Hola a todos! Yes, that is surely the righest way to start!
Followed by: bear with my English, Spanish is my first language!
You may know me already, as The Boss, aka, Phil/Felipe, has talked about me a couple times,… but anyway: I am Cris, I am from & live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I was invested with “SACBC” South America Caminoheads Bureau Chief, which I accept very humbly and live with high responsibility as it includes the Spanish and Portuguese speaker communities from Colombia to Antartica (as I write this, I wonder if I take care of Central America too??? but that is for a private email to the boss… and a different number in the check!) When not busy in affairs that the SACBC role implies, I have a busy job in the “corporate world” of Clinical Research, working on the development of treatments through clinical trials.
But if you ask me who I am, I am a Pilgrim. Even when my days go by commutting into the city, and sitting in an office with my computer and phone, I am a Pilgrim. Clinical Research is just what I do for a living.
I had that sense of having become a Pilgrim when I came back from the Camino in 2011 (after walking from Leon to Santiago). But it was difficult to feel I was living up to my Pilgrim identity dressed in business clothes, taking trains and subways, and walking only from the elevator to my office… but the connection I kept to the other pilgrims, my Camino family, was what made me persevere in being in the world who I was: a Pilgrim.
Fast forward January 2017, I came across the trailer of Phil’s Camino in the Facebook, I visited Caminoheads, left a comment, and the next thing was an email from Phil inviting me to a Skype call… and the Magic started… My Pilgrim and human identity are reinforced through the daily interactions with Phil and the Caminoheads. Since then too, I not only have a Camino Family, but also a Camino Neighborhood. And in this neighborhood, the neighbors like to invite each other to the living room of their homes (although we are posh and use the word “salon”, as the French do!) and we have amazing conversations about books, life, death, blessings, suffering, love… Very often we sit outside in the Tapas Table and we drink wine, break bread, and share our gifts. Most of all, we walk together and encourage each other, sadly, we haven’t lost weight, but it is all muscles of generosity and beauty…we have grown a lot…
How do we do all of this living 6800 miles away? Well, we have “figured that out”, that is what Pilgrims do. Believe me, I also wondered if “all of that is true”, and then we had the Veranda 2019 and now there is no doubt…
New neighbors, new family members and new homes that opened their doors to me Loves,
Cris
Lovely!! I am sure enjoying getting to know this beautiful community you have pulled together Felipe!! I loved coming over to Vashon Island from Kirkland, watching the longer version movie in that historic theater (where I met Phil and Rebecca) and having a lovely, brief time at the Ranch where I met Farmer John, the Good Doctor and “the band”. There were also a few others that came over to the Veranda after the movie that I met at sign in (LOVE MY BANDANA!!*), yet by the time we had a chat with Farmer John and figured out where to put our deluxe, freshly baked with love, chocolate chip cookies, a specialty of my husband Bill, we found ourselves the lone visitors. In a flash it was time for Mass (which we did not attend) and I felt like somehow we ended up in the eddy of the vortex rather than in the center and still pine for what we missed. Where was everyone?!?!? Well – that happened to me a bit on the Camino, too – Wrong place, wrong time – or right place, wrong time. I still feel the joy through this blog and thank you all! I have next year’s veranda on my calendar 🙂
* I gave Bill’s bandana (yet to become a pilgrim) to my friend, Jackie. Phil you have met her and you may or may not know, she was able to do the last 100 K of the French Camino earlier this month!
Robbi ~ the cookies went fast as I remember it, thank you Bill, I think he was the engineer on those. Yea, things came and went for four days. Next year you will have to stay longer so you can capture more of the flavor. Hello to Jackie from me also. My Rebecca and I are off to Seattle in a minute. We have a showing on Capital Hill to night. The best to you, Felipé.x
“Most of all, we walk together and encourage each other, sadly, we haven’t lost weight, but it is all muscles of generosity and beauty…we have grown a lot…”
That says it! With muscles of generosity and beauty love,
Ronaldo
Ronaldo ~ we’re in the poetry zone! Let’s try and stay there. Debra coming your way. Felipé.
