tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90189852374381960132024-02-19T16:27:01.283+01:00Big Fun in a Tiny PuebloRebekah Scott, an erstwhile USA newspaper journalist, pulled up stakes in June 2006 and moved with Paddy, her wise-ass English husband to The Peaceable Kingdom, a farmhouse in Moratinos, a rural pueblo in Palencia, Spain. Moratinos is on the Camino de Santiago, an ancient pilgrimage route now popular with hikers and bikers and riders of all beliefs and stripes and types, and The Peaceable is an occasional stopping-place for these wanderers. This is an account of their adventures.Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.comBlogger602125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-57115325160660539552020-10-09T12:45:00.001+02:002020-10-09T12:45:43.402+02:00Kinda Like Old Times<p>Trees are turning yellow, but the sun still shines bright. We counted 22 pilgrims on the Way this morning, most of them Italians, many without backpacks. </p><p>It's a strange, strange year on the Camino. There's a bus carrying pilgrims past Leon, which is locked down for a couple of weeks. There are a whole lot fewer pilgrims than before. It is nice. Like old times. </p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdpBOJweaXGcyipL6kkWg6baBHHY6BoGxo9wezwDT_t_sR7oCGdQv8cpDBGmq4LW3O7mMsXgA4XOkvKPLhlScSvd_aiR87UnbdYOPvBY8ddQ4ODocf8MuXQ-t4Mm88aHWH03MzYVS7Ph6/s1440/118787358_10164129059735076_5001137772240822199_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1072" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUdpBOJweaXGcyipL6kkWg6baBHHY6BoGxo9wezwDT_t_sR7oCGdQv8cpDBGmq4LW3O7mMsXgA4XOkvKPLhlScSvd_aiR87UnbdYOPvBY8ddQ4ODocf8MuXQ-t4Mm88aHWH03MzYVS7Ph6/s320/118787358_10164129059735076_5001137772240822199_o.jpg" /></a>We've had a few come here to stay with us. Nowadays, without exception, they are the ones who don't have money to stay with Bruno or at the Hostal. They all are very spiritual. Some of them, apparently, are not very functional adults. Like old times, back when there were hippies all along the Way. Free spirits, broken doves, lost boys. </p><p>The pilgrimage has gone quiet. Santiago 2020 is not an easy path for people with no money, as the only places open these days are privately owned. Most have cranked their prices up as far as the market will bear. The privileged sleep on beds with clean sheets. The poor sleep outdoors. </p><p>Yeah, just like the good old days.</p><p>I love pilgrims, I continue to help them move along the Way in a safe and orderly manner. I do not so much miss having them here in my house. There are not many poor people on the camino, so we don't get many at our door. When they come, we let them in, we let them stay. We follow the hygeine rules, but it's still risky. Doing the right thing is not always the safe option. </p><p>So far, so good. I am healthy, tanned, and fit, working hard out in the weeds. Peaceable Projects is quiet, too. I expect that to suddenly change one of these days. </p><p>I hope for better things, a brighter future. </p><p>For now, we enjoy a rest, a Sabbath year. Covid-Tide. </p>Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-38393394771613431022020-06-09T17:18:00.002+02:002020-06-09T17:18:32.645+02:00Ireland and Kansas Join the Yarn Bomb Squad<br />
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Moratinos is known along the Camino for its <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarn_bombing" target="_blank">“yarn-bombed”</a> plaza
trees. The local ladies love sitting on the plaza bench on summer afternoons,
watching the pilgrims snap photos of their crocheted handiwork. The pilgrims
enjoy the splash of color, the odd incongruity of a soft, hand-knitted surface
superimposed onto a natural objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Which
is to say, crocheted and knitted blankets wrapped around the trunks of trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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The first blankets went up three years ago, using handmade
items donated by knitters from all over Spain and other parts of the world,
too. As time, sunshine and weather took their tolls the crochet has been
patched-up, replaced, nailed, stapled, stitched, and stuck-up every which way. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all agreed last year that the installation
was due for an overhaul. After the holidays. After winter…<o:p></o:p></div>
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Spain went into lockdown in March, so all the usual Spring
maintenance was pushed back, too. The flags sagged. The banners went brown,
their corners curled. The once colorful crochet faded and stretched along the
seams.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Three weekends ago we were allowed out of our houses, so Flor
and Marivalle, Sonia, Toni, and Luca, Ana and me, Segundino, Jorge, and Bruno
headed for the plaza to do the needed deeds. We started with scissors and
step-stools, but soon hauled out the ladders, hammers, and wire-cutters. Ants
and mosquitos feasted on us. We freed the trees of their sweaters and
un-strangled the trunks where we’d tied things on too tightly. We sent the
grubby fabric through a gentle washing-machine cycle. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The following Saturday we gathered again in the ayuntamiento meeting room to survey
what remained. (And to sample Flor's cheesecake, and Segundino's "champagne.")</div>
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It was messy. Some knitted pieces had turned ugly. Some we snipped apart and
