The Cutting Room Floor

Audio version: Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Walking the Portuguese Camino, beside the Atlantic Ocean, reminded me of a scene we cut from Camino Child, cut for length and plot. Summer (our protagonist) sleeps on a beach. She wakes up to several feet surrounding her, surfer’s feet. 

As you wait for your copy of Camino Child to arrive, I hope you enjoy this little slice of her life on Camino.

Random beach, north coast of SpainOctober 13, 2019

Voices? Dull voices weave through my senses. An odd smell scratches old memories. 

In the distance waves gurgle ashore. A ridiculously bright light bores through thin slits in my eyelids. 

That pungent, What-is-that? smell, mixed with the salty, fishy scents of low tide and a pounding headache causes my stomach to churn. 

I’m knotted into a ball in my sleeping bag, damp from the night’s dewdrops and the surf, and laying on one side in the sand. My eyes creak open a fraction more. Pairs of bare feet fill my blurred view—much too close for comfort. Little feet, big feet, dark feet, light feet, a dozen or more. 

With an ache running from head to toe I whimper out of the ball-shaped being that I am and into a withered pancake. I look up to their faces. As if adjusting binoculars, my eyes find focus. 

A slender, hand-rolled cigarette is being passed from a tall, dark man to the model-perfect woman standing beside him. 

“You okay?” asks another woman. “We weren’t sure if you were dead or alive.” 

She’s in the far left of my vision. Head swiveling, I see dark curls cascading over her tiny, round face. 

“Have you got any water?” Bone dry, my mouth feels as gritty as the sand around me. My lips are chapped and tight, nearly cracking as they move.

“No. But there’s some in our van,” says the dark man. “Danny’s still there. He’ll give you something to drink.”

“Probably a beer, chica,” chuckles a curly haired boy of my age. He’s leaning on an orange and red striped surfboard with many deep scratches.

Suddenly yesterday and where I am hits me. I start looking for my backpack. In search of the pack, I sit up too fast, my head swims as I take in my surroundings.

“Behind you, sweetie,” comes a princess voice from the too-gorgeous woman. She has brilliant, natural-looking red hair and improbably green eyes. Her skin is fair and fine patches of sunburn dot her cheeks and shoulders.

Once my belongings are clutched in my lap, I catch a breath and settle into being a thirsting blob of flesh who has slept on the beach. “Where’d you say your van was?”

The boy points an arm over his surfboard and toward a parking lot.

The gaggle of surfers wander toward the sea, boards in hand. 

I slink from my sleeping bag, then shake the sand from it and look around, making sure I don’t leave anything behind, planning to sort everything out in the parking lot. 

First things first: water. A familiar growl tells me I have other needs, as well.

It feels as if I’m dragging myself and my backpack across a desert.

Yesterday rolls through my mind. Rond and his creepy ways. My fondness for my new German friends. The albergue and its too many bodies. And my walking on until I saw no reason to keep going. It wasn’t that I was tired, though I was. It was the thought of running into other people and having to talk to them. I simply could not bear the thought of it. Especially if they were that strange boy, Rond. 

When I came to this quiet expanse of sand and dusk had set in, the decision was made for me. 

Danny is fiddling with gear in the van. At least I hope it’s him. “Danny?”

“Yeah,” says the lean man as he turns to me. He’s wearing board shorts and has long blond wavy hair. He looks like he belongs in an Australian travel ad.

“Your friends said you might have some water I could bum,” I say, the rasp in my voice sounding desperate. 

“Sure thing,” Danny says and climbs into the van. He comes back with an jug that is full to an unbroken seal. My head pounds. My mouth wishes it could salivate. 

“Here you go.”

Without a word of thanks, I take it from him, remove the lid, and gulp down the glorious liquid. 

“Slow down, there. You’ll make yourself sick,” says Danny. His accent sounds delicious. 

I pull the jug away from my mouth, but it wants to follow, to gulp down some more. I know that he is right about slowly drinking the water. Maybe Danny could teach me to surf. Get on with it, girl.

“Can I pay you for this?”

“Nah, keep it. Looks like you could use it. Are you one of the people walking the Camino de Santiago?”

“Yes. I just . . . just got so tired last night that I stopped here. Not sure I would do that again,” I say. “Not without food and water, anyway.”

“You hungry? We have some cold pizza,” Danny says.

“No, that’s okay,” I say. “The next town isn’t too far, is it?” I can’t remember. Which is not like me. I should know this.

“It’s not for a while, especially walking,” he says. He climbs back into the van and comes back with a greasy pizza box.

“Thank you. You have made my stomach’s day.”

“And so early,” says Danny with a broad—beautiful—smile.

As I eat and drink, Danny finishes sorting gear. I covertly watch him and his sinuous, strong muscles as they flex at their work. The fog starts to lift, and I realize it’s time for me to go; I have been detracted for too long.

Finished and ready to close the van and find his friends, Danny helps me fill my water bottles from the jug before leaving. I thank him again, tell him to thank his friends for me, and we say our goodbyes.

Walking from the surfers’ van I come to the Camino and follow a boardwalk the length of the beach. There, I find the trail onto the clifftops. Before going too far, I look back to the surf. Bodies on colorful boards float lazily in the small bay waiting for the sea to send them the perfect wave. 

From nowhere, it seems, I was served water and something to eat when I needed it most. “Thank you,” I say, and slowly, reluctantly turn away to slide into my familiar trekking rhythm.

Not already a subscriber? CLICK HERE to follow along.

While sketching out the backstory and family history for Camino Child and our lead character, Summer Darling, I wrote a novella about her grandmother when she was a young woman backpacking through Europe in the 1980s with her older sister. CLICK here to download your FREE copy of Georgia & Patricia.

Know someone who might like this blog post? Email this page to them and have them CLICK HERE!

Questions or comments, give me a call at 707.809.5888

Or, leave a comment below.

I will respond to your correspondence.