a wandering woman writes from Spain

Sin Querer. Or, how many times can a woman rewrite the same post?

2012-01-26T04:56:00.006+01:00

I think it may have been my most potterly moment. My high point, to date, as a practitioner of the ceramic arts.

I published a half baked blog post. Not even half baked. I published a post that had merely been put on the shelf to dry.

Ironically, one night a few weeks back, while saving a rambling, incoherent set of disconnected notes for a post about...why yes, in fact - mistakes, I missed Save and sailed right over to Publish.

By mistake. As the Spanish would say, in a phrase that better captures the upside of mis-takes, the sweet serendipity: sin querer. Without wanting to.

The lovely, insomniac Laura left me a wee hours comment on that fateful night, suggesting I finish the post, or at least a few of its sentences, and consider, perhaps...punctuation?

The thing is, I have been feeding on that ironic error, that accidental publish and prompt retrieval, for weeks. I seem to have picked up a new mantra. "By mistake."

Sin querer.

The ill fated post in question was a riff on a column I'd read in this month's Pottery Making Illustrated. "If there's one thing all of us potters have in common", writes the editor in his opening column, " it's our ability to make mistakes and and keep going. Why do we do it? Because not working with clay is worse."

A few paragraphs later he closes his column looking forward to the new potter's year ahead, a year in which he is confident he'll practice making mistakes. That, he says as he signs off, is " a life worth living."

If you've caught any of my fly-by visits to this blog in the last couple of years, you've gathered that I've become a student of ceramics. A kindergartner, mind you, but a student all the same.

I've become a student of mistakes, as well.

Maybe I should rephrase that. I see myself learning the middle-aged art of letting things go as they go. As they go, and not as I set my mind for them to go. As they go and not as I heroically will them to go. Not even as I plan them to go.

Just as they go.

Clay has had something to do with that. I've had two wonderfully contrasting pottery teachers in the last year or so. The first looked at my pots and my skills and my frustrations, and cleverly led me to process. To practice and love the process of making pots. For months, I threw with no intention of saving my work. When I wanted to learn bowl shapes, I threw bowl after bowl, saving nothing, not even my favorites. I'd throw, dissect, observe-- how walls rose and fell, how curves curved -- and then, I'd re-wedge. Throw, dissect, wedge. Every pot was recycled. I comforted myself with the terrifying command I'd heard Mary Oliver give in a poetry workshop. "You have to throw away your best poem. Trust you will make another." So I threw, and I dissected.

In a case of uncanny perfect timing, my next pottery teacher took exactly the opposite approach. "Now", he told me with a smile in our first class, "work to throw nothing away. When a pot heads off in a direction you didn't intend....thank it for the gift!" When I'd find myself facing sure disaster, whether a misshapen wall, a paper thin bottom or a clumsily nicked rim, he'd approach my wheel with a wide grin, his eyes brimming with mischief. "Yeah!", he'd exclaim. "So now what?!"

With the first teacher, I learned from my mistakes and my successes, and I tossed all of them back into the clay bag. I learned I was practicing a process, not playing russian roulette in hopes the clay gods would choose to smile on me with a decent pot every now and then. The second teacher, with whom I am back in class this session, is teaching me to catch waves - the waves waiting for me if I just toss away my rules and expectations. He's teaching me to sit open to the unexpected, to expand my concept of what might happen and to let myself get giggly-excited about what could happen, if I let the pot go its way.

Granted, if I were a studio potter living on my art, commissioned to make 10 identical porcelain vases, I would persevere to make 10 identical vases, perfectly and classically shaped.

But I am a woman who works in clay for the mindlessness of it, for the focus and the feel of the mud on my hands. I throw for the play and the chance to feed my inner chemist in the glaze room. I throw to lose myself in the process.

I throw for all it teaches me.

Sin querer.

So here's where I just discovered what this now weeks-old post has been saying to me. Here's where I suddenly see the thread from this post -and this new mantra of mine -to the wandering woman who once used this blog to record her unplanned adventures in Spain.

I throw to lose myself.

I have long been a student - and an artesan - of travel. As a traveler, I have always loved to find myself lost. I am an open, curious, patient and spontaneous traveler. I travel light - and I have probably, to this point, been my most loose, my most uninhibited, my most free self, traveling. I am selective about choosing fellow travelers - and I have done most of my wandering solo, to avoid rules and structure and the distraction a companion provides. I'd travel alone to increase the chances I'd get lost, and to ensure I'd be free to soak in the joy of being somewhere new and unexpected, sin querer.

As a kid, I would take my bike to new neighborhoods in an oft-failed effort to get lost, to find myself outside of my rules and maps, outside of the expected and the known. This blog is filled with stories of the serendipity of a bus-mate or a train companion in Spain, of the wonders found by knocking on a door, or wandering off the map, or asking a stranger a question.

After all, if you are happily lost, who knows what may happen?

Somehow, sin querer, I am learning to live, to wander the hours of my geographically-fixed days in this city I have known for decades, the way I once wandered streets in strange new lands. Suddenly, I realize, everything surprises me. Yeah! Now what?

Sin querer, every day and every pot has become strange, and new -- if I just let it be. If I just let it go its way.

Who knows what could happen?

Found looking for something entirely different, in a Mary Oliver collection

2011-08-15T00:32:00.002+02:00

In a story I shall tell later, I bought a stunning etching of "my favorite corner in all the world", as I call Chicago's Michigan and Wacker, from a talented artisan yesterday. I had spotted a Mary Oliver quote on his work-table, and I came home to page through Oliver after Oliver to identify the poem.

While I was frantically searching for the printmaker's quote, this found me. I don't remember having met it, previously, but, oh, it's recognizable now.

Walden, by Mary Oliver

It isn't very far as highways lie.

I might be back by nightfall, having seen

The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.

Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.

They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:

How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool

To miss a day away in the cool country.

Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,

Going to Walden is not so easy a thing

As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult

Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

Fifteen Rounds, Old School

2011-08-15T00:24:00.003+02:00

"Don't be afraid if your dreams change. It can be great. Life's not a three-round amateur fight. It's 15 rounds, old school."

Found this morning, in the Chicago Tribune's interview with the week's "Remarkable Person", Bill Hillman, former boxing champ and founder of the Windy City Story Slam here in Chicago.

*Expat=Instant Awesome or How Cool Was I, Huh?

2011-07-27T02:44:00.025+02:00

It's not that I don't like to blog.

It's not that I couldn't make space in my "new" American life for this text box, if I set my mind to it.

It's that I didn't know what I had to say to you anymore.

What does a no longer wandering woman living in the country of her birth and working, heaven help us, a 40-hour a week job running a small business, have to say?

I used to have a lot to say. To be more precise, I used to have a lot I thought you'd like to hear. Just check that Essential Wandering Woman category in the right column out. (Seriously, please do check it out. It's quite good.)

So you want to be cool, Punky? Endlessly interesting? Instantly awesome?

Move abroad.

Move abroad! Meet strangers! Bridge cultures! Eat fabulous food! Live in a new language! Be surprised, daily, by the beauty of that language and its sense of humor, by its wisdom and its contradictions. By the way it's brush seems to paint the textured mural of life more richly, more poignantly, more wholly, than your own. Dive headfirst into your new love; follow your bliss right into the bosom of amazing people not born where you were, not born speaking the language you were, yet in many ways, just like you. Dive into their exquisite culture and wake one day, to find yourself at home, away from home. Newly at home in a gorgeously well worn culture. A culture old, old, yet every day new to you.

Once, I wandered. I went to Spain. And I wrote.

I wrote! And every day, a few of you and a lot of folks who haven't stopped round here in years, lapped it up. I learned from reading myself, from watching what my fingers strung across this little text box. I made wonderful, real friends, many of them still among my most cherished people. (I do still have plenty to say to them, but online?)

While those friendships sparked and grew, I got, as I say, cool. Everybody loves an expat, especially an expat with a good tale, and I had a whopper. Old boyfriends suddenly appeared out of the pages of this blog, newly smitten, having read me start to finish. Relatives, childhood friends, Spaniards, fellow expats, former expats, future expats, folks dreaming of becoming expats, adventurers and wanderers. All declared me interesting. Inspiring. Courageous. Heck, a coach published my tale in a book about living the life of your dreams.

I, my friends, was cool. I was different.

Don't get me wrong. I am not at all sure that some of those folks weren't attracted to what I was really writing about, and chipping away at, day by day, though I didn't know it: me. As place has become less and less of my life and my journey has turned inward, as my lust for breadth has been replaced by a pull to depth, I have seen how little place had to do with what I was writing about - at its core. Spain taught me things that were far larger than the stories, photos and wanders through which I learned them. But until a few days ago I still saw place - Spain, expatness, travel - at the heart of what made me "blogworthy".

You see, I followed my heart - and my intuition- to Salamanca. And from there I followed that same intrepid pair on countless wanders, and back to this text box, again and again. I couldn't see enough new places, or write enough blog posts.

Then, one day this cool expat took a long walk across my adopted country. As it had almost 5 years earlier when it sent me to Spain, my heart sang. With intuition wailing on back-up. This time they sent me home - sweet home Chicago home. And once again, I am convinced that they were dead on. This was next, and I was ready, for all that I miss Spain, the people I love there and the language that brought me to them.

But back to this blog...

A little more than 3 years after my last post from Spain, this wandering woman doesn't write. And I certainly don't write from Spain. Where I don't write from, in fact, is a 1990s-built brick condo in a northside neighborhood in Chicago.

See any romance in that? Me either, as I figured out when I headed back here to catch you up.

As I had when I first listened to my heart, I got exactly what I asked for on this return trip to the motherland. I decided I wanted to learn to stay, to commit, to throw down roots and to be around - for whatever befell the people I love, most of them here in the States. Since I made that decision, I've been handed more situations that set me a-quake with raw fear than in any part of my leap to Spain. Those relationships and roots and illnesses and deaths and yes, courage - not all that much of it mine, but some, some... filled my days and left me with little room for a blog.

Meanwhile, new visitors - and long term readers - have written to express surprise and often disappointment, at my return to the States. Boggles the mind, they say but, I guess it's your life.

I won't deny I would have liked a path that ended in Spain, that settled in with loved ones there, and learned all that I am learning- en castellano. I thrill reading the stories of other expats and visitors and catching up on the lives of mis españoles queridos. I thought I would be in Spain for the rest of my life.

But for some odd reason, my road leads to a 1990s built condo in Chicago -- and to a joyous if challenging (and tardy) discovery of roots. I love to read of friends' wanders....and yet my own wanderlust has ceased. And a whole new chapter - a second half where the Erins who sat out the first half are determined to play - is rolling out around me.

I don't pretend to understand my life. I'm just determined to live it. I'm determined to listen. And what I've figured out in the last 3 years is that as much as the cliché annoys me, I have my own drummer. For all I know you do, too. I can't speak for your rhythm section but mine....my drummer lives to surprise.

My drummer, you see, is a damn good improviser. My drummer is unconventional. My next dance is right back here in this messy, divided, tear your hair and heart out US of A. My drummer marched me through a corporate career only to rhumba me to Salamanca...fandango me down the Camino and swing me back to Chi town, to a nice 12 bar blues.

And oh, the singing along the way.

En fin. I don't know why you read me before, and I don't know what you want to hear, or read, now. What I do know is what I have to say. I have me, here. I have for you, my friends, an unconventional tale of unexpected rhythms. A wanderer seemingly cured of wanderlust. A powerful lust for depth where once the heroine craved breadth. A wanderer suddenly enchanted by sameness. The same city I loved before I fell for Salamanca. The same oft-tortured country into which I was born. The sameness of a Monday to Friday job, albeit an enjoyable, and autonomous new one. The same gorgeous, textured, multilayered relationships that called my heart back to the States.

The wanderer has settled in, and drilled down. Wanderer has turned root-thrower, student potter, neighbor, mentor, dogsitter, gardener, pianist, citizen, burgeoning ukulele player. Boss.

I spend these days wandering through a new Renaissance city ...of the everyday and the ordinary. Not all of it familiar. Not all of it pleasant.

But all of it ordinary. Oddly recognizable.

I have traded the stuff I once thought blogs were made of- - travel blogs, at least - for the stuff I believe life is made of. I warn you in advance. I am far better at traveling. If I always seemed incredulous when commenters called me courageous for moving to Spain, I was. Leaping to Spain was easy. Wandering and shedding and tossing away everything for a new page has always been safe for me.

Now staying, being right here with my people, as life unfolds in all of its bittersweet beauty, that's another story.

And if you'll come by now and then, I hope to tell it.

Postscript: I'm working on a new title, by the way, with all suggestions welcomed. "A wandering woman stays put" is currently in the lead: a tantalizing tale of tardily thrown roots.

*Title compliments of the indomitable Laura Young, who wisely used it to get me typing....

Self Portrait, by David Whyte

2010-12-26T22:55:00.000+01:00

Self Portrait

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong or feel
abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know
if you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need
to change you. If you can look back
with firm eyes
saying this is where I stand. I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing. I want to know
if you are willing
to live, day by day, with the consequence of love
and the bitter
unwanted passion of your sure defeat.

I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even
the gods speak of God.

-- David Whyte
from Fire in the Earth
©1992 Many Rivers Press

Watch this space.

2010-12-26T22:41:00.004+01:00

Watch this space.

For today, there is something i want to say out loud. Popping in to this beloved space to post it, just to see what might happen, I stumbled onto an old post, describing how Benedetti´s No Te Salves fell into my hands., I've copied the old post below. The notebook page the nameless peregrina insisted I read and then keep--sits atop a stack of papers in a corner of what will some day be my office in this middle American condo of mine. No Te Salves is waiting to be framed. So I can stumble across it far more frequently in the future.

But it took this blog to drop it back into my hands today.

One day, very early in my 17 day stay in Arrés, a Spanish pilgrim slammed her notebook down on the table in front of me, flipped forward a few pages, and, looking me straight in the eyes, gave me a direct order.

