La Pobrecita
By Elaine Hopkins
Elaine Hopkins, author of Wisdom Along The Way, shares her experience with dyspraxia as a pilgrim walking on the Camino de Santiago.
That’s the word that accompanies me as I arrive in Santiago in June 2011, not on foot nor by bike, but on a high-speed bus, and in the guise of Pilgrim-Who-Didn’t-Quite-Make-It. The elderly female passengers have named me as they listen to the story of my cycling accident and sympathise over my fractured face and fingers, bruised and battered limbs.
I’m determined to visit the cathedral: the end point of my abortive cycling tour. The phone call I receive on the steps from a tour companion stops me dead. I’ve spent a week in hospital telling myself I’ve had only a minor accident. My companion tells a different story: that of pulling me from a drainage ditch, restarting my breathing, and ordering the priest who wanted to say the last rites over me “to do something useful. Call an ambulance.” This is the man who has saved my life, who has badgered the tour company every day for my mobile number so he can call me. I feel inadequate in the face of his deed, his dedication, my debt. I even feel inadequate to thanking him. I enter the Cathedral chastened.
During the three months of my recovery, I confront some of the most painful and puzzling questions of our existence:
Why are we here? Why didn’t I die that day? Would it make any difference if I had?
I keep returning to La Pobrecita, a term I heard often in Santiago that day. Whenever I stopped in a café, I had to answer questions about my injuries. That done, I had conversational variations on a theme:
La cuenta, por favor.' ('The bill, please.')
‘Pobrecita, no tienes que pagar. Eres peregrina, peregrina bendita. Dios te ha salvado. No puedo cobrarte.’ (‘Your poor thing, you don’t have to pay. You’re a pilgrim, a blessed pilgrim. God has saved you. I can’t charge you.’)
“S**t. If I don’t do something different, this is it. This is all there is.”
I emerge from this period with a sense that I have indeed been saved for a purpose, and with the knowledge that I’m no longer haunted by a fear of death. Had I died that day, it would have been a perfect ending: no awareness, no pain, my affairs in order. My sense of purpose remains a promise to be redeemed, but is ever-present.
A couple of years later, I’m studying neuroscience, and, one afternoon, the professor says:
“Whenever there’s a deficit in one part of the brain, there’ll be a compensating abundance in another.”
Deficits I have aplenty. I suffer from dyspraxia, a neurological condition that affects balance, coordination, memory, and speech; a condition I’ve only just discovered I have, but which I’ve resented forever, even in my ignorance. Now, for the first time, I understand that my compensating abundance is my gift with words. I know too that I would not exchange this, not even to dispel dyspraxia.
This is the moment at which I begin to accept my condition. Later that same evening, I stare at the fire and the television. I zoom forward 20 years. I’m still staring at the fire and the television.
S**t. If I don’t do something different, this is it. This is all there is.
I grab the remote and hurl it across the room. I’m furious with myself. My life is narrowing. To nothing. I’ve allowed the back pain and chronic migraines that have dogged my life for the past 30 years to gain the upper hand.
As I pull the duvet over my head in bed, I have a vague sense that my instinct will work some magic overnight.
What?, screams my logical mind. You want to go back to the Camino? Have you forgotten you almost died last time you were there? You’re nearly 60, in poor health, and you want to go long-distance backpacking as a cure?
My logical mind is right. But I ignore it. After all, I already have a Camino mentor: Adam, a man I met on a public speaking course. With my fear of death despatched, I could finally confront my fear of that activity. Adam trains me for five months, and we set off from St Jean in May 2014 for a week. On the second day, I fall over on the Bridge of Rabies in Zubiri. Falls are a frequent feature in my life, but this one is different. I experience my dyspraxia as shame. It makes no sense, but there it is: heavy, visceral, unmistakable.
We return home from Logrono, and I think I’m done with the Camino, but the Camino isn’t done with me. Ten days later, without any conscious intent, my fingers wander off across the keyboard and book a flight to Spain and renew my travel insurance.
Oh, OK, I’m going back to walk the remaining 400 miles – and to make peace with my dyspraxia.
I start walking with an American woman. The first thing I learn about her is that she’s a coach, as am I. The second is that she’s dyspraxic, as am I. This prompts a McEnroe moment. I cast my eyes heavenwards.
You cannot be serious. I’ve returned to the Camino to make peace with my dyspraxia, and you give me another dyspraxic as a walking companion. How the hell is that going to work?
It works beautifully: it’s one of the most healing experiences of my life – and there’s ample evidence. During 34 days on the Camino, I have no mishaps or health problems, blisters excepted. Thrillingly, I discover I know instinctively, and for the first time ever, the difference between right and left. My ignorance of that has been one of the most evident - and most frustrating – manifestations of my dyspraxia. Walking the Camino has activated my neural plasticity: the brain’s ability to rewire itself in response to new situations or changes in the environment. Inspired by that, I keep walking to continue the rewiring. I also speak and write about how we can all be more. Poor no longer; simply rich in purpose and personal acceptance.
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