enough to spend some more days in one town if the pickings are good.

Certainly one could make a pilgrimage that was also a busking trip, but it would have to be a different pilgrimage than what this one seemed to be. This pilgrimage had me spending more time on muddy mountain and forest trails than in any towns. It had me hoping to walk at least 20 Kilometers a day. But with the walks, the scrounging for food and the constant weariness, there was not much time for making music.

So what was it going to be? Was I going to spend a summer wandering around Spain in a vaguely westward direction, hopping from town to town and playing my guitar in public places? Or was I going to concentrate on walking the Camino de Santiago?

Being a guy who hates either/or scenarios, I had been reluctant to make a final decision on this. I was still sure that I could do 20 Kilometers in a day even with a guitar on my back. I still speculated that these initial difficulties would get easier, and that eventually I'd find a routine in which there would be plenty of spare time to make music. I even considered that the extra weight on my back might enhance the pilgrim experience by being a form of asceticism -- like the pilgrims that carry a cross on their back. The guitar certainly served as a good symbol for the weight of music in my life.

But now the strap on the guitar bag had snapped off. It was certainly something that could be repaired, but with every new thing that had to be done in order to keep both options open I was getting more motivated to make a decision one way or the other. It was becoming clear that 20 Kilometers of trail every day with a guitar on my back would get to be a miserable experience after a while. I could cut down the distance and keep the guitar, and plan in more time for the pilgrimage. This is what my "free spirit" self wanted to do.

Or I could get rid of the guitar and concentrate on walking. This seemed less romantic. But I had to admit that I wasn't as good at busking in practice as I was in theory. I'd had some great times making music on the streets in the past, but that was almost always with someone else. Being the lone guy with a guitar always made me feel self-conscious, like I was impinging on people, putting mediocre music into their lives that didn't really enhance their day, and in fact served as an annoyance. It was a louder but not much more dignified version of panhandling.

I decided to get rid of the guitar. I pulled it out and sang one last song, then headed into town to see what options I could find for losing it.