reassembled. Some had to be shored-up, their raveled edges repaired. Others
we simply flipped over and sewed back onto the trees with the faded side
facing inward. We re-strung some pennants, measured out triangles, tried to
make the colors harmonize whenever we could. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I am not much use where knitting and crochet are concerned,
but I do have some reach online. I put out an appeal. An Irish lady sent us some
pennants and a charming shamrock shawl for the olive tree.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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An enormous box arrived from California. Inside was a
full-size wool afghan of exceptional quality, with a note attached. It was made 40
years ago by Opal Catherine Holtom of Kansas City, Missouri, for her
granddaughter, Janet Brovold. Who sent it to us in Moratinos. <o:p></o:p></div>
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A note inside tells all about Opal, and the blanket:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">My grandma crocheted a
blanket for me almost 40 years ago. To be honest, it was never my ‘style,” and
I never used it on a bed. I kept it as a remembrance of all the love she had
for me…For years it was stored in the cedar chest my grandpa gave her for
Christmas, the day before their wedding. She was 15 years old. That was not
unusual in Kansas in 1925…<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Today, I am sending
the blanket to Moratinos, Spain to reside as long as the threads will bear. Its
main plaza… is a holy place, where pilgrims pass by on their spiritual
journeys. My grandma was one of the most spiritual people I’ve known… This
woman still lives in every fiber of my being, and has informed and guided the
parts I like best about myself. So this morning I blessed her blanket with
incense, wrapped it around me one last time, and sent it on its way. God
willing, I will someday again be in Moratinos, and find it – and her – there in
the plaza. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Last Saturday I did an on-the-fly translation of the note for the plaza work group while we continued basted and overcast, sent indoors by a thunderstorm. We all agreed we cannot cut up Opal's blanket. There was a rush of ideas, some
measuring, some arithmetic...<o:p></o:p></div>
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When the job is done, I’ll let you know what it’s become.
Grandma Opal’s going to be a Spanish yarn bomber! </div>
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<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-21128952986761877082020-06-06T13:29:00.001+02:002020-06-06T13:29:57.768+02:00Waking Up <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Like magi on their way to Bethlehem, angels are waking us up and telling us to get on widdit.<br />
The sun is out again, the lockdown is slowly easing. We in Castilla y Leon are still in "phase one," life is is still pretty strict -- we're not supposed to cross the county line. Still, people are outside, smiling. A few of us are freshening-up the yarn-bombing project in the plaza mayor, planting and trimming trees, installing a handrail up to the top of the bodega hill. The wildflowers this year are stupendous. The trail around the bodegas is overgrown, there are no pilgrims stomping it flat, no one picking the flowers to make crowns and necklaces. <br />
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No one in Moratinos was infected, far as we know. Glory be. We spend our winters sealed indoors in this little town. When it comes to quarantine, we know our stuff. Winter just stretched into spring this year, without bars to hang out in, without Holy Week or San Isidro celebrations to mark the movement of time.<br />
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The people who run the albergue and the hostel came back. Both are staffed now, all sanitized and ready to greet pilgrims, once the number of infections meets zero and border restrictions ease. We still cannot sit down for a G&T or a glass of wine on a bar terrace in our town. It might be legal for them to open, but it's not worth the extra expense and work, they say. Not yet. <br />
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So we walk over to Casa Barrunta in San Nicolas, where they open up for people they know. Still only drinks. No chipirones in their ink, no paella. Not yet.<br />
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Lots of people think the Camino, and Spanish communities, are "suffering terribly" from the Corona virus outcomes. I am not sure how to feel about that. I see lots of communities all over the world suffering terribly. Are people opening their hearts and wallets to support them? <br />
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Clear back at the start of this pandemic, supporters of Peaceable Projects contacted me with concerns and donations, hoping to uphold the camino they know and love. I will admit to answering, for the first few weeks, with a "charity begins at home" argument. "Keep your money," I said. "You might need it yourself, in your own neighborhood, before this is all over."<br />
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I still feel kinda that way, even though PPI has given grants or in-kind donations to several camino non-profits since the virus shut down the trails: We:<br />
> Sent a load of groceries and dog chow up to the locked-down hospi at Manjarin;<br />
