21 Days To go

I’ve noticed over the past few years a strange thing that happens to me when I travel for long periods, like two or three months. In the few weeks before I leave I begin detaching from friends and loved ones. I don’t do this on purpose, it just seems to happen. I notice I am not as mentally and emotionally involved in their daily lives as I might normally be. My mind begins to travel long before my body does. I don’t know if this is a way of dealing with the sadness of parting, the anticipation of missing them, or the anticipation of the adventure. Mentally I begin to travel to my destination.

A similar experience occurs when I am returning home. My daughter and I noticed this when we were on a three month trip to Spain and Paris. About two weeks before it is time to return home, my mind begins to make the transition. I begin thinking about seeing friends and family and anticipating the things we will do together when I return home. 

The time of transition before leaving for a trip is longer than the time of transition to the return trip home. Part of that is the planning that takes place to take the trip, reservations for transportation and accommodations, what to pack and where to go. I suppose coming home require less preparation.

At the moment I am in the getting ready to travel space. I am antsy because time seems to be moving slowly, like sludge. It’s like I’m caught  in a dream where everything is moving in slow motion and I am only half present viewing my life as though I am watching it through a glass. And yet time seems to be flying past, as I realize I only have so many days to get things accomplished before the plane takes off. I feel as though I am in a nether world, neither here nor there. This is a tough place to be for someone who has worked very hard to live in the moment.

25 Days To Go

I am wondering if there is anyone, besides me, who is not writing, or intending to write a book or produce a movie about the Camino. It seems like everywhere I look some one is turning a blog into a book or a movie. It even seems premeditated, like they plan to do this before they ever start walking. 

There are a lot of people, including myself writing blogs as they journey on their Way. It seems a human characteristic to want to record our travels. I believe explorers have done this since the development of writing. Maybe even before that, in signs and symbols that convey the information, “take the path to the right” or “danger ahead.” 

Is blogging just a way of staying in touch with and sharing the journey with the folks back home? Is it a way of recording the spiritual or internal journey? I know when I read my blogs from my journey on the Camino last year, they bring back so many memories and reminders of lessons learned, that the camera couldn’t capture. The interaction with other people and the environment is very difficult to capture photographically, especially if you are one of the participants in the interaction , as well as, the photographer.

But I wonder if thinking about blogging changes the Camino experience. And even more so, does going on the Camino with the intent of writing and selling a book or a movie about your Camino change the experience? Maybe it makes you more aware of what is going on during your Camino, because you know you want to write about it. Or does it color what you see, feel and experience because you have the consideration of what will sell. I know when I do art work it has been a life long job to keep the consideration of what will people like or what will sell out of the making of the art.

I’m not talking about guidebooks, I’m talking about narrative stories about individuals. The last few blogs I’ve gone to read are basically advertisements for books that are about to be published. I find this disturbing.

27 Days To Go

I seem to be into introspection. I suppose that is a proper way to begin a pilgrimage, but who knows. In 2006 my husband and I sold the house we had lived in for 26 years and everything we owned. We left the United States with one suitcase each, it contained all our earthly belongings. We landed in Barcelona and began a trek by bus across the coast of Northern Spain through San Sebastion, Santander, Bilboa, etc. I loved the northern coast. We came across the small village of San Francisco outside of Muros on the coast in Galicia. We loved it! I walked along the rugged coast from San Francisco to Muros and back every day. One day, while I was in Muros, my husband called and said the hills around San Francisco were on fire and it was coming close to the small hotel where we were staying. 

I’m not sure why but I decided to go there rather than have him come into Muros. Seems a very odd decision now. Let’s head into a fire area! Anyway I got a cab and we got about three quarters of the way there when the flames from the brush burning on the side of the road got so close and big that the cab driver freaked and said she would go no further. So I got out and walked. Today it seems strange to me that I didn’t just stay in the cab and go back to Muros with her.

I walked the rest of the way into San Francisco. I figured I had the ocean on my left, if the fire got close, I could jump in the water. 

I found John on the beach in San Francisco. He had offered to help fight the fire with the locals using garden hoses, but they didn't have enough garden hoses so they sent him to the beach. We spent the next four or five hours on the beach watching the helicopters drop firefighters on the beach, go out and scoop water out of the ocean, and dump it on the fire.

After all that excitement, we went to Santiago and stayed for a few days. The city was so exciting. We saw all these people coming into the city with back packs and poles. I wondered what this was all about, so I started asking people questions and found out about the Camino. I instantly knew I wanted to do it some day. When I came home after our three months in Spain and two months in Costa Rica, I told everyone about the Camino and how I wanted to do it some day. 

In the Fall 2011 I had already made plans to study in Salamanca for three months, from January until April of 2012, in an immersion program. Before I left for Salamanca a friend called me and said there was a movie out about that thing I always talked about, the Camino. She said she was going to see it that afternoon and would I like to go with her. Of course, I did. While watching The Way I knew I just needed to do the Camino and stop saying “some day.” I went home and started making plans to begin the Camino in St Jean Pied de Port in July of 2012.

28 Days To Go

For me, the spiritual journey has been elusive. As a child I vaguely remember Sunday school at the Lutheran church, felt boards with Biblical characters, and stiff red net stockings filled with candy at Christmas. Between 5th and 6th grade my family moved to Avalon, a very small town on an island off the coast of California, with a year round population of about 1500. About a third of the population was Hispanic. In the summer the island was swarming with tourists and summer residents. The big white steam ship came daily depositing loads of people at 11:30 am and carting them away at 4:00 pm.

