Somnambulism, Spain 2013

Day 18. Burgos to I think over again my fears, the little things, for all the things that seemed so big and so far. And yet there is only one thing, the great thing, to see the great day that dawns, and the light that fills the world. Inuit proverb


The day begins grey, clouds low, evidence of recent hours of rain everywhere. Done with part one of my morning routine. Now outside, still coming to full awareness, out of sleep, snippets, portions of dreams scrapping for my attention. One or two are having their way. My horizontal time in bed each night is usually spent alternating between conscious processing and immersion below the level of the surface of the great, dark pool of the subconscious, where reality, the day's happenings, memories, images, merge, mix with other beings, with embodied fears, lusts, frustrations, creatures, often and mostly in human form, straight out of the id. Perhaps it is not so much a matter of alternating between the two as it is maybe more of a range, a continuum, you know? A sliding scale, like mixing music, some bit more conscious input, a spoonful of deeply buried paranoia, a quarter cup of childhood, the smell of the skin on the back of her arm.


Outside in my spot, this small metal table set off to one side of the mall. Teasing apart my inner world, leafing through the emotional detritus of another night spent on this voyage, as they say, of discovery. I have discovered a few things, I can say, and not all speak of the bright warmth of a sunlit hillside. Discovered that I can do this trip, despite many fears beforehand. Remember sobbing, freaked out, asking her to hold me, "What the fuck am I doing?" Afraid like a small child, irrationally, unable to see any balance or any maybes, only the certainty that my world, upon returning, would be forever changed. My inability to see over the edge of that cliff of what will be signaled to me the atavistic, archetypal and basic fear of the unknown. For me, as I readied for this trip, it meant the possible loss of my best friend, it meant coming to terms with the fact that my two boys are no longer boys, with my soon to be moving overseas for some number of years, with the leaving behind of who and what I know, what I am comfortable with, where I know how I fit into the social and geographical and emotional cogs and gears that I whir and click inside of.


"I have to do this," and she did such a good job of holding me. "I have to do this thing, this walk." She told me that it would be good, that I would find answers, that what I needed to keep in the world would still be here when I returned. "But I'm gonna miss you so much," I would say, crying in that way that you rarely do when another person is present, the way that contorts and re shapes not just your face, but your body, your hands. She said, yes, yes and I will miss you too. But still, it's gonna be okay."




It is one of the most difficult experiences in this incarnation, that pulling and pushing away, that desperate, unreasonably strong urge to go away and to come back all at the same time. I can't be here. I can not be anywhere else. The immovable object struck by the irresistible force. And so a chapter ends and another begins. I can say that I have often used that metaphor, you know the one, a door closes and another one opens. I believe that sitting here at this table in Burgos, this overcast Wednesday morning, that I have a modification to that metaphor. A friend has said many times that some doors, once opened, never close again (thank you, JV). Thusly so. In my head now, in my way of seeing my own life, of keeping track of where I have been, of what and who I am in relation to others, to myself, that yes, new doors are opening in my world, but the other doors, the ones that I have walked out of, they are no longer closed, they are all now open. I have not been pushed into this space, a darkened hallway, maybe, between doors. No. No that's not it. I walk along this well lit corridor with all the doors to all the places, people, emotions, pleasant and painful alike, and I choose which room to enter, and I choose to continue to try the door knobs on those that have yet to be opened.


For helping me to get to this place, for being the splint when my anxieties and my fears suffered compound fractures, I must now and forever thank my best friend. Thank you, K. Thank you for helping me to walk out my front door, get my emotionally crippled ass onto that plane, walk onto this new land, walk this Way.




Teo will walk out of our hotel and he will join me here soon. Our inertia has been frozen here in Burgos. Today we will start it up again, strike out for Santiago, Finnesterre, the Atlantic Ocean, once again. We figure that we sit about forty percent, perhaps a hair less, from our goal. Today we hope that we can get in about a half of a normal day, so, maybe we can do twelve klicks today. Need to see how my ankle, how my new WALKING shoes, hold up. For me it is just a reality of not being in great shape, of having many broken parts over the years, a surgically repaired left ankle in this case. For my guardian angel, Mr. T, it will be a test of his ability to moderate his impatience, his youthful urges to go forth and to conquer, to demonstrate to himself and to those watching, that he is powerful beyond measure. It shall most assuredly be an interesting day!


Yesterday afternoon we walked up the hill that overlooks the downtown, the older part of the city where we stay. In 884 Count Diego Porcero built a bastion on the hill as a means of protecting the small community hat gathered here as a means of servicing the pilgrims who walked the Camino. In the tenth century it was fortified to a greater degree and was a strong, northern position used to repel the Moors as their tide rose up from Africa and met here in the Land of Castles, their most northern shore. I had hoped to enter the castle, to explore its outer walls, its stonework, steep myself in its presence and it's history. Alas it was not open, is only open on weekends this time of year.


We had brought our Bloodbowl set-up with us, hoping to find an out of the wind, sunny spot inside of or near to the castle. This we did. Our first league match in the La Liga de Competitión de Sangre España 2013, a game between the Burgos Bereavers, my Undead team, and ........, T's Lizardmen. T got out to an early start, sending one of my two defensive greats, Mummy #11, out on a stretcher, dead and lost for the season, well, forever! My star player, Hack Enslash, out for two games with a leg fracture. Teo scored, well his Saurus #1 did, the scaly bastard, he went up one to nil. But the second half, well folks, the second half was all mine! Sent a few of his Skinks and Saurons to the sidelines, scored a touchdown, run in by Wight #9, tied it up. The last two turns of the game I had him pinned at my goal line, forced a fumble that rolled into the end zone and I pounced on it with barely any time left on the clock. But damn if my agility score combined with my agility roll was not enough to secure that slippery little pigskin. The game ended tied, each team securing one point in the quest to make the playoffs. Lizardmen 1-Undead 1.




We finished the most excellent of historic battles, and then we walked straight to The Book the Irish Pub/Taverna, for some tapas and Guiness! Watched a good match between Real Madrid and Juventus, drinker around on our teams, awarded new skills to those players who earned enough points for their play to merit them. On our way back to our room, we stopped by a bar and ordered sangria and patatas con rotas y morcillo, fried eggs with fried up morcillo on top of a platter of, essentially, fries. It was a really sumptuous, heavenly meal. We both felt that way, and anyone watching us could probably have guessed a t it given that we didn't really communicate with other, unless small grunts and moans of satisfaction count, until our plates and glasses were emptied.


Before we leave town today we will need to accomplish a few things. I need to change the remaining couple a hundred dollars into the paltry sum of euros that it will generate. Need to find a walking stick to help transfer five to fifteen pounds off of my left ankle and down through the right side of my body into the ground. Would like to re-up my now ended supply of instant coffee. Then there is the gift that I bought for a good friend back home. It weighs a fair bit and I don't want to carry it to Finnesterre, the Roman name, meaning the end of the earth, that marks continental Europe's westernmost point, located a bit over thirty miles due west of Santiago de Compostella. So I'm hoping to mail it home before leaving Burgos today. And I think it is wise to try to pick up a stretchy ankle sleeve/brace as well to aide in the not flexing and thus, hopefully, in keeping the inflammation in my tendons to a low rumble and not a roar!

Feel suddenly, as we begin to trek again, so very tired. As though maybe in a deep slumber could I shed the weight of the knowledge of the finiteness of things. To sleep, perchance to dream. And in that sleep perhaps to find some sign, a vision, something still out there, hovering just above, awaiting the proper time to alight upon my shoulder, share with me it's appointed knowledge, my way up and out. Yet, as the Inuit proverb above states, only one thing, the only thing, to wake to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.


It is thoughts like that fill my head as we walk. It is something akin to sleepwalking at times, a disconnected sensation, the veil between me and the world fully in place. What I see though the gauzy wrap containing me is diluted heavily with the emotional fluids coursing though me. It is slowed down to about forty percent speed, the landscape around me bluing if tun my head too fast, as though the settings on the camera that is my eyes has the ASA and the shutter speed settings set at the incorrect settings. It becomes of no interest to me to adjust these mechanisms, preferring instead the isolation and uneasily that it provides.




Like this, in this place of fog, of muted sounds, of just walking, I proceed. T and I make about twelve kilometers today. Enough to test my leg, to ascertain, after we ae done for the day, the amount of stiffness and discomfort that exists, trying, and hoping for, a result that both allows me to continue walking towards Santiago, and that is allowing of the tendons in my left ankle to still be able to continue to heal. Back in the default world, the real world as some of you may prefer to name it, lacking the alienation and the slow intravenous drip of self-loathing and self-doubt that cue toy plagues me, I would tell you that a person with this injury needs to ice it three times a day, take 800 mg of ibuprofen every four hours, and do no strenuous activity, as little as possible actually, of two weeks. Here on the Camino, the sand tripping down though the hourglass, I must say that I feel different. Here it is clear hat two weeks spent in any one place ends my desire to walk the half a thousand miles from Roncesvalles to the Atlantic Ocean.


