Olivia’s writing journey took her to the Camino de Santiago

Olivia has been working with her writing mentor, Ella Frears — a poet and artist whose work has been shortlisted for major awards and supported by numerous residencies and teaching positions at prestigious institutions.

With her Y&TC Creative Writing award, Olivia chose to travel the famous Camino in Spain, drawing on writing techniques developed in collaboration with Ella. Y&TC backed her ambition by providing camping gear, as well as covering travel and accommodation costs, helping to make this unforgettable journey possible for an emerging writer.

Olivia’s words:

A young man, on the long downward stretch between O Cebreiro and Triacastela, showed me a poem he wrote while on the Camino. I asked him what the poem really meant and he said ‘I don’t know, I’ll understand it in a couple of months.’ This creative mode – to experience, to write, and only then to understand – struck me as a profoundly honest one. I had not been able to write much, our routine was strict, and any down time was spent with other pilgrims and a €1 beer, or asleep.

 

Our breakfast – black coffee, fruit, and bread – was at five AM followed by long hikes which were, first, over the bitter Pyrenees, and then down through the valleys with their Spanish heat. When we arrived at the albuerges – hostels where only pilgrims could stay, verified by their camino passports – a new set of tasks awaited. First, to make the bed: a thin paper sheet to cover the plastic mattress and a disposable pillowcase were provided but no blankets. Most days I felt smug about my spartan packing, carrying only a 30 litre bag, but on cold mountain nights, wearing all of my clothes, I almost regretted not bringing a blanket of my own. We would then shower in swimming-pool-style facilities that brought a new meaning
to ‘communal’ and wash our clothes with the same sliver of soap we’d washed ourselves with. Some albuerges provided dinner for the pilgrims, in others we would empty an entire bag of pasta in boiling water and mix it with whatever the small village shops had – beans, chickpeas, canned peppers, slices of cheese, pasata – and try our best to finish it before retiring to bed. Perhaps none of this sounds very appealing, yet the option was always there to stay in a nice hotel, or buy a fancy dinner, but this never seemed, to me, to be in the spirit of the Camino.

 

At the first mass I attended at the monastery in Roncesvalles – the first refuge for pilgrims after crossing into Spain – I remember understanding only one thing that the Priest said: ‘afrontar todas las dificultades del Camino con amor, sólo amor, siempre amor’ meaning ‘face all the difficulties of the camino with love, only love, always love.’ I understood then that it was supposed to be hard, and that only through this external difficulty could internal change occur. Even so, I was not aware of any change in myself until the camino ended and have only just begun to formulate the journey into language.

 

For now I have images misted with heat and hunger in my mind: fifteen wet pilgrims who had never met sharing rations in an emergency shelter in the mountains, horses grazing in sun-warmed fields with large copper bells around their necks, churches that seemed monolithic in the bare surrounding flatland, the dust on my shoes, complex murals asserting that we were not Spain but in Basque country, Galician wheatfields, scallop shells adorning the backpack of every passerby, the huge botafumeiro hanging from the ceiling in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, and the different wearied smiles on the faces of everyone who wished me a ‘buen camino.’

I was asked to write about my experience on the Camino as a writer, and I keep returning to that conversation with the young man: in order to write, we must first experience. So, as a writer, I would say this: experience—especially that which that pushes you beyond comfort and tests your physical limits – is integral to writing as it does more than strain the body. It unsettles the mind, stretches it, shakes loose what’s hidden. And in that space of discomfort and openness, the magic happens. I am, then, incredibly grateful to Young and Talented Cornwall for providing me with the opportunity to walk the Camino de Santiago—not just a physical journey but an inward one as well.

 

At the final pilgrims mass inside the grand Cathedral in Santiago, the seventh priest to speak addressed the great hall where hikers from every route sprawled on the cold stone floor to hear his rasping voice: your pilgrimage does not end here, you will continue it through your life. I am sure I will be writing of it for years to come.

If you are a writer with a dream, apply for funding and mentorship through our Creative Writing Awards. Deadline to apply is 12 September.