by Katie Zakrzewski
“The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up to me on the mountain.’”
Exodus 24:12
Some of my coworkers were recently discussing a pilgrimage hike that they planned on taking in Spain and Portugal. One of my coworkers mentioned that there’s something about working strenuously out in nature that brings people closer to God. This was something that I had, unintentionally, experienced firsthand.
Several years ago in college (when I was in significantly better, albeit still out of, shape), I was given a unique opportunity: my scholarship program paid for me to study abroad in the country of my choosing, within reason, of course.
I had never left the country before, been on a plane, or owned a passport (and never would have, were it not for the generosity of my scholarship program), so all of this seemed daunting. But my therapist had told me to try something new, and this seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
My good friend and classmate, Ethan, was also in the program with me, and was trying to figure out where to go. We decided that it would be easier if we studied abroad together — I was a decent student who did well in my Spanish courses, and Ethan was an experienced traveler. We would help each other survive the summer.
We selected San Sebastian, Spain, as our study abroad destination, enamored by pictures of rock faces, sandy beaches, and lush greenery in the peninsula city. Soon we enlisted the help of Ethan’s mother and family travel agent, got our passports, packed our bags, and we were well on our way to Spain with a couple hundred dollars left over.
***
The first week there was challenging in many ways. I found out the hard way that I was terrified of flying (although, in my defense, how else would I have found out?), and the anxiety nearly killed me. After landing in the tiny airport terminal on a propeller plane that we were convinced would crash, the only other American on the plane asked us what we were studying there.
“We’re in the Spanish language immersion program!” Ethan said, pleased for the delay in needing to use another language.
A look of confusion flickered across the woman’s face.
“You must be mistaken. They don’t speak Spanish in San Sebastian. They speak Basque.”
I hadn’t even heard of Basque until a month before when I was flipping through the college travel catalog. And now I was being told that I would be communicating predominantly in it. In a complete panic — and faced with the temptation of going into cardiac arrest — Ethan and I decided to wing it — not that there was any other choice. Miraculously, we found our rendezvous point, went through orientation, toured our campus, and passed out in our summer apartment.
We spent that first week going to class and making friends. The rest of our cohort was from Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, and Minnesota — we were the only two Southerners, and our accents were often made fun of. Our friends would laugh at the way we said “oil,” (“ole”) and we’d laugh at them for the way they said, “bag” (“bayg”).
We were also several years older than the rest of our cohort. When Ethan and I heard that several of our classmates were planning a hike, we were eager to elevate our status in their eyes. Never mind that the three flights of steps to our apartment nearly killed us every morning and afternoon. We couldn’t be the old, non-binge-drinking Southerners who were about to graduate — we had to be the cool, worldly older students who would bravely lead the pack and mentor the others with our overflowing wisdom. We had to go. Plus, I was eager to be a good noodle and obey my therapist’s wishes.
It is worth mentioning that while some of God’s creatures were built for speed and endurance, I, without a doubt, am not one of those creatures. I was built for sedentary luxury, and I look every bit of it too. I hated working out (still do), but I love nature. I’d never been on a hike and was thinking of backing out when one of the girls in our cohort explained that the trail they were taking was an easy one. It would be a slow and steady outing, and we’d leisurely be done by lunch.
***
Spain had been full of unexpected and panic-inducing surprises, and, alas, the hike would be no different.
I was generally stressed, homesick, still jet lagged, and had horrible blisters on my feet caused by the several-mile walk from my apartment to school when a group of 10 or so of us got off the bus just across the border in France. The plan was to do a little shopping in the French market district, then hike through the lower base of the Pyrenees Mountains across the border from France back into Spain, eat lunch, and take a bus home to enjoy the rest of our Friday. I later found out that the path that we were hiking was part of the El Camino de Santiago pilgrimage trail that my coworkers in the present were preparing to hike.
As we made our way into the forest along the mountainside, things were great. We’d enjoyed some snacks and bought water bottles from the hikers’ cantina, the weather was cool, and the skies were clear. As we hiked deeper into the forest, we all soon began to wonder aloud why this trail seemed so different from the map. The terrain gradually became more difficult — a heavy storm the night before had reduced the trails to slick mud. Our group was slipping and sliding, sometimes climbing on our hands and knees, up a slope.
Soon we were four hours into our one-hour “light hike” when we all sat down to eat some of our breakfast leftovers and passed around a couple of water bottles. One of our classmates picked up the map and realized with growing horror that we weren’t on an actual trail — our actual trail was miles away, and the one we’d started on had been washed out during the storm the night before. To make matters worse, the Spanish countryside that had stayed nice and cool for us throughout the week was now hovering in the upper 90s with high humidity.