From my perch of low visibility, I watch myself walking, a stilted gait favoring the left leg, a manner of walking that tests and fatigues the right side. I coax the being I am watching to make a greater attempt to walk more naturally, to open his hips, allowing a more normal gait of the legs to occur. He doesn't much listen, set deeply, no, stuck inside of, the further recesses of his emotional mind. The irrational? The part responsible for letting the maudlin, the melancholic, reign supreme, disrupting and rerouting the healthy, functional thought processes in favor of the self-defeating scripts of days past. Taking the learned template of abandonment, of childhood traumas, and lay them, once again, over the otherwise unmarred schematics of the now; watch the dumb fuck, that, yes, is me, take the scarred outcomes of the past, the fucked up outcomes of the poor outcomes that he/I can not properly allow to float away, and to superimpose them on the beauty, on the grandeur of the now.


And so it goes, this battle royale between the correct and the deformed. At this point in the contest I believe that the malformed, clingy parts are still in control, leading, let's say, by about ten points entering the second half. But there exists a decent amount of hope. The oddsmakers have yet to concede the match. Certainly the diehard fans have yet to relinquish hope. And me, I'm pulling hard for this poor, misguided man to get his shit together and make a rousing, television audience ratings marvel, type of comeback. I still believe that this once fluid man can overcome the classical mess and rise up above the black, sticky mess of his emotional world and win the fray.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Calle Real,Hontanas,Spain

Tears in the Rain

Day 17 - Rest Day number three in Burgos "Esencialmente eres divino, de modo que cualquier cosa que te ocurra no será más que un momento pasajero. No te distraigas por ello. Si es un placer, contémplalo. Si es un dolor, contémplalo. El placer pasa, el dolor pasa. No son más que nubes que pasan por el cielo infinito de nuestro ser. Al cielo no le afectan las nubes. Puede que sean nubes oscuras, puede que sean nubes blancas, no importa; el cielo permanece indemne." Translation- "Essentially you are divine, so that whatever happens you will be but a passing moment. Do not be distracted by it. If it is a pleasant moment, see it. If it is a pain, see it. The pleasure passes, the pain passes. They are just clouds passing through the infinite sky of our being. The sky is not affected by clouds. They may be dark clouds, they may be white clouds. It does not matter, the sky remains unscathed." a meditation from Osho




Got sixty-five hits on my blog today! I am so pleased that I can find a manner in which to communicate with others in this intimate, but, kind a by definition, being that it is through the web, not intimate way. Something wonderfully paradoxical in that. Like the wonderful meditation that mi Tío Jose sent me a couple days back. Thank you, Tío! That we experience pleasure, heartbreak, depression, is certain; these emotions, all of our experiences, the births or our children, wars, hummingbirds at our back deck, but yet the lasting importance, the emotional or experiential impact of these meaningful events in our world, in the bigger, geologic time perspective, mean what? And so much gracias to you, Ms. Melissa, for your so meaningful comments. You know who you are! Thank you. Excellente! Wonderment and awe that we have these jewels of moments, shared or solo, yet they are just and only that-moments. Playing Roy Batty, the renegade replicant in Ridley Scott's 1982 film, Bladerunner, Rutger Hauer, in a partially improvised speech which apparently ended with some of the crew in tears, says in the pivotal scene, when he decides to spare the life of the cop, Harrison Ford's character, Decker, sent to kill him- "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion, I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain..." In the voice over that follows, the closing moments following the denouement, the untying of the knot, if you will, in cinephile parlance, Decker goes on to ponder and question the actions of Batty, who had no reason to save the life of the man sent to 'retire' him. In Batty's head was pre-set clock that he hoped to have removed, a timer clicking down on the last moments of his life. Aware that his own ability to experience this unexplainably sublime, wondrous to behold universe of infinite possibilities and richness, he made an ultimately more than human, almost a divine, decision: any and every life that holds any and every ability to both experience and to add to the experience of this planet which we seem to exist upon, is worthwhile. More than worthwhile-indispensable, necessary. Decker comes to this conclusion, and we hear his thoughts at the same time that we think over the possibilities of an 'artificial' mind comprised of silicon neurons, synapses, coming to this more than human understanding of this universe of wonder that surrounds us: "I don't know why he saved my life. Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life - anybody's life; my life. All he'd wanted were the same answers the rest of us want. Where did I come from? Where am I going? How long have I got?" Hope the Bladerunner allusions, quotes, haven't thrown a curve ball your way. There is a certain poignant and precise and haunting quality of emotion that is tapped into in the film, at this late point in it, that is about where I find the little homunculus inside me right now, peeking around the drapes of the windows that are my eyes, listening at the inlets of my ears, afraid to go outside, away from the relative safety of the dark, but known, corridors and sub-basements inside my head.


I think that more than any other city I have visited, I like Burgos. Hard to explain, as much of this attraction is collected inside of me as emotional reaction, interaction, difficult to quantify or even to qualify. The obvious elements are the amazingly beautiful edifices, sculptures, colors, textures of old and new, of people laughing, of the energy that floats and coalesces in the air around me, eddies and swirls like the gentle current of a river, between the spaces of the streets, connecting, conducting the electricity of the divine from person to person, from ancient cut stone to modern storefront, flowing across space, across time. I feel this here more than I have felt it any place before. I sit here at a table in this pedestrian calle, a man playing loud Spanish guitar, throwing in a Chilean sounding pan flute, strumming, the vibrations resonating, bouncing off of, and between, the faces of the canyon formed by the buildings on both sides. It is a bit past noon and across from me stand locals, abutting tall tables in front of Cervezeria 100 Montaditos, smoking, drinking beer, connecting. That's right...cafe torrero! Or, as a good friend used to say when he saw a beer in my hand, 'Is it noon already?' The kind of thing most Americans think is somehow unacceptable, depraved, immoral. The difference between a deeply Catholic, God loving, family loving culture and a Protestant, Puritan, judgemental culture. The one I fit right into, the other really causes me to form hives and to turn down the corner of my mouth.


Burgos has the European time schedule that I already live within, but that sort of works against me in the States. Eat dinner at nine or ten o'clock. Go out for a drink with a friend after dinner. Close down businesses, shops, for three hours from two to five en la tarde. Take a load off, work to live, not live to work. Teo and I were sitting out here yesterday afternoon playing Bloodbowl, him crushing me again, God damn kids, and the manager of the hotel/bar/tapas restaurant that we are staying at comes out to watch us, to inquire about our homemade yet complicated looking set up. A large, shaved head kind of guy, looking more bouncer than manager, teeth a bit askew, gets a big childlike grin, the kind that changes the position of one's ears due to its size, asks us about our set up. We have a ten minute conversation, show him the 63 page pdf Rulebook, his eyes widening, "Oyé!" he says, 'Holy shit!' He comments on how rustic our set-up is yet how we combine the iPad for rules and T's iPhone for the dice rolling app, needing both six and eight sided dice rolls. A gentle giant he turns out to be. Not ten minutes after goes back inside, he comes back ands sets down next to each of us a chupito grande of paxerraña, the young plum liquor from el Norte de España. A regalito, a small gift, he says. Whadda ya think, does this happen much where you go to get your lunch? Yeah, not for me either back in the uptight world of the good ole US of A. In the states If one needs to pee, one knows that most businesses aren't looking on your use of their facilities with favor unless you are enriching them in a literal sense. Not so across the Atlantic here. They show you where it is, smile, 'Pues, vale," and have a good day. Enrichment comes in forms other than the literal. Humanness has value in a wider slice of the population. People, one feels, value many things more than how much more 'capital' they can accrue that day. The organization of entire sections of a city for people strolling, interacting, locking out cars, changes not only the immediately observable happenings and interactions, but also the less knowable but, in my view, the even more important energetic interactions, the tenor of the waves between and around us, that river of bathtub warm energy that connects the all of us moving between and around each other in a chaotic yet perfect dance orchestrated by no one, yet inclusive of all.


One feels not the sense of threat or the tightness of not making eye contact like one does so often in larger cities in the US. Have you ever walked the crowded streets of Manhattan? Noticed that it is better to look at your shoes than into the eyes of those brushing past you? Here that feeling is missing, well, I sure don't 'miss' it, let's just say it is absent. In its place are people, from old to young, smiling, or not, yet still with an air of approachability, ready with a, "buenos tardes," at any and every moment. It is not fatiguing to walk the street even if it is packed with people, a feeling I've experienced in busy streets at busy times in metropolitan areas in the US. Sure, I'm subjective and yes I'm on a bit of a 'this is new and great to be in Europe' high, so, yeah, I may be feeling all of this in a manner that gives all the positive things I can find more importance and more value than they may, in actuality, have. Fine. Yet I have faith in my ability to understand that which I perceive and to understand that which I prefer and my ability to discern why. It is this process, this unfolding of my understanding of my time here, of this pivotal time in my life, that I share. It may not be The Truth, but surely it is my truth. Had fun hanging out with Menno some more yesterday, even though he continued to say, two days running, that he was leaving, walking on down the trail. So that, in this way, we said goodbye about three or four times over a thirty-six hour period. We began to crack up each time we'd see him again, 'Fuckin' Menno!' He ended up staying at our hotel his last night here, the night before last, at least I think that it is his last night now, until, perhaps he shows up again in the next half hour! Hope to see him again. What's the line from the film The Way, "If you ain't Dutch, you ain't much!' My heel is healing. Bought a pair of, gasp!, walking shoes yesterday. Got a gel sole insert under my left heel. Taking handfuls of ibuprofen therefore placing an even heavier demand on my poor liver. Sorry 'bout that, bud, hang in there. Please! Decided to take one more day in Burgos, what will be, in the end, four nights spent here. The price is right, given that we spend about ten euros a night to sleep in a dorm style room in the small towns that we stay in and yet here we each drop twelve and a half for our own room, well, closet, with our own bathroom.


