When pilgrims and townsfolk ask me why I'm here, volunteering as an innkeeper on the Camino de Santiago, I make something up. Anything. I got a severence package from a downsizing accounting firm. I was in Sweden doing lights for concerts the past 18 months. I have stock. There has to be a story, right?

The women and father-figures especially don't like to hear, "I don't know." Really, they're asking for a reason, but this whole enterprise is beyond reason. If it weren't, I'd be paid. Does that make sense? I don't know.

Plenty of people tell me why they think I'm here--Brooklyn Jim--"I know self-giving when I see it." But to avoid pulling back the Oz-curtain for these pilgrims in the midst of their journey, I avoid revealing my motivations. Practically, I had the time and the money. I can speak Spanish. I say something about doing this to finish the Camino, to see both sides.

Really, though, it's for the people I meet and the lifestyle I lead. The surprise smiles and the anytime wine. Maybe I should answer "you" and "this". "This" is the reflex already when the question is phrased, "What are you doing here?" I guess it's the answer to Why, too. Who? You, me, us. What? This. Where? Here. Why? This. When? Now.

And to future innkeepers--if you do it to find a spouse, you're nearly guaranteeing a letdown, because who you are here, now, doing this, is the equivalent of dumping pure averageness into the afterburner, eliminating it in a second, and using the energy gained to soar. Who can live up to that on a snowy Monday morning?