I was off walking on the backyard Camino with Dayna today. We are just getting to know each other although we are close geographically, as in she is just around the corner. But we discovered that we have this mutual interest in calligraphy which I’m not sure that I have a handle on what it all means.

It is basically the art of handwriting but handwriting sounds so simple and art seems complicated. See? I don’t think that I could have said that better if I had tried. That just sort of typed itself. And there on to typing and keyboards and talking to each other as we are communicating right now.

I remember my Dad teaching me lettering and a love for communicating in that fashion. I don’t think that we knew the word calligraphy but we had the spirit. Then the excitment in fourth grade to learn cursive (longhand) with the Palmer method. This all sounds like ancient history. But it gets even better!

The elementary school that I went to in Buffalo, NY was in two old old buildings. The steps were are cupped, Caminolike, from billions of little feet. You have seen pics with the desks that were wrought iron and wood and screwed to the wooden floor in rows, each had a hole in the top for an ink well. The ink well was a little glass container that once had held the liquid ink and was used with a straight pen to write. The student would dip the nib of the pen in the ink and write a few words and dip again and continue. This is one step more modern then writing with a quill, a feather, gang.

And our teacher somehow got into an old storage area and found enough of the pen nibs and holders and blotters and wells to outfit they whole class and we used that stuff the whole year. Timemwise people were just in the transition between fountain pens and on to ball point pens then in the 1950’s. And here we were with this ancient stuff to learn to write cursive with. I was in heaven.

So now when I notice a person with a “nice hand” or in other words who takes joy in writing and communicating in that fashion I make sure to compliment them. I think that is what Dayna and I clicked on as we walked the Camino this AM, it was the joy we shared for that particular form of communication.

What does this have to do with the Camino anyway? Well, maybe we are talking about taking the time, when we can afford it, to communicate in an artful manner. To say to our audience that beside wanting you to get what I am saying, I value you. I am taking my time to be with you. I am “spending” my time with you. Isn’t that what we did on the Camino where we walked on our blistered feet ever so slowly across Spain.

I’m weeping, sorry, love you, Felipe.

p.s. – thank you Dayna.