My oldest friend in the world is here for a visit to see me and My Rebecca. We talk and talk and talk and then we walk and then we do a little work. Jim loves to run the tractor so I am going to have him working on tilling the corn patch as it is now dry enough. That will be fun for both of us. Then we will get the bows and arrows out and do that for a while. Ahh, sort of a second childhood feel to it all.
So, a year and a half ago Jim and his better half Gloria spent some weeks walking on the Meseta in Spain along the Camino. Gloria’s family is from a town near Santiago and they have been to Spain before but this was their first pilgrimage there. So, we were talking of that and Jim’s comment on the experience was, “It was not a vacation.” I had never had anyone comment on the Camino in exactly those terms but yea, I get it.
We can all get this too I think easy enough, although it leaves more unsaid than said. I know we have been talking for years now about what the Camino is or is not there is always a new insight to be had it seems. It’s never ending font of inspiration and it’s many facets reveal themselves constantly. It is such a rich “goulash” worthy of our time.
Yesterday was Richard Rohr’s seventy fifth birthday and there is a wonderful post on his blog, worth checking out. Anyone can sign up for his daily blog and it is chock full of good stuff. Thanks Richard.
OK, off we go to our day. More tomorrow hopefully. Goulash loves, Felipe.
Hola Amigo!
I just had a note from one of my Irish Camino Amigas that there is now, on the BBC, a television SERIES about walking the Camino to Santiago. It looks like this thing has “arrived”. I’m not really sure if that’s a good thing or not. She also listed the statistics for the number of Compostellas issued last year, and it was over 375,000!! Holy Camino!!
And you’re tilling ground to plant corn! We’re a good three weeks away from that. We do hope to get as many Grands as we can here tonight to do our semi-annual “Equinox Wox”, where we walk down the road in front of our house and keep walking due west until the sun sinks into the dead center of the road. It’s a cool deal. :_
SF,
PFJ
Juan ~ your father has passed away, sorry to hear that. Getting to be not many of those old timers left. So, yea we started tilling today. I don’t think I will plant til I get back from Lourdes on the 9th of May though. The soil should be warm enough by then.
And about the Camino and all the pilgrims. I think that it is fabulous. People may not be crouwding churches but they are finding something on the Way. Maybe Spain will get some of the other routes up to speed to take the pressure off. OK, good to hear from you again. Felipe.x
Hola Felipe,
So, you are off with your friend to move the corn field… the same where I planted the cover crop? It is somehow touching to realize that this piece of field of yours stores the work of “so many different hands”…
The first time I actually spoke with a pilgrim, before I went to Santiago, his wife said “we are going on vacation in separate this year”, to what he refuted, “I am not going to be vacation, I am going on a pilgrimage”… I even have to catch myself when I tell what I went to do in Spain in 2014… I never say I went on vacation…
Autumn has made its presence down here… the days are colder and the leaves are falling down and a certain greyness is taking over the bright summer days… Not my favorite time of the year, but it does make sense for Easter.
Loving love,
Cris
Cris ~ I have pics of the corn that I will put up on the blog tomorrow. Jim spent maybe three hours working it over today. I got the corn seed in the mail and the soil should be warm enough by the time I get back from Lourdes. People are responding well to working on the trail and environs, they are owning it.
Yes, no vacations for us. At least not the lazy kind. We have to walk at least 12 miles a day. And drink all that wine which is work!
Yes, the fall is coming down there just as we are celebrating the coming of warmer weather. Easter in fall sounds crazy to me but you see you are looking forward to that.
We are going to chat with you tomorrow at 1600 Seattle time. Jim wants to say hi. Miss you, Felipe.x