> Bought ten wool army blankets for the albergue at El Acebo, when theirs fell to pieces in the wash;<br />
>Supported a GoFundMes for the Albergue Emaus in Burgos, Egeria House in Santiago, and Albergue Acacio y Orietta; <br />
> Made a couple of grocery buys for the Marist Fathers in Sahagun, whose income vanished when the Albergue Santa Cruz shut down. The fathers stepped in to run the local food bank and clothing closet for Caritas Catholic Charities... but they don't get paid for that work. They still gotta eat.<br />
> We sent two donations to Albergue Paroquial de Tosantos, where the floors need to be replaced;<br />
> Coordinated transfer of a scruffy old car from a Palencia non-profit to a hospitalero stranded in the mountains of Leon;<br />
> Sent a month's worth of support to Albergue Izarra on the Camino del Norte. Santi, the hospi there, sold his car to pay his April bills. Wow. <br />
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We did not send money to everyone who asked. I am glad of that. At least two of those appeals were questionable; if you hear someone complaining about PPI, it may be one of those guys who didn't check out.<br />
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We still have lots of money in reserve. I expect to use it up soon, as Reality dawns on the albergues and the Camino opens to Spaniards first, Europe later, and finally people from outside. <br />
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I do NOT recommend anyone walk the Caminos anytime soon, not until the wrinkles are ironed-out. Not even if you've waited for years, not even if this might be your last chance, not even you. You will likely be inconvenienced, disappointed, hungry, dirty, and unhappy with the experience. Don't say you were not warned.<br />
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There are tons more things to say, but I will get back to those. People dislike long blog entries, so I won't burden you with more.<br />
Until tomorrow, maybe.<br />
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<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-29774647529490521522020-04-21T18:04:00.000+02:002020-04-21T18:04:11.285+02:00A Change is Gonna Come <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">old-school pilgrim hospitality</td></tr>
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The cries reach the heavens: We've had enough. Time to get back to life! I wanna walk my camino!<br />
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The push is on to re-open our economies, to get the tourism ball rolling again, even as the Covid-19 virus death toll continues to add up all over Spain. All the noise about the Camino de Santiago being the heart and soul of the local economy is being put to the test. It's been a mild winter and a good, rainy spring, and gas is cheap, so the farmers are happy at least. But the bakers, the launderette, the shoe-repair shop, the bars, the hostels? No one can say. No one is allowed outside to talk about it. All the bars and beauty shops -- the places where these things are hashed-out and decided-upon -- are closed up tight.<br />
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The trail is fast asleep. Quails walk down the median stripe of the N120 on the way to Sahagun. I go to town once a week for vegetables, dog food, the sight of other humans. On Tuesday I saw Father Dani from the Padres Maristas. All work has ceased at their Albergue Santa Cruz, but it's not so stressful now that work has ceased everywhere else, too. In the little diocesan apartment house next to the supermercado, Daniel is an enclosed monastic now, with three of his fellow Marists and a couple of local priests. They have a Mass there every afternoon. No one but monks and nuns have seen a Mass since the edict came down a month ago. The churches are shut down.<br />
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It makes us ache, the rest of us. <br />
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We ache, we wait. Grace is sufficient, we tell ourselves. It will not always be like this.<br />
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After all this time we are talking to one another, we Camino people, mostly online, on WhatsApp, on Zoom and Skype and Messenger. What will it be like in June? Should we close down everything, call off all the volunteers, just let this year go? If the borders are closed through September, this stubby Camino season will be a Spanish-only affair. Fifty percent of the usual crowd, and only if the virus is overcome enough to ensure safety. <br />
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Albergues will need to spread people out, keep them from breathing the same air. That will cut down capacity. Spanish pilgrims are often an ornery bunch... would they cooperate with the rules? And how can we keep our volunteers safe? How will we staff the albergue, as 60 percent of our volunteers are from other nations? Our strength has become a weakness. It's not looking so good for Albergue Villa de Grado this year, my friends. Nothing official has been decided, but it's not looking good.<br />
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Even as we look into the future, we see the lights going out in flagship albergues that have been around for 30 years or more. Donativo places, bunkhouses, scruffy old schools... their day is past, some say. Pilgrims want more. Last week on the online Camino Forum, a wannabe albergue owner asked everyone to pitch in What They Want in A Great Albergue. The answers were individual bunks out of the view of everyone else, with their own electrical supply, lights, and linens. They want spotless showers, strong wifi signals, and rock-bottom prices. Oh, and jolly shared meals, served by smiling hosts who speak proper English. <br /><br />The picture quickly came clear. Pilgrims don't want albergues any more. They want pilgrim-only hotels. <br />
