Seeking Serendipity

Serendipity can be a lifestyle choice

“She was accustomed to miracles and accepted them as part of daily life. She expected them to happen, and they always did.”

Jean Cocteau, The Holy Terrors

An interesting thing about serendipity: it often doesn’t just happen.

In my experience, some conditions are more conducive to happy accidents than others; walking, living life more offline than online, following your nose, listening to your gut.

You could say that one of the reasons I’m doing the Camino is to put myself in the way of serendipity. It’s been some time since my lifestyle allowed for frequent little miracles, and I can pinpoint the shift to when I moved from a pedestrian-friendly culture to a car-happy culture.

For the first ten years of my adulthood, I lived in the UK, France, and New York City. I walked almost everywhere, and when I didn’t, I took the bus, the train, or the subway. I didn’t own a car because I didn’t need one. I lived “in detail,” as Rebecca Solnit calls it; by moving at a pace of about 3mph, I tended to stumble across so many lovely detours. An art gallery all to myself, a gem of a coffee shop, a vintage pop-up, a friend I wasn’t expecting to see. Places and people one almost can’t avoid blowing right past for lack of parking or time when rushing from place to place in a car.

Chance encounters behind the wheel more often than not seem to be of an unpleasant nature: traffic, cops, accidents, tolls, blown tires, low gas tanks, road rage, road kill. You must intentionally buoy your own spirits by playing your favorite music or an audiobook, calling a friend, making a pitstop to stretch stiff limbs. You are merely in between where you were and where you want to be. Time passes slowly and stressfully, at least for me. Opportunities for serendipity are slim.

“Many people nowadays live in a series of interiors-home, car, gym, office, shops—disconnected from each other. On foot everything stays connected, for while walking one occupies the spaces between those interiors in the same way one occupies those interiors. One lives in the whole world rather than in interiors built up against it.”

Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust

Serendipity is one of my reasons for being; something that makes me feel alive and a little bit magical. They say “the Camino provides,” — “not always what you want, but what you need,” as my host said tonight at dinner. Serendipity is all but guaranteed along The Way. Already the Camino has provided for me, and it is only just the beginning.

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On a separate note, Substack mobile (my tool of the trade for the duration of my trip) does not love integrating photos into articles; so those will live as little updates on my profile.