"Read this."

Next morning before heading back to the Camino, she tore it from her book and gave it to me. It faced me every morning from the shelf above my bed in the hospitaleros' room.

She gave me Benedetti, in Spanish. No te salves.

Here you have it, then. Below. Treat number 2, as I've just googled it. A quick look hasn't yielded a translation I love, but this is my favorite, transcribed below.

No te salves/Don't Save Yourself

by Mario Benedetti

Don't stay motionless by the roadside
don't freeze joy or love halfheartedly
don't save yourself
now
or ever
don't save yourself
don't become
serene
don't keep only a still corner in this world
don't let your eyelids droop heavy
like judgements
don't stay without lips
don't sleep without dreams,
imagine you're bloodless or judge yourself in haste

but if
after all
you can't help it
and you freeze joy
and you love halfheartedly
and you save yourself,
become serene,
keep a still corner in the world
let your eyelids drop heavy as judgements
and stay without lips
and sleep without dreams,
imagine yourself bloodless,
judge yourself in haste and
stay motionless by the side of the road

and you save yourself
then
don't stay with me.

Listening to whispers

2009-05-03T21:38:00.006+02:00

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves.
We must learn to respect them.
We must learn to listen.

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

Two thoughts grabbed hold of me as I prepared to post this quote today.

Thought one:

I made the mistake of journeying through the net to identify the author.

Sarah has a website called Simple Abundance, which at a shamefully quick glance seems to exist to passionately encourage women to express their authentic selves in the decoration of their homes. Decorating would not be one of my deepest wishes, as anyone who has visited the Chicago apartment I've called home for 6 months would tell you. Living surrounding by things I've chosen carefully, over time, and decided I want with me - things that say something to me, every time I see them - well, that is important to me. (You sense the internal conflict, don't you? Important enough to actually spend time in a city shopping center?)

But oh, after 2 weeks of steady work travel, deeper wishes called this sunny Spring weekend - deep, deep wishes - for a bike ride that led, yesterday, to an idyllic afternoon alone wandering Chicago's Graceland cemetery and today, deeper still, for an early morning bike ride to Lake Michigan where I discovered a magical oasis sure to become my Huerto de Calixto y Melibea in Chicago -the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary. Wise wishes, mine.

You'll hear and see more about Graceland and Montrose Point, later (thanks to that deep wish to take pen to paper) but oh, I can feel I listened well to Sara's advice this weekend, by avoiding the stuff of her site.

Thought two?

I envy Sara her the whispers of her wishes.

My wishes stamp feet and holler, pull my hair hard, flick an icy cold finger on the nape of my neck. My wishes demand immediate action: "Learn Spanish! Go to Spain! Throw some clay, what don't you? Where in heaven are your people, woman? Isn't that a piano in that corner, under all the dust...why yes, it is! What if we learn to...("just follow us here", the wishes tell me, sure they'll lose my attention any wandering moment)....stay? What if we learn to stay? Hmmmm?"

I'm due in a pottery studio, soon - thanks to one of those insistent if inexplicable wishes - but I wanted to first offer you Sarah's thought. And remind both of us about the hoarsest of the stage whispers I proudly call mine: "Cool thought, E. What if you wrote that down?"

I expect this blog will sputter and spit some as I restart her, I suspect that before we know it she'll be another blog entirely.

For now, I am just going to start walking - and see. Let's see, shall we?

2009-02-16T00:10:00.001+01:00

I was led back to TED today, a project I mentioned in a long-ago post from Salamanca.

Today's Daily Good sent me back to Ted for a brilliant talk by Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. The talk seemed to be about classical music, at first listen, but ah, if I didn't find him lighting light bulbs about optimism and possibility and staying in the moment and most of all, how art can be a meeting place where no one is a stranger.

Watch; you're in for a treat.

Me? I'm off to play with clay. Que os lo paséis bien.

A little nostalgia: Hervás, Extremadura, in Spring

2009-02-12T23:00:00.001+01:00

Deep into a Chicago winter, yes, yes, I do miss the light - that soft, warm, crystal clear Spanish light. A taste for both of us:

Inaugurations, by Maya Stein

2009-02-12T03:45:00.002+01:00

If you have yet to discover Maya Stein's wise and wonderful poems, you owe yourself a walk through her blog. She very graciously gave me the nod to publish the poem she sent round on January 20, the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, a poem that hit the perfect note for me at this new start, for me, my President the Chicagoan, and this country I've just rejoined. Maya's work miraculously appears in my inbox, free, every Tuesday, to lift, delight, move and inspire me. You can sign up, too, in the friendly little Ten Line Tuesday box at Maya's blog.

Inaugurations

Perhaps today is the first of many swearings in, a date
not just for our new president to occupy his office
but a reminder that we are each our own head of state,
the chief of our decision-making, responsible for keeping peace
with the neighbors while holding our private countries intact.

How would it be, then, to take an oath with a hand
held high, and re-pledge our commitment to preserve and protect,
to keep our borders open to fresh alliances, to spare the land
the razing of our spirit and all that self-destruction we're so capable of,
and to plant into the earth the belief in everything we love.

Greetings from a midwinter thaw in Chicago -- and a timely message from Starbucks

2009-02-12T02:52:00.004+01:00

My thanks to Angel, who nudged me back here with a few very kind words.

My thanks to the cup my chai latte arrived in today, too. I've been learning to commit - to an exclusive project (ok, say job if you must...), a continent, a city, a routine, a new set of daily practices, a few fiercely loved friends, the learning of a new creative outlet (clay) - and on and on. Today, I took my first sip of a cheerily hand-delivered chai latte to find wise words on the side of my cup:

The Way I See It #76

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation.

To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.

Anne Morris
Starbucks customer from NYC
Anne describes herself as an “organization builder, restless American citizen, optimist.”

Thanks Anne. Hit the spot. The chai, and your thought.

When "home" has a whole new flavor to it...

2008-11-17T16:41:00.004+01:00

You really haven't lived till you've typed your fingers bloody in your home office, working away at a business utterly, hopelessly "domestic".....

while singing Joaquin Sabina's Pacto Entre Caballeros at the top of your lungs.

MUCHA MUCHA POLICIA

MUCHA MUCHA POLICIA

MUCHA MUCHA MUCHA MUCHA

Here, sing along.

If you don't know the tune or, say it isn't so, the artist, pandora is only a click away. The Sabina channel rocks.
Yes, I really will be back.

So how've you been?

small note: if you can't get through to listen to the tune without registering, just google "sabina pacto entre caballeros imeem" and click through from the search results (should be the first result). That starts the music right up. Mucha mucha mucha mucha mucha...

Here's the thing

2008-10-04T22:45:00.003+02:00

So here's the thing.

I am alive. I am well. I am also laptop-less, DSL-less and buried beneath boxes and paper and crinkled up packing tape.

And I am in Chicago.

I have a lot to write, and a long list of entries I've been eager to get writing, but it would seem I am meant only to check in today. A clumsy but lovable cat knocked a diet coke into my laptop a few days ago - the key word in that phrase being into, unfortunately -and it's inserting a long line of f's between every letter I type (hmm, I wonder what the poor gummed-up thing is trying to say? fffffffff...) and surfing round the web all on its own, hands tied behind my back. I've just greeted all the possessions that survived the 6 year wait in a warehouse in California, and while the powers that be have yet to hook up my internet access, I'm not the least concerned about the wait.

Some patient, calm, easily giggling and ridiculously slow- (and late-) eating bilingual woman has returned to Chicago in my name. If we can get her to blog regularly, whatever we decide to call this blog in its new incarnation, I think we're all in for a treat. Me and her included.

But first I have a lot of unpacking to do. So I'll leave you after a quick hello today, thanking you for checking on me, time and time again, thanking you for your e-mails, promising I will answer your comments and mails and questions as soon as I am technologically able.

A year ago today, I was walking the Camino. A few months ago, I made the difficult decision - and I have references for just how difficult I made it, if you're interested :) - to take on the challenge the Camino seemed determined to toss me for my next 45 years. Jung says the parts of ourselves we've left sitting on the bench for the first half of life come leaping out to play in the second. For me, that long walk across Spain was all the quiet time my benched selves needed to get their plans made. I moved back to Chicago in July, for a myriad of reasons I've no doubt you'll read here over the next few months, but most of all, for the chance to trade e-mails for live conversations. As much as I treasure the lifelong friends I've made in Spain, and oh, I do, the people who are most important to me still live in the States. And suddenly, at 45, after a fiercely independent life and a solo walk across Spain, I find myself bored with what I know so well - wandering, absolute independence, everything new every day, just as new and strange as I can get it - and eager to learn what I don't know -what it's like to stick around a little, invest in the people who have watched me wander all these years, hang with some kids who barely know me. I moved here for my people and the chance that they'll let me be an expat in my own life.

I'll be back Monday or Tuesday. Til then, thanks for the checking up and the patience. I hope you'll come back. I do have a story to tell!

Just walk east

2008-06-29T18:01:00.006+02:00

Ermita de Santa Ágata, Arrés

As you've read by now, I just spent 17 days volunteering as a hospitalera in the pilgrim's albergue in Arrés, a town of 15 inhabitants lying along the Aragonese stretch of the Camino de Santiago.

With Ferran, my charming Tarragonese partner, I welcomed pilgrims stopping for a warm word and a cold glass of homemade lemonade (or gazpacho, on the right days) on their way to the next albergue, and then did my best to create a temporary but memorable home for those pilgrims who chose to spend the night with us.

Our days began at 7, with breakfast service, then moved on to the daily sweeping-scrubbing-mopping workout, invariably accompanied by some fabulous soundtrack or another screaming out of Ferran's boombox. After a shopping trip to Jaca, we shifted to warm of-course-we-have-a-place-for-you-to-sleep welcomes, multilingual conversations, a tour of the town's lovely 16th century church and the nightly gigglefest of shared kitchen duty and community dinner. Barring rain, every day ended with a walk to the mirador high above the casa rural to watch Arres' stunning sunset.

I am proud to announce I now speak Pilgrim's Italian and make one hell of a tasty garbanzo bean, spinach and chorizo potaje for 30.

My biggest challenge, however, was neither language nor gastronomy. Seventeen days surrounded by humans was a significant shock to this wanderer's solitary soul. In Arrés I existed to welcome people, to offer an understanding ear, a hot meal and good company. I shared a small bedroom, for God's sake.

And so just about every one of those seventeen days, I stole a few moments to meander down the narrow lane leading east to the town's ermita, alone, gathering fresh flowers for the table while I soaked in the view, and exhaled.

I'll write more about my experience, but first let me make a shameless plug for Arrés. The town is growing, and now boasts a lovely casa rural, where Mari Luz will cook you up some of tastiest homemade meals you'll enjoy in Spain.

And when it all gets too much, I'm telling you. Just walk east.

¡Olé!

2008-06-29T15:16:00.005+02:00

The open stretch of river bank that runs from my apartment building alongside the church of Santiago to Salamanca's Roman bridge never fails to provide me with surprises - and entertainment. Every afternoon for the past week, a group of casually dressed folks have gathered there for what sure looks like a class in bullfighting.

Foreigners studying Spanish and participating in an accompanying cultural activity? That's my guess, and while I was pleased to catch these two in action during one of the week's many tea breaks spent watching the action, I'd much rather have captured the reaction of passing Salmantinos.

That's the bull to the right, treacherous horns in hand.

No te salves

2008-06-17T21:10:00.004+02:00

One day, very early in my 17 day stay in Arrés, a Spanish pilgrim slammed her notebook down on the table in front of me, flipped forward a few pages, and, looking me straight in the eyes, gave me a direct order.

"Read this."

Next morning before heading back to the Camino, she tore it from her book and gave it to me. It faced me every morning from the shelf above my bed in the hospitaleros' room.

She gave me Benedetti, in Spanish. No te salves.

Here you have it, then. Below. Treat number 2, as I've just googled it. A quick look hasn't yielded a translation I love, but this is my favorite, transcribed below.

No te salves. I'll be back Thursday, once I've landed safely in Salamanca and (finally) met Alex, with whom I hope to rendezvous in Madrid.

No te salves/Don't Save Yourself

by Mario Benedetti

Don't stay motionless by the roadside
don't freeze joy or love halfheartedly
don't save yourself
now
or ever
don't save yourself
don't become
serene
don't keep only a still corner in this world
don't let your eyelids droop heavy
like judgements
don't stay without lips
don't sleep without dreams,
imagine you're bloodless or judge yourself in haste

but if
after all
you can't help it
and you freeze joy
and you love halfheartedly
and you save yourself,
become serene,
keep a still corner in the world
let your eyelids drop heavy as judgements
and stay without lips
and sleep without dreams,
imagine yourself bloodless,
judge yourself in haste and
stay motionless by the side of the road

and you save yourself
then
don't stay with me.

Are you wandering woman?

2008-06-17T20:53:00.005+02:00

I'm back!

Well almost. I left the magic bubble of Arrés Sunday afternoon, made a stop in stunning Santa Cruz de las Serós and then hiked up to the monasteries of San Juan de la Peña Monday morning. Today I've landed in Jaca, and this cyber.

Ah, wanderers, there is much to write, but for now, let me thank the self-proclaimed "bearer of messages" who walked into the kitchen of Arrés (where I was dutifully preparing cuajada for the night's dessert...) and asked, loud and matter of fact, "are you wandering woman?"

I am, in fact.

The message bearer bore just the book I needed, as well, carried overseas from the Florida Keys, and then, on foot, overland from Lourdes, just for me: Annie Dillard's "Holy The Firm".

And she left me with this, which I type now, as your first treat from 17 incredible, still days on the magic road. It's José Gasset y Ortega, from Revolt of the Masses:

And this is the simple truth—that to live is to feel oneself lost—he who
accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground.
Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which
to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a
questioning of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of
his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All
the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost
is lost without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes
up against his own reality.

2008-05-29T06:42:00.002+02:00

How did I use to get here? To this blog, I mean.

