Maldon local Melody Goldsmith woke up one morning and informed her husband that she needed to walk the Camino Trail – alone. She wasn’t even quite sure why, but intuitively knew it was a journey she had to make.
“I knew there was a reason, but I had to make the journey to find that out,” Melody said.
Walking the Camino had been a dream of Melody’s since before she had her daughter, who is now 35 years old. But the real catalyst came when a much younger friend received a terminal cancer diagnosis. Melody had the deep realisation that time waits for no one and that she must commit to making her dream a reality.
Once the decision was made, she felt both terrified and elated. “I wasn’t sure I could achieve what I wanted to, but I knew I had to try,” she said. In fact, Melody kept the news from many of her nearest and dearest for fear they would plant seeds of self-doubt about the pilgrimage. “I didn’t want anyone to worry or suggest it wasn’t a good idea,” she said.
With a very close relationship to her 15-year-old grandson, she decided to tell him. “Oh, Mimi, you have to do it!” Talon said. Her daughter, Sasha, who had a young baby at the time, was also very supportive.
Already a member of the Nordic pole walking group in Castlemaine, to further prepare herself physically, Melody began walking up Mt Tarrengower. She also did a 75-kilometre local walk where she felt some doubts about her capacity when a prolonged period of illness with bronchitis and then Covid meant she had to cease training altogether.
But decisions have a way of making things happen, and Melody’s bold moment of commitment saw her walk 1,515km from Le Puy-En-Velay to Santiago de Compostela over 73 days straight. “I didn’t have a single day’s break,” she said. “I was absolutely compelled to walk.”
At 72 years of age, achieving this aim was no easy feat. After completing the first 15-kilometre day, Melody knew she’d be able to do it. “It’s just one foot after the other, one step at a time,” she said. Adages like these are used metaphorically, but in this case, the meditation was a literal lifeline.
The first week, her legs ached, and she developed blisters on her toes. She taped them up and kept walking. After two weeks, she felt strong and had completely adapted to the demands of the challenge. After two and a half months apart, her husband joined her for some of the very last leg of the journey, after which Melody walked a further 90k on to Finesterre.
As for what she gained, Melody returned with a deep sense of peace. Her incredible solo journey had allowed her to come to a place of acceptance with some of the more difficult times of her life. “Something just solidified. I understood I’d lived the life I was meant to, in spite of many hardships,” she said.
“I return to my centre much faster now.”
For now, Melody is happy to be home and reunited with her family. “I missed them terribly,” she said. “But the journey gifted me so much, I’m tempted to do it all over again.”
This article appeared in the Tarrangower Times, 4 August 2023.