Immediately, I felt a sense of dread creep across the makeshift camp. I saw in my head aerial news footage of Spanish rescuers struggling to cram my overweight body onto a narrow gurney and praying as it was hoisted up into a rescue helicopter, with the Spanish headline “FAT AMERICAN STUDENT DIES IN PYRENEES MOUNTAINS.” Men in suits with sunglasses and earpieces would mumble three to four different languages into their microphones to signal that the poster child for American obesity was laboriously making her way from one medical checkpoint to another. David Muir would inform viewers at home of my condition, while teenagers who had only known me for a week would reveal details about me to the whole world.
“She had a penchant for Cheezits and always did her homework. Then she came on the hike with us and died.”
I audibly groaned at the thought of being the laughingstock of not only my class, but my country and the world.
As we stood to continue our trek, I mumbled.
“God, please don’t let me get medflighted out of these mountains. Please do not let this become an international incident.”
It’s worth noting that while I’d grown up a devout Polish Catholic, this was at a time in my young adult life when I was skeptical of all things omnipotent. I had my own apartment and my own hobbies and my own things going on in life — Mom and Dad couldn’t make me go to Mass anymore.
I began to wonder if this was some sort of divine retribution.
I’m not sure what we were hoping for as we continued along in our hike — a sign, a fellow hiker, or some form of civilization. Some of us were doing better than others, and I was definitely doing the worst — taking extra long breaks on level ground, panting and soaking in sweat, mouth so dry that my tongue clung to the roof of my mouth.
As if someone had flipped a switch, I was 10 years old, in a white altar server robe, candle stand in my small hands, praying the Stations of the Cross during Lent. I heard the other parishioners say in unison:
“My strength is dried up, and my tongue clings to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.”
“Katie?”
I looked up at the shadow cast over me. Ethan held out a water bottle.
“Are you alright? You slipped.”
He snapped off a large, staff-like walking stick made of oak and handed it to me. He helped me up, and I peeled chunks of mud off, thanking him.
“It looks like there’s a clearing ahead,” he said.
We made our way up the path and emerged into the clearing. On the hill were the remnants of a rock wall, and a stone slab on the ground indicated that we had crossed the border back into Spain. With the sun in the afternoon sky, sandwiched between the forest and the mountains, our group peered down at civilization below and began charting out a path to reach the little farming communities that we saw a couple of miles away. We were renewed with hope. Civilization was in sight.
But the path would be a treacherous one. As we made our way back into the forest, opting for the cool of the shade, we made our way across the most difficult terrain yet. Our talking had stopped. We just wanted to go home.
I wondered if Moses had struggled climbing Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments at God’s behest. If God told me to climb a mountain to meet with him, there’s a good chance I’d have declined the invite, I thought to myself. They say that God often qualifies the called, but qualifying me would have included a gym membership. At least Sinai had probably been dry.
One of us slipped, and a domino effect followed. We all came toppling down the ravine, slipping and bouncing and rolling and flopping, several of us strewn yards away from one another like falling acorns. I tumbled further from everyone else (the bigger they are, the farther they fall, I suppose), and landed with an oof in the leaves.
***
“Jesus wept.”
The shortest Scripture verse describes the Son of God overcome with grief at the loss of his friend, Lazarus, at the sight of seeing him in his tomb. How moved did the Lamb of God have to be to weep? Even more so, how close had he been to his friend to be so moved by his death that he was saddened at his loss?
I thought of my family and friends an ocean away, going about their everyday lives in their native language and familiar spaces. My head went through the usual roll call of people that I asked about whenever I called my parents over wifi, standing in the green tiled kitchen of our apartment because it was the only room that had enough signal to connect the fuzzy call.
I thought of my mom and dad and younger brother, and my family dog Bosco, and the stray orange cat I took care of, Gato, who would disappear not long after my return. I thought about my great uncles, who were like grandfathers to me, my old church friends, my enemies, my exes, my love interests, my coworkers, my classmates, my roommate and her pets, and all of my friends back home, none of whom were about to die stranded in the Pyrenees Mountains of all places.
I hated myself for deciding to be adventurous. I hated the plane, I hated the homesickness, the blisters on my feet, and the overabundance of coursework. And the one time I decided to try something new and stop burying my nose in my textbooks, I was, I felt, going to die. My books and my couch and my bed and my desk and an assortment of fuzzy friends were all that I knew — I branched out and defied the cosmos. I was being punished for stepping out of line. I felt like Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit.