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It looks like new health regulations want hotels, too -- places where people occupy discrete spaces. The old bunkhouses, crowded dining rooms and kitchens, shower stalls and shared dormitories may soon be legislated away. Prices will go up. The poor will be shut out again.<br />
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Alfredo at the Siervas de Maria albergue in Astorga this week posted photos of the place, sparkling clean, mowed, weeded, polished, and completely empty. I have never seen it without dozens of people moving into and out of its many rooms. It is spooky. <br />
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Our beloved non-profit business model may be doomed. When the familiar infrastructure is deemed unworthy, what will become of the volunteers, the shared meals, the hospitality that grew up with them, that made the Camino de Santiago trail unique in the world? <br />
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Change is inevitable. We have to evolve, or we will die. <br />
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When we are gone, will the pilgrims miss us? Or will the Camino die with us? <br />
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How do we continue to offer traditional hospitality on this new Way of St. James?<br />
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We ache, we wait. Grace is sufficient, we tell ourselves.<br />
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We will know in time.<br />
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-28697617523632346852020-03-24T15:56:00.002+01:002020-03-24T15:56:59.244+01:00Saints on Lockdown<br />
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So much changed in such a short amount of time.<br />
Things were falling into place. I had the abdominal surgery, finally. Ollie left. I booked a camino, a ferry to England for a family wedding, house- and dog-sitters for the holidays.<br />
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Then St. James and all the apostles came down with a virus, and the world and the Camino de Santiago closed down until further notice.<br />
<br />
Spain is on its second week of lockdown, but daily life in Moratinos is not very far off its normal rhythm. We are accustomed to living hermetically, using what's in the cupboard, making something new out of yesterday's leftovers, not going any farther from home than our feet will take us. It's not unusual for us to not see anyone else for several days. We rather like it that way.<br />
<br />
But knowing I cannot go home if my mother or my children need me? Having policemen ask where I am going, asking to see the receipts for the groceries in the back, to prove my trip to town is necessary? Having to take turns walking the dogs in the morning? Seeing the news channels full of horrors, reading emails from fellow camino workers undergoing Intensive Care in hospitals...<br />
The light is changed. The birdsong has shifted pitch.<br />
No church on Sunday.<br />
No vermouth after in the bar.<br />
No bar. No cars on the road.<br />
No pilgrims. Only birds returning from Africa, snow geese honking overhead on their way to Finland, moving north, not west.<br />
Last weekend, I helped FICS and a few other agencies clear all the pilgrims off the Camino. Lots of phone calls, tears, drama, trauma, logistics, wrangling. Many good people disappointed. A few entitled jerks in complete denial. Languages, embassies. A nice break from the ordinary, doing something useful. They are all gone now, at least all the foreigners are -- they're either holed-up in a town along the Way, or gone back home to plan for another day. <br />
No one's allowed to run around loose any more.<br />
We haven't walked on the Camino since then. We go over to the Promised Land in the morning, our dogs are now our passport to exercise. We have not seen any law enforcement anywhere. We haven't seen anyone at all. There is no one out there to infect. <br />
Until yesterday evening, when a Moral Dilemma came to the door and rang the bell. I pulled my scarf up over my nose and opened it.<br />
His name was Jonay, from Gran Canaria, heading for France. He had ID, but no pilgrim credential. "The Camino is closed," he said. "It's just a road now, and it goes the way I am going. I need to sleep. Can I sleep here? You have a barn, a shed? I'm perfectly healthy. I have my own food. I will stay well away."<br />
Paddy appeared behind me. I looked at Paddy. He is 79 years old, immunocompromised. He shrugged, turned around, and headed back to the main house.<br />
This man was illegal. This man might be infected, he might infect us. His virus might survive on surfaces for up to six days.<br />
This man has no home, no money, no place to sleep. He was clearly exhausted. The sun was going down. A cold breeze passed through my sweater and into my bones.<br />
"You can stay in this little apartment here, apart from the house," I said. "Just tonight. My husband is at risk, see. And what you are doing, walking out here, it's against the law. I am an immigrant. I can't take chances with the law."<br />
