Carry-On

Thank you

thank you

thank you to Colleen

for lending me her backpack...

...and to Sue

for her bedroll, sleep-sack,

guides and glossaries,

alarmingly short packing list,

and all her Been-There Wisdom...

...two generous, soulful, SPIRITED women I will carry with me on the Camino!

hmmm...That makes me muse on who else I'll be carrying with me. All the family and friends I love, of course. And all those I love and have had to let go...

On Mother's Day I had the profound honor of playing harp for a lovely, beloved woman as she slipped out of this life and into Whatever Comes Next. Part of what I do for a living, now, as Hospice Musician. To be in the presence of someone in that liminal state, actively crossing a threshold...it's a blessing, and a challenge. Brings to mind other, happier thresholds -- the birth of my two beautiful kids, of course. But it also begs the question, the Only Question: What are you doing with your life? Because this is It -- so are you where you want to be, doing what you want to do, with the people you want to be with...and if not, why not?

UGHHHH. There she goes again. Always with the spritual stuff. Every day I learn more about how similar my mother and I are, and how different we can be. I think it has something to do with where we are in our lives, and the different stages that take over at the different parts. Its an exciting, odd, challenging thing, putting two people together with similar and different hopes/expectations/goals. But I'm glad I'm doing it with her, because I know if I tried to do it with anyone else, it just wouldn't work. love you mama....

I know...I'm fun. Enough of that --

check check check...the list gets shorter.

We now have reservations for a hotel in A Coruna where we start and finish our trip....finally! after an interesting back-and-forth between the manager and me, via e-mail in goofy Spanish and English, where my American impulse to nail everything down ran smack into the evidently less-anal Galician resistance to absolute guarantees ("si si, confirmamos su reserva de una habitacion doble, no es necesaria la tarjeta, todo ok, saludos" Translation: Chill, lady. My reaction, after "yikes", can only be: Viva Espana!!)

So that's kinda it for reservations, since the rest of the time we are on the road, and we'll walk till we stop, then find a place to sleep. Or not. Definition: Pilgrimage. Not knowing exactly how far we'll make it every day, Caity has convinced me to forgo guesstimating and trying to secure a place in Santiago and in Fisterra before we actually arrive.

(Though I must admit, I almost made a reservation at one hotel in Finisterra after visiting their website and seeing the plug: "WE HAVE LARGE ROOMS and DRAWERS!" Ya gotta wonder...just how the hell big are those drawers?)