Ha! Poetry zone! Next year we need to open a Poetry zone in the Veranda lay-out!
Thank you for the opportunity loves,
Cris (SACBC)
Cris ~ yes, indeed! Just after the quiet time in the afternoon. What is that called in Spanish? All of a sudden I can’t spell it. Oh well. Felipé.x
Querido Ronaldo,
Yes! That says all we do: we walk, but we stop for Cafe con leche y churros with a lovely conversation, then we stop for a bocadillo and we encouraged each other for the miles remaining for the day, then we have one of those poignant conversations and the good soul next to you shares a piece of “Valor” (Spanish chocolate!) and then we get to the albergue and it is wine&tapas time and we share about the struggles of the day and we rest our feet, and we laugh and feel proud of ourselves for another day that we walked despite the blisters and the tired body… So, it is not the calories of all we ate in the day, it is the generosity and beauty (and goodness and love and…) that we ingested and became a part of our body… (don’t forget: the heart is a muscle! And in the Camino it is heavily worked out!)
Un beso y un abrazo en Español,
Cris
Dear Robbie,
Thank you for commenting and for coming to the Veranda even we couldn’t meet… I am sure though, that you didn’t get short of talk with Pilgrim Farmer John and the Doc! I know what you mean by feeling you have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but you -and Bill- were REALLY present, may be as the good fairies, because even after the Veranda we talked and exchanged picture of those amazing cookies brought by pilgrims we didn’t meet! So, you were there in the “right time”, all along the Veranda, and in the mouth of all of us! Please come next year (with more love-full cookies!!!!!)
Pilgrims hugs,
Cris
Sobremesa? Velada? Atardecer?
Cris ~ this is like the game of charades. No, on the Camino if you walk into a city on a hot afternoon and all the shops are closed because everyone is napping. That word. Felipé.x
Siesta!!!!!!!
Point!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cris, OK OK, before we have too much fun! Yes, sometimes my brain slips a gear. Gracias. Felipé.x. I need Spanish spellcheck.
Cris: Thanks SO much for your presence and your reflections on the importance of pilgrimage, pilgrim-identity, and pilgrim neighbors and neighborhoods in the development of the “muscles of generosity and beauty…” I also appreciated your comment on the heart being a muscle, too! Let me add that generosity and gratitude are closely related. Exercising one strengthens the other. I am SO grateful that the spirit of the Camino has found me through Felipe, you, Kelly, and all the other pilgrim’s and neighbors I have encountered on Phil’s Camino A
and at the recent Veranda. I am feeling personally strengthened in ALL the above qualities, and MORE
As a Camino neighbor, I can say that there is a unique role that neighbors play. Neighbors hold a space for pilgrims to safely pass through, providing sustenance and rest along the way. The benefit to neighbors is that they get to join in on the pilgrims journey, however transiently. Nonetheless, in supporting the pilgrims’ purifying journey “back to the garden” of authenticity (holiness), neighbors exercise these same muscles and achieve many of the same benefits. I am grateful for being part of the neighborhood!
BTW: You were not GIVEN the job of SABC, you EARNED it!😁
Neighborly loves,
Charlie
Dear Charlie,
Thank you to you for reading the post, and commenting with these words full of generosity and wisdom. The fact that you and Marcie have opened the doors of your home and lives to me are a testament of your open hearts and generosity… and you are absolutely right: you offered me sustenance and rest along with a space for silence and mettha… plus the home made nutritious breakfast and delicious pies and tea before bed to accompany deep conversations… and that was the perfect “albergue”… the one you described in your comment and the one that gave me the strength and courage to walk back home…
… and as I was crossing in the ferry to Seattle, I was reflecting on how much I had taken from you both with me… it made so much sense to share in my facebook the words below said by YoyoMa remembering Mr. Rogers:
“If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of… There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person…”
Gracias!
Sitting Loves,
Cris