"I know," he said. "The Guardia know I am here. I meet new ones all the time. So far, so good."<br />
He put his things inside. I went back to the main house and put on the teakettle.<br />
Two Guardia Civil patrol cars came roaring up the driveway, sending the dogs into a frenzy. I opened the door again. Four masked men alighted. "A man is here," one of them said.<br />
"Yes," I said.<br />
The man came out.<br />
"Come out here. Keep away from the lady," the policeman said. "Madam, cover your nose." I covered my nose again with my scarf, and leaned against the doorway. <br />
The policemen barked at the man, but kept well away from him. They checked his ID. They asked where he'd been, where he was headed, why he was out there, didn't he know?<br />
He told them. His camino geography was off. The cops jumped on that, they gave him a hard time, told him he's subject to a 1,200 euro fine.<br />
"Fine me all you like, I have no job, no money. There's nothing you can take from me," Jonay said, clearly frustrated. "I was a firefighter, but now I'm out of work. I am not a criminal. I've done nothing but walk."<br />
The police finally left him here, but warned him to keep a distance, and clear out in the morning.<br />
Jonay apparently slept deeply all night, and in the morning he cleaned up after himself and swept the patio. Then he went on his way east.<br />
I am glad he stayed. It was the right thing to do. <br />
I donned my gloves, glasses, and mask, and disinfected the little apartment. I contemplated the Jonay Dilemma.<br />
Maybe he is a bad man, a fool, a scofflaw vagrant. Maybe he put us at risk. Maybe I was foolish to let him stay.<br />
Maybe he brought us the germ. Maybe I will get sick now. If Paddy gets Corona Virus, he will die. But what the hell, he says ... if doing the right thing is going to kill me, maybe it's time to die.<br />
<br />
It occured to me that maybe Jonay was St. James, the original Santiago, patron saint of this pilgrim path. Legends say he pops up in times like these. There may not be pilgrims out there, but this is the Camino, after all.<br />
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-62932337951395678732020-01-21T13:00:00.002+01:002020-01-21T13:00:29.446+01:00Hunkered In<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The sky
keeps changing colors, the wind roars all night and morning. Sometime overnight
it pulled the chicken-hut door off its hinges and smashed it to kindling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We are down
to one aged hen. The orange cats sit with her on the woodpile, keeping her
company. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Moratinos
hunkers down. The water in the furrows turns to ice, the dogs delight the
sudden slide underfoot. I have to take them out each morning, even when the
wind is knocking me sideways, tearing aluminum strips off the highway bridge
and flinging them down the autopista. There are almost no cars or trucks on the
autopista. It’s dangerous to drive, wind here, snow to the north, the passes
over the mountains are closed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A man was
killed up there yesterday, putting on his tire-chains at Pajares. A car slid on
the ice and into him, hit his head, knocked him dead. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The roaring
goes on </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmRCyOBA6ZHPQ39FEh9JSuyQ6RRVU5lsJDCF-753JBLBdfWVEljpdqtt060c-uF2gF0q8TIwBF0JFeY1IUwWWpO3tHUDUSfQnfhe2nr3vSxYaIJ-FQ9GzfBfQJfujfseTQm0MGygjvKrc/s1600/82811255_10162826243050076_1395917431225974784_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFmRCyOBA6ZHPQ39FEh9JSuyQ6RRVU5lsJDCF-753JBLBdfWVEljpdqtt060c-uF2gF0q8TIwBF0JFeY1IUwWWpO3tHUDUSfQnfhe2nr3vSxYaIJ-FQ9GzfBfQJfujfseTQm0MGygjvKrc/s400/82811255_10162826243050076_1395917431225974784_o.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
for hours and days, it shoves smoke back down the chimney, it takes
down the rotten trees along the road to San Martin. Our house is drafty. The
furnace goes and goes, but the halls are chilly. We keep the doors closed. Breezes
blow under the sills and around the edges, through the little holes in the
electrical outlets. The chimneys moan.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Boris the
canary sings on. We play Chopin nocturnes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We spend
our days apart. Paddy sleeps. Ollie is down at the hostal bar, there is noplace
else to go in Moratinos in January. The cats and I sit on the sofa near the
pellet stove, hidden behind two lines of drying laundry. Last night’s pilgrim
was shocked that we hang laundry in our living room. “My wife would never
permit that,” the Slovakian man said. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“We are not
bourgeois,” I told him. “We don’t have a dryer. The laundry dries in here where
the stove is.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The laundry
smells clean. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It’s
started to snow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It won’t last. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sun shines bright, but the sky is grey as
gunmetal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The chimney thunders. Another pilg is on his way, a Swede, or maybe a Finn, or a Dane. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-81253015140304788682019-12-26T23:37:00.000+01:002019-12-26T23:37:22.193+01:00God's on Calle Ontanon <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The pilgrim's name was