The "for the blog" list is also beyond any hope of ever catching up and I'm off again.

I'll be here , internetless, blissfully cooking, cleaning and doing what the peregrinos ask of their wandering hospitalera.

Back June 19!

If I owe you a comment or an e-mail...you will someday receive it, perhaps when you least expect it.

¡Ultreia!

San Esteban, Salamanca

2008-05-20T23:33:00.005+02:00

This weekend I had a welcome opportunity to show even more of my beautiful town to an eager returning visitor, seen above checking out the cloister of the Convento de San Esteban.

Wait, don't I have a blog?

2008-05-20T23:13:00.003+02:00

I shall make no excuses. I've been hopping continents, switching up plans and cooking up what's next.

I stopped back in Rhode Island to visit family and friends and meet Mary Oliver (did I say MEET Mary Oliver?) and Coleman Barks, among other intriguing folks at the Block Island Poetry Project.

And I took a few much needed walks along the RI coast. I was tempted to post a much more beautiful photo of myself wandering the rocky coast of Newport, RI, but this photo holds a little surprise. Look closely, now. That's me, tracking along once again in the footsteps of the Roving Photographer, though, this time, hmmm...her footsteps seem to be pointing skyward. Tidal pools, you understand. Photogenic tidal pools.

I have lots to say, it would seem, all of a sudden and plan to be round here writin' in the next two weeks, before I wander off to Arrés, in the province of Huesca, in Aragon, to do my first and much anticipated stint as an albergue hospitalera along the Camino. More to come on that front...

Ah, and if you've written and I've yet to respond, bear with me. I made a big dent in the inbox today and will likely be back to you by tomorrow.

¡Buen camino! Hope you've been stumbling into (literally into, if you ask the Roving one) some fabulous tidal pools of your own.

Life in 6 words

2008-04-21T21:10:00.005+02:00

Qaminante doesn't post everyday, but ah, when she does, she delights me.

Today Feedblitz served up breakfast with this gem from my favorite blogger in Brussels:

"I was just reading about a book collecting six-word memoirs, entitled "Not quite what I was planning". The one I liked best was "Me see world! Me write stories!" (Elizabeth Gilbert, who seems to me to have been on much the same track already with the title of her book "Eat, Pray, Love", about stays in Italy, India and Bali). I also liked "Am I lost or just wandering?"
It seems the inspiration was an ultra-short story by Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” "

Read an NPR article about the book here.

Qaminante set me to thinking. How might I write my life story in 6 words?

A few drafts are well underway, on this vesper of vacation-time for me...

The first draft is a response to one of the original titles quoted by Qaminante:

I'm not lost, I am wandering...

Or how do you like:

Wandered well. Wondered whether. ..Wrote while...

Alliteration, eh? Suits me. But then again, there's:

But I like what's behind EVERY door.

And this title for me, all 7 delicious words:

Never did play by the rules, much.

Or more likely, a good description of my winding road, so far:

Just one good turn after another.

I'd hope to quote Yogi Berra but he ran long:

When you come to a fork, take it.

So I went back to basics:

Have grin, will travel.

See? I don't need no stinking 6 words.

Hmm... or there's:

For our next act, Erin will...

or

What's next? Well I thought I'd...

And there's this, a blissful response to my fellow salmantinos:

Sí, rubia, guapa y tu niña.

Or let's be realistic:

Ask me later, I'm still living.

No? Ah...

From rat race to pata negra.

True. But so is this:

What d'ya mean, just choose one?

What d'ya mean d'ya is two words? I'm a RhoDylander, people. Let me say the same thing about my life another way:

I'll take one of each please.

or..

Albergue to albergue, just cruising between.

and I like:

Talked fast, ate slow, smiled wide.

I'm sure I'll be working in this for a while. What about you? Got a 6 word memoir, any language?

Whoever answers the red phone, they'd best know good jamón.

2008-04-17T23:31:00.002+02:00

photo: El País

If you missed the news, jamón ibérico arrived in the US several months ago and I immediately took heat for not having properly and proactively informed every American friend I had introduced to this heavenly treat during visits to Salamanca.

Then El País proudly published this photo of Barack Obama sampling mediterranean treats at a charcutería in the Italian Market in Philadelphia during a campaign march through Pennsylvania. The (very generous) man behind the counter sliced our candidate a nice thin slab of $99 a pound jamón ibérico - Salamanca pata negra, in fact - and let him know he was tasting a recently legalized gem.

Obama asked what he meant by "legalized". "What, it's like a drug?"

Just taste it, he was told.

Moments later our rapt candidate spoke again. "I only know it's really good."

An understatement, but it's better than a campaign season exaggeration. I'll take it.

Fermín, a jamón producer based in La Alberca, in the my home province of Salamanca, won permission to be the first producer of pata negra jamón to import its products to the States last December.

So what do my neighbors say about all this, you ask? Well to be honest, the talk here is endearingly Spanish. Salmantinos are certain all those jamón-lusting Americans are going to drive up our local pata negra prices until only wealthy foreigners can afford the stuff.

But I'm not worried. Yet. I'm going to a wedding Saturday. And guess what they're serving during the wine-sipping hour? One guess, Laura?

Columns of the Knights Templar, Hervás

2008-04-16T22:59:00.003+02:00

All the tourist maps list the Columnas Templarias, a series of columns left from a Templar church, as a must-see in Hervás, a city once protected by the Knights. After an ardent and fruitless search, we stumbled onto the columns, unobtrusively leading visitors into a series of small businesses in a building alongside the town hall. I've decided I've snapped a soldier here, do you think?

Rings a bell

2008-04-16T22:07:00.000+02:00

I did a brief but energetic jota last week when I read that a story I blogged back in April about Joshua Bell's poor earnings as a busker in a DC metro station had earned a Pulitzer.

As I told the story in my original post:

"El País told me last week that during one hour in the metro station at L'Enfant Plaza in Washington DC, 1070 people rushed right by the violinist playing in his heart out. Twenty seven people threw him a coin, nickels, the odd quarter. He made a little over 32 dollars in that hour. Rush hour. One woman, a young employee of the US Commerce Department stopped, stared and listened. For an hour.

She recognized the violinist, since she'd seen him perform 3 weeks before in the Library of Congress.

The violin was a 1713 Stradivarius, and the 40ish man playing it, in baseball cap and jeans, was Joshua Bell.

Leonard Slatkin lost a bet in the whole deal, according to El País. He was sure a crowd would form, and 50 and 100 dollar bills would hit Bell's violin case.

Made me wonder what prodigies and wonders I walk by every day, going where I have to go, without ever knowing......"

I hadn't read the original story, Pearls Before Breakfast, written by Gene Weingarten for the Washington Post, but I'm delighted the prize led me to it.

Seems the Washington Post was behind the whole experiment:

"His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"

The original article looks at the results from all sorts of view points and includes video clips of Bell playing while the harried crowd hurries by him and interviews with both Bell and manuy of the commuters who passed through the station that morning. It's pure pleasure to read and plenty of fun to chew on, afterwards, as well.

Heads up. There's beauty all around.

A door in Candelario

2008-04-15T23:08:00.002+02:00

Improvisation, and fateful encounters

2008-04-15T21:52:00.000+02:00

"A walk, following your intuitive promptings, down the streets of a foreign city holds rewards far beyond a planned tour of the tried and tested.

Such a walk is totally different from random drifting. Leaving your eyes and ears wide open, you allow your likes and dislikes, your conscious and unconscious desires and irritations, your irrational hunches, to guide you whenever there is a choice of turning left or right.

You cut a path through the city that is yours alone, which brings you face to face with surprises destined for you alone. You discover conversations and friendships, meetings with remarkable people.

When you travel in this way you are free; there are no have-tos and shoulds. You are structured at first only, perhaps by the date of the plane departure. As the pattern of people and places unfolds, the trip, like an improvised piece of music, reveals its own inner structure and rhythm.

Thus you set the stage for fateful encounters. "

-Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (Line breaks mine.)

I can't recommend Nachmanovitch's book highly enough, for anyone who wishes to bring improvisation to music, or writing, or pottery... or travel. A poet, improvisational violinist and computer artist, he delighted me with images and lyrical prose while giving me new insight into my creativity -and the many masterful improvisers I have watched, among them my father, a professional musician.

And yes, yes, I say, travel, in a foreign city, along a pilgrim's path or just round your own hometown with a new pair of eyes, is improvisation. It doesn't flow from such a different creative surrender than art or music do, does it?

This passage reminded me of how I got started wandering. When I was in grade school I would ride my bike through strange neighborhoods, pushing myself a little further afield every time I reached familiarity, continually scouting out places and streets I hadn't yet explored. Every day I rode out of our garage with one goal: to get lost. I loved to be lost, with no idea what lay beyond those woods, or at the end of that street, free to head any old way I'd like at every intersection. Sooner or later, I'd reach a recognizable main street, and wend my way home.

The photo is Prats de Mollo, in the French Pyrenees. The fact that I inexplicably snapped the sign as a mirror image, from behind? Improvisation, I guess. The odd photo did lead to a memorable Spanish to Catalan conversation with the lovely old woman who owned the charcuterie.

Daily dose of exercise, and Lorca

2008-04-12T17:28:00.012+02:00

Ah, how the graffiti greeting me on my daily walk along Salamanca's riverside bike path continues to inspire.

The other night, walking at sunset, I found myself facing García Lorca.

A spray paint bard has scribbled "Media Luna" from García Lorca's Primeras Canciones across a vacant building, just underneath a rusting door with ragged, broken windows:

Media luna

La luna va por el agua.
¡Cómo está el cielo tranquilo!
Va segando lentamente
el temblor viejo del río
mientras que una rama joven
la toma por espejito.

Federico García Lorca

Because I can't bring myself to post a homemade translation of García Lorca and have yet to locate an English translation of this poem, I'll simply share the image.

Imagine the moon moving across the Tormes, not 50 yards from the graffiti poem. From a still, tranquil sky the moon leaves its reflection on the shivering water (the ripple of the water) and a small branch sees (that reflection as) a tiny mirror.

Just a moment along the Tormes.
Muchísimas gracias, bard of spray paint. I await your next post.

Thanks to an anonymous commenter for correcting a whopper of an error in my original post.

But of course!

2008-04-08T22:12:00.003+02:00

Alex from Building Bridges has just returned from her first visit to Chicago.

And she's in love.
But of course.

Her Chicago report is well worth a visit, if only to stroll through her suburb photos of the city. Well, stroll and come to the realization that I do indeed have excellent taste in adopted homes, if I do say so myself.

Alex, not long ago I was one of those friendly Chicagoans who instinctively asked the map-bearing lost if I could help, or rambled off the detailed history of a corner or a building....

Es caminante quién...

2008-03-30T22:04:00.003+02:00

He is a caminante who moves his feet and his head, and his hopes, wholly giving all of his time, dreaming about what lies ahead, enjoying everything that arrives to his eyes.

A blessing to the pilgrim who, through the camino of the stars (the Camino de Santiago) finds himself without looking, walks the trails without moving his attention from a single step and without longing for his destination.

from the First Book of Petrolinus the Alchemist, who wrote of his pilgrimage to Santiago, through Salamanca, in 1765. Found in a lovely illustrated booklet published by the tourism office of Salamanca, and lying in wait for me at Salamanca's luxurious pilgrim's albergue.

What I've been doing while I haven't been blogging

2008-03-30T17:04:00.006+02:00

1. Staring over my trusty Camino boots at the stunning pools of water known as Los Charcos Verdes in Hervás, Extremadura.

2. Clinging desperately to a swaying lamp post while an elderly woman flutters in the wind on the other side of the same post, during a wind storm in San Sebastián on Spain's Basque coast.

3. Losing myself in two long, blissful wanders through the charming Gracia neighborhood of Barcelona, thanks to tips from my generous and capable virtual guide, Alex over at Building Bridges.

4. Meeting an invaluable collection of new pilgrim friends from all corners of Spain while completing the hospitalero training of the Federación de Associaciones de Amigos del Camino in Irun. My first assignment? Fifteen days in June, tending to the Camino Aragonés albergue in Arrés, the very albergue where I arrived, limping, on my second day on the Camino, only to spend two days on ice, healing my first Camino sprain.

6. Falling in love with yet another Extremeño town: Hervás, with views to the snowcapped peaks of the Sierra de Gredos and one of Spain's best conserved and most vibrantly alive juderías (old Jewish quarters).

7. Watching a sunny Easter Saturday sky turn first to hail, then to the thick white-out of a spring snowstorm in Ávila.

8. Finding myself trapped between Semana Santa processions in some of Salamanca's most narrow medieval streets while taking altogether disappointing photos of the festivities, despite the good company.

9. Describing Salamanca as a expat home-buying destination to Spanish Homes magazine. Wait. Salamanca as an expat destination?

10. Meeting fellow blogueras-en-España Wheylona (in San Sebastián) and Rebekah from Moratinos Life (here in Salamanca, where she faithfully tended to the local pilgrim's albergue for 15 days).

13. Planning a poetic return to my home land.

14. Avoiding watching Salamanca's Plaza Mayor blow up on film.

15. Getting a good handle on how to make pulpo at home - from the New York Times yet.

16. Nursing an altogether unhealthy obsession with US news and opinion columns, especially NY Times elections coverage. Is this making anyone else nervous?

17. Discovering there are indeed "ideas worth spreading" over at ted.com.

18. Revelling in Spanish train travel, especially that magical 2 o'clock hour when one by one, each passenger faithfully crinkles open his tin foil or plastic wrapped package and snaps open his soda can, till we are all simultaneously and silently snarfing, each of us, one bocadillo, one canned beverage, and one piece of fruit. I most enjoy the thought of the waiter in the train's deserted café coach doing exactly the same.

19. Spotting Via de la Plata pilgrims passing through Salamanca on their way to Santiago...and spotting the familiar yellow arrows pointing the pilgrims' way in Barcelona and San Sebastián.

20. Greeting spring, who arrived right on time, once we'd gotten that one inevitable snowstorm out of the way.

21. Learning that a good man may be hard to find, but a dependable freelance web designer is impossible. A web project first dreamed up two years ago lies begging for death, or completion.

22. Preparing to wish you all a very happy Lunes de Aguas - tomorrow!

A little wall wisdom

2008-03-30T16:58:00.002+02:00

Death is so sure of victory she gives you a whole life's head start.

translated from a ladies' room wall of a bar in Hervás, Extremadura.

Meet the Keltic Dreams

2008-03-17T23:06:00.003+01:00

I've been feasting on this video all week. Meet the Keltic Dreams, a celebrated band of Irish stepdancers from.....a grade school in the Bronx?

I've feasted on this New York Times story because it crosses borders, defies assumptions, and stars some adorable, curious and openminded children who can step dance a heck of a lot better than me.

Watch this video and feast for yourself.

Note: The video loads from the link above, but very slowly. To get it to more quickly, follow the link below to the story, and watch the video there. Or, go to the Times video page and look for the video "Keltic Dreams".

The full online story is here.

Aguda, and proud

2008-03-09T21:20:00.004+01:00

This must be a milestone.

Last week for the first time during four years in Spain, I received an e-mail with my name written with an accent mark.

It was written as one would write it in Spanish, if we pronounced it as the 1 in 100 Spaniards who even dare to make the attempt do.

Estimada Sr. Corcorán, read the opening line.

I'm always Sr. Corcoran to people reading Erin for the first time so I happily let that slide. But my eye fixed on Corcorán. Corcorán.

Nice, huh? And correct if we think about it.

Spanish has admirably fixed rules for placing accent marks in words. It's all based on which syllable is stressed. And so, if I said my name as I would in the States, COR-cor-an, with the accent on the first syllable, well, I'd be a woman living under an esdrújula, and I'd need an accent mark up front.

Córcoran.

If I said my name as most Spaniards do, cor-cor-AN, I'd have to call myself aguda and place an accent on that last syllable, as my friendly correspondent did.

Erin Corcorán.

I like it. And it really might take away the fright at pronouncing my name.

Without an accent mark, you see, my moniker is a type of word known as grave - far too serious a label for me - and is pronounced with the accent on the middle syllable: cor-COR-an. Many Spaniards read the accentless name I scribble and type everywhere I go - Corcoran - and they stumble, sensing this odd beast must be cor-COR-an while at the same time finding that pronunciation as awkward and unlikely as I do.

After four years, one finicky española has given me a darn good way to get my name spoken aloud. To be listed as more than simply "Erin" in the database at my hair salon, at the grocery store, at the dry cleaners. After all, another Erin may just invade Salamanca one of these days.

Corcorán.
Erin Corcorán.
I like it.
I hereby pronounce myself aguda, and proud.

NABUUR, the global neighbor network

2008-03-07T18:39:00.004+01:00

After my most recent post about Kiva's shout out for volunteer translators, Gertie from www.nabuur.com wrote, sure I'd be enthusiastic about her organization, as well.

And I am.

Nabuur.com, the global neighbor network, is an online volunteering network that lists tasks needing done: tasks requested by people in villages all over the world. Tasks you can do in the course of a few hours from your computer, when your virtual skills meet the local need posted by the village.

What is NABUUR?

NABUUR.com is a place on the Internet that connects:

Neighbours: people that want to take action now for the benefit of people in developing countries
&
Villages: people in need of knowledge, contacts, and new ideas to improve their lives.

People on NABUUR have in common that they are committed Global Citizens with a drive to do something to make a difference.

Through NABUUR.com you:

Do what is really needed. People living in local communities communicate with you directly what they want; nobody else is in charge or in between.
Spend 2-8 hours behind your computer as your schedule allows and do a concrete Task that will mean so much to a community of people.

Gertie wants all of you lovely multilingual gems who come by my comment box to know that NABUUR.com needs volunteer translators, too. And not just translators!

If you've got a few hours and a hankering to help somebody in a concrete, hands-on way, the site lists all kinds of urgent tasks just waiting for your skills and energy, along with current volunteer vacancies within the NABUUR.com organization, all perfectly doable from right where you are, right now.

Wisdom, philosophy and greatness

2008-03-07T18:24:00.005+01:00

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry,

the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness

which does not bow before children.

~Kahlil Gibran

Thanks to Laura for the quote.

Riff on a tree along the camino

2008-02-27T21:55:00.007+01:00

She's not an easy tree to find.

She stands clinging with everything she's got to the rocky slope of a painfully steep hill called the Alto de La Cruz, some 8 or 9 kilometers from the village of Monreal, in Navarra. It's not easy to put a label on her, figure out what species of tree she was, when she bloomed and grew and sprouted green. In a look you decide what sort of tree she is: proud. Tested. Generous. Strong. What sort of being could hold on to that tiny a parcel of earth with a pair of long dead roots? What sort would want to? Long after her sprouting life has ended, she is eager. Eager to play and participate, eager to share a bit of the road with each traveler who passes.

You see she did sprout green sometime; it's there in her confidence and the graceful wishbone reach of those two surviving branches. Is she long dead, you wonder? Did she have company - tree company - on this lonely summit when she lived and breathed and cleaned the mountain air sweeping down from the Pyrennees? What fragrance of her own did she loan the breeze that passed by then? Did she welcome birds? Mice? Maybe a pueblo of bees helped itself to her generosity. Has she met many villagers during her long stay atop this hill, you ask? Did her branches serve as fuel or fodder for homes and barns and necessary farm tools?

Now she greets you as a signpost. On her dry grey trunk someone's painted the red and white marks of the GR trail that crosses Spain, and below them the simple yellow arrow of the Camino. She has to hang on, she tells you; she's guiding pilgrims. As the only distinguishing feature of this harsh, scrub covered alto, she has work to do. No one walks the Camino Aragonés without climbing this hill. And so she clings. And waits.

As you watch, she leans hard over the edge of her stony cliff, bending her two stubby branches toward the green, flat valley below. Is she struggling to hold on, you suddenly ask yourself. Is that it, or? Could she be trying to free herself? She twists and bends like a pilgrim preparing for the day's hike. As if to say she'll be with you in just a moment, yes in fact she will join you on your walk to Santiago, if you go on ahead she'll be right along. It's that way you know, west. There. Have you spotted her arrow?

When you've finally left her alto behind you, you're genuinely surprised not to hear the dull scratch of wooden feet lumbering in your footprints.

Bilingual? Kiva needs volunteer translators.

2008-02-27T16:05:00.001+01:00

One of the reasons I struggle to get over to this Blogger text box as much as I like is a joyous one. Kiva is going gangbusters.

If you're new, I talk about Kiva alot here. It's an online organization that lets anybody lend as little as $25 to an entrepreneur in the developing world. And yep, you get paid back.

An interesting article in the New York Times a few weeks ago focused on the other side of the Kiva picture - how local agencies, people on the ground, a fiercely dedicated staff and hundreds of volunteers, including 250 translators scattered around the world, get a microentrepreneur's photo, story and loan request to the web, where you can help fund it for as little as $25.

Kiva's looking for volunteer translators to join that team. Their current needs include a long list of languages, Spanish among them. Volunteering for Kiva is one of the most rewarding things I do. Every business description I translate is the brief story of someone's life and his hard work to get ahead under his own steam. I always leave my Kiva sessions flying.

I translate 6 or 8 short texts a week through an easy web interface on the Kiva site. And when I'm travelling or overloaded with work, "I can't help this week" is always a fair answer to a translation request.

Check out Kiva's translator needs, oh multilingual blog crowd. You'll be making a tangible difference to a great organization and a lot of folks who are more than willing to work hard to improve their family's quality of life.

45

2008-02-25T23:20:00.002+01:00

The 45th best novel of all times is Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh, according to the BBC.

Elizabeth I ruled 45 years, until her death in 1603.

The
45th largest city in the world is Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (population 5,068,000).

Number 45 on the American Film Institute's top 100 movie quotes list is Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire: STELLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

The anniversary gift for year 45 is sapphire. Feel free to send along gifts in keeping with this fine tradition; slight tardiness is perfectly understandable.

The 45th state to be admitted to the US of A was Utah, in 1896.

The 45th highest peak in the world is Changste in the Tibetan Himalayas.

+45 is the telephone country code for Denmark.

The 45th post on this blog was written June 26, 2005.

The 45th most livable city in the world according to Business Week is my kind of town: Chicago, IL. (Chitown seems to be tied for 44th with Washington DC, which leaves my home away from home occupying the 45th place on the list.)

The 45th speech on a list of the top 100 American speeches of all times is William Jennings Bryan, with a speech titled "Against Imperialism".

Forty-five is a triangular number, a hexagonal and 16-gonal number, a Kaprekar number, and a Harshad number. (I don't understand a word of that, but it sounds good, doesn't it?)

45 is the atomic number of rhodium, a rare, and (ahem) silvery white transition metal. (Highly appropriate, says the new 45 year old.) It is also a precious metal and one of the most expensive.

Hoy he cumplido 45.
Liking it, so far.

195 Km

2008-02-24T16:48:00.003+01:00

This treat landed in my inbox this morning.

I have exactly one photo of myself in my own Camino de Santiago photo collection - me at the 100 kilometer mark. Yet Kilometer 195 was just as memorable.

One day late in October, I shared a day's walk, her last day on the Camino, with the española you see above and the young Camino angel who sent me this photo this morning from Bucharest. It was an all girls day - three nationalities, three women, each in a different decade of life, no one language shared fluently all the way round. The day was magic, with roses for all three of us as we savored good conversation, the scent of rosemary, and the breathtaking beauty of fall golds and browns in the wine country of El Bierzo.

Cheers to a friend in Bucharest this morning for taking me back to the Camino today.

Choose a life

2008-02-24T15:32:00.004+01:00

Found on a set of stairs along Salamanca's riverside trail:

Choose a life
Choose a car
Choose a television
Choose a house
Choose a dream
Choose a mate
Choose a beer
Choose a toaster
Choose a team
Choose a game
Choose a drug
Choose savings

Stop thinking about what you choose
and begin to live

Company

2008-02-24T11:50:00.000+01:00

I've had company this week. Fellow americana Kathleen escaped from Madrid to the quiet banks of the Río Tormes (rechristened the Río Mel Tormes by a visiting New Yorker) for a few days this week and checked in for her first stay at Casa Wander.

I do love showing off my lovely town, almost as much as I enjoy watching a first time visitor widen his eyes, shake his head and call Salamanca "simply magical". New Yorker friends were in town with Kathleen, which provided the opening for two perfect Salamanca evenings complete with full moon, glowing golden sandstone, delicious Riberas and impecable pinchos. Farinato was the undisputed favorite of the pincho tastings, although huevos rotos, a very tasty bacalao en salsa at Casa Paca, and anything Bambú's straightfaced grillman wanted to throw over his coals (costillas, chorizo, morcilla and panceta this trip) all held their own.

As always, I found myself conducting a Casa Wander orientation of oh-so-many and oh-so-necessary explications about my beloved rented home at check-in. Among them:

-Wriggle that door knob just a little more and I promise the door will open...
-Careful not to overpower the water pressure on that shower or you'll be chilly...
-That? Or that's just the neighbors, did I mention thin walls?

I know I've written about all of these quirks. Which gives me an idea.

I wonder if I should assign the posts about these little household quirks as required reading before an overnight visit here to Erin in wanderland?

A wanderer's lullaby

2008-02-08T12:59:00.000+01:00

From the song Not Far Behind, by Dave Sills (from his CD The Waiting Room)

"You never know you're lonely
until you're not alone
And if it's where the heart is
how come you're never home?"

I've stumbled across a lovely lullaby for wanderers, especially those of us who have left 40 behind (says the soon-to-be 45 year old pilgrim) without putting down what most of the world around us sees as roots. This is a tune for lovers of the in-between:

As for your friends
Well they've all settled down
While some think you're lost
It's more that you're still unfound.

Destination seems to be
Something you can't require
You're always leaving
But you never do arrive.

I've been playing and singing this tune all morning, thanks to Laura, who sent it along with a entire care-packageful of words and songs to stir me and feed me.

Dave Sills is a singer songwriter from the Chicago area. You can listen to this whole tune, buy his CDs and read more about him on his website.

Let's hear it for one of the greatest gifts of living "somewhere else": care packages. Especially when they bear singing poets.

postscript:
I can't resist continuing to post this:

Lying awake in bed, you can only dream of sleep
You are standing still, the sidewalk spins beneath your feet
Each day fades away slow into the night
The stars begin to fall, you're not far behind.

Night, wanderers.

A thought

2008-02-07T09:03:00.000+01:00

No one can stop in his camino, because life pushes from inside.

Cardinal Martini

Be careful what you ask for: thoughts on the Camino

2008-02-06T02:49:00.000+01:00

Funny thing, that Camino de Santiago. Maybe it's not the Camino, maybe it's any pilgrimage, or any solo journey taken step by step, traveling as lightly as possible, lighter with every step.

Lots more than my clothes seem not to fit, now that I've returned from that walk.

I'd recommend the Camino de Santiago, or any journey like it, to anyone. If you stopped by this blog because you're thinking about walking the Camino, here's my sage advice: know the Camino will do exactly what you ask it to do. Ask it to simply buff your legs and I suspect it will. Give yourself over to it, and you're in for some bumps and big decisions. I asked for the full treatment, and it hasn't disappointed.

A lovely description of the experience, from Following the Milky Way by Elyn Aviva:

Pilgrimage: a setting forth, a leave-taking from the familiar, from familiarity. A trip into the unknown, both interior and exterior. A moving away from what is known into what is unknown but longed for.

The journey begins with separation leaving home and friends, leaving behind the well-known signposts of location and behavior, of expectations and rewards, conscious, intentional movement into an unfamiliar realm, both physically and psychically. Perhaps this separation is marked by a blessing ceremony; perhaps it is marked by pinning the scallop-shell emblem of the pilgrimage to Santiago onto your backpack, or by hanging the shell by a ribbon around your neck.

You enter into a time in-between, a "liminal" period named after the threshold at the bottom of a door, the threshold that the bride was traditionally carried over to signify her movement into a new state of being. Like the bride, you, the pilgrim, cross the threshold and enter into a new realm, one full of possibilities as well as challenges.

What lies beyond the distant mountain range? What waits behind the next curve in the road? What deep insight will be revealed after a day of walking in silence or after an afternoon of conversation with companions?

Your routine role and status get left behind. Blisters form, legs become weary, shoulders ache, regardless of your amount of education, your job title back home, your level of physical preparation. You become a pilgrim, sharing with fellow pilgrims the travails and pleasures of the journey.

Time itself becomes different, marked not by the clock but by the movement of the body through space. And space itself becomes different because you are walking through sacred space. You have entered a landscape punctuated by shrines and churches, hermitages and cathedrals, sacred springs and sacred mountains. Day after day, week after week, the longer the better, since distance and time help your body grab hold of the experience, help your heart open up, help your mind detach from old patterns, help your soul expand into itself. You move toward your goal.

And then the goal is reached. You may find, however, that it is no longer the goal, its importance having dissolved with every step on the Camino.....

....Finally, you return to your home community, your friends, your family. This may be an eagerly waited return or an apprehensive return, a return made with feet dragging each step of the way or with feet joyfully dancing toward home, a home that will never, ever, be the same again because you will never, ever, be the same again. The changes may be subtle or obvious, slow growing or erupting full-blown into your awareness. But changes there will be.

For you are now a pilgrim and you have been become a life-long member of a new community, a community made up of the millions of fellow pilgrims, living and deceased, who have walked the Camino before you.

Sierra

2008-02-02T20:06:00.001+01:00

A bit of the view, hiking down from La Alberca to Herguijela de la Sierra.

Three cheers for the Chicago Board of Elections

2008-02-02T18:59:00.001+01:00

I take back everything I've ever said about bureaucrats.

If you've been reading this blog a while, you may have noticed I'm an idealist. Of the pie-eyed don't-you-tell-me-it's-not -worth-trying-to-change-it kind.

I believe voting matters. At least, I believe it enough never to risk not doing it. Who wins the presidency of the United States matters a bit, had you noticed?

Following the primary elections back in the States from the comfort of this laptop, I've found myself cheering the turnout. Just the turnout. The voting, the caring, the believing by people who have never voted in a primary, or for the party they've turned out for this year, or at all, simply because they've just reached voting age.

And if you know me, you know I don't sit on the sidelines very well.

And so it was that late last weekend, I decided to find a way to vote in the Illinois primary. As a life long independent, I've never voted in the primaries. I quickly resigned myself to whatever problems temporary registration as a Democrat might cause my Republican political career and scribbled down the phone number of the Chicago Board of Elections.

I was late; I knew it was late both to register and to get a ballot back to Chicago by February 5.

I hadn't counted on the Chicago Board of Elections.

Monday morning bright and early in Chicago, my phone call was warmly and immediately transferred to a friendly young woman who had been assigned the task of dealing with the sudden onslaught of expats and US military folks scrambling to vote in the primaries. The Board had worked out a procedure that allowed me plenty of time to vote. Before hanging up, she took my name so she could make sure my information was received and processed. Within an hour, printable registration and ballot forms arrived in my inbox.

A few hours later, I was looking across the counter at a 38 euro FedEx bill in the local Mail Boxes Etc. Looking up from her price list, the sales girl warned me getting a ballot to Chicago by Election Day wouldn't be cheap.

"It'll be an awfully expensive vote...", she started.

"After Bush?", I interrupted.

She pushed the credit card slip across the counter.
"Sign here. Please."

Join me in three cheers for the Chicago Board of Elections! I may just order those folks a pizza. If you find my sudden passion for primaries intriguing, you'll enjoy hearing that the US Embassy forwarded an urgent message to US citizens abroad this week, when the State of Tennessee received a court's permission to extend primary voting deadlines for Americans living overseas.

That pie-eyed part of me? Couldn't be happier.
Don't tell me we don't care.

So what do you think, double pepperoni?

Yes españoles, you see correctly. The ballot and all of the accompanying paperwork was bilingual - English and yep, castellano. I voted in castellano, of course.

A trip home

2008-02-02T18:44:00.000+01:00

I love those moments that instantly and unexpectedly sweep me "home".

Like being told to wait,"just 30 seconds, love", when I called my mother at 630 am this morning.

Punsxatawney Phil was about to walk out of his winter home. There are things so American not even a call from an exotic foreign land (okay, okay, Salamanca) can interrupt them.

He saw his shadow, by the way. Phil's loyal fans, my Rhode Islander mother included, are in for a long winter.

That decided, the weekly catch-up began.

Invasion of the tall and American

2008-01-31T22:38:00.000+01:00

I'm lost in projects. How about a couple of photos to tide things over?

Sunday I hiked from La Alberca down to lovely Herguijela de la Sierra, population 299 (says Wikipedia). Before friends drove us back to our starting point, we wandered the town, where we were warmly greeted as a welcome Sunday anomaly. Company!

I love the size of my fellow American-Salmantino in this photo. That and the gorgeous faces and sierra hospitality of his Sunday bench companions.

I can report, based on this hike, that the peaks of the Sierra de Bejar are blanketed with snow, the rivers of the Sierra de Francia are filling fast, and at least one wild boar (jabalí) is snickering about the accident prone wanderer who tripped in one of his leaf-covered snout tracks.

Woman, Herguijela de la Sierra

2008-01-31T22:31:00.001+01:00

One peregina's Camino de Santiago slide show....mine.

2008-01-23T23:49:00.000+01:00

Well, I've (finally) posted Camino photos at flickr. Thing is, I'd rather take you along on the Camino than show off my uncanny (point and shoot) photographic ability, so I've left a little story hidden in the photo descriptions. If you click here, you can simply browse through thumbnails, or you can click on the first photo, and see it open with the text below. From there, just go on a-clicking your way from photo and description to photo and description. The next photo is always shown as a thumb to the right, by the "browse bar". Click there and you'll get me along with you.

If you prefer a silent journey, descriptionless slide show here.

It took some cooking, but I'm ready to tell this story.

¡Ultreia!

Where everybody knows your name

2008-01-23T18:59:00.000+01:00

A wandering American walks into a bar. The bartender has the Ribera poured before our hungry wanderer makes it from the door to the empty stool.

"¡Morcilla!", says the bartender to the wandering American, looking over the Ribera with a smile. "¿Morcilla, verdad?

Ummmm..this a good sign, right?

Watchgoat, Peña de Francia

2008-01-17T21:00:00.001+01:00

Mountain goats, Peña de Francia

2008-01-17T20:56:00.001+01:00

Contrasts

2008-01-17T20:30:00.000+01:00

I translated the lines below from a text published on the back of a glossy photo of the Virgen de la Peña de Francia. I picked up the photo on a visit to the Peña's monastery, which sits with only a telecommunications tower for company at the summit of one of the highest peaks in the Sierra de Francia. I can't stop wondering who wrote it. The Dominican monk I'm told lives alone in the monastery in winter, facing all the Peña's contrasts in solitude?

Here's a lovely bit of poetic prose printed on the back of a kitschy photo of a black Virgin sheltered on the top of an enchanted mountain:

note: ignore the periods between the columns. They were necessary to create two columns in this - ahem - marvelous blogging software I use.

Contrasts

The universe and human life are a jumble of contrasts:

Light and darkness, ....................Youth and old age,

night and day, ............................. pain and joy,

mountain and plain,.....................war and peace,

winter and summer.....................life and death.

From the harmony of contradictory worlds and elements spring forth the beauty of things and actions, feelings of compassion, even peace. On the other hand, in the confrontation of different elements chaos is born, and ugliness. Wars. Destruction.

The Peña de Francia is a small universe, a stony and lovely mountain born of the river banks of a dusty and extended plain. Its world is full of contrasts. Here, in a moment, the breeze transforms into a hurricane, the rain into a fierce hailstorm, tranquility into thunder and lightning, summer into winter. In the Peña's sanctuary, pain becomes consolation, solitude becomes companionship, and joy, thanksgiving and blessing.

David Byrne visits IKEA

2008-01-17T19:30:00.000+01:00

El País sent me over to read David Byrne's blog entry about his first trip to IKEA.

He went to buy furniture for his parents and eat the Swedish meatballs. Yes, David Byrne.

He left fascinated by the names of IKEA products, which made him feel like he'd just walked into a video game he'd never played.

Turns out there is a system to IKEA product names. But I'll let David reveal it.

Carlos Saura: ¡Fados!

2008-01-17T18:07:00.000+01:00

I can't blog now. I'm pacing the floor. Anticipating.

¡Fados!

!Carlos Saura has made a movie about fados! And every article I devour about it includes what may just be my favorite word in all the world, saudade, a word I fell in love with during a far-too-brief first visit here.

Wait! What do you mean, Carlos who? Get with me here, guiris! ¡Españoles, porfa, decidles quién es! Carlos Saura, as in Tango and Flamenco.

Better yet, just hit play on the video screen. And feel free to join the pacing.

Remembering flat

2008-01-11T18:12:00.000+01:00

Along the Camino, after Carrión de los Condes.

The NY Children project

2008-01-11T17:52:00.000+01:00

The NY Children Proyect has a relatively simple objective:

"Photograph one child from every country of the world. "

But there's a twist:

Each child must currently live in New York City.

The result is a stunning slideshow of some of the 151 beautiful little faces captured by the project so far. Each child is from a different country and each lives in New York.

Little expats. :)
The photos are spectacular, as well.

A good day in Spain

2008-01-09T20:59:00.000+01:00

It's been a good day in Spain.

It all started bright and early at El Árbol, when an old woman asked if I'd help her reach the things she needed from the top shelves. I tend to be on the other side of that question, you understand. But, today, damn if I didn't reach every product. I was wearing my magic Camino de Santiago boots; I think they stretched me.

And..

Later, as I politely looked for someone to whom I could quietly ask which of the 6 closed cash register lanes we should line up at, the same firey old woman gave me a lesson in living in Spain. She bellowed "¿QUIÉN VIENE A LA CAJA?" ("WHO'S COMING TO THE REGISTER?") without moving an inch. A cashier arrived in seconds.

And then...

Back at home, my Spanish teacher gave me nothing but praise for the day's piece of writing.

And...

When I mentioned I was expecting my teacher, a client blurted out "But why do you have a Spanish teacher?"

God bless her and all of her offspring.

Although...

When I explained I was working on my Spanish writing, she neglected to comment on the brilliance and grammatical perfection of my business letters. I'm taking it as a sign the classes are a good idea.

But wait! There's more:

A few minutes after two, homemade morcilla and chorizo del pueblo walked through my front door, across my grill and onto the table, where they puffed up proud alongside boquerones en vinagre, fat, tasty olives, a bit of aged manchego, a good loaf of bread, a crunchy salad topped with toasted walnuts and the thick, rich balsamic I bought in Assisi and a lovely Ribera del Duero.

I told you it was a good day.

Because...

The food and I were joined by two charming Salmantinas who tripled the decibel level in this working-space apartment from the moment they came into view. Voices were raised. Points were argued. Arms flailed about and items unlucky enough to be in arm's way crashed to the floor.

And then...

One of these two cielos, one of these raucus angels laid before me a plate with queso fresco and a few of the figs, the figs, oh, the candied figs her mother made by the jarful late last summer.

And the gods smiled. And launched into a rousing rendition of Nina Simone's I Feel Good.

And together we nodded, the gods and I, and gave each other knowing looks.

A good day.

Wise words...from a politician?

2008-01-09T20:16:00.000+01:00

"If you know who you are, if you know what you believe in, if you know what you are fighting for, then you can afford to listen to folks who don't agree with you.....It won't hurt you."

-Barack Obama

Okay, he was talking about reaching across the aisle in American politics, but read it again. Damn good advice, across the board, don't you think? The knowing and the listening.

Why, yes, he is my senator from the great state of Illinois, and yes, he is impressing the expat heck out of me. You might say he's given me hope, and it's anything but false.

Big Think

2008-01-07T23:12:00.000+01:00

When I was in my twenties, I spent long nights going through The Book of Questions with the man who was then my closest friend. Today I stumbled upon a website that takes that same idea - simple, direct and thought-provoking questions - and brings it to the web, and best of all, to well known "movers and shakers".

On Big Think, Mary Robinson, Deepak Chopra and poet Billy Collins (just to tell you with whom I spent this afternoon) along with politicians, writers, business moguls and nonprofit leaders answer easy and not so easy questions in short videos. The videos are relaxed and informal, leaving the "experts" to comfortably stumble and wander through their answers. My visit gave me the odd sensation of having shared a cup of coffee with Mary Robinson, and gotten up up the nerve to ask her about her philosophy on life.

Then, after telling me he believes life is about learning to "smash moments", Billy Collins accepted my invitation to recite Questions about Angels!

Altogether, quite an afternoon.

Invisibles and a free book

2008-01-07T21:40:00.000+01:00

One day a week or two ago, my friendly neighborhood kiosk man handed me a DVD with my daily El País. Free gifts are common with newspapers in Spain, usually to promote the sale of some product to be offered the following week for purchase with the paper.

This freebie truly was a gift, so I want to share it.

If you have a chance to watch "Invisibles", a documentary film produced by Spanish actor Javier Bardem and presented by the Spanish Doctors without Borders organization, don't miss it. It's just been nominated for the Goya (Spain's film awards) for best documentary, if you need more than my opinion to recommend it.

"Invisibles" is not an easy to film to watch. That's exactly what makes it worth watching.

