Summer Rocks

I am very happy. I am riding the waves of whatever the wind blows this way. And it´s blowing a nice warm breeze across the plains, riffling the fat heads of rye and barley, and sending sharp rye seeds down the ears of  poor Tim Dog. (One fat head seeks  another?)

The farmers are cutting grain and baling straw and sending up great clouds of dust. Work on the new pilgrim hostel is coming right along. (alas, not the Italian albergue!)  Sunflowers have another half-meter to grow before they bloom, but they´re getting there, and the great fields of them are going to be spectacular by mid-July, just in time to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

As you know, this is the very best time of year for me. Everything is so alive and bright and warm, right at its peak -- except maybe sunflowers and tomatoes, which gives me something to look forward to. (The tomatoes are getting near, however. I made a gazpacho that was right up there this week... another couple of weeks and it´ll be right in To Die For territory. I may even post the recipe, it´s that good -- if you guys want me to.) (I am feeling parenthetical. Just so you are warned, if I become discursive.)

I am doing lots of writing exercises in the wee hours of these days, following a track laid down by Natalie Goldberg, she of "Writing Down the Bones" fame. Religious Fundamentalists might have trouble with her approach to writing, but I´m of a Buddhist turn of mind myself, so she suits me fine. I can´t recommend her highly enough, her exercises keep me limber and sharp and very much alive and In The Moment. (I tried to link you to her books on Amazon, but these days it seems the Information Superhighway has left me in the dust. I have been on the Internet since well before Netscape and browsers, even, but now I feel stupid and slow. A dinosaur carcass on the Information Superhighway. (Which is, I am sure, an antique term.))

This is why the blog post is rather stream-of-consciousness, because the writing exercises I´m doing this time of night are that way, and I like to keep you guys on your toes, and I had a glass of Rectoral de Amandi (Mencia wine from the Ribera Sacra region of Galicia, the vineyards I passed on the Camino Invierno) before I sat down.. This is the only time I have to write, so you´ll have to take it as it comes.  Most of my real writing juice is going into a book. I am having a really wonderful time getting that project going, and it´s not the Moratinos Life book I talked about before, but something more timely that´s evolved right out of the middle of it.

And in the middle of all this wine and scribbling come the pilgrims, hospitaleros, and dramas, and Paddy falling off the bicycle and scraping the hell out of his elbow, an elegant garden luncheon with Marianne la Suiza, and a call from The Federation for me to come out to La Rioja to do an emergency hospitalero gig, and a call from the Church for us to open up Sto. Tomas here in Moratinos once a week so the passing pilgs can come in and have a gander. So we are doing all of the above. Kim is still here, making it all glossy and shimmery rather than ratty and unraveled, although I think she´s gonna hit the trail again pretty soon. (We did a Road Trip up to Ponferrada yesterday, and I took us on a sentimental journey up to Peñalba, where I started on the Camino Invierno a couple of months ago...we climbed a 3-kilometer mountain path to the cave where the holy hermit St. Genadio lived 1,300 years ago. (I wanna write his story. Except I think he was a woman. Really.) here are some pictures. And notice the new header. That´s Kim´s doing. She´s phenomenal. And she´s the header up at the top of this entry, looking all edgey.

Put it all together and it means we are happy here at The Peaceable Kingdom. We are doing what we oughtta. (Like the kiddie song, about the little white duck, swimmin´ on the water, doing what she oughtta-r.)

Summer rocks.

I might be another little while before I post again, due to that emergency gig. It´s between Estella and Los Arcos, for all you Camino-heads: out in the middle of the vineyards in La Rioja.

How I suffer.