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3. Paths
- University of Virginia Press
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paths Traveler, there is no path, paths are made by walking. —antonio machado, fields of castile I sterilized the needle with my trusty Zippo lighter. I was careful to keep the flame away from my fingers, but it didn’t occur to me that the needle would get too hot to hold. Only after I dropped it on the floor and was sucking my left thumb and forefinger did I remember the lesson from junior high science class about metal conducting heat. Clearly I hadn’t been paying attention then, and I wasn’t thinking too clearly now. I picked up the needle and tried to sterilize it again, this time holding it with a pair of tweezers from my medical kit. I spent the next five minutes or so trying to thread it. Maybe I also should have paid attention in home economics class. I managed the procedure eventually and then held the threaded needle in my left hand and used my right to squeeze iodine from a dropper onto the thread. I let the drops run down the thread until I thought it was completely saturated, ignoring the excess that dripped on my bare legs and ran onto the bed where I sat. I should have put a towel down, but as I said, I wasn’t thinking too clearly just then. I propped my right ankle across my left knee, twisting my foot so the sole faced upward. In my research on the pilgrimage, I’d read about this technique for dealing with blisters, but there was no mention of what to expect once the needle was thrust under the skin of the blister and the iodine-soaked thread pulled through to the other side. There SIBLEY, The Way of the Stars.indd 42 SIBLEY, The Way of the Stars.indd 42 7/25/12 9:19 AM 7/25/12 9:19 AM paths had been no warning that I’d shriek and flop about on the bed like a speared fish.¹ When I finally stopped twitching and whimpering I sat up to finish the job, feeling like a wimp. I ran the needle back and forth across the width of the blister, trailing the thread of iodine, until I’d covered the length of it across my sole. I used my jackknife to cut the thread, leaving two inches hanging loose on each end of the blister. I did the same with the other blisters on that foot and then turned to my left foot. Now knowing what to expect, I shrieked no more. But I confess to some plaintive moaning and groaning through gritted teeth as I finished my pilgrim surgery. By the end of it I was sweating as though I’d run a marathon, and my feet looked like a red-stained scratching post. Gently I pressed the blisters to squeeze out the water and any blood. I swabbed the entire area with iodine—more twitching and jerking— and covered the ghastly mess with antiseptic pads and wide strips of surgical tape. The idea was to leave the thread in the blisters to act as a poultice, wicking away the water and allowing the blisters to drain without exposing the even more tender skin beneath. The old skin eventually peels away, taking the threads with it. I stretched out on the bed when the procedure was over, waiting for the sweat to dry and staring at the cracks in the ceiling. I felt sorry for myself. Looking at the debris—the bandage wrappings and the bed stained with iodine—it was obvious that all was not well with my feet. The only sensible thing to do was to take a couple of days off and let my feet heal as much as possible. So why did I feel like a failure? It was a pointless thing to feel.Who was I competing against? Who was judging me? Sure, I should have been better prepared and in better shape, but why was I so hard on myself? As I lay on the bed, I flipped through my research journal until I found some advice I liked from a former pilgrim, who wrote that a pilgrim should know “when to be an ascetic and when to enjoy the good things of life.”² Okay, I told myself, you’re not going to be walking tomorrow or maybe even the next day. But you’re in Pamplona, so enjoy it as best you can. My...