My heart, however, the small, wounded part inside, not really doing as well as my bruised heel. The feeling of being alone, looking at the clock, seeing some time between three and five in the morning on the clock, knowing that I haven't the strength either to get up now to kill the fear of the rest of the night alone, waiting for the coming light, nor to try to go back to sleep alone, my bed somehow a mile wide and so, so empty. The she that needs to occupy it knows where she should be and why she is not there. And it is in the knowing that I find my greatest pain, my greatest challenge.


I finally got the legend of the internment of the body of St. James in Santiago de Compostella. I would enjoy sharing it with you. Please allow me that, dear reader. Gary shared this with Tdog and me as we walked around last night waiting for the restaurant that he recommended that we eat at to reopen after siesta. They open for dinner at eight thirty. So, first off, and it never even occurred to me to look at the etymology of this, the name of the city that marks the end point of this twelve hundred year old pilgrimage, Santiago de Compostela, is not just a fancy sounding, aurally aesthetic phrase. The Spanish name Santiago, as strange as it seems, is translated in English as James! Shouldn't it be, like, Jaime or something? Call me Captain Cognate, but it is counter intuitive. The name of the city translates as St. James under the field of stars.
Fearing that his body would be defiled, the early apostles dug up the buried corpse of the recently headed by the Romans St. James, placed it in a boat made of stone, and sunk it. A miracle occurred and the boat, pilotless and somehow able to float, sailed itself to the western coast of Spain, where it beached and St. James' body, covered in cockle shells, washes ashore. It is found by a peasant farmer in a field, under a night sky full of stars. The scallop becoming the symbol of the peregrino. As a symbol, the many lines of the shell leading to one central point also symbolized the many different routes of the various Caminos, of the many converging upon the one. And, so, Santiago de Compostela, St. James under the field of stars.



The American statesman and then President, James Madison, en route to Paris with his two sons to attempt, on order from the US Congress, to extract funds from the French to help continue the fight against the British in 1779, was on a ship that began to take on water and landed at Finnesterre. He and his two sons did a reverse pilgrimage, fuckin' Americans!, traveling along the Camino route to Paris. His words lend more information and a certified trueness to the description of said: "I have always regretted that We could not find time to make a Pilgrimage to Saintiago de Compostella. We were informed, ... that the Original of this Shrine and Temple of St. Iago was this. A certain Shepherd saw a bright Light there in the night. Afterwards it was revealed to an Archbishop that St. James was buried there. This laid the Foundation of a Church, and they have built an Altar on the Spot where the Shepherd saw the Light. In the time of the Moors, the People made a Vow, that if the Moors should be driven from this Country, they would give a certain portion of the Income of their Lands to Saint James. The Moors were defeated and expelled and it was reported and believed, that Saint James was in the Battle and fought with a drawn Sword at the head of the Spanish Troops, on Horseback. The People, believing that they owed the Victory to the Saint, very cheerfully fulfilled their Vows by paying the Tribute. ...Upon the Supposition that this is the place of the Sepulchre of Saint James, there are great numbers of Pilgrims, who visit it, every Year, from France, Spain, Italy and other parts of Europe, many of them on foot." I picked up a pair of WALKING shoes today! Yeah! Gary, Teo, and I walked to the Basé store across the río, and I found that getting a size 47/48 (the European version of size twelve) was difficult enough. What it meant was that I had only about one tenth of the shoes to choose from. Found a pair, will let you know how it turns out. The Osho quote that starts this piece has found a place in me. In the 'infinite sky' of my being. So that it does not much matter if my moment is full of perceived loss, of perceived connection and grounding, or of boredom or of erotic love. It is but a moment, a tear in the rain, washing away, merging, not a discernible or separate element in the final analysis. Hell, who am I kidding? The moments that we remember for their power in our lives don't amount to anything at all in the 'scheme of things.' To us, sure. But what does that mean? It is like saying that to your six year old it really, really matters if their favorite TV show has ended for the season, or if their newest, best friend chose not to sit with them at lunch. Clouds passing in the sky. It does not matter, the sky remains. I am a child, blonde haired kid with a funny name. I am running with outstretched arms, hands, fingers splayed wide, the puff seed heads of the dandelions and the seeds released from the tall stalks of the hay in my father's fields riffling between my digits. The lens flare from the sun as it smites through and between the wind rippling surface of the sea of the acres of grasses. It is August and the world is mostly far away, mostly silent, the sharp notes of magpies, the shrill whistle of the red tailed hawks, a mated pair of them, circling, soaring, watching, from on high. The gurgle and rushing of the water released from the ditch as it hits the distribution box and moves it's liquid power up and down the many, many gates and furrows. Far, far away, my eyes, face turning slowly and around, hear the whistle, the calling, from my father. And faithfully, earnestly, some small regret pining inside, I turn, a new fire inside beginning, and make for home.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Calle de la Paloma,Burgos,Spain

Cafe Torrero

Day 16- Agés to Burgos- 510 kilometers to Santiago de Compostela







Spent the night at a really charming, small albergue in an equally small town, Agés. The Innkeeper, a very amiable, humorous fellow of about forty-six, received us warmly, his wife bringing us small tazitos (glasses) of broth as we walked in, cold and wet, meaning us, not the broth. Hit the spot. We had a bite with Gary to tide us over until dinner time. The corner tiendita/bar is like from a movie set, chalet style exposed, ebony dark timbers shined from centuries of wear separated by stuccoed, white, hand troweled walls. Teo and I chose empanadas de jamón y queso, y uno de altún (tuna with a tomato based, pasty sauce), bananas, peanuts, while Gary got his favorite, gluten free meal, which he sometimes eats two times or more per day, tortilla, fresh squeezed jugo de narania, and coffee.







The three of us, having bonded quite a bit over the some three hours that he walked with us today, a full ninety minutes more with me, as he overtook me during my silent, solo, grieving time. Ironically, Gary has told us at least two times that he needs to spend more time walking in silence, a trick that I can see that he has about as much luck with, when near others, as I do. My long lost short-story-long twin? He mentioned that while attending retreats with his church it is not uncommon for attendees to hang a sign around their neck that reads, "silence."







He is a good guy. Teo and I both like him a lot. In many ways he reminds me of a good friend that I began hanging out with in undergraduate at Tulane University in the 1980s, Curtis Holder. Really bright. Kind of guy who casually drops that he it is funny that as an electrical engineer, he should score in the 99th percentile in English/verbal skills and only in the 98th percentile in math/science. Kind of square, but in a warm, self deprecating, smiling kind of way. His talking with my son about the really fast, heavy duty performance, power automobiles that he has owned over the years, talking downforce, 800 plus hybrid flywheel horsepower, in line this and drag race that-Tdog was sold.







The limiting factor in our speed and distance today was me. My left heel/outer ankle has become more than a bit tender, a bone bruise or a deep connective tissue inflammation is my best guess. But the pain that shoots up each time I place my body and pack weight on it, you know, the fifteen thousand times a day that I have occasion to step on it, don't feel so good. Aside from the pain itself, the worst aspect of getting an injury in any part of your body below your waist, when trekking, anyhow, is that the other parts of your lower extremities that need to work either more or differently to compensate or accommodate for the injured part get hella fatigued. It's most probably something like the difference between lifting free weights or the same amount of poundage on a machine, right? The 120 lbs. on a machine is just up and down in a controlled track; the 120 on a barbell feels like 145. So it is walking with a left heel that feels like you are stepping onto a piece of an old nail sticking an inch and a half up through the bottom of your foot, tightening the rest of your body with each step.







We all three signed up for, meaning paid the Innkeeper $10 Euros to reserve a spot for, our cena perigrino at 8:00. A really nice ensalda, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, but good, crisp veggies, with oil and vinegar, was served with a small plate of patatas bravas, and pan, and small earthen pitchers of tinto. Two sat across a table from me, next to a pleasant enough man, a native Spaniard, named Juan Carlos. Gary sat on my left, directly across from T.



Two new entries into our Camino contact list came to dinner this eve. Two really real, good people in my book, the sort of characters that I am counting on seeing again this trip, sat at the only other table to get dinner. Neil from Ireland, and Kayla, from the Seattle area, by way of Germany the past few years. He has been living in the far east the better part of six years, clean, and sober, a former journalist who covered the music scene for a newspaper or two back in the day a bit. He is forty-two, clean shaven head, entirely, wearing a dark grass green, loosely fitting, popped up in the top, Keebler elf looking took, infectious but calm smile. Kayla really solid seeming, great smile, pretty, shoulder length blonde brown, kinkyish hair pulled into a loosely gathered pony tail.



