Follow That Arrow: Notes on Getting Here from There

By Gwen Van Velsor

After losing her center, her marriage, and her future in one stroke, Gwen Van Velsor set off to find a new path. She traveled across the United States before finding her way to the Camino de Santiago, a journey that would redefine her life. Her story is a reflection on love, faith and the food that got her here from there.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gwen Van Velsor
• Release date: Dec 9, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370165278

Book preview

Foreword

The Camino de Santiago is many things to many people. You hold in your hands one woman’s experience. One bold and adventurous woman’s experience. Follow that Arrow is her account of walking away from everything she had known to embrace whatever was meant to be next. Reading this enchanting memoir, we get to join her as she essentially leaves her life, her home, her job and everything she was defined by and we set out with her to find out what her life could be. That is audacious, outrageous, courageous, and many more such superlatives, but what strikes me so much about Gwen is how real she is. How human and admirable, how flawed and graceful, and ultimately how loving she is to herself as well as to others.

I first met Gwen in 2014, after we had both walked the Camino de Santiago. She knew me from watching Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago and had heard of my new film, Phil’s Camino. I had put a couple of clips of the film online as part of what I was doing to raise funds to finish it. She had walked the Camino, and had internalized part of what the message was for her: she wanted to go back to Spain and work as a hospitalera, a volunteer in one of the albuerges that houses pilgrims as they make their way across Spain. Unable to return as quickly as she would have liked, she decided to help pilgrims right where she was, and that meant help me, and help Phil. She and another local pilgrim organized a full weekend of Camino film screenings, talks, and even a mini Camino in the mountain town of Breckenridge, CO that raised much needed funds so that production on Phil’s Camino could continue. It was an act of generosity and kindness that I am forever grateful to have received, and it was not from a family member, or old friend, it was from a stranger. From Gwen. Well, Gwen epitomizes the saying Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet. I had the pleasure of her company that weekend, and saw how she threw herself into her coffee shop, The Yellow Arrow, and how much love she infused in every part of that shop, and in every part of her fundraising efforts for Phil’s Camino. She even worked with her coffee supplier and created a special blend for the weekend: Phil’s Pilgrim Brew. Her attention to detail, her desire to connect with people, to build community was like seeing the Camino in action. I was delighted to find that she includes some recipes in this personal memoir. Like every great chef, Gwen’s idea of cooking is more than just providing a meal. Her recipes, like Proust’s madeleine, spark memories, and are ways to bring the Camino right into your life, your kitchen, and your own dining room table.

This book you hold in your hands is another way she is connecting, another way she continues to nourish the soul and build community. It is an open letter from her heart to yours, and is unapologetic in recounting her own journey. You may laugh with her, you may cry with her. You may relate to her and you may be shocked by her. But you will have a sense of her when you finish this book. And you, too, can have the pleasure of calling Gwen a friend. Because only a friend would let you know her secrets, and invite you to walk the Camino with her. Enjoy this book, or, as we say on the Camino: Buen Camino!

Love,

Annie

Annie O’Neil is the Director and Producer of Phil’s Camino, as well as a Co-Producer and featured pilgrim in the documentary film Walking the Camino: Six Ways to Santiago. She is the author of the book Everyday Camino with Annie. She lives with her husband and dog, walking her Everyday Camino in canyons, neighborhoods and along riverbeds in LA, Southern California, and wherever she finds herself on any given day. You can keep up with her on Facebook or at www.everydaycaminowithannie.com or at [e-mail]

One

Every year before Thanksgiving I would watch wild turkeys dive in and out of traffic, roam our front yard, or zip along the hiking trails high up in the jungle. I wanted one on the menu, but in the eight years since moving to Hawaii, had been unsuccessful.

My husband and his hunting friend, a local guy with a penchant for stuffing exotic game birds, would go up to the hunting areas on Mauna Kea every season. They would drive hours into the mountains, well before sunrise, picking their way through lava rock that eats even the finest boots, and trying to follow dogs that were exactly half-trained. These beasts, only allowed out of their pens for hunting, would comb the mountainsides, returning only when shocked by remote electric collars. The men would return at night, a couple of pheasants or a handful of quail in tow, but never the precious turkey.

We’d planned to leave Hawaii that spring, after eight good years in the islands, to live on a sailboat and roam the world like the gypsy travelers we dreamed we were. We had been saving and slaving for many years to make it happen, and I was secure in the idea that everything was finally paying off. I had this fantasy of lounging barefoot on the sunny deck, writing a novel while light winds blew us around the sea. We’d be surrounded by all the time in the world and my creativity would flow freely. The sky would be blue and the water bluer and we’d navigate from island to island, eating like kings from the ocean.

