The Cemetery Post

Lucca to Altopascio

Via Francigena #14 of 20

Everything about today says heat rash and Golfer’s Vasculitis. Hot, humid, asphalt, and a late start.

The late start was on purpose. By coincidence a high school friend of Sandy’s was also in Lucca with his husband. Enthusiasm wasn’t exactly how I greeted the idea of meeting an old high school pal for breakfast which would delay our start. However, it is how our time unfolded.

It is unusual to within an hour of meeting a couple to be discussing in-depth the concept of murder of the persona as a rite of passage for souls of a certain age who are maybe a tad bit too sparkly; think Joseph Campbell only for real. Two hours flew by but then the Camino and 30kms on a hot day called, an artificial end to a conversation that easily could have gone 30kms itself. I look forward to meeting again.

There are many things I appreciate about the Italians and something they really know how to do is a graveyard. I am entranced by them, to the point an Italian beefcake went running by just as a cemetery appeared, and I had to choose whether to gape at the living or gape at the dead. You know the answer.

It is a brutal day. Blistering heat is the most difficult challenge for me, and today we have five hours in the late afternoon sun. I have developed a number of strategies over the years to help when I’m in a tough heat situation:

1 How much further, Sandy? You all know this from being a kid or raising one. The unknown is hard to deal with. Even if the known it not the answer you want, at least you can plan accordingly.

2 Tell me about tomorrow, Sandy. Pure distraction, and I let him do all the talking.

3 Vanity Coping. Consider whatever doesn’t fit well at home and assume your time in the camino sauna will improve it. You scoff, but there is a highly successful brand of yoga that uses this to hook rational people into practicing yoga in a sauna.

4 The Carrot. This Camino, Peanut M&M’s have been the carrot. After a break when you would rather sit for a while longer, you get to have the treat once you’re back out there. Standard toddler motivation.

4 The promise of beer. The faster you go, the faster you beer. Long relegated to pot bellied white guys in wife-beaters in my head, it has become the defacto post walk beverage since we did the Camino de Santiago. Nothing tastes or hydrates as well as a beer after a long hot walk, unless it’s two.

Despite my strategies, they do nothing to ward off the dreaded tandem skin inflammations and as predicted both emerge late in the day. Golfer’s Vasculitis usually shows up much sooner on a camino as part of the conditioning ritual, but it don’t hurt or itch. It only looks bad if you look at it. So I don’t. Took care of that problem.

©Theresa Elliott, All Rights Reserved

Thats a heat rash. It does not hurt and does not itch. Just looks bad, hurts my vanity and gives a different message than my Looney Tunes shorts.

And that’s Golfer’s Vasculitis, which, like the heat rash doesn’t hurt or itch. It just isn’t fashion forward.

This is actually a way marker, not a tombstone. These two foot high Via Francigena markers started appearing once we were in Tuscany.