Grey

CAMINO STAGE 13: Santillana del Mar to Comillas, Camino Del Norte Route of El Camino De Santiago- 18 miles, 23 days to go

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“People are composed of many things..what moves me is the complexity of people – the chiaroscuro of dark and light. “ Kirk Douglas

The forecast was wrong— 100% chance of rain. Thankfully rain never materialized walking this stage of the Camino. Instead, we had lovely breezes and partly cloudy skies, making for a perfect trekking day. I was mindful of the grey skies, and the darkness and storms following us in the distance, contrasting against the pockets of light we’d encounter. The thought occurred to me that we had stepped into a Renaissance chiaroscuro painting with the contrasting light and dark.

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I was reminded of a time where I found myself happily alone in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. Johannes Vermeer’s works, with various women, standing by a window in a dim room with light reflecting off her face, were always a big draw for me, especially the Milkmaid, Once a dairyman’a daughter, always a dairyman’s daughter, I appreciated Vermeer depiction of the heroic beauty of a woman at her daily work. He captured in the light and darkness, the magic, and not the drudgery, of repetitive chores.

The day before the Rijksmuseum visit, I had driven my little Fiat 500 to Delft to see Vermeer’s atelier and light center turned into the Vermeer Centrum Delft with replicas of his 37 known paintings. It was partly cloudy and threatening rain that day when I stepped into the 17th century world where the master of light lived, loved and worked.

I found his camera obscura where he played with colour, light and dark, hidden views and perspective fascinating. I thought while leaving the museum two hours later, standing under the museum eaves, waiting for the rain to stop, we all have to play around with our vision of who we are, noting our colors, our light and dark side, changing perspective, until the whole of us comes into focus.

“In each of us lie good and bad, light and dark, art and pain, choice and regret, cruelty and sacrifice. We’re each of us our own chiaroscuro, our own bit of illusion fighting to emerge into something solid, something real. We’ve got to forgive ourselves that. Because there is a lot of grey to work with. No one can live in the light all the time. “Libby Bray

Today as we descended another mountain to the seashore, while I wasn’t standing by a window nor not quite dressed in lovely Vermeer lapis blue on the Camino, when I stood on the beach half way to Comillas, and the light peeked in and out of the clouds, this milkmaid of long ago, considered again the light and dark and the colors and complexities of all of us. I was accused of late by someone close to me of being imperfect. Instead of being hurt and defending myself, like I always do, I agreed with them as I am very aware of my imperfections. Watching the sun slide behind clouds again, I pondered the grey in us, the areas that overlap, where we aren’t light or dark, or everything others want or need us to be, or when we ourselves are not what we want or need ourselves to be…. And maybe the imperfect grey, the heroic part of us in the dark, that still reaches for light and finds the beauty and not drudgery in repetitive chores, working, and loving others, or in our case walking… maybe changing the perspective to see that the grey areas that reside and strive on in us, that is the masterpiece. And therein lies the magic.

“Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece. “ — Okakura Kakuzo

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