For our second course we had house made paella. Yes! The rice yellow in color, mixed with peppers, onions, carrot, sautéed with pieces of beef, chicken-as many servings as you pleased to ask for. When Teo said, 'yes, please, a little bit more,' in Spanish of course, to his offer to bring more paella, he made an entertainment event in that small room with the six of us, by bringing a small tea cup saucer with about a teaspoon of the paella served with a teeny, silver fork. 'Un poco mas, yes? (A little more! yes?) then, as we all laughed our butts off, pulling the plate of the flavorful rice dish out from behind his back and setting it in front of T. The gentleman did this on more than two occasions.







Had great conversations during dinner. Even struck up some good interactions entirely in Spanish with Juan Carlos. He is only going to Burgos also. Work calls. Does it one stretch at a time as when he can peel himself away from his life and work. He talked futbol with T, life stresses and jobs with me. Neil and Kayla more than held up their end of things. They have hooked in recently on the trail and seem to have a really healthy, considerate, friendly relationship with each other. They seem to suit each other well.



The five of us, all the dinner guests but Juan Carlos that is, slept in the room upstairs that held five bunk beds. It was the best group, dorm style sleeping energy that I have yet experienced. Hard to explain why, I guess. For one because I feel like I already knew all of them,had shared a couple plus hours conversing, that we all clicked, that no one acted weird, snored too loud, rushed to get up early and get out in the morning. Everyone was really considerate, awfully friendly, a sense of warmth almost family permeating the relatively small room. Sounds corny to say, but it was sort of a Walton's Family Christmas kind of feel. You know, "Goodnight, Teo. Goodnight Gary....!"





As we walked on the last three or four miles of the sixteen or so miles that we walked today, I was doing a fair amount of 'trying not to be cranky.' I probably said too many times how I didn't manage my food intake well, a banana, coffee and a small piece of sweetbread for breakfast, and two pieces of bread with butter and jam for lunch, so that, as we stride along the lovely, sunlit park astride the south bank of the Arlanzón River to get to the older section of Burgos before crossing over to wander and explore and to look for lodging, Teo turns to me, says, "I should probably just stop and force you to eat something so that you'll stop complaining." Grrrr...hate it when he's right about something like that...I mean, darn it, I'm the wiser, more mature one, the parent, right?







So, yeah, he pulled out a trail bar, ripped off half, gave it to me, we washed it down with some water, moved on. Could feel the fuel and water bring me back to life a bit, the rush of energy when the tank is low, the blood sugar faltering. A smile returns with this and with the crossing of the Puente San Pablo, and the fine statue of El Cid planted smack dab in the middle of the round about next to it. Thus we enter the grand old city of Burgos, with its world famous 13th century Cathedrál de Santa Maria, a spectacle of the most absurdly ornate and dreamlike order. As someone who does not go into all the churches, see all the rated tour guide suggestions, this one is truly mind blowing. One looks long at the finery of the stone work, I mean these stonemasons did things, made shapes with this stone that you couldn't make carving a block of cheese with a set of razor knives. It's hard to fathom. A structure that would be believable, but unrealistic, if it had been drawn into a graphic novel, but to see it in real life is to know the sublime.





Walking across the Plaza Mayor we hear off to our right, maybe twenty meters away, 'TEO!!" Turn to see Menno's golden smile, blue, blue eyes beaming, his arms open, walking towards us. "Menno!' Teo says to me, "Fucking Menno!" We hug, introduce him and Gary, go to find a spot to sit down and have a beer at an outside table a block from the cathedral.







Burgos is not just some town. For those of you who, like me before I arrived here, know naught about this historic and much heralded urban center, strap on your seat belts and let me give you a tour. Sitting at 860 meters above sea level, containing almost two hundred thousand persons, Burgos has played the pivotal role in many periods of Spain's long development. First off, it is the capital city of the Communidad de Castille y León. There are several possible origins for the name of the cit, but the leading contender is this one-When the city was founded, the inhabitants of the surrounding country moved into the fortified village, whose Visigothic name of Burgos signified consolidated walled villages (Gothic baurgs). Not but ten miles or so from this charming, bustling city are the remains of humans dating back to almost one million years ago. Check it. Homo Antecessor.



The high tide of the Moorish invasion of the Peninsula occupied almost all of Castile in the 8th century, though only for a brief period. Alfonso III, the Great, King of León reconquered it about the middle of the 9th century, and built several castles for the defence of Christendom, which was then extended through the reconquest of lost territory. The region came to be known as Castile (Latin castella), i.e. "land of castles".



We hang with Gary and Menno for a few hours at small tables set in the middle of the broad area between the businesses, technically, I guess, a calle, a street, but not used by cars, like most of the streets in this part of the city. Small Policia or service cars will on occasion move by on the wide open, stone, almost tile looking, surface, much of it, in large, maybe one meter by one meter squares.



Menno wants to score some hash, tried, stereotypically enough, asking the only West African guy we passed on the way to where we now relax. No luck. He made a conscious choice upon leaving Leiden, in the Netherlands, to come on this journey, not to bring any THC products, to give it a rest. So we asked him what happened, why did he change his mind? He has really good English, and yet his response seemed, well, typically, as they say in Spanish, oscuro. What I did catch was that he had had a conversation with some gal that had to do with "keeping appointments with yourself." I don't know, maybe he missed the appointment, like he showed up twenty minutes too late and he was already gone by then?



Anyhow, that is not even the beginning of the funny part on this caper. Sitting twenty feet, less, away, is a group of two guys and a gal. They appear to be around twenty, a good looking guy, dark hair with trimmed, say five day, shaved beard, a glorious smile. Other guy in a red windbreaker, black hair gelled so that it is very neat on the sides and then rises up into a bit of a pompadour on top. Whereas the first guy is heavier, not fat, the second is rail thin, squirrely looking, mischievous. The gal, lotsa eye liner, black, ringing her eyes, pretty in a girl sort of way, all three laughing, teasing each other, jabbering in Spanish.



Still on the prowl, Menno says, "Maybe I should go ask these guys if they have any hash?" Tdog and I sort of casually look, assess, say, "Hey, dude, go for it. If they don't know, they look the age to know where it is." Fuckin' Menno! We teach him a couple words of Spanish, and he pretty much has down, "Tienes Hash?" And goes over and politely asks them. They sort of pause, like, did they hear this guy right, we hear the word "marijuana," they rotate their head so look at us, sort of nod their heads sharply, begin to grin and sort of guffaw with each other, high five. They called a friend who came with some pretty high grade reefer, I mean that's what Menno had to say about it, about fifteen minutes later. Fuckin' Menno!



Gary finds the hotel that all of us but Menno, who had just found his sixty-five Euro a night luxury spot, I mean luxurious for a perigrino, earlier in the day, end up checking into. It's not but fifty feet from where we have been sitting, having beers for two hours in the open plaza type of avenida. Menno is gonna download a movie on his iPhone, stay in for the evening, we tell Gary we'll hook up with him in some three hours or so for dinner, head on up, find our room, as long as the bunk bed, maybe eight inches spare between the head and the foot of the bed and the walls, and well under three feet between the free edge and the remaining wall. The bathroom at the, um, can I say 'far end' of the room and still be considered to be practicing solid English rules for usage?



About two days ago Teo and I had another of our sporadically spread out conversations about why it is that we didn't being a deck of cards, a small game, something to pass idle time. Looked at a comic book/game/model store in Logroño, had not in any way found a solution. Then I had a lightning bolt from on high, a revelation. 'Hey, T, don' cha think we could download a pdf of the rules for Bloodbowl, get all the team stats we need, n put together a pitch and all from found materials? You know, La Liga Europeo 2012 de Bloodbowl?" And, WHAM, just like that we had a mission.





Okay, so what the bleep is Bloodbowl? I know, I know. But it ain't really like that. Think football Americano but swap in teams of Orcs, Lizardmen (fast and agile creatures they turn out to be!), Khemri (mummies, skeletons, tomb guardians), dwarves, dark elves, chaos warriors, a total of twenty-one species. As a team plays matches, the players accumulate points individually based on their performance, scoring, injuring others, catching passes, etc., and are then awarded extra skills that you can choose from a really long list, to customize and increase your players, and hence your own, abilities to compete more effectively.



At any rate, we, meaning Teo, found cardboard in a recycling container, and we used my beard clipping scissors and some pens to make the pitch, the small templates needed for scattering the balls, team stat sheets, and the players themselves. I have created so far a Khemri team and a Hafling team, Teo Chaos Warrior and Dark Elves teams. Well,I'll keep you updated as La Liga Europa 2013 commences and progresses.



