Waffle House. My waitress has a bunch of tattoos. The women customers in the booth behind mine are talking about it in voices loud enough to alter the migratory patterns of waterfowl.

“Did you see ALL her tattoos? Our waitress?”

“I know.”

“Why do they DO that to themselves?”

“I know.”

I personally do not have tattoos. I come from teetotalling fundamentalists whose moms ironed our Fruit of the Looms. If I had come home with, for example, a Superman tattoo on my chest, the proverbial fertilizer would have hit the proverbial oscillating fan.

But I don’t dislike tattoos the way some do. No, tattoos weren’t in fashion when WE were young, but if they had been, believe me, we’d have them.

I know this because during my youth members of my generation were clambering to purchase $10 polo shirts with $90 alligators embroidered on the fronts.

My friend Pete and I were the only ones in the entire fifth grade who did not own Izod polo shirts. So Pete and I took matters into our own hands.

Pete’s mom had an embroidery machine. We begged her to craft a dozen alligator patches to sew onto our Kmart polos and—voila!—instant cool factor.

We gave Pete’s mom DETAILED instructions, then left her unsupervised. Which, looking back, was a mistake. Because Pete’s mother delivered 12 polo shirts bearing colorful patches of Snoopy, Papa Smurf, and four of the original seven dwarves.

The waitress was visiting each table, warming up coffees. She visited two ladies behind me. The ladies represented my generation. Their conversation kept growing louder.

“They just look so trashy. Tattoos.”

“I know, I wish I could tell these kids, ‘Quit screwing up your bodies.’ It’s stupid.”

The young waitress finally made it to my table. I saw her inkwork. Her arm was painted in a sleeve of faded reds and greens. Images of dragons adorned her forearms.

“I like your…

“I want to be a writer…” the email began. “I was sharing my work on social media but people kept leaving hateful comments. Sometimes I’d be left in tears.

“Do you have any advice? To be honest, I feel moderately forestalled. How do I get into the writing business? Should I start my own Substack?”

Well, first off, congratulations on this exciting new path. The fact that you’re coming to ME for professional advice is the first step in any career’s long and steady downward spiral into flames.

Namely, because, as a longtime professional writer, I still have to move my lips when sounding out phrases like “moderately forestalled.”

Frankly I don’t know anything about the business of writing. And I’ll let you in on a secret, neither do the publishers, editors, marketing teams, or prof reeders. This is why the publishing industry has perhaps the highest turnover rate among employees except for, perhaps, the mafia.

Moreover, I’m the wrong guy to ask for help because I’m not a businessman. I suck at business.

A good example of this is when I was a Cub Scout. We Scouts sometimes went door to door, selling homemade cookies which our moms had baked. I don’t know why we did this. The Cub Scouts are not classically known for their cookies like Girl Scouts.

When you attend a Cub Scout troop meeting and witness a dozen boys entertaining themselves with poorly executed professional wrestling chokeholds, or telling jokes whose punchlines consist solely of bodily noises powerful enough to register on the Richter scale, you do not immediately think “cookies.”

Nevertheless, we sold cookies. I was a bad salesman. My only sales technique was to knock on a door, then blurt out, “SORRY FOR BOTHERING YOU!” Then I would speed-walk away. If someone had wanted to actually buy cookies from me, they would’ve had to chase me home and purchase them from my mother.

It was raining when we saw the big cross. In the distance. We’d been told about the cross. We knew it was near. Everyone on the trail had been talking about it.

It’s called the Iron Cross. Or “Cruz de Ferro.” It sits on the trail, located at the highest point of the Camino de Santiago, between Foncebadón and Manjarín. It’s tall, really tall. And surrounded by a massive mound of rocks.

We pilgrims had our rocks in our pockets, intended for leaving at the cross. It’s a tradition. The rocks represent your burdens. You’re supposed to pick out a few rocks when you start the trail, carry them for weeks on the Camino, then leave them at the cross. It’s symbolic. And, if I’m being honest, a little cheesy.

But everyone does it. So you must join them. Some people even bring rocks from home. They carry them on the plane and everything. Try explaining this to the TSA personnel.

The rain picked up tempo. My 5X palm leaf cowboy hat was dripping

at the brim. The cowboy hat had been a Godsend on the trail. You never realize how functional a cowboy hat is until you wear one in the rain.

I’ve been wearing a cowboy hat since I was a boy. My father wore cowboy hats, and he wore them non-ironically. He came from farmers and cattlemen. It’s just what they did.

I stepped up to the cross. I reached into my pocket for my rocks.

When you view the mound of stones up close it will move you. Many stones are decorated with artwork. There are photographs. Hair ribbons. Baby shoes. Notecards. Wedding rings. There are farewells to loved ones, written on looseleaf pages, covered in cursive.

I placed my rocks at the cross. I had three. It doesn’t…

I can’t write. I don’t know why.

Every time I sit down, I can’t do it. Namely, I keep asking myself “Why are you writing this?” Then I get up and go outside.

I’ve been writing professionally for upwards of a decade. And suddenly, I don’t know why I’m doing it. What’s wrong with me?

Since my wife and I finished walking the Camino de Santiago, life just feels different. I don’t mean “different” in a woo-woo, spooky way. I mean in a practical way.

Part of my mind is still hovering somewhere over the Iberian Peninsula, flying over orange groves, deserts, and Galician mountains.

Maybe I feel strange because you don’t spend 40 days on foot, beneath a hot Spanish sun, carrying your possessions on your back, and not find yourself a little overwhelmed when you walk into, say, Publix supermarket.

Our local grocery store has 1,008,327 different varieties of orange juice. We have pulp free, pulp intensive, 100% juice, 50% juice, and %100

juiceless orange juice. There is almost an entire aisle dedicated solely to peanut butter.

Maybe I’m disoriented because, as you walk the Camino, you are walking mostly in silence, through primitive villages, some with less than 50 residents. And it’s so quiet out there. Whereas, America is anything but silent.

When our plane touched down in Chicago, my wife and I scurried across O’Hare International Airport to catch our connecting flight.

The knowledge that we were in actually America hadn’t quite settled into my brain yet. I still FELT like we were in Spain. So when I found an airline employee, I asked for directions to our gate in Spanish.

The employee just looked at me with a blank face and replied: “Learn freaking English, sir.”

And I knew I was home.

Since then, nothing has seemed the same. I’ve been spending a…