I became enmeshed in the hispanic community and during sixth grade decided I needed to be Catholic. Even as a child, I felt something was lacking in me or my life. So I became Catholic and became part of my Godparent’s (Sam and Ofie Hernandez) extended family. I went to what was then called Catechism and loved the puzzle of following the mass in Latin. At that time, if you were Catholic you were not supposed to enter any other religion’s place of worship. So I didn’t attend services with friends or experience any other religions.

In high school I remember reading about other religion’s and belief systems. I was searching, always searching for something. I wrote a research paper comparing religions. I was looking for something. I don’t think I had any idea really of what it was or why I thought I needed it. It was a yearning that was beyond words or reason. Then I discovered the spirits of alcohol and then drugs. It quieted my discontent for a while. By the time I was 17, I had left the Catholic church behind, believing it had no answers for me. In all honesty, I believe the reason I left was that my behavior was such that I couldn’t reconcile it with the beliefs of my religion, so religion had to go.

I spent the next twenty years attending schools, hitchhiking up and down the coast, living in the Haight Ashbury, living in a VW bus (with a man, a six week old baby and three dogs,) having kids, graduating college and law school, working in my professional career, and growing more and more hopeless. My search for something meaningful had, it seemed been extinguished. I was just hurling through space on this large rock waiting for my time to be up.

Then I had what I think was my first foray into something spiritual. I stumbled into a group of people who taught me how to live without alcohol and drugs. Seemed rather rash to me at the time, but what the heck, I really didn’t think I had much left to lose at the time. Or to quote Kris Kristofferson (by way of Janis Joplin) “freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” Well, I didn’t feel like I had much left to lose, even though I had a professional career, three bedroom house with two cars in the garage, a husband and three kids. 

For about 20 years I just became loosely acquainted with the idea of a spiritual life or living a spiritual experience and learned how to live a saner life. I went back to the Catholic church thinking I might find something there. It had changed a great deal and I loved the sense of community, but my answers weren’t there. I became a Girl Scout leader and spent lots of time in nature with the troop. I did get great moments of gratitude around many a camp fire. That may have been part of the journey, but it was not the destination.

In the last nine years, I have learned so many lessons and finally feel that I have gotten solidly in touch with some power greater than myself. I can’t describe or define it, which is probably a good thing. It’s not based on any doctrine, religion or particular belief system. I call it God for ease and convenience.

I had always been a critical, judgmental, angry person. Not a lot of laughter or joy. Not a fun person to be around. If people said anything to me, it was to tell me I intimidated them. I figured they were just pussies. At some point I realized this didn’t serve me well on my spiritual quest, so I began to learn how to be a softer, gentler Nancy. In the process the anger and rage left.

 One of the most important lessons I have learned throughout this process took shape a few years ago when I realized that “hurt people, hurt people.” That is to say I looked around my world and realized the people I loved, the ones I wanted to emulate, the ones who were loving and caring and looked happy were peaceful and positive. These people were not mean, hurtful, judgmental or negative. So I concluded that people who were mean, hurtful, negative, judgmental, etc., in other words, just like me; were people who were acting out of pain and discomfort. So it occurred to me that it would be better to have compassion for their hurt or discomfort than to judge their behavior. One of my better thoughts, but putting it into action is not easy. It has been a process. but what I have experienced is that the more I do this, the happier and more content I am. It is amazing! Having compassion for others helps me. What a concept. But, it is still a work in progress. 

I don’t get told too much any more that I am intimidating and I seem to move among people with a little more ease and grace. I feel loved and loving. I have joy in my life and the glass is half full.

Tomorrow we will discuss the educational variety of a spiritual experience. a good description of the Camino.

29 Days To Go

This past week I’ve been taking my new pack out for test runs. Thursday I did a 4 mile hike fully loaded, on dirt trails, some very steep. Today I did a six plus mile test run fully loaded on streets with hills. Where I live it is hard to walk around the block without going up and down hills. Anyway, I’m working out the kinks with the fit, the straps etc. 

My pack last year was a Deuter 45 +10. It was a great pack, but too large. I think when, like me, you don’t know what you are doing, you you go to REI, say you are doing a 500 mile hike across Northern Spain, some of the REI folks think backpacking, like with tent, food etc. And I didn’t know enough to correct the misconception. So, I had a large pack. I’m not complaining, it served me well. But this year I decided to at least check out some smaller ones and I found one I like. It’s an Osprey Kyte 36.

I also packed too much last year. I think my pack was 15 to 17 lbs without water. This year it is 10 lbs without water. The rule of thumb of the experienced people is it is wise to keep your pack weight with water to ten per cent of your body weight. So even if I carry 3 liters of water, which is a lot, I will be over the 10 percent for half of the walk, until I drink half the water, and under the ten percent for the second half of the walk, when I am more tired. I’m good with this.

Last year's pack

This year's pack

30 Days To Go

My last blog on March 25 told the story of my post Camino revelations and theexciting news that I would be doing the Camino again this summer. That “again” presupposes there is an end to one Camino and the beginning of a new one. I think at this point I believe for me it is a continuing experience, because the Camino keeps manifesting in my life. 

Since the last blog I have become comfortable with not working in the ceramics studio, walking on the beach and learning how to use my camera. I have also spent a lot of time in “Caminoland,” the place where I research all things Camino, look at various supplies, reading blogs and facebook pages, reading books and dreaming about the next part of this adventure.

So, now I am one month away from take off to Madrid. And, I’m having a difficult time living in the moment, staying right here right now, living where my feet are planted.