Carly, or some approximation thereof. She was from China, from Hangzhou, a city
south of Shanghai. She is a corporate recruiter, traveling the Camino de
Santiago pilgrimage trail alone, in December, with no Spanish language skills
and little English. She’d dropped her mobile phone in a puddle. Every day she was cut off a little more from everything she
knew. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Carly
stayed at our house Christmas eve. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">She walked
from Carrion de los Condes, arrived at dusk, washed and napped and had some
tea, and went with us at 8 p.m. to the neighbors’ house for roast lamb. (Our
neighbors have the hospitality gene. And who’s going to turn away a stranger on
Christmas eve?) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Carly sat
quietly among the merry group, politely tried a taste of everything we offered,
occasionally touched my arm to ask is this cucumber, or squash? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was tired. I thought she was having
trouble tracking the Spanish conversation, so I translated parts of it. None of
us knew any of the Chinese languages. Nary a word. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Then
someone asked Carly the inevitable pilgrim question:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why are you walking the Camino? And why
alone, in December?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Carly
answered in halting, unsure English. She warmed to the language as she went on.
We sat, rapt, as she told us why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Ollie
and I translated to Spanish for our hosts.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“December
is when I can escape my job. And December is when nobody else is on the trail.
I want to walk alone. I tried to find a Chinese person to walk with me, but no
one had heard of this place or this walk.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“In China it
is all study, study, study when you are young, and work, work, work when you’re
adult. There is no time for forming yourself. There’s never any attention for
why you are doing all of this, what it means. There is nothing to make you know
you mean something in this world. There is no teaching about God.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“So I am
walking to find what I am. I want to find God. I understand this is a religious
pilgrimage, so I come here to find him. Or her. To find about religion.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Everyone
looked at each other. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“But China
is home to some of the most ancient and elegant religions of the world,” I
said. “Confucius. The Tao. The Buddha?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> Carly</span> shook her head.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was like she’d never heard of them. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“We have a
family religion,” she said. “Ancestors. And there are Christians in China, in
my city. Two kinds of churches, one with Jesus, and one with Mary. I don’t know
the difference.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“So… are
you Christian?” someone asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“I love
Jesus,” she said plainly. “But I don’t know about him, or the church.
That is why I came.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Everyone
sat quietly for a moment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“He is
here,” she said. “God is here.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">"God is everywhere," Maria Valle said. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Carly and I
left the party soon after that. We talked on the way home about camino churches
and Mary and Jesus. Clearly religious buzzwords like “salvation” and “righteousness”
and “savior” were of no use to her. Scripture was meaningless. She was
context-free, a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tabula rasa</i>, a hungry
soul that had, somehow, found an anchor in the wide sea of secular China. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The
churches along the Way are locked up in this off-season December. There’s no Chinese
Bible within 100 miles of here. I didn’t know what to tell Carly, how to help her
grow in her simple faith. I wasn’t sure if I should. She was doing pretty well
on her own. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“I don’t
need books and buildings and priests. I am finding him. He is here.” She waved
her hands in the dark, to pull Calle Ontanon, Palencia, the highway and the starry
sky into the equation. “In the quiet. God is everywhere.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">“And here,”
I said, touching her shoulder. “In you. The reason we are smiling. The reason you came here to walk. You have the spirit of the Christ.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The walk
from MariValle’s house is not very long. Carly was exhausted. She went straight
to bed when we got home. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">She left in
the morning before I woke. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">If you
pray, please put in a word for her. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-13041025151731137082019-12-21T23:36:00.002+01:002019-12-21T23:36:36.066+01:00Who's Afraid of the Dark? <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_48tjE_ye0v8VWHVeJZ_WujkhX_ZbYTCSKsbGjlMF7wwVITUyh3P5V65QAS-rzVNxNiN3To713iyob5sOIEG9TjabATxZB3Do6wyVