Skip to main content

In 11 Short Weeks

Today I bought a guide book. A guide to the Camino de Santiago. Because I am going there. In roughly twelve weeks.
I may never come back.
Kidding!
I am seriously excited for this trip. Here are the reasons why:
1. My friend Kirsten is lovely and smart. We have vacationed together twice, and have fond memories of both Saskatoon and Cuba. I expect this will blow them both out of the water.
2. I crave simplicity and solitude these days. You can't get much simpler than walking for three weeks with all your provisions on your back. And there will be plenty of solitude, I'm sure. Hopefully not the kind that comes as a result of conflict after three weeks of travel in a foreign country where neither of us speak the language.
3. This month abroad will mark another transition in my life. My last day of work as a nanny is July 29. When I come back from Spain, I will hopefully have other employment lined up - I currently have several communications/admin/writing leads... And I have dreams for the 2011-2012 year (why do I still follow the school calendar in my head? I have been done school for FIVE years now.)... These dreams will be publicized shortly. But for now, I would just like to bask in the glory that will be August.
Sun.
Silence.
Serenity.
Sweat.
Simplicity.
SANTIAGO.

Comments

  1. Camino de Santiago! My friend's parents are doing it right now...are you training for it? They said it is SO intense but so great!! Buy good socks and shoes:) We need to hang out before you go. You free next week?? mSg me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. ha! conflict-based solitude...

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God  is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly  the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit  object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor  Love of the beauty of the world  Love of religious practices  and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thin

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

It's Sunday night and I am multi-tasking. Paid some bills, catching up on free musical downloads from the past month, thinking about the mix-tape I need to make and planning my last assignment for writing class. Shortly, I will abandon the laptop to write my first draft by hand. But until then, I am thinking about music. This song played for me earlier this afternoon, as I attempted to nap. I woke up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 this morning, then lay in bed until 8 o'clock flipping sides and thinking about every part of my life that exists. It wasn't stressful, but it wasn't quite restful either...This past month, I have spent a lot of time rebuffing lies and refusing to believe that the inside of my heart and mind can never change. I feel like Florence + The Machine 's song "Shake it Out" captures many of these feelings & thoughts. (addendum: is the line "I like to keep my issues strong or drawn ?" Lyrics sites have it as "stro

Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st