Watch this film, and then ask yourself why doing so was hard. I quickly realized some things are simply far more comfortable left invisible for me. Yet this film, a collection of five mini-films directed by Isabel Coixet (La vida secreta de las palabras, Mi vida sin mí), Mariano Barroso, Javier Corcuera, Fernando León de Aranoa (Los lunes al sol) and Wim Wenders, brings 5 humanitarian crises you never hear about to life, up close and personal. It's worth watching not only to inform yourself about them, but to watch the dignity and humanity of the people living them. Dignity, I kid you not. In the face of indescribable horror. The dignity stunned me.

The stories cover 5 of the 10 crises Doctors without Borders identified as the year's most underreported.

If you live in Europe and want my copy, holler. I'll even cover the postage.

And the free book:

While I'm at it, I have a copy of Barack Obama's "Audacity of Hope" I read last year while visiting the States. If you're American and abroad, and you want to read it as part of your long distance voting prep, send me an e-mail and I'll send you the book, postage paid. If you're not American but would like to read it, let me know. If none of my paisanos take me up on the offer, it's yours.

Yes, yes, Di, La Alberca is coming, as is a lot more about the Camino.

Green, La Alberca

2008-01-04T00:13:00.000+01:00

I'm fresh back from being treated like a queen in La Alberca. Todavía estoy en Las Batuecas, así que...una foto.

I've been in a place so magical (Las Batuecas, a valley below La Alberca) that to be "en Las Batuecas" in this colorful language I love is to have your head in the clouds, floating blissfully.

Photo today, words tomorrow, then. ¡Feliz año a todos!

Meanwhile, Rebecca's written up a full report of a very festive New Year's in her little corner of Castilla y León, complete with fire water, open flames and the baby Jesus.

Thought for a new year

2008-01-04T00:11:00.000+01:00

We must assume our existence as broadly as we can; everything, even the unheard of, must be possible in it. That is at the bottom the only courage that is demanded of us; to have courage for the most strange, the most singular, and the most inexplicable that we may encounter.
Rainer Maria Rilke

Thank you, Agapito

2007-12-30T22:32:00.000+01:00

As I trot past the bench leaning again the front of the house, the window opens.

"It's for you", the middle-aged woman leaning out of the window tells me. "It's for you, peregrina. Are you thirsty? Shall I bring you some water?"

She is pointing to a box and a basket sitting side by side on the bench in front of her home.

The box is filled with plump ripe plums, and the basket with cookies, mints, cough drops and hard candies. A tiny Spanish flag stands nearby.

A notebook and pen rest alongside a small note: write to me if you like.
This oasis of sweet and fresh and delicious is explained by the sign leaning again the bench.

"This is for you, peregrino. It's been left by your friend Agapito. Buen camino!"

In the photo an older man grins out at the anonymous pilgrim friends he's feeding and encouraging.

I was tired and bored. I was 10 or 20 kilometers outside León, more than eager to leave the asphalt I'd been walking all day far behind me. I didn't know I'd sprain my ankle for the second time later that afternoon and spend the next 3 days holed up in an albergue. I only knew I was alone, walking on asphalt, destined to stick with this highway for at least another 10 kilometers. I hadn't seen another soul all morning.

And the plums were for me.

I ate a plum and a few cookies, grabbed a candy for later and wrote a note of thanks.

Here's another, in case Agapito reads blogs. Here's to laying out what people need, just in case the odd wanderer passes by, hungry and in need of a friend.

Alto de La Cruz, Aragón

2007-12-30T21:45:00.000+01:00

Most of the photos I took along the Camino were of signs: the rocks and yellow arrows and shells and tiles and milestones that told me I was on the right path. Many of my "yellow arrows" were people; I captured some of them on film, too.

This is one of my favorites, of the non-human signpost variety. A dead tree on a lonely peak along the Camino Aragonés after Monreal.

Well, somebody's got to win

2007-12-30T20:24:00.000+01:00

Ah, the good habits the Spanish have taught me.

And the, well, other habits.

They've finally broken me down. I'm playing the lottery.

The Spanish Christmas Lottery (El Gordo), the year's biggest, is a national institution. Multiply the Super Bowl by 10 and you might close to the level of participation, excitement and news coverage.

I didn't buy a single décimo (tenth of a chance) for El Gordo this year, between the Camino and my travel home, and darn if I wasn't the only resident of the country who didn't. When I was forced to confess, I was greeted by a chorus of "¡Erin! ¡No se puede!" accompanied by shaking heads, shrugging shoulders and deep, heartfelt disappointment. No se puede live in Spain and not participate in El Gordo, it seems.

The thing is, now that I'm president, best performer and worst slacker of a company of one, no one conveniently stops by my desk to sell me a share of an El Gordo ticket.

I was happily returning to normal life, after the "no-se-puedes" and the hoopla of El Gordo, when I watched the nightly news instantly transform ordinary bar customers and supermarket workers into millionaires. I stared at the television, transfixed, while groups of neighbors and coworkers from across Spain discovered they'd hit El Gordo together, for millions.

During the next night's paseo, I suddenly noticed the laughter and witty chatter in those long lines outside Salamanca's lottery kiosks. And I thought, well, it's been 4 years.

I'm going in.

So, friends, I did what any intelligent expat faced with the complexities of a new Spanish institution would do. I asked for lessons.

Lottery lessons.

I was escorted to the kiosk by a generous and patient Salmantina, who, like any good Spaniard, took me into a complex subject step by step. We started outside the kiosk, acquainting ourselves with a bird's eye view of the many and various lottery options available to us. Once I had learned to distinguish my Primitiva from El Niño (El Gordo's little brother, to be awarded the first week of January, for Los Reyes) and my Eurobotes, we entered the building. My profe proceeded to instruct me, in a voice a tad loud if I may say so myself, profe, in the subtleties of form-filling, and buying and redeeming tickets with the confident swanker of a native.

So I filled out my little form, played my first Primitiva - and won a free ticket.

The best news is that like each of my friends and neighbors, I know El Niño is mine this year. Me va a tocar.

A friend likes to tell people who call me americana that I now qualify just as well for española. I've walked the Camino de Santiago and been present for an ETA attack. I make my own membrillo, refuse to eat lunch before 230 and consume mass quantities of morcilla.

Wait till she hears I've taken to hanging out in the line at the lottery kiosk.

Along the Camino: a proud pair of boots

2007-12-29T23:11:00.000+01:00

This is my very favorite Camino de Santiago photo, from 36 days walking, 45 days away from home and more than 800 photos.

Three pairs of boots, airing in the window of the pilgrim's refuge at the convent of the Poor Clares (Clarisas) in Carrión de los Condes.

The pilgrim's dorm overlooks the entrance patio of the Clarisa's 13th century convent. It was there, amongst the famous carvings and arches, that Spanish tourists stopping to buy the Poor Clare's sweets one Monday afternoon found this little window, and the 6 boots of the convent's guests: a wandering American, a singing German and an Italian-speaking ladies man from Switzerland.

The tourists mostly giggled and pointed.

But I never saw my dust-covered boots more proud.

The world is a hankerchief

2007-12-29T21:43:00.000+01:00

El mundo es un pañuelo.

So say my Spanish friends and neighbors, when they want to express what I'm feeling tonight. That the world is small. Like a hankerchief.

Here I sit on a cloudy Salamanca Saturday, sipping Pedro Ximenez and admiring the reflection my city's 12th century cathedral makes on a neighbor's window, while my eyes feast on the sumptuous photos Laura sent me of yesterday's snowstorm in Chicago and my ears devour the Hawaiian CD my brother the Waikiki resident sent me for Christmas.

I could live like this, you know that? A bit of jamón iberico and a touch of peanut butter and I'd vaporize into multicontinental delight.

Keola Beamer's Island Born is well worth a listen, says she who didn't even open the CD for a week and a half, expecting...well, I don't know what. Acoustic, melodic, lilting, his music moves, and I swear this is not the Pedro Ximenez talking, at the rhythm of a soft breeze through swaying trees. Plenty of lovely acoustic "hulas" on this disc, too. Perfect medicine for a winter's night.

Island Born is a good traveler's CD, too. In the title tune, Beamer takes a drive around his island, and expresses that "I am so happy to be here" high any place addict will instantly recognize. You can listen to a few cuts from my Saturday soundtrack here, it you like.

Buenas noches a todos.

Night, everybody.

Aloha ahiahi ia oukou.

afterthought, and this may indeed be the Pedro X piping in: I can't really say Disney's popular "Small World" ride would have worked quite as well as a tour through a hankerchief, can you? And I'm usually so partial to Spanish idioms...

Aloha po.

Along the Camino

2007-12-27T21:00:00.001+01:00

Ah, that perfect combination of "that" home and "this" home

2007-12-18T12:38:00.000+01:00

Snow in Salamanca!

Ok, a dusting. But I woke to snow in Salamanca!
Now if I pass a busking blues guitarist and a hot dog vendor on the way to the Plaza, the magical meshing shall be complete.

May I mention my golden city looks great in white?

Hope your personal good luck dust is falling round you as well.

Luck in a can

2007-12-17T23:16:00.001+01:00

It must be December. The checkout counter at the convenience store outside the Plaza Mayor is stacked with tiny green cans, each one enticingly labelled "the 12 grapes of luck."

They're New Year's grapes, if you've yet to meet the Spanish tradition of downing one grape for every chime of the bells at midnight on Noche Vieja (New Year's Eve). 12 chimes, 12 grapes. I have yet to discuss this tradition with a single Spaniard who does not faithfully pop, chew and swallow12 grapes before the last chime has sounded on New Year's.

They claim it's not as easy as it sounds, but I tell you, I'm equal to the task.

The convenience store grapes are peeled and seedless. They're on display for the University's students, who one night soon will storm the Plaza Mayor while they celebrate a grape-stuffing early NewYear before going their separate ways for the holidays.

The cans reminded me that I've accomplished the unlikely feat of living four years in Spain without experiencing the legendary grape gobble. Ah, but this year! This year I shall gobble with the best.

I scoff at the 16-hour store's cans of peeled grapes! Hah!

I shall carefully select my grapes. I shall peel them myself. (Unless of course, I run across an appropriate volunteer. God knows I'm not above letting the right person peel grapes for me.)

Faithful friends and blog browsers, this year I have received the invitation I've been waiting for. This year I shall spend Noche Vieja with magical people in the enchanted Sierra de Francia.

I shall join a noisy, expressive, multitudinous Spanish family just like the one Spain has left me pining for, many a day.

Bus schedules willing, I shall pop my 12 grapes in La Alberca.

Now that's luck.

My favorite Camino story, by Erin C

2007-12-16T19:48:00.000+01:00

The Camino de Santiago is a tricky beast. It'll gladly step up and transform itself into whatever you will it to be: a sporting event, a step in a relationship, all the space and time and silence you need to test your own assumptions about yourself and how you meet the world around you, a spiritual or religious quest, a 30 day meditation, a social event.

You'll discover, as you walk on the Camino, just as much as you are open to finding, I believe. No more and no less. It's a voluntary, renewable resource, that walking trail.

Pilgrims like to say we each meet who we are supposed to meet on the Camino. If that's true, it would explain why the chance meetings and memories I treasure most from my walk to Santiago involved people who, like me, had met a Camino determined to be a dopeslap-a-minute laugh riot. A wise guy. Our Camino handed us a tiny note every day, through a chance meeting, an unexpected adventure or an annoying inconvenience. And every day the note read the same:

"Yeh, like you didn't already know this..."

My favorite Camino story belongs to a young Swiss nurse who walked from Basil to Santiago. I met her in Sahagun, when the grandmotherly owner of a hostal where she'd been holed up sick for three days decided we would walk together to El Burgo de Ranero. I ignored my American instinct to politely inform the hostal owner I preferred to walk alone. By this time, I had learned not to resist Camino hints and opportunities, and a grandmotherly stranger putting another stranger's hand in mind and announcing we would now hike a full day together was a loud enough hint not to ignore.

And so I had one of the most enjoyable shared days of my Camino, walking beside a flu-weakened Swiss nurse.

When I shared my "I sprained an ankle Day 2 while cursing the cruel injustice of my first blister" story, Natasha gave me what truly is my favorite Camino anecdote, if only for its simplicity.

Somewhere in France, Natasha landed top bunk several nights in a row. Now, top bunk is a pain in the neck, unless you're the tall, gymastic type who's mastered that graceful, quick swing to the floor I have yet to execute without waking the dead. Natasha, like me, is far too short to appreciate the benefits of scoring top bunk.

The morning after the second night, while grumbling and complaining in every language she could muster about how the ladder rungs dug into her feet with every step of every ascent and descent, Natasha swore she hated ladders and wouldn't put up with that entirely undeserved discomfort again.

Next night, our wandering Swiss nurse again arrived at the albergue long after the bottom bunks were taken. She sullenly claimed a top bunk.

Only something had changed. This time the ladder wasn't a burden.

This time, there was no ladder.

The pilgrim has many needs...

2007-12-16T16:47:00.000+01:00

Just before you walk into the town of Nájera in La Rioja, having already passed through Logroño on your step-by-step saunter to Santiago, you'll spend a few hundred meters strolling by a wall with an original poem scrawled across it - a long and lovely poem posted by a passing pilgrim.

And as you leave that poem behind, inspired by the magic of the verse-covered walls, message-bearing milestones, stone-steadied paper notes, yellow arrows, scallop shells and teetering rock sculptures that keep you on your path, you may glance to the left and stumble across another of the many things that make the Camino de Santiago real. Not pious. Just real.

A belly laugh.

If you glance over at just the right time your eye will meet this personal ad scratched in that same wall on the way to Nájera, maybe by the same lonely poet, maybe not.

"Pilgrim seeks girl."
And a phone number.

Big Fun in a Little Pueblo

2007-12-15T20:28:00.000+01:00

"It's a windy, stormy, sunny Sunday in Castilla-Leon, and we have no roof on our house."

So opens the first post in Big Fun in a Little Pueblo. Big Fun is written by Rebekah, an American living with her British husband in a tiny town on the Camino de Santiago in Palencia. Rebekah lives in Moratinos, near Palencia's border with León, toward the end of the Camino's long march through the "meseta" more than a few (sadly mistaken) pilgrims dread, or trade for a bus ride from Burgos to León. Flat and virtually treeless, with endless horizons and perpetually changing skies, the meseta was one of the most memorable stages of my Camino. The meseta taught me patience and filled me with huge helpings of silence and hearty food while it introduced me to an evocative form of traditional architecture I'd never known existed in Spain: mud houses. Truth is, we could easily blame my photo posting delay on my fascination with - and propensity to click in front of - the meseta's mud houses.

Rebekah lives in one of those mud houses, which she is restoring "to offer some kind of hospitality to pilgrims."

As delighted as I was to discover Rebekah and her blog, my visit's sweetest treat was the EB White quote that closes her profile. If you ask me, EB's hit the nail on the head about living anywhere you've pushed aside that pesky and "idle pursuit of making a living" to make room for something else. He's done a fine job of describing life on the Camino, too:

"E.B. White wrote, 'Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace.'"

Rebekah will be showing up soon on my Webs I Wander list.

On working vacations while visiting familiy

2007-12-12T23:02:00.001+01:00

Yes, Virginia, you can go home again.

Just don't kid yourself you'll get any work done.

-someone very, very wise

Look for this blog to return to the land of the living quicker than you can say "so what ever happened to wandering woman?"

See the photos of the Camino! Smell the horse manure! Taste Rioja's harvest-ready grapes right off the vine! Watch the giant black torpedo slugs cross the road! Count snail colors!

Nibble on fresh figs as they fall at your feet! Join an international humfest when you find you and your walking companions share not a single song lyric in a language you all speak...

Yes, with a simple trip back to this blog, you (yes YOU!) can follow our prodigal blogger as she hobbles to Santiago, then hops a plane to that country she used to live in - you know the one - and boldly asks her soon to be 45 year old self, "okay, Salmantina, what's next?"

Plus! An exciting update on one wandering American's stubborn determination to make stellar Caldo Gallego..... in Salamanca. (GASP! Can she DO that?)

You'll have to stop by to find out how it all ends, now won't you?

Standing out

2007-11-23T21:24:00.000+01:00

One bold sunflower, somewhere in La Rioja

Ah, the wonders of reverse translation

2007-11-23T20:42:00.000+01:00

As I typed out my sad tale of Thanksgiving tunafish, I suddenly had a thought about how the Spanish describe this American-only holiday we call Thanksgiving:

Día de Acción de Gracias

Day of Action - yeh, ACTION - of thanks.

Oh, I think there's an opportunity in that reverse translation. What if Thanksgiving were a day to ACT on how darn thankful you felt?

Just a thought.

If I've left you inspired but not quite sure where to act, may I suggest Kiva?

On living far from your favorite holiday

2007-11-23T20:18:00.000+01:00

It's not missing Thanksgiving Day I mind.

It's the day after.

Oh, what I wouldn't give for a leftover turkey, stuffing and cranberry sauce sandwich. And maybe just a little piece of whatever that is you had for dessert?

So I ate tunafish and worked a full day.
I was very thankful, and that's what counts, right?

A vicarious walk on the Camino

2007-11-20T22:07:00.001+01:00

I'm working on a small set of Camino photos for the blog. Problem is I've got more than 900 photos to work my way through.

Meanwhile, if I've whet your curiosity about the Camino de Santiago - and oh how I hope I have - the web of the Amigos del Camino of Jaca recently closed a Camino photo contest with some truly evocative photos.

The contest photo exposition is here.
A few of my favorites:

A traves del tiempo - Through time

Soledad compartida - Shared solitude

Siguiendo el camino - Following the Camino

Encuentro inesperado - Unexpected encounter

This view of the Cruz de Hierro - with an Italian title

Absorto - Absorbed

Paso del peregrino

An award well-deserved: A mis 95 años

2007-11-20T21:34:00.000+01:00

Well, here's good news. Maria Amelia of A mis 95 años, whose blog I told you about here, has won the 2007 BOB for best blog in Spanish.

I have lots of Maria Amelia to catch up on, after spending so many webless weeks walking toward her village (Muxía, in Galicia). I missed reading cream while I was walking. And Superhero Journal. And that other wandererer. And I missed Maria Amelia.

If you can't read A Mis 95 because she writes in Spanish, you're missing the opportunity to meet a direct, passionate, fun-loving, wise, witty, warm woman who for the first time in my life has me genuinely looking forward to 95. And 75, and 103. And wishing I knew more people like her.

If learning Spanish is out of the question, may I suggest giving a blog to your favorite English-speaking grandmother and watching what happens?

Selfish culinary side note: I've been experimenting with caldo gallego since I got back from the Camino. I've just discovered that I can buy the Galician green that makes caldo gallego "gallego" at Salamanca's central market. Hmmm, you don't suppose when the BOB brouhaha subsides that, well, if I ask really nicely, Maria Amelia might.....oh, can you imagine? An Americana with the secret to great caldo gallego?

"So wait, why did you walk across Spain?"

2007-11-19T22:41:00.001+01:00

".....And don't tell me 'to get to the other side'."

E-mail I recently received from a friend in the States, who's clearly known me too long.

But where do I start?

2007-11-19T22:10:00.000+01:00

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

-Muriel Rukeyser, American poet

Santiago, ankle, frostbite, and all

2007-11-06T14:19:00.000+01:00

After 4 or 5 hot, sunny days walking Galician hills by day and consuming vats of caldo gallego by night, I walked into Santiago de Compostela yesterday about 12:45 pm.

Finisterre will wait for spring, maybe expand to a longer coastal walk.

My ankle and the frostbite gained by overzealously icing it (so you all knew those supercold gel packs aren't meant for icing legs, didn't you?) are all but healed.

Santiago feels far more like a beginning than the end.

And what I find I do not have today are words.

Thanks for all the encouragement and comments. I will be back soon.

Found: in the guestbook of the Albergue San Miguel

2007-10-22T17:35:00.000+02:00

Written last night, before I arrived:

"Before the new chapter can begin, the old chapter must be closed.

Change from being who you were to being who you are."

It's signed Paulo Coehlo, so I'll venture it's a quote, unless of course, Mr. Coehlo stopped by here last night....

One small request, Camino: Any chance "she who I am" could have a stronger right ankle than "she who I was"?

Meanwhile, in the department of lost and found...

2007-10-22T14:14:00.001+02:00

FOUND

The loveliest viera (scallop shell) you've ever seen, a gift from the owner of the marisquería in Virgen del Camino, outside León. He answered my plea for whatever he was willing to feed a hungry peregrina at 730 pm with a delicious ración of Pulpo al Gallego, a chunk of crusty bread and a bottle of wine. Now I know why I never chose to buy a pre-drilled pre-painted "Camino de Santiago" ready-made souvenir shell for my trusty backpack. My ración of pulpo and a just-as-it-is viera were waiting just outside León.

LOST
A tremendous advertising opportunity for El Corte Inglés, when this peregrina marched into the central León store, backpack and all, rode the escalator to the 6th floor, and purchased a new hiking pole, to go. I threw in a pair of gloves (getting chilly in the morning out here!) and a new pair of after-walking socks. The highly amused salesman assured me I'd find another El Corte Inglés in the center of Santiago, should I feel like a post-Camino shopping spree.

Who says the Camino lacks a sense of humor?

2007-10-22T13:45:00.001+02:00

Greetings from Hospital de Órbigo, a picturesque little town at the end of an ancient and storied bridge, and a Camino stop between León and Astorga.

I've suddenly found myself prepared to spend hours at this laptop. Catch up at this blog. Answer all the e-mails I forwarded myself before leaving Salamanca, sure I'd find the time to respond while on the Camino. Write the Great American Novel, perhaps.

At least a pair of chapters.

I'm still again, you see.

Still, and comfortably settled for the night at the Albergue San Miguel, where this morning's soundtrack has left me chuckling, hand raised in a toast to the Camino - teacher, jokester. Wiseguy.

Alanis Morisette greeted me at the albergue this morning.
"You live, you learn
You love, you learn
You cry, you learn
You lose. you learn
You bleed, you learn
You scream, you learn...."

I was just adding "you walk, you learn" when someone jumped the CD ahead to "Isn't It Ironic?"

You know the tune:
"..A traffic jam when you're already late
A no-smoking sign on your cigarette break
It's like ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife
It's meeting the man of my dreams
And then meeting his beautiful wife
And isn't it ironic...don't you think
A little too ironic...and, yeah, I really do think...

It's like rain on your wedding day
It's a free ride when you've already paid..."

It's like spraining the same ankle twice in a single Camino.

I don't, in fact, know what the chances are, although I may have time to do the calculations between ice applications this afternoon, but yes, yesterday morning, while meandering along a nice flat stretch of Camino, I slipped on a path of loose stones (having inexplicably decided not to use my new hiking pole to protect the ankle) and retwisted the Ankle of Always.

It's three shades of purple and the perfectly rounded shape of one of those yellow Spanish peaches I love so, but I've assured myself, the kind hospitaleros who have taken me in, and my ankle that I'll be back on the road tomorrow, God and Voltarén willing.

Meanwhile, this albergue offers paints and brushes and canvasses and free play in the painting workshop, so we'll soon know if the ankle has twisted only to allow me to discover my inner Picasso.

We each arrive to the Camino with every one of our weaknesses along for the ride, it would seem - and the Camino proceeds to carry each of them out into the open, where he shines a spotlight on them, points a giant yellow arrow, and dares each of us -"See it? do something about it!" Shall we guess that one of my weaknesses resides at the end of my right leg? Or in the hurry with which I carry it?

All the more to celebrate on arrival in Santiago in 12 or 13 days, wouldn't you say? Arriving, safe, sound, and all the wiser, on the Ankle of Always.

More lost and found

2007-10-19T16:36:00.000+02:00

More lost and found on the Camino de Santiago:

Lost:

My floppy sun hat. Twice. Found and returned safe and sound, also twice, by a very tall angel of a German peregrino named Niils. Hat angel Niils.

Found:

Ultra cool silicone inserts for my boots. SO comfy. God love the pharmacists of Spain!

The magical powers of Voltarén -- a Novartis anti-inflammatory and my new best friend.

back again soon...walk into León tomorrow

¡Viva España!

2007-10-19T16:29:00.000+02:00

Forgive me for not linking...short on time, but I have finally stumbled across the lyrics to the Manola Escobar tune I learned so very, very well while racing recklessly through La Rioja in the Peugot of El Gran Antonio (read back a few if you missed the post, will link later). Will be back to translate, too!

A Taste:
Spain always has been an always will be an eternal paradise.
Without equal.
That´s why you hear this refrain: que viva España
Que viva España
And they will always remember: Que viva España
The people sing with ardor
Que viva España
Life has another color
Spain is the best!

I haven't had time to watch (or sound to listen) but see if this is a video of Manolo singing the tune:
http://www.musica.com/video.asp?video=1070

VIVA ESPAÑA
Manolo Escobar

Entre flores fandanguillos y alegrías nació
Mi españa la tierra del amor
Solo dios pudiera hacer tanta belleza y es imposible
Que pueda haber dos
Y todo el mundo sabe que es verdad y lloran cuando
Tienen que marchar
Por eso se oye este refrán, que viva españa
Y siempre la recordarán que viva españa
La gente canta con ardor, que viva españa
La vida tiene otro color, españa es la mejor
En las tardes soleadas de corrida la gente aclama
Al diestro con fervor
Y el saluda paseando a su cuadrilla con esa gracia
De torero español
La plaza con sus oles vibra ya y empieza nuestra
Fiesta nacional
Por eso se oye este refrán, que viva españa
Y siempre la recordarán que viva españa
La gente canta con ardor, que viva españa
La vida tiene otro color, españa es la mejor
Que bonito es el mar mediterráneo su costa brava y
Su costa del sol
La sardana y el fandango me emocionan porque en
Sus notas hay vida y hay calor
España siempre ha sido y será eterno paraiso
Sin igual.
Por eso se oye este refrán, que viva españa
Y siempre la recordarán que viva españa
La gente canta con ardor, que viva españa
La vida tiene otro color, españa es la mejor

Lost and found on the Camino de Santiago

2007-10-18T18:26:00.000+02:00

LOST

1. More than a few contact lenses. Though I did find the one I thought I'd lost yesterday. Found it in my eye, I did. Down to three lenses, all just a tad worn.

2. 1 pair after-walking socks, left in the albergue in Terradillos de los Templarios.

3. All sense of linear time. And the date.

4. 1 hiking pole. I left it in the first bar on the way in to Burgos, and have since heard it was last seen happily leaning against a table near the door, by pilgrims who spotted it without knowing it was mine. May you be happy there, trusty pole.

5. So many people I would have liked to have gotten to know better.

6. At least a pant size, judging by my sudden and increasingly urgent need for a belt.

FOUND

Ah, here I can only begin to list....

1. At least a dozen muscles I promise you I never knew I was carrying round with me.

2. Time. Lots and lots and lots of time.

3. The undeniable advantages of doing this Camino when you speak Spanish.....and English.

4. Herculean generosity. Can't think of a better way to describe it.

5. Comida picante in Spain. Yes!! In Spain! Go to Navarra, now, and order alubias rojas (red beans)...then sit back and wait. Before you know it you will be sitting before a bowl of fabulously tasty alubias - served with a nice stack of hot (ok, semi hot) peppers. Similar to pepperoncini, for example. Heavenly.

Much more to come......

Hats off to the Junta of Castilla y Leon

2007-10-18T18:15:00.000+02:00

Greetings from El Burgo de Ranero, between Sahugún and León, where the older folks are friendly, the houses are made of mud (amazing thing, I kid you not, old houses and new houses alike), and the children surf the afternoon away (next to wandering peregrinas) in a deluxe 10-station cybercenter, completely free, compliments of my local government, the Junta of Castilla y León.

I might add that the pharmacy in town is a delightful spot for an afternoon shopping spree. I went for the echinacia, the ibuprofen, and a nice new box of bandaids.

Another day, another unexpected adventure

2007-10-08T19:14:00.000+02:00

Another day, another unexpected adventure.

And at least 3 new songs to sing on the Camino.

When the 3 españolas -a pair from Menorca and their friend the Barcelonesa, the same three who taught me to lose at cards last night - asked if I'd like to join them on an excursion to the Monastery of San Millán de La Cogolla, 20 km from Azofra, I immediately signed on. I've stopped walking early today, after only 16 km, certain that my beautifully recovered ankle is not yet up to a 31 km day, which I'd be facing if I headed on to the next albergue.

We hired a taxi driver, who drove in from Nájera. His name is Antonio; his business card calls him "El Gran Antonio".

El Gran Antonio sings. We drove to the monastery in a luxury, super comfortable Peugot with a singing taxi driver named El Gran Antonio.

The monastery is closed Mondays, as it turns out, although we did manage to talk our way into visiting the older monastery tucked into the side of the mountain above, alongside the caves where God spoke to San Millán. That's a story for another day.

Today's tale closes with 2 menorquinas, a barcelonesa , a wandering American and a troubador taxi driver driving through the pueblos of Rioja with Manola Escobar blasting on the car stereo....only to returning through the same pueblos an hour or two later, singing "Vive España" at the top of their lungs...

Here, discover Manolo Escobar. (I just did.)

I'll search next session for the lyrics to my favorite of the trip's tunes....
but for now..

"Vive España
España es la mejor....." (that's the song, honest...)

Day....wait, what day is this again?

2007-10-08T15:43:00.000+02:00

Greetings from beautiful downtown Azofra, in La Rioja!

Internet access has been hard to come by, especially since I try to stop in the smaller pueblos and smaller albergues. But this tiny, tired-looking town not only serves one hell of a tortilla sandwich (a entire tortilla de patata arranged on a barra of crusty bread) but also offers a newly constructed, high tech (double rooms... we're sleeping only 2 to a room!) albergue. The paisano to my right at the town bar assured me this was "the best albergue on the Camino". And, so, of course, in the best albergue Azofra can offer, the townsfolk have installed two pay-for-internet stations.

And here I am!

I have this desperate desire to write something brilliant, or at least worthy of this trip, but since I doubt I'll last long here at the keyboard this afternoon, I'll settle for a quick, less than brilliant update.

Tomorrow I'll walk through Santo Domingo de la Calzada. An important stop, and one you'll likely be able to find online if you'd like to track me. I'll try to catch up on Google maps if I hit a more comfortable internet stop.

Meanwhile, here's a bit of what you can look forward to reading, once I settle in to write this story. Let's call it the adventures of la ingeniosa hidalga de Salamanca. Some day soon you'll read:

Chapter One
In which our heroine sprains her ankle just before entering the lovely town of Santa Cilia, in Aragon. Noticing it hurts less than her "usual" ankle twist - and if you've been reading this blog you know there is indeed a "usual" wandering woman ankle twist - our hiking hidalga decides it is not a sprain and walks 10 kilometers more, just enough to reach the equally lovely, if unfortunately VERTICAL, town of Arrés. There she is warmly greeted by Basque hopitaleros Mari Paz and Anton, a dozen intriguing and incredibly generous pilgrims, and an icepack.

Chapter Two
In which our heroine sits still for 3 days with her leg on ice, while she learns, among other things, the following:
1) Patience
2) What I like to call "Slow Camino." Each one of us is here doing his or her own own Camino, at his or her pace, and the Camino of our ingenious hidalga, it would seem, includes a good long period of rest. And reflection. Along with plenty of hello-goodbyes and buen caminos to the pilgrims passing through the albergues where she sits, very very still.
3) Last, she learns to graciously accept kindness and generosity from complete strangers, including a handful with whom she shares not even a common language.
A veteran peregrino gives her a bandage for her ankle, a smiling German woman insists our heroine take double doses of the special homeopathic brew she's carried to the camino - a few drops on the ankle and a few more on the tongue. A young Canadian offers up an antinflammatory patch someone gave him when he came down with tendonitis early in the Camino, somewhere in the French Pyrenees.
4) Did I mention patience?

Chapter Three
In which our immobile peregrina is serenaded for hours by a guitar plucking Spanish albañil walking the Camino for a week's vacation, Jaca to Sanguesa.

.....and on and on we will go to last evening's chapter, in which she spends the night in a huge stone palacio refurbished by a bodega, where she drinks more exquisite Rioja (the vino del autor, best offered by this bodega) than she cares to recall, munches on jamón, chorizo picante, salchichón and learns to lose at Spanish card games.

more to come next internet stop...

Day one!

2007-09-23T17:20:00.000+02:00

Here's a quick post just to tell you I'm on the Camino! I'll get to comments next time online..
Tonight I am in Jaca, having walked from Canfranc Estación as my first day.
I owe the gentleman at the Madrid Friends of the Camino (and Diane and Steve from the comment box) a beer; my 7 or 8 kilos with water was completely bearable today. Meanwhile, all those young manly types carrying 15 or 16 kilos are nursing tendonitis! And wondering how the old chick knew what to bring (and not bring) to the Camino!

I will back soon! Now it's time to go put these poor legs up and fill up a few notebook pages!

Saramago on a Sunday

2007-09-16T15:59:00.000+02:00

Every man has his own patch of earth to cultivate. What’s important is that he dig deep.

José Saramago

That's the bank of the Tormes, in spring. I spent at least week fascinated with that larger than life daisy, standing tall. He just seemed to fit the quote, which fits the day, and the start of the Camino.

Happy Sunday.

Camino de Santiago, Lesson Two: and when you reach your destination...

2007-09-16T14:47:00.000+02:00

I wandered into Madrid on Thursday to pick up a Pilgrim's Credential at the Puerta del Sol offices of the Madrid Friends of the Camino.

A very warm collection of Camino veterans lined us up in the hallway, brought us in groups of 15 or so into a small room for a 20- minute charla, and later signed over to each of us the credential that will give us access to pilgrim albergues along the way and at the end of the road, the Compostela attesting to our pilgrimage.

There was detailed talk of blisters (¡Vamos, ampollas, vaís a tener!) and a heated discussion of tried and true treatments. There was a stern warning against bringing anything even slightly new, a warning that sent the wandering American who's had to buy plenty new into nervous gulps and extra-copious notes on tried and true blister treatments.

The promised lesson on how to find a place to sleep in albergues (Don't worry about where you'll sleep, by the third day, you'll sleep standing up) developed in a Vegas-worthy stand-up routine about the albergue-obsessed group of pilgrims he referred to simply as los franceses, who apparently rise at the ungodly hour of 330 in the morning to be sure they arrive at the next town in time to be first in line for a bed in the municipal (and therefore free, with an optional donation) albergue. The albergues open at 330 pm. The lines of early to rise Frenchmen, if the story is to be believed, start at 11 am, particularly on the Camino's (busiest) last 100 miles. I watched the two young French men who'd come in behind me share giggles and rolling eyes.

Our guide assured us he could tell with one look not one of us was going to beat the French to the albergues (¡Vamos, a las tres y media de la mañana!) and recommended, entonces, that we "work" the whole camino, like him (as he patted his well-fed middle). Work the pueblo bars, there to offer us a relaxed and tasty breakfast, and, a sandwich midmorning, and a taste of local pinchos, cheeses, and wine at the day's end. Work the system of private albergues which even in the busiest towns would offer us a bed for 12 euros a night, and the opportunity to call ahead and reserve the bed during the afternoon. No need to rush. Ever.

His final word of advice convinced me this is my kind of pilgrimage:

"Do you all know what to do when you get to Santiago?", he asked, after describing the walking route to the Cathedral and the location of the office where we would claim the Compostela at journey's end.

"If you arrive midmorning, los franceses will already be in line for the Compostela", he promised, his words meeting more giggles from the young Frenchmen behind me. "Because they got up at 3:30. "

"So you, what do you do when you to get to Santiago?"

"Go into the Cathedral to hug the statue of Saint James", replied two or three eager pilgrims.

"For that you have to stand in line behind the French", came the response, accompanied by that Spanish tongue clicking, head shaking "no" I've come to love.

"When you arrive in Santiago, you do the first thing you should do whenever you arrive in Santiago de Compostela, from anywhere. You walk right by the cathedral, turn the corner, and walk into the first bar you see. You greet the bartender. Then you order mussels, and octupus, and the best Ribeiro in the house. "

"Around 3, when los franceses have gone to bed, (because they got up at 330!), you pay the tab, and with your freshly renewed energy and appreciation for life, you stroll right into the now-deserted Cathedral office, tell your stories to the staff, and claim your Compostela.

"And then", with a nod to the eager pilgrims, " you kiss the saint."

Yep. I can do this.

You know you've lived in Spain when....

2007-09-16T11:25:00.000+02:00

This list showed up in an e-mail from a Salmantina who's been working for the Spanish tourism office in Chicago for just about a year now.

While I've enjoyed all of this Salmantina's reports from my "home town", not even this amusing list beats the photo of an ice encrusted bedroom window she forwarded last winter. If she dreamed of winning the eternal admiration of the Salmantinos she'd left behind, she did so with that photo. That frozen window is still the talk of Salamanca, and the courage and presumed clothes-layering talents of the woman who dared lived behind it are legendary.

Without further ado, here are a few amusing ways to recognize an American who's lived in Spain.

You know you've lived in Spain when:

1 You can't for the life of you figure out why bars and clubs keep closing down just as you get started with a night out. Surely the night's just beginning?

2 You aren't just surprised that the plumber, painter or repairman has turned up on time; you're surprised he turned up at all.

3 You think it's nice to tell everyone how great they look today.

4 Not giving every new acquaintance dos besos just feels so rude.

5 What's with all this butter on toast? And where's the olive oil? Toast without olive oil? Is this a joke?

6 You forget to say please and thank you when asking for things. You implied it in your tone of voice, right?

7 You don't see sunflower seeds as a healthy snack - they're just what the cool kids eat.

8 Every sentence you speak in English contains at least one of the following: 'bueno,' 'vale,' 'venga,' 'pues nada'...

9 You recognize clapping as an art form, not just a way to express approval.

10 You have friends named Jesus, José María, María José, Ángel, and Inmaculada Concepción. Many of each, in fact.

Let me add a few of my own:

You can't even think about drinking coffee with cold milk.

Nor will you entertain the possibility of a meal without bread. How will you get the food to your mouth?

You plan nothing until you are about to do it. And you think nothing of spontaneously calling friends, and yes, expecting them to drop what they're doing and join you.

You say goodbye at least a dozen times before actually leaving. Anywhere.
Often these goodbyes last long than the visit that preceded them.

Ah, and my favorite:

You plan a 5-week unpaid vacation to walk a pilgrim's route across the country, alone, and nobody blinks an eye. Even the most casual acquaintances merely make note of your start date, to be sure to call during the walk and egg you on.

Camino de Santiago: Lesson One

2007-09-10T12:06:00.000+02:00

Lesson one, hard learned as I dig into the provisioning, gathering the 12 lbs I shall honor with a long ride on my back (note to self: please let me keep it to 12 lbs), demanding weights of shopkeepers and webstores, lifting each and every item that comes within a foot of the rapidly filling pack....and doing one heck of an impression of a two pan balance, if I do say so myself.

The lesson? Hard-learned, but true.

Everything weighs something.

you LIKE me, you really do.....

2007-09-08T12:37:00.000+02:00

The generous, entertaining, well-fed (visit his blog, you'll understand) and seemingly trilingual Tonicito has honored me with the Premio Blog Solidario.

Yep, me.

I like winning prizes!

I like winning prizes, but even more I like when somebody gets me. And Tonicito, a Spaniard living in Salzburg while writing a bilingual English/Spanish blog, gets me. Know why he chose me?

".....porque me encanta descubrir España a través de sus ojos, porque con ella descubro aquello que siempre había estado ante mí y que nunca me había llamado la atención. "

Because he loves to discover Spain though my eyes, he discovers what has always been in front of him, but never caught his attention....

Tonicito, mil gracias, amigo, y no, no necesito que traduzcas tus comentarios, lo que necesito es el coraje de escribir en mi segundo idioma, como haces tú....jeje, pronto pronto....

I proudly pass along the Premio Blog Solidario to:

Alex, from Building Bridges, because she knew just how to rechristen her blog, formerly titled Our Great European Adventure, on her recent return to Toronto. I love reading Alex because she truly lives her new blog title and watching her do that, post by post, is a delicious cybertreat. Alex strikes me as one of those rare beings who truly sees beyond tribes, borders and easy labels, and who finds magic in the everyday and "ordinary".

Cream, from Screamers because he and the feedblitz e-mail that delivers his posts to my inbox every morning have made my day more times than I could possibly count. His blog is funny, wise and warm, and more often than not, comes accompanied by a delightful drawing by its author.

Alex and Cream, if you like, you can pass the Premio on to up to 7 blogs you find worth reading.

And don't think for a minute that I don't love that this meme just leaped from a Spaniard in Austria to an American in Spain on its way to an Algerian in the UK and a Brazilian in Canada.

Speaking of building bridges....

Walking

2007-09-03T20:42:00.000+02:00

"Walking", by Henry David Thoreau:

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks, -- who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived "from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre," to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander.

They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere.

For this is the secret of successful sauntering.

When I offered to gather up (unrelated) favorites for a friend the other day, I found this Thoreau quote hiding as the long-ago tagged first favorite on my bookmark list.

Timely.

Seems I'm going for a walk.

Today is one of those days I will long remember. Today I spoke with one of my clients, the last client whose buy-in I wanted to secure. He immediately agreed to a busy September and a very quiet October.

I leave September 23 or 24 for a 5-week saunter along the Camino de Santiago. I hope to start with the Camino Aragonés and finish with a walk from Santiago to Finisterre.

As soon as this incredible stroke of perfect timing and delicious luck sinks in, I'll be back to blog about the getting-ready.

How's tomorrow for you?