Teo was the kind of adolescent that didn't party with his friends, didn't date, mostly played Warhammer 40k with friends, Axis and Allies with me and my friends, more of a home body, really. Then at about seventeen, a senior in high school, he took off socially. So we have a connection going back forever in this arena, board games, in the area of socializing and connecting with one another via a game of strategy. This is satisfying in ways that are really something difficult to express even if you have a child, impossible if you do not. That opportunity to laugh, to not have any stress other than bad dice rolls, to smile and groan and commiserate while entertaining each other and bonding. At forty-eight years of age, afraid of moving on past the life I have known for twenty years as a caretaker and guardian of these two men who now appreciate and enjoy you but who don't much spend time with you or need you anymore, this time spent with this ultimately sweet, strong, terrifically bright guy, my son, is a time that pleases me so, causes me to get all goofy eyed and sniffly just to think on, to be able to participate in. Like a really good book, or a really good pizza, I am moving through it with my eye on how much is left, should I savor it or pile on through, how will I replace it when it is gone, will I ever find one this good again. Do I just flow into it and do it, or do I attempt to slow it down, make it last? Suck on the hard candy or bite into it and ingest it all at once?



Well, thank you my darling boy, the precious, precious being that I have been, am now, blessed to be able to share consciousness, share emotions, share this damn amazing walk across the better part of the Iberian Peninsula with you. I always knew that I wanted to parent children I never ever had an inkling of how sublimely joyful it would be. How could I have known. To see my own self, my own genes, splitting, growing, manifesting this angel out of the air around me, growing taller, talking, sharing his love and his wonderment in the universe around us with me. If you hear me bitching, whining, as I am wont to do, please, please remind me that I have this marvelous being, this bit of God, as my son and that I should thank my lucky ass stars and shut the fuck up! Now, onto Part Two of last night's tale, onto the part where this bit of God goes out with new found friends and gets hammered!



As Gary, Tdog, and I begin to look for a place to get some grub, just leaving our place, moving, in fact past the place where we were seated earlier while Menno scored, who should we encounter but those very same fellas and their gal friend. A raucous group, loud, playful, they engage us, laughing, grinning at us, introduce themselves. The larger young man, twenty-four as it turns out, is Elias (a-lay-us, in Spanish); the slighter guy, another imp we meet on this magical mystery tour, is Joel (yoel), he is twenty-one; the attractive young lass, at seventeen, is Iriana. With them as well is Brian (I know, right? He's got to get what I get when I tell people that my name is Pedro!), the friend that brought the weed. He is slightly more of the quiet, serious type, but like the others a real darling.



Well they tell us that they can show us a good place to eat, that paella is really more of a mid-day meal, that tapas and patatas bravas are more like evening, get a few beers, see the night kind of food. As they are a bit rowdy, more Teo's age than mine, dissing each other about this or that, grabbing their crotches as they make a point or two about whose hometown is the best, Gary peels off shortly after a round of cañas and some patatas bravas. They are really a funny, close knit group, and they really want Teo and I to accompany them to a bar run by a friend of Elias', then to go to a heavy metal bar. Another gal, a seventeen year old named Laura joins us, and she is a really good English speaker, self taught. As a teacher of ESL I am always fascinated with, no, not seventeen year old girls, but with persons who speak English with almost no discernible trace of a non-native accent. Laura never lived in an English speaking country, which is always my first question with these kind of folks. She also speaks French and Italian and has begun to study, all on her own, Russian.



Yes, we go to the next bar with them, the only other one that I end up going to them with. A woman of about forty is running the bar. It's a small place, maybe twenty by twenty five feet in size. She has blue eye shadow encircling her eyes, black, heavy eye liner all the way around them as well, jet black, dyed hair falling straight down past her shoulders. We get a round of medios, in size between a caña and a grande. I pull out a card to pay and she waves me off, as in, 'your money's no good here.' We spend about an hour to an hour and a half here, alternating between smoking and drinking outside, hugging the building because of the rain coming down, and being inside. The mood is festive, new friends, much laughter and high fiving, teasing, inviting of one another to come visit our family homes. Elias served in the military. Joel telling me that the south of Spain, el Sur, is where all the good ESL jobs are, because the southerners don't try to learn it, aren't schooled in it, need and want the help with it. He tells me that when he wins la lottería, he will be coming to Ellensburg to hang with us.







Joel is the kind of guy that, upon spying attractive women passing by with their umbrellas, walks to them doing the apparently universal deal of walking backwards while trying to woo a member of the opposite sex. "Cafe torrero?" He says to the ladies, using his hand to sign 'turn a circle and come hang out with is.' They don't stop. He is the kind of guy who is completely not discouraged. It is the action itself that gives him and all of us the high, not the outcome.



Joel is the the kind of guy who stands close, continually tapping your arm to either get your attention or to make a point, especially if you happen to be paying attention to the others who may be trying to talk to you also, the kind of guy that you want to be your deal closer in any business arrangement. Exceptionally likeable in my opinion. He and Elias explain the concept of cafe torrero to me. ''Eh...you know, like uno o dos en la tarde, y you decide is time for," big grins, hands both held in front as though grabbing two glasses. Looks at me, checks for understanding, brings one then the other hand to his mouth, tilts his head back as though downing two drinks, grins, slaps me on the arm, "Cafe torrero! Cafe torrero!" We all laugh hard, Elias making the drinking gesture with the pinky out, thumb out pouring into his mouth, both hands, one then the other, one then the other, grinning. High fives, "Cafe torero!"



I respond, "Si el sctividad que se llama cafe torrero, entonces, yo soy un matador!" (If the activity is cafe torero, then I am a matador!). More guffawing, stomach holding, squinty eye smiling at one another, high fives, abrazos (hugs), all around. Ole! These guys cracked me up. They have this thing that they do, to signify a really funny event; they turn their hand into a karate chop position and then they move it in and out of their abdomen, alternating palm up with palm down as they also alternate between saying "Hee hee," with, " Haw haw." About two of each. "Hee hee, haw haw, hee hee, haw haw." Love that shit.



I hung out for another couple of rounds, including one of chupitos, or shots, of I'm not sure what. Hey, when in Burgos...! Peeled away as they were all heading for more bars, stumbled around on my gimpy left foot, found a place to grab a plate or battered, fried anchovas, small flat fish about three inches long, one and a half wide, quarter to three eighths inches in dimension, and a ración de morcillo, pan, a glass of tinto. Found a place that serves soft serve ice cream, ate off to the side of the plaza, watching and absorbing the infectious gaiety of the Spaniards walking energetically by in pairs and small groups, the night time energy picking up still at midnight when I retired to our room to write and check emails.







On the way back I stumbled through the ......doorway....and onto a most beautiful, orderly, well lit shared public area, a pedestrian mall unlike one I've seen. Magnificent. Really. Here it is called the Paseo de Espolón. A maybe sixty meter wide avenida por solo peotónes. Sitting here again now as I put these thoughts on (e)paper. Three strips it is made of: one that runs next to the businesses; one between rows of clipped, shaped Spanish maples, with fuentes, benches; the other the walk next to the rio, with a grand view of the other side, maybe one hundred meters away. No automobiles. simplemente los peotónes, walking, talking, gathering, enjoying the evening, the soft night lighting of the yellow street lights catching hints of the humidity in the air, bubbles of light emanating, like small galaxies newly discovered, refracting, distributing, growing.







T came in sometime after I went to bed. Said something about deciding to go home after a few more bars, including the heavy metal one spoken of before. The gang was fixing to go home, round up more cash, hit it some more. T said he really didn't want to go, have someone decide to just crash, be stuck in the burbs at two in the am looking for a route back. That he had had great fun, exchanged Facebook and email addresses, made grand assertions about further time spent together, got to practice his Spanish, found friends. Said it was the first time since he got to Europe some five to six weeks previously, that he had gone out and partied with same age peers. The next day he was telling me about their night out. Cracking me up. I guess Joel had taken a box of napkins from the place, the dispenser from he table, and was "taking photos" of them and strangers, asking them to pose for a picture, then holding the dispenser up as though it were a real camera, "1, 2, 3!" yanking the napkin out laterally as though it was a Polaroid, waving it back and forth, blowing on it, all for the appropriate amount of time, and then, more or less straight faced, handing the 'photo' to the persons.




Listening to the drippy drop spatters of rain outside, through the mostly closed window of this teeny weeny sleep chamber, more the couchette, curtained sleep compartment of a train, than a room, in our hotel a block from the Cathedrál. And there isn't always access to water in the bathroom either. On the other hand, we do have a really ideal location, and the shower, even if it only has water at random intervals, is bitchin' cool; best of all it costs us twenty-five Euros per night for the both of us! Yeah, that leaves many Euros left over in the travel budget for tinto, tapas, cervezas, croquetas, patatas bravas, and, did I say cervezas?



Tdog passed out shortly ago, us both fine tuning a new team for our Bloodbowl competition, hoping to make enough for a league before too long. Doing some writing, a red headlamp light shining down, the strap wedged between a slat and the bottom of T's mattress but twenty four inches above my head.



Learning to see my way through the middle of the night emptiness, the austerity of not having a certain, always interested partner who, even if you don't contact, just knowing that if you did that they would be there, that they would pickup the phone, come pick you up, or hold you when you need to be held. Can't really replace that. But time and energy shoved around into the right places, the right uses-that combination can accelerate the otherwise glacially slow incremental advance of grief and of deep loss. So strange to be in this crucible again, this place of doing by undoing, this place of pounding, re shaping, tempering, of trying to mix and assimilate and find the best new way.



