(photo P Volker)
Tomorrow is going to be all about my biopsy report so let’s get some last minute other stuff in before that. This is kind of timely and maybe important and above all juicy. Yup, juicy.
We have been talking about synchronicity for ages now and I’ve come to the conclusion after all this time that that is the way things are supposed to be. Coincidences are supposed to be. Camino Magic, the way things are supposed be all the time not just there. It is more a matter of focus than place.
Lately around here we have been talking about dreams. And not just dreams but dreams that involve each other. Or dreams that are prompts to do something for one another. Or dreams that are dreamt for another. This is happening here with us Caminoheads lately. Is it woo woo or is it the way things are supposed to be?
So here is the juicy part. A few days ago on the 11th, and I am just getting up enough courage to write about this, I had a dream just before waking in the morning. In the dream I came into the presence of a woman, actually one of my Camino girlfriends who will remain unnamed. Everything was very summery and light and airy. I moved closer to her expecting the most glorious juicy kiss imaginable. Everything looked perfect for it. And the very last moment she waved her hand in front of herself flagging me off and said one word, “Covid”. I was devastated with this bait and switch and woke up in an extremely bad mood. I fumbled my way through my chores and breakfast and finally sat down to attempt the blog post for the day. I open up the Advent calendar message for the day marked number 11 and it’s a quote from Sophocles. Check this out. “The desire to kiss you is draining, tiresome, it devours me.” Well just pick me up off the floor will ya?
As I look back on it the dream looks less exotic and more symbolic of our all our situations. Covid stands in the way everywhere between each of us and our desires. There is practically nothing that it hasn’t interrupted or destroyed in our relationships with each other.
true confessions loves, Felipé.
Hi Phil,
I totally hear you and feel exactly like you. This is not a competition about who had it harder, I think each of us had and has our own hard, for me, living alone, no family around, in a tiny apartment, and in a city, the new normal of COVID meant full isolation. I have not seen my nephews in a year, or my work colleagues in 9 months, and haven’t experienced the touch of another human if not for a physiotherapist I had to visit due to a very bad pain, which made it truly not enjoyable (and with some deal of fear).
I read the text below in the account of a Spanish psychiatrist I know. I translated it, and posted it in the Facebook too and speaks a lot about the ripples this situation will have.
Meanwhile, we need to empathize with our dreams, they are somehow the cleaning process of our mind, so maybe, we can see your dream as a burden you have taken off your shoulders.
Meanwhile too, I would propose not to give up on our imagination… maybe dreams can’t make the trick, but our imagination can!
Imagine all the people… Loves,
Cris
Letter to the editor from a Spanish 27 years old man: “Hug me tight, that you never know”
“Any child of my generation has a common memory: being forcefully stuffed at your grandparents house. “Eat it, that you never know when another war may come”, my grandmother used to say, even when all I had left in the plate was a single chickpea. Her biggest collective trauma was hunger. And because of that, since those times, treasured, providently, every occasion of feeding as if it could be the last one, and saw in each full table, a privilege. Meanwhile, we, able to throw away half of a fridge in the garbage with no regret, grew up in a bubble of presumed safety, convinced that nothing would happen. Now we get our first wound. Yes. This pandemic is our war, our hunger is of contact, and I believe that our trauma will be isolation and distance. That’s why I wonder if in the future, we would not become into provident treasurers of affection and will tell our grandchildren phrases like the tittle of this letter: “Hug me tight, that you never know” (Ricardo Ramos Rodríguez, Zaragoza)
As I read the Juicy post I said to myself “Cris is going to have a great comment on this post.” And I was right! <>
It is such a missing elemental activity for so many of us. Ann and I live here together in Astorga so are able to share hugs, but the social posture of the people here who are used to greeting one another with hugs and kisses is strained.
Thank you for Ricardo’s words, Cris, as well as your own. I’m sorry you are in that city apartment but send a virtual abazo fuerte – no, several of them. Use when they are needed.
Dear Ron and Anne,
Several hugs coming from Spain are soooo appreciated these days! And thank you so much for your generosity in your comment. Human touch is a healing force, and we will need lots of it once the virus is under control. I will be the one telling everyone “Hugh me tight, that you never know!”
Muchos abrazos para Anne y vos.
Hablamos pronto acerca de la Navidad!
Cris
Cris ~ I am so sorry about your hardships and all of our hardships in this time. I can’t do much about it except to say that we are still connected. We are connected in more ways and in stronger ways than we can imagine I am learning. So we must stumble forward or crawl forward, whatever we can manage. I am enCOURAGEing you. We will all meet up again in August, unwind in the sun and tell our war stories. Felipé.x
Good luck with your biopsy.i start radiation treatments tomorrow,well they’re making the molds that hold the areas to be irradiated.got me on this chemotherapy drug call Targretin or Bexetrone,2 pills a day,but if I tolerate it they’ll increase it to 7 a day.i was reading about an interesting case from south east England whereby the Canterbury and East Kent NHS Trust had diagnosed a woman with a rare blood cancer, didn’t say what type, and they’d been treating her with CHOP chemotherapy and radiation for a year and it turned out she didn’t have blood cancer but some other rare,but non fatal,blood disorder.a good view of Jupiter and Saturn really close this evening closest they’ve been since 1623!at times like this we realize how small we are in the grand scheme of things.
Kevan ~ and massive good luck with your journey. I am so glad for this star! Felipé.
Surrounding you with prayer for tomorrow, Phil. We are so thankful for you!
Susan Thomas and Curt Kochner
Susan ~ thank you! You are my new cheerleader with all kinds of energy. I think that I have worn all my other one’s out, they have been at it so long! It’s all been an endurance race and not a sprint. Thanks again to you and Curt. Becky is coming over to walk with us on the 21st. So cool! Felipé.x