Sacral philomath; semi-permanent vision quest
Mi tío falleció inesperadamente anoche. Era duro, con un rasgo estoico/vaquero, difícil. También, amaba a su gente mucho; un buscador de conocimiento, en su manera, que lo llevó desde los campos de Oklahoma hasta el Río Jordán y de vuelta.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.
After four days of walking the Camino de Santiago, four days of enjoying being an awestruck pilgrim/tourist in Santiago de Compostela, and two days of traversing Galicia in train and van to get Alqo back from the residencia canina, I’m finally back home in cold foggy Monforte and jumping back into the swing of things at work.
The prado I take Alqo to is now a little greener and more fungal than when I left:
It’s been quite the year.
I’m finally ready to start sharing a bit about what’s happened and changed within me. This time, I plan to actually write and share with honesty; not the thing I was doing before — hiding behind some semi-curated veneer of who I actually am for the sake of ignoring some of my shadows. Let’s see if any of it makes sense and/or is helpful to others.
In the meantime though, here’s my pilgrim credential from my four-day camino de invierno a Santiago de Compostela (I collated some Instagram Stories from along the way):
Day 1: Monforte de Lemos → Chantada
Day 2: Chantada → Rodeiro
Day 3: Rodeiro → Silleda
Day 4: Silleda → Santiago de Compostela
I also re-connected Micro.blog to kickstart the slow move away from Twitter/Instagram.
My friend Jesús Benavides carved this self-representation of what living with MS feels like.
I think it belongs in a museum. He responded, “It’s already there, in my street museum.”
We drove Holly down to Madrid a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time I had left Galicia/Portugal in two years. We were dropping her off to her new owner.
We were selling her because we found this blue Smurf of a camper van online and were looking to upgrade.
Although a few years older, this one sleeps four comfortably, has a fixed bed, rotating seats, automatic transmission, and a solar panel. But most importantly, we can stand up in this one.
The house project has all but stalled, but this fall we’ve got other priorities: preparing the Molly to head south for the winter, new work responsibilities, and taking a breather from an intense summer at the finca.