He came home one afternoon in November with two live turkeys in a dog crate. His hunting friend, who worked at a golf course where herds of turkeys diligently destroyed the grass, had trapped them. The golf course did this weekly to try to reduce the population, usually relocating them. This time, they were intended for our Thanksgiving table.

Tired from the hunt, which really just involved shoving the confused birds into the dog crate at the golf course, he decided to wait and kill the birds the next day. Cooped up and panicked, they stamped their feet and scratched at the sides of the crate, turning around and around. We tried to feed them and give them water, but being wild, they wouldn’t take it.

On our daily walk, as we watched the dog dive in and out of the tall fountain grass, he questioned my desire to go sailing for the first time, right out of the bluest sky. He told me that deep down, I really didn’t want to go. On one side of us lay the ocean, on the other the slopes of Hualalai, our home a flickering light halfway up. The sun was setting and the windows on the mountainside reflected the sparkling orange sun. My dreams hung there in the limbo of twilight.

That night, as I put away the leftovers from dinner, I could hear the turkeys continue to scratch at the kennel. I made him move them to another part of the yard so we wouldn’t hear them. He said they reeked. He also said, in nearly the same breath, he wasn’t sure about us, in general, together.

Just like that.

He said he needed some time to decide if he should stay or go. I cried into the dishwater as my heart snapped, baffled by the sudden rupture of certainty. I told him if he wasn’t sure, then he should go. I didn’t mean it. And just like that, without argument, he left.

The next afternoon, he butchered the turkeys as promised. He slit their bodies open, removed their stinking guts, and peeled the skin back, taking all the feathers with it. He was distraught and told me the turkeys were a chore to kill. His eyes steeled over as he described shooting them in the head several times with a pellet gun while they stomped around the dog carrier, not even batting an eye. He had to drive them up the hill and find an open field where he could finish them off with a shotgun. He told me that he would have let them go if they hadn’t been so badly injured by the pellet gun. The deed had to be done. He told me all this as he washed the blood from the carcasses off the driveway with a garden hose. He left me with the turkeys, cleaned and ready for Thanksgiving the next week.

I told no one and insisted we pretended nothing were wrong in front of family and friends. He played along. We sat together at the Thanksgiving table, eating the turkey I’d braised in its own juices, savoring the gamey flavor and accepting praise from guests.

Over the following weeks, he came over for long talks, and even spent the night sometimes, but he never touched me, never gave any idea as to what had gone wrong. Sure that he would come back home before the holidays, sure that this was all just a misunderstanding, I sucked it up and powered through, reassuring him that whatever was wrong, we’d fix it together. He said he loved me and cried on my shoulder, but he didn’t come home.

At 4 a.m. on New Year’s, smoking sweet cigars with one of those friends you must eventually tell your secrets to, I finally said it out loud. Everyone had gone to bed and the beer cooler was empty, the air still full of firework smoke. My husband had left me, and I didn’t know why. I told her I’d do anything to get him to come back home, that I had already done everything. We lit another cigar and blew smoke up toward the stars.

Well, what’s next then? She asked.

I cringed thinking about the sailboat and all the years of saving and dreaming coming to this unjust end.

I guess I’m off without him. I replied.

Braised Wild Turkey

1 – 2 wild turkeys, feathered, trimmed, cleaned, and quartered

3-4 slices of thick cut bacon

1/2 cup red wine

1 yellow onion, sliced

2 garlic cloves, quartered

2 sprigs fresh thyme, rosemary, and oregano

Salt & pepper to taste

Wild turkeys can be tough, especially the dark meat, so they need a little extra treatment. Start by cooking the bacon in a deep, cast iron pan over medium high heat until cooked through. Remove the bacon strips and sear the turkey 2-3 minutes on both sides until browned. Don’t crowd the pan by putting all the turkey in at once; sear in 2-3 batches. Place seared turkey and bacon strips in a large slow cooker and turn pan down to low. Add wine to the pan and scrape up any browned bits with a wooden spoon. Pour wine and bacon grease into the slow cooker. Add onion, garlic, herbs, salt, and pepper. Cook on low for 6-7 hours, depending on size and thickness of turkey. Meat should fall off the bone when it’s ready.

Two

I woke up on a Tuesday with tears in my eyes. The sky was just turning from black to gray. The dog peered at me as if to ask if I was seriously