"a tensile promise of experience tempered with barely restrained passion"

"James' lips are a tensile promise of experience tempered with barely restrained passion."
--Bianca Castafiore?, comment on the previous post

I see it in this lip curl, a more worried expression than the related smirk.

What is this blogging thing?

I miss blogging but haven't been able to get traction to really get started again. I came out to Bob's today at noon intending to blog then did everything but for six hours.
Including posting some Camino pics (post below)--which, while fun, doesn't count as blogging for me.

Also watched for the nth time Justin Bieber's catchy pop tune "U Smile". His performance fascinates me--what IS it?(Song starts at 1:03.)


I shall try blogging again tomorrow. Hm. Or maybe not, since tomorrow is the Women's World Cup final. USA v. Japan.
Starring the amazing goalkeeper Hope Solo. (Yes, she is related to Han).
photo from Nike's "Make Yourself" series, by Annie Liebovitz

What there is to do on Camino in Spain when you're not walking.

1. Play catch with an orange. (Me in blue shirt--you can see the orange by the 2nd story window.)

2. Pause while sheep make their way home,

3. ... followed by their shepherd.

Photos by Eeva.

Good Speed Is Your Speed

You can't do the Camino wrong.

It doesn't matter how fast you walk...

___________________
[Above: Graffiti along the Camino de Santiago, and me, dozing at Cee, Spain, on the next-to-last day of the pilgrimage (photo by Annika)]

...if you carry the "wrong" backpack
[Pamplona: Me sewing a Star Trek patch (made by Art Sparker) onto my external-frame backpack---which a Spanish guy later declared only fit for Boy Scouts--and Mz tossing grapes to catch in her mouth, waiting for the bus to the beginning of the trail in Roncesvalles]

...what you eat [Fried egg sandwich and beer, here.]

...or if your bed is comfortable.
[Not.]

If you keep going, you'll get somewhere.
Maybe to where you thought you were going.

You'll probably be happy, ABOVE: bink (who took most of the pix here), me, and Marz at the fishing port of Finisterre, Spain.

...but maybe you'll also be sad that you can't walk any farther.


ABOVE: Me ^ (can you see me?) at the End of the World, handing to the ocean-going winds the ashes of the words I'd carried across Spain. Photo by Eeva.

Not to worry. The Camino never really ends.
____________________

Today is a happy day.
Marz (below, left) is arriving on the Greyhound bus, to visit or maybe even move here.


Yesterday I took my old backpack to Steeple People Thrift Store. The Spanish guy was right to be dubious--it was far less comfortable than everyone else's modern internal frame packs. Further, a strap broke and I walked with a lopsided pack the last couple weeks.

Nevertheless I felt sad to part with it,
but as I was dropping it off, I overheard workers in the back pricing a bicycle at $25. Marz will need transportation, so I ducked into the workers' area and nabbed it for her.
It's just an old 3-speed, but it'll do for this flat terrain.

Now I have to go finish putting away my stuff so Marz has a place to put hers.

Hi, there! I'm back...

...from walking across Spain, where I dragged a chair from a café/bar at O Cebreiro (elevation about 1300 meters/4000 feet) to the edge of the road to wave at Manfred, who said he would stand on a chair in Paris and wave at me (did you?)...
but I am pressing it into double duty, to serve as a general hello!


I've felt overwhelmed, even thinking about trying to start to write about the trip.
Here.
I'll just jump in, with some pictures (from bink, who had a camera--I regret I didn't bring mine):

It was 7 weeks.
Here's bink at the beginning, at Roncesvalles.


It rained some. Not too badly or too long, but enough to make a muddy road.

I got some blisters, also not too badly.
I figured out the best way to deal with them was TO NOT STOP WALKING.
Not stopping seems to be very important in many realms.

On the meseta (plateau), week 3, my brain finally unfurled.
I realized that what I want in myself is SPACIOUSNESS. (I can get very crowded inside.)

People were great. Kindness won out even over snoring and a diet of white bread.
Here I am with Fred (from Holland) and Audrey (South Africa).

Remember I'd invited Marz, of smoothable, to come along, even tho we'd never met f2f?
She was even better in person.

Here we are dancing on the road, the night before we walked into Santiago. (I miss her. But she's coming to visit--or relocate?--in a couple weeks.)

We walked all the way up to the edge of the continent, until we couldn't walk any further unless we could walk on water.
There, beyond the lighthouse at Finisterre, I got out the baggie of words some of you sent along with me.
I read the words out loud (unless they were private), then I set them on fire.
I took the ashes and handed them to the wind blowing out over the Atlantic.

Barrett had sent along her dream. She is living with the final stages of lung cancer.
I superimposed her words onto Eeva's photo of the sunset at Finisterre.

[click to embiggen]