Sitting outside of an Irish styled pub now, The Book, a rather outlandish fusion of Irish pub with tapas and tinto, outside having a smoke. Nothing Compares toYou on the stereo, feeling melancholic again. Shoot, it don't really go away, like trying to drown some creature by dunking it under water, only to have it, thrashing and fighting for its right to live, breaking the surface and sucking in another breath, forcing me to continue the macabre activity of attempting to extinguish it, not liking to kill in general, not wanting especially to cause, let alone see, the end of this once magnificent, golden in the late afternoon sunlight, woven intimately into my existence being. The type of activity that, by achieving your goal, you also achieve a pyrrhic, hollow victory that, in the end, may damage you more. The handcuff tying you to the about to explode car, the hacksaw only allowing you enough time to cut through your twist and not the metal links on the cuffs.







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Calle del Cardenal Segura,Burgos,Spain

Solvitur Ambulato

Day 13- Belorado to Agés- 17 kilometers- 515 kilometers to Santiago de Compostella


'Sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.' Rumi I have grown a healthy sized pain in the bottom of my left heel. A bone bruise? Perhaps a sore tendon attachment on the outside, bottom of my mechanically repaired left ankle. The result of a bicycle accident back in 1995, I have four one inch screws attaching a four inch strip of metal to the outside of my ankle, which broke in half when I fell off of my bike. It has gotten sore, probably because the shoes that I have chosen to wear on the Camino are, in actuality, bicycle shoes. How's that for wondrous irony? At any rate, I have a plan, other than the current one, which is based on wearing four pairs of socks to cushion my heel, because, as it turns out, bicycle shoes are not made with any cushioning to soften the impact of actually placing them on the ground with any kind of regularity! Okay, should have seen that one coming...! Sell my cleverness indeed!


We began the day in our usual manner. I get up about a half hour before he does, when his alarm goes off, about seven-thirty or so. I take a shower usually, or, like this morning, praise God, a bath. I soak, read, finish writing my blog entry for the day, shave, brush my teeth, etc., and then return to our room. T is looking at his iPhone, maybe Face timing Veronica, catching her before she goes to sleep on her side of the Earth he is in bed, on his back. I say, 'How's it goin', T?' He says, 'Pretty good.' Then we spend the next forty-five minutes rising, packing, etc., head outside where I finish my instant coffee, have a smoke or two, post my blog (if we have wifi). Then we saddle up n hit the trail.


After about an hour of limping along on my bruised left heel, I asked T if he maybe would give me some time to grieve, walk ahead, meet up just before the next town, ......, eight plus kilometers down the line. Being the guy that he is, he, of course, assented. It was a John Denver kind of day, so I put my library of John Denver albums on, pushed in my headphones, walked, got in touch with the maudlin, sepia toned lyrics of a man who, cliché though he may be, knew how to yank some heart strings. I cried, did some letting go, missed my best friend, wondered what may happen to me in my new future, wallowed a bit, a lot, in the kind of self pity that I have more or less mastered.


When we walked, okay, when Teo walked and I limped into Villafranca de Montes de Oca yesterday (I mean, really, what is it with these people? Why can't they have a regular, American sounding name for their towns?), we decided to grab a bite to eat and then, afterwards, to decide whether or not to continue on. Up to this point we have only stopped to eat lunch in a sit down establishment once since coming to Spain. Figured it was allowable. So we walked into the Hotel de San Antone Abád, hoping for a refreshing, rejuvenating (okay, that may be just me on that one, seeing as how Teo is already, uh, juvenated), repast, a rest for my foot, a bit of all around respite. Since we had spent only about $8.00 Euros apiece each of the past two days, ten dollars American, for room, board, entertainment (all right, fine. The last one here is just me too), figured we could afford it.




The place is really nice. Three stars nice. We sat down, saw the two cute, young Japanese girls both named Chan, but with the Christian names of Regina (really, seriously? Who names themselves that? I mean If it's given by your folks, I get it. But as a consenting adult who would possibly name themselves something that sounds precariously close to the same word we use in the west to refer to a sexual organ? 'Hello, my name is Enis...!) and Stella.


We got wifi, and that in and of itself meant that even if the food pretty much sucked, you know, 'It's twice the price, but at least the portions are half as big!'), we could at least get back to the internet, after two plus days of only finding it in public plazas along the route. We met the owner, a small man, dark haired, deep Castellano voice, somewhat commanding, used to being in charge kind of guy, who shook our hands, sat us at a table under a well illuminated, glasses paneled ceiling, with four tables, a desk, and a bar. We ordered a bocadillo de loma de cerdo, a plato de huevos fritos y chorizo, and a cerveza grande por mi. It was really good, refreshing. So was the food!




As we finished our meal, two gentlemen that we had met briefly outside of last night's donativo this morning, Gary and Sasha, stopped in to repeat our process, beers and all. They sat with us, and, as they say, that has made all the difference. Gary is a seventy-one year old from LA, gregarious, tall, white haired, traveling for two days now with Sasha, a Swiss national of about thirty-three, short, curly black hair, glasses, thin, funny, zany as all get out. Example-Gary chokes briefly, getting some of his chorizo into his windpipe, the server comes over, asks if he is okay, Gary reassures her that he is, and as she is leaving our table, Sasha says, 'It's okay,' in his clipped, tinny English, ' I'm okay, really.'


We had an awesome time hanging with these guys. Took our beers out into the sunny, albeit with a cold west wind, afternoon, telling stories, guffawing, getting to know one another. Sasha has been walking since somewhere up in Germany, two and a half months now. Gary since St. Jean. Gary, an electrical engineer, worked on guidance and control systems for Lockheed, before they were Lockheed-Martin, Polaris missile stuff, now a contractor building houses for thirty some years.


As I pay to leave! the owner approaches me! gives me salutations and what not in Spanish, hugs me, then as we release the hug, he suddenly, using both hands, grabs both of my breasts, squeezes them and, looking into my startled eyes, releases. He has a funny look on his face as this happens, as certainly ai have also. His is sort of a blank look, maybe just looking for my reaction, which is to sort of pull back a bit, shake my head, say, 'Okaaaayyy....' We leave, my brain a bit addled,and I tell T the story...sort of like, 'Bet we could get a free room here...at least I could.' Yikes!




We all of us decided to spend the night here, even though it was then the shortest day that T and I had walked, maybe twelve kilometers in all. We know that we can make it into Burgos in two days time, regardless of today's total. So after this brief interlude, Teo and I haul our bags about two blocks away, grab a double room for thirty Euros, where I take a shower, actually a bath (!), T goes out in search of wifi, does his stuff, and we meet these two guys at about seven back up at the San Antone Abàd for a pilgrim's meal..k


We are sat down at a pleasant table, wine red tablecloth, chat and laugh, order our primero, and our segundos, pour wine from the two bottles of tinto that come with our meals, and say a cheers to 'wayward travelers.' All of us order the chickpeas for our starter, and it comes in three parts. First a soup with small macaroni in it, with a basket of chewy, perfect pan. I gotta say it was good. The conversation was brilliant, Sasha playing the mischievous imp, Gary the straight guy, though kidder and generous laugher. Teo fully engaged, talking fast, laying out the correct comments at the correct time.


When ordering, Sasha beckons the server close, points to the chickpeas on the menu, which both she and the owner had highly recommended, to the German language section of the menu, and explains to her that 'kirschererben' (which is the translation printed for chickpea), then tells her, "Yeah, in German this means, uh...funny food. You know, funny, like,you eat and then 'hah, hah, hah!'" She sort of looks at him, looks back at the menu, leans closer, an inquisitive look on her face. "you know, like...like clown food? In German," points to the word that they chose for chickpea, "'kirscenebren' means clown food!" He looks at her, a wild grin on his face, waiting for her to klick in with him on this. She seems to not exactly get the meaning.


After we finish the soup, we are brought wide bowls with chickpeas cooked in a broth, but served without it, a very mild sauerkraut, and boiled potato. It too is good. Simple, flavorful, good. Then a large plate piled with four kinds of meats is placed between us: chorizo (not to be confused with the sausage of the same name from Mexico, this is closer to, but not, pepperoni); morcillo; chunks of jamón; and pieces of cooked, boiled, beef, kind of like boiled pot roast, cooled, cut up, and served thus. We refilled our glasses, grabbed more bread, and powered on.


We ordered different segundos,Teo and I getting the female shark, which was cooked delicately, meaning not too much. The meal was one of the better pilgrim's meals that we've had. Talk comes around to why we are walking the Camino.


For Sasha it is a combination of wanting a travel vacation that is affordable and interactive with people, with a culture, and that with millions of people having walked this path, there is an energy, a spiritual, communal energy along this physical route that he can tap into. Did you know that during the Middle Ages over a half a million pilgrims walked the Way each year? These persons, by the way, did not fly or take a bus back to their point of origin, they turned around and they walked back home. There are also many crosses along the side of the Camino to perigrinos that died along the way-something which apparently still happens once or twine a year. Sasha ponders the concept that for Catholics there is this 'way,' for Muslims there is their 'way,' the Haj, In the East they have their 'way'-but, and he does not know what this may be, there must be one way that exists for all people. He wants to find this.