“Now you are in for it at last, Katie Zakrzewski. I wish I was at home in my nice hole by the fire, with the kettle just beginning to sing!”
Surrounded by the overgrown darkness of the forest floor, I wept — hot, fat tears dripping down my face, as I made pathetic little sobbing and shuddering noises. I wasn’t well versed in the Bible, and I could have stood to pay more attention at Mass growing up, but I thought of that other place where Jesus wept — while he experienced agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. On the night before his death, the Lamb wept, overcome by anguish, worry, and fear. His friends, who had accompanied him from town to town and broken bread with him just hours before, had betrayed him and disappeared. His enemies — physical, mental, and spiritual — were closing in. The hour of reckoning was at hand.
Knelt in the darkness, eyes cast to heaven, Jesus had prayed.
“Lord, if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as you will — your will be done.”
What bravery it must have taken to look suffering in the eye, and to challenge that suffering to do its worst. Any evil forces must have been shaken to their core at that moment. The fight was on.
I wiped my eyes and spoke softly.
“God, please give me a sign. If you help me out of these mountains, I will do whatever you will. Your will be done. Please don’t let me die here. Please let me make it out of here alive. Please show me a sign. It doesn’t matter what, but please, please give me a sign.”
***
I must commend our Lord — he has a wonderful sense of humor.
I felt something tugging on my hair, and I looked up. There I was, face to face with the wet nose and hairy muzzle of an old gray donkey.
He was lazily chomping away at my frizzy hair, seemingly pleased at the rare follicle delicacy, his face relatively relaxed at having found a whole troupe of exhausted, muddy college kids in his neighborhood. How a whole donkey managed to sneak up on me and begin devouring my hair in the midst of my anguish, I will never know, but the predicament was so bizarre that I found myself laughing for the first time since the plane landed a week ago, and couldn’t deny the importance of this sign. As my classmates dusted themselves off and made their way over to me, I’m certain they thought I was having a mental breakdown.
But I realized, in a moment of humor-induced clarity, that the donkey had reigns around its shoulders. Civilization was closer than we’d thought.
I scrambled to my feet and petted the donkey.
“Please take us home. I don’t care where that is, just take us back to wherever you came from.”
With a flick of his ears, the donkey turned and led us around the corner and to a set of steep stairs carved into the rock face. He mozied off up the grassy hill beside it, disappearing over the hill’s crest, my guardian angel flicking his tail behind him.
Now, all of us, filled with determination, clambered and climbed up the steps, often on hands and knees, using my walking stick to hoist each other up when our palms became too slick with sweat, heaving, hoing, and grunting.
When we stepped off the top step, we felt the familiar feeling of freshly paved asphalt beneath our ragged, muddy shoes. We all looked down, panting, and then looked at one another. We all grinned and began to laugh and cheer in celebration (likely looking completely unhinged to the unsuspecting Basque farmers who saw us emerge from the forest). The sign along the road read ZUGARRAMURDI.
The village had a single street leading through it, with a row of old villa-style buildings on each side. Behind those buildings were scenes out of a painting. Lush, green hills and valleys rolled in earthy waves under the piercing blue sky. Even the fat white clouds couldn’t compare to the fluffy white sheep who dotted the green hillside, grazing as if we didn’t just spend the day fighting for our lives and sanity in the forest below. I’m certain that if I play my cards right and make it to heaven, it will look just like that Basque village.
We made our way inside a small restaurant that late afternoon, and I left my walking stick outside the door for the next traveler who may have needed it. We all sat inside and, miraculously, the restaurant owner spoke English, knew our Basque teacher, and began to make phone calls to the university, which was by now frantically searching for us and calling our families and home universities.
Together, at the table, we feasted — no longer as classmates but as good friends.
I began to reflect over the next few years on my experience in the mountains — on my humanity, suffering, and the importance of friends to help us through our trials. While I grappled with my faith for years (and to some extent, I still do), my faith has improved with time. Now, I try to share my personal experiences with others who often feel lost in the sea of life. Things will get better. And when they do, remember all the things in your life worth being thankful for.
Since Zugarramurdi and the Pyrenees, there have been plenty of metaphorical mountains in my life — seemingly Herculean tasks and challenges that would have been impossible by myself. But with help from friends and family (and the Lamb himself), I’ve been fortunate to find my way through the mountains and into greener pastures.
Katie Zakrzewski is a local journalist, devout Polish Catholic, environmental activist, and aspiring public servant from North Little Rock, Arkansas. Send her mail.
Isonomia Quarterly 