leaving...

... in a couple hours to walk the Camino de Santiago.

Be back June 28.

Love to all!

P.S. We'll be meeting up with a red shirt (Annika! [below]) in Santiago who will escort us on the last leg of the journey, to Finisterre, and protect us from marauding bird life and suchlike.

Counting Down

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[E-mail]
Hi, Annika!

BUSY writing out all the details of airplane/metro/train and hotel info, so just a quick hello to say we leave tomorrow, Sunday, morning (it's 11 pm now)!

We will e-mail you along the way and are looking forward to seeing you (!!!) on June 19th. Amazing.

Oh--I got my hair cut for the trip. Here are some pix of bink and me in downtown Mpls. (reflected in a mirrored wall), the other day.

Funny little thing---Lucinda (bink) and I were putting our gym membership on hold the other day. I pulled out my little mesh wallet I carry ID in, and Lucinda asked if I was taking it to Spain. I said maybe, but I was also thinking of taking the lightweight little Star Trek wallet, with Kirk and Spock on it, which my friend Annette gave me for my birthday.

The chic young woman who was helping us surprised me by saying, "Oh, definitely take the Star Trek wallet!"

So, I am. I am always willing to listen to the advice of strangers. (Especially when it matches what I secretly want anyway.)

'Bye!

Love,
Francesca

"Nothing is ever too hard for a dog..."

We leave in two days.
Fr. Joe blessed bink's and my pilgrim feet last night at Merlins Rest. (Cathy's feet are going on a different trip and got a blessing too.)


This poem feels perfect for the Camino, a big dumb happy effort.

Fetch

by Ruth L. Schwartz

Nothing is ever too hard for a dog,
all big dumb happiness and effort.
This one keeps swimming out into the
icy water for a stick,
he'd do it all day and all night
if you'd throw it that long,
he'd do it till it killed him, then he'd die
dripping and shining, a black waterfall,
the soggy broken stick still clenched
in his doggy teeth,

and watching him you want to cry
for all the wanting you've forsworn,
and how, when he hits deeper water,
his body surges suddenly, as if to say
Nothing could stop me now --
while you're still thinking everything
you've ever loved
meant giving up some other thing you loved,
your hand, the stick stuck in the air,
in the shining air.

from Ruth L. Schwartz, Edgewater, New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2002.


I found this poem in an essay about RLS, "Calling Out God and America" on Alan W. King's Blog.

[You might also like Schwartz's poem "Oh God, Fuck Me".]