Gary has known of the Camino for some thirty years. Earlier this year he received a message from God, he is a practicing Lutheran, informing him not only that will he walk the Camino, but that he will do it this year. Short and simple. Jeez, if only I was a believer. How much simpler things could be!


For Tdog it is that he knew I was going, that it sounded like a good way to see the world, that it's better than being in classes at Central, that he is in no hurry to finish his schooling.


And for me? Well, I explained being in Ellensburg for the last fourteen years to raise my two sons. Talked about having wanted to be in other countries, to see the world for my whole life. About how there are so many changes in my life, needing the time to think. And I also, like Sasha, wanted to more intimately interact with the people, the history, the culture and language of a different part of this planet. A second level capillary interaction, as I have formed the phrase before-first level being what one does when they fly their family to Cancún, for example, stay in the White person hotel, use the White person beach, practice the Spanish they learned back in high school on the guy at the front desk and the taxi driver on the way to a nice restaurant that they found in their Michelin guide.




At this juncture in my life, forty-eight years old, looking at a career change, kids graduated, marriage number two making the giant sucking sound of a toilet being flushed, needing, perhaps, to figure out what I want to do when, or if, I grow up, I think I need a bit of an internal make over. Need to sell my cleverness, my life long reliance on the power of my intellectual mind, on solving and configuring my view of myself and the world around me, and slide on into a more comfortable relationship with bewilderment, with the newness and open minded thinking of a child, look at this matrix of color, emotion, movement, sunlight, sound that we call the world around us, and stop trying to control and manipulate it. Allow myself the opportunity to have a 'do over,' to restart, to hit the reset button, pull off the veil of certainty, of formed opinion, of hardness and rigidity in my clever, already figured it all out way of seeing.


Maybe in this way I can cut away the Gordian knot that my insides have become, tethered and manacled to each and every point of certainty that I have decided upon. Free the hot air balloon of my inner child, allow it, allow me, to rise up again, to soar with the currents of the wind over and above the small minded obstacles that I have placed in my own way, floating so high that each of the otherwise large obstacles becomes, from this vantage point, wee, tiny specks far below. To have a perspective higher up above all that. To more effectively feel the warm rays of the sun on my cheek, to mingle and play with the stars and the clouds and the birds of the air.


Solvitur ambulanto? It was an approach promoted by the "wandering scholars" of medieval Europe. An ancient approach to enlightenment. It means: It is solved by walking. (Thanks, Sam!)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Pilgrim Who Calls You

Pilgrim Who Calls You?







Pilgrim Who calls you?
What unseenforce brings you?
Neither the field of stars,
Or the grand cathedrals.

It's not the magnificent Navarre,
Nor the wine of La Rioja
Or the seafood of Gallegos
Or the fields of Castellanos.

Pilgrim, who calls you?
What unknown force brings you?
Neither is it the people of the Camino,
Nor the customs of the farmers.

It's not the history or the culture,
Not the Rooster of Calzada,
Nor the Palace of Gaudí,
Or the Castle of Ponferrada.

I see it all as I pass by,
and it is a joy to see.
But the voice that calls me
I feel much more deeply still.

The force that pushes me,
The force that brings me,
I can not explain it or myself.
I only know that I must arrive!





The spray painted poem appears near the Castilloan town of Nájera,
and is a solid part of the Caminero's journey.


The only above stated reference that may need explaining is referred to, as corse as it may sound, as The Miracle of the Cock! It is essentially a fairy tale, and it goes something like this...

In the 14th century a fourteen year old German boy named Hugonnel goes on the pilgrimage with his parents. When they pass through a small town, the teenaged daughter of a local man who owns the hostel in which they stay makes sexual advances towards him, but he rebuffs her. Out of anger, the girl hides a silver chalice in his bag, then informs the local constabulary that he has taken it. The cup is, of corse, discovered, and the boy is taken into custody, and then, under the laws of the King of Castille, Alphonso X. Heartbroken, grieving, Hugonnel's parents seek solace in seeing their boy's body one last time. The boy, apparently still alive, tells them that St. Dominic has saved his life. The parents rush to the local magistrate, explaining this new twist. The magistrate responds that 'the boy is as alive as this chicken,' pointing to the cooked bird on the platter in front of him, which suddenly pops up, runs from the room,' thus saving the boy's life.

Even today, as we walk the Camino, the church in Santo Domingo de La Calzadas keeps a live cockerel in a small room in the church as a testament to the miracle of the, and here I just can't help but change the translation to, Rooster! Sorry, if you were looking for something not kid friendly!




-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Calle de Ochabro,Agés,Spain

Sitting in Limbo

Sitting in Limbo. Day 11- Grañon to Tosantos- 23 kilometers- 550 kilometers left to Santiago de Compostela


I had been thinking or dreaming of her before I awoke, I can not often tell the one from the other. The she appeared over me, my eyes apparently open. Julia, who, being German, gets up early, readies herself, and gets on the trail early, asking me for my email address, which I, of course, gave her Asked her where she was headed for the day. 'Tosantos.' 'Well, I hope to either see you on the road,' says I, 'or to catch up with you in Tosantos. It was frustrating to not be able to spend more time talking with you here.' After getting up and having a shared breakfast, I hugged her goodbye and she left. Today we walk out of La Rioja and into Castille Y León, Spain's largest Communidad Autonimo, and at 95,000 square kilometers, eleven times that of the Communidad of Madrid, Spain's capital, but a population, at 2.5 million, or less than half. This historically rich province contains the incomparable high inland plateau called the Meseta, through which slightly over fifty percent of the Camino is run. La Meseta sits between 1,000 and 3,000 meters above sea level and follows the line of the Douro River basin, the Douro being, alonf with the Tagus, one of Spain's largest two rivers. The mountain range forming the northern border of both the province and of La Meseta is the Cordillera de Cantábrica, which we see daily now on our right as we stride onwards towards the Atlantic Ocean and each day's setting sun. One of the small things along the Camino that cracks T and I up is that, occasionally as we pass through some town, usually towns larger than, say one thousand people, perhaps a third of the towns that we pass through then, an older man, say older than seventy, shuffling along with a European style cap, a cane, a buttoned sweater over his large lapel sticking out button shirt, slacks, returns our, 'Ola,' with a look straight ahead, no smile, and one word, 'Adios.' It has happened maybe five times, and it is always a gentleman like this. We giggle, notice, and keep moving on. This happened again today as we neared and then crossed the Rio Tirón in the city of Belorado.


We arrived, limping on sore feet, in Tosantos at about two in the afternoon, once again coaxed into donning our rain gear with less than one hour to go in the day-third day in a row! We found the only albergue in town, the Albergue St. Francis, which, given that the town has only sixty inhabitants, was remarkably easy to do. Entering, a woman of about forty seven, with short, blondfish hair greeted us, seated us in the first room on our right, asked if we could wait five minutes, and left. Shortly, she came in to explain that this is a Christian albergue, a donativo. We nodded, assented.Then she told us the basic rules of the establishment: we all make dinner together at six-thirty, eat at eight, then there is a voluntary oración, a prayer, upstairs at nine. We can get up no earlier that seven and must be in bed by ten. 'Sí, bueno, comprendemos.' She stamped our Credenciales, signed us in, jotting down our names, country of origin, staring point on the Camino, and our destination, a practice followed by most all albergues. Her name, I would learn, is Mapi. She showed us around the three story building, where, on the top floor we would sleep, as the previous night, by grabbing what we would probably call a wrestling mat in the US, and dragging it to a spot of our choice on a wooden floor about twelve by twenty-five feet in dimension. The bathrooms, male and female, with showers, the common eating room, the extra blankets. Teo and I put five Euros apiece into the locked, small wooden box with white, painted letters that read 'Donativo.' And hauled our packs and blankets up the flights of old, wooden and terra cotta tiled stairs to the sleeping area.



We said hello to the only other perigrino in attendance, a sixty-five year old woman from Glenwood Springs, Colorado, who lay under blankets in the corner opposite where we laid our mats, two thick for extra comfort. I introduced myself, Teo did the same, and when I told her that he was my son, she exclaimed, eyes widening somewhat, 'I think I've heard of you guys'! T and I looked at each other in astonishment. I asked how this could be. She told us that a man named Kevin told her about us a few days back. I said, 'The Swiss guy?' She said, 'Yes. He told me about a father and son pair, Americans, that we're walking the Camino together.' 'I guess,' said Teo, 'Our reputation precedes us!" Apparently he had out walked us a fair amount, having already been walking, as he had explained to us in Estella, from Switzerland some two and a half months ago. 'The race,' said I, 'doesn't always go to the Swiss!' A bit of an odd woman, Rachel pushes a baby carriage with her belongings in it as she walks the Camino, going each day only as far as the next albergue, as little as two kilometers per day. She has no intention of finishing the walk, just in doing part of it and in seeing Spain. A prematurely white haired woman with a pronounced limp in one leg, she mainly stayed in her bed, by the only window in the sleeping room, reading. I assumed, upon meeting the hombre of the albergue, a very gentle man of about sixty-five, speaking only Spanish, a bit of a lisp, even for a speaker of Castellano, meaning Spanish from Spain, that he and Mapi were husband and wife, a mistake which would turn out to embarrass me, and her, later in our stay. Took a shower, washed my socks, underwear, and walking t-shirt in the shower with me, using my all purpose cleaner, Dr.Bronners. Then T and I were going to go walk about a bit when Mapi and Jose Luis, his name, asked if we could watch the front door, let in any perigrinos looking for shelter, and tell them that the hospitileros would be right back to check them in. I read and wrote while Teo went looking for wifi so that he could FaceTime with his girl, Veronica. Tired, almost two weeks of walking underfoot, I nodded on and off on the couch in the front room, daydreaming, feeling somehow fulfilled and not fulfilled at all. Lonely. Happy to be with T. Satisfied anyhow with this adventure, with feeling empowered after such a long time of losing, step by step, power in my marriage, in my feelings of physical disorder and disintegration, in my alienation from who I had come to see myself as, in my feelings of sloth, of falling away from grace. More than satisfied, I suppose. Maybe even content. Maybe even pleased. The weather is turning colder now. The air a tad more crisp, sharp. One's breath is visible now in the earlier hours of the day, in the evenings, after the sun drops below the curtain of the hills. We getting days that register no higher than a brisk fifty two degrees as a high, drop to about freezing at night. I chose to sleep the night in the front room on a couch that folds down into a single bed. Teo and Rachel upstairs in the third floor dorm. They were, I found the next morning, freezing their asses off all night, waking to ice crystals on the inside of the window. Teo, with clothes and three blankets, said he kept telling himself all night, 'I know morning will come. I know morning will come.' There has not been one single heater in one single room in any pensione, albergue, or hostel that has yet to be able to be turned on during this trip. This albergue, it turns out,closes it's doors for the season every year on November 15th, reopening each year on the Ides, the 15th, of March. As I rested and read, awaiting the return of Mapi and Jose Luis from getting groceries for la cena, I can say that, yes, I did have a desire to see Julia walk in the door, where. I was hoping to surprise her by being deputized to receive her as the substitute host. That being said, it's not like I'm looking for a gal, you know? Sex, physical intimacy, jeez, my entire psyche is more or less wrecked in that department right about now. The last decade has eroded me incrementally into a shell of who I used to be. Ever see the painting called The Shriek, by Edward Munch? Yeah, that is me, except hold that picture in your head and then think of me with that expression flash frozen on my countenance, running for the hills. No, what I guess I had hoped for was more of a connection that feels safe, where I feel okay in being soft, vulnerable, without any inkling, suspicion, paranoia that things are not what they seem. Something plain, call it, or call her, vanilla ice cream. Yeah. I think I've had enough of the exotic for a time. Someone's hand to hold. The sensation of placing the back of my hand along the small hairs on the sides of a woman's cheek. The smell of the back of a woman's neck as she sleeps. The whispered, night breathing of sleep. We all prepared a good salad, lettuce, tomatoes, apple pieces, and walnuts, which Teo and Rachel smashed on a cutting board with a small hammer and collected into a small bowl. The hosts had prepared a typical regional meal of cooked potato pieces in an orange sauce, the color coming from the chorizo cooked along with onions, laurel leaf, pepper, salt, and garlic. It was right tasty, and we had fun talking during the pre-meal prep and during the meal. Being that Rachel speaks only 'seven words of Spanish,' it became my job to translate to Rachel, and Mapi's to translate to me when I was unclear.



On the subject of who walks the Camino and who they most enjoy hosting, it turns out that they love Americans, whom they find to be polite, warm, interactive. Australians and the British as well are much enjoyed. The French, excepting those from Brittany, Normandy, Paris, not so much. The problem with the French, it turns out, is that they are so used to thinking that the world revolves around them, that they feel no sense of any need to learn any other language or to travel much and don't seem either much suited or interested in meeting them half way. The Spanish have mostly all done the Camino, those that will do it at any rate, and with the Crisis going on, there is not much reason to do it again, so there exists a dearth of them on the trail. Italians are fun, warm, Mapi likes them, but Jose Luis finds that they will come in groups and turn the place into party zone central! And Los Alemanes, the Germans, they really enjoy the Germans, who, it seems from their comments, are culturally oriented to learning other languages and to travel. 'What about the 'Chinos,' I asked. 'Como estan Los Chinos?' At this Jose Luis, a former Catholic priest and all around mild mannered perhaps to a fault, put his hands over his mouth and sort of looked down while Mapi, an assertive, yet reasonable and friendly person, said, 'We don't like the Chinese very much. They are not polite. They don't speak any language other than Chinese. They laugh at us.' An interesting note. Martin. Sheen and the film crew making the movie, The Way, stopped here, met. Jose Luis, filmed a scene here. Both he and Mapi said that after watching the film that they did not recognize the albergue in it. IN all probability their scene was cut and left, in the anachronistic parlance of Hollywood, on the cutting room floor.

After la cena we cleaned the kitchen and then we went upstairs to do an oración, a prayer, in a darling, secret sort of meditation room where we read a few prayers aloud, listened to Jose Luis speak, and then each of us read one written down reason, left by peregrinos who have stayed here before us, for why someone has chosen to walk the Way of St. James. It was a fine way to spend twenty minutes. Jose Luis spoke thoughtfully and with great sincerity and truth about his spiritual views of the pilgrimage; he remarked that sometime walking the Camino will show you the wrong way, as life does, and that through this process, one can go on to find the right way. That we have to not just look at the future, or only at the positive parts of our past and current lives, that we can learn to see the parts of our lives and of our selves that we do not feel good about in a more beautiful, accepting, unified manner.




As we begin to arrive at the end of today's sermon, my friends, I can not but share with you the lyrics to a charming, surprisingly poignant, bittersweet song from my youth. Sometimes when we walk, I place my everything tablet up through the top of my back pack and play music. Today the album from which these lyrics come, The Harder They Come, was one of the selections. As this song played, I could not but help to connect its words, the strong power that it's words had, do have, on me. It is being understood now that the same part of the human brain that processes spirituality is the same part that processes music. Sitting in Limbo Sitting here in limbo, But I know it won't be long, Sitting here in limbo Like a bird without a song. Sitting here in limbo, waiting for the dice to roll, Sitting here in limbo, got some time to search my soul. Well they're putting up resistance, But I know that my faith will me on. I don't know where life will lead me, But I know where I've been, I can't say what life will show me But I know what I've seen. Tried my hand at love and friendship, But all that is past and gone. This little boy is moving on. Sitting here in limbo, waiting for the tide to flow, Sitting here in limbo, knowing that I have to go. Well they're putting up resistance, But I know that my faith will lead me on. I can't say what life will show me, But I know what I've seen. I can't say where life will lead me, But I know where I've been. Tried my hand at love and friendship, But all of that is past and gone. This little boy is moving on. This walk, for me, is so akin to being placed in limbo. There is a grand sense that time has been removed from my personal equation. In searching for some adventure, some release from the building pressures of my world, emotional, familial, financial, electronic, physical, mental-the whole thing-I knew that somewhere I would find and then settle on a journey that would, in its nature, in the definition of itself, show itself to me as a passage that would act as much a metaphor in my life as it would act as a physical, real world, literal action. Something perhaps ephemeral in definition, semi-amorphous, a mission more than a trip, a passage, a rite, a way to both do something new and to also become something new. A hard to see, unformed shape, all mist and smoke, that I could latch onto, pull through the doorway between dimensions in all it's parts and pieces, puzzle over, re-sort and arrange, and that it would then, with difficulty, with tears, with nights spent under the cold, clear autumn stars, manifest into a reality more real and more meaningful than that which in many years I have known. The final evening that Teo and I spent in Pozuelo, partaking in that legendary feast of cooked and cured meats, we consumed not only wine and food, but large amounts of friendship, and the Spanish night air. We discussed many things that night: past adventures; newly found relationships with others, within ourselves; we spoke, of course about the imminent Camino de Santiago and about how precisely we would get from Madrid to the municipal albergue in Roncesvalles the next day. I spoke of my excitement about the bus ride to Pamplona, as it would give me my first taste of the landscape of the Peninsula Iberica, begin to inform me visually about this huge, historically saturated collection of former kingdoms, this land fought over by Muslims and Christians for lo some seven centuries, this place where the language of my mother came into being. 'It is not so beautiful as you might imagine,' Ignacio related, sorry to pop my balloon. 'It is mostly cereal fields.' To which Teo and I got a chuckle, visions of Captain Crunch and Honeycombs planted in the chunky brown turned earth of the farm lands. 'That is correct,' Gonzalo chimed in. 'Spain is mostly farm land in the middle, in La Meseta, but that is not how it has always been. That legend has it that Spain once was covered in trees. One large forest,' he said, the entire country. 'It is said that one thousand years ago a little squirrel, you know this word, squirrel?' he continued, 'the squirrel could cross the all of Spain from one side to the other, jumping from tree branch to tree branch, without ever once having to touch the ground. Ermita de Nuestra Señora de Pena, 12th century


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad