Sue Kenney is a story teller and a pilgrim. She has walked thousands of miles on the Camino de Santiago de Compostela in Spain and has written about it in books and screenplays.

SUE’S HOME ON THE LAKE

Crackers and Cheese, Pumpkin Soup, Chicken Stuffed with Asparagus, Rice, Green Salad and Butter Tarts.

THE CONVERSATION

Sue lives in a cottage that is about a hundred years old. She offers me slippers and a sweater and is pleased that I will make myself at home.  Being at home means taking a look at the lake. Sue says, “In the winter I’m always fascinated by the shift because the water is still. It’s frozen. It goes from this natural rhythm of the water to the stillness. That time is just coming up.”

After the month of November, Sue may be ready to be still. She says, “I’m having many, many, many stories. Things are happening at such a fast rate I can’t even keep my best friends up to date on all of the experiences I am having.” Among other things, Sue completed the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing at least 50 000 words in the month. Her writing was based on her travels in India.

Sue certainly had an interest in travel long before she went to India and even well before she began walking the Camion de Santiago de Compostela. She married young and started a family she adores. She says, “I chose. I made a choice to put my creativity aside to give my children a secure financial upbringing.”

Sue was certainly successful. She did live in England for a year while working in the corporate world. And she travelled to the World Masters Championships where she won a gold medal. She admits, “I misinterpreted success for filling that void which was to understand my true purpose in life and live that.”

At a certain point, she could no longer put off looking for that purpose.  Her daughters were leaving home and she was declared redundant at work. Just weeks before she had watched a program on the Camino and thought she was too busy to walk it.  She now knows to “be careful what you wish for because it always happens.”

The things she had used to define herself were shifting. She remembers thinking, “I don’t have a job. I don’t have kids. I knew I had to leave the city. It was sucking the energy out of me.” She said to herself, “Now Sue this is your chance. You can be who you are. ”

Sue felt she was prepared for the rigours of the Camino by her training as a rower. She explains that rowing was “more than a sport. It was a way of life. It’s a metaphor for life. I’m a perfectionist. I like to try and learn something and perfect it. But the whole point is the journey, feeling like you can take what you’ve learned and do something with it.”

The journey along the Camino took all of what Sue had learned to date.  She says, “Some people have said to me that I walked fast. I really believe that I walked my own pace. You’re putting one foot in front of the other. You’re just walking.” And given that it was winter, Sue had to keep walking to stay warm.

She credits her mother with her love of the outdoors, laughing that with seven children there was little else her mother could do than send them outside to play.   She is more serious when she says that on the Camino, “I wanted to be alone. I wanted to take a close look at myself, to take an honest look.”

For someone who used to pick up the phone to invite someone over on the rare occasions she had not scheduled herself, it was just another step. Sue says, “You have to take each of the steps because it’s that process of taking the steps that brings you back to yourself.”

Sue returned from the Camino with nothing she had to do and lots of stories.  She says, “A lot of pilgrims come back from the Camino and they struggle with their experience because they say people don’t understand. I had the opposite experience. People totally got me. When I didn’t judge people they listened to the stores. If I started thinking they wouldn’t understand, then they wouldn’t listen. It opened up my world completely to telling stories.”

Realizing the interest, Sue recorded a CD of stories and those who listened encouraged her to write a book. She resisted initially, but relented eventually, saying, “It was about the idea that these stories were a gift and if I didn’t give them back to people, it was a disservice.”

Sue says, “If I decide, then I just do it. The whole idea of a journey has become profound for me. It’s not a nice idea or concept, but a way of being and living. I like the idea of being a pilgrim and doing what a pilgrim does.

“A pilgrim would tell stories and feed someone who came to their door. A pilgrim says thank you. A pilgrim could not walk past another pilgrim in trouble. And it becomes very simple, because that’s what being a pilgrim is all about, simplifying life.”

For now Sue lives a simpler life on the lake, but the journey continues. There is Christmas to celebrate with her family, writing about India to finish, a movie about the Camino approaching production and dreams about a pilgrim centre in Santiago to help others make the transition home from their walk.  There is also pause as the storyteller listens for the silence that means the lake has frozen and it is time to skate.

STILL DIGESTING

Sue recognizes the pilgrim in everyone, but is very aware of some of the changes the modern world has brought to the Camino. Hundreds of years ago, pilgrims would walk from their homes to the Camino. When they finished, they would walk home again. People now arrive by planes, trains and buses. That can make the transition difficult.

Sue feels that the process of telling the stories and writing the book helped her integrate her experiences into her life. I can certainly relate when she confides that the writing process takes you to a place you didn’t know you could go.  And I if my recent return home has taught me anything, it is that once you get to that place you didn’t know you could go, you have to go even further.

And that is how you find where you stand.  Sue stresses the importance of having a point of view in writing, just as I have been mulling over the importance of having a stand in life. Ultimately, we make choices, even if we choose to do nothing at all. And we take a stand, even if it necessitates that we move and especially if it demands that we stay still.

The fact is that no matter the path we have travelled, we all have stories. While Sue was walking, people would come to the Camino offering the pilgrims food.  She believes the stories drew them and we talked about the generosity of giving without expecting anything in return. As I think about it today, I am sure that as hungry as the local people were for the pilgrim’s stories, the pilgrims benefitted not only from talking about their travels, but from listening to those who were from the places they were just passing through.

Our stories have nowhere to go when no one is listening, and nowhere to stay if we cannot find them in ourselves. We are in this together, but we alone must take responsibility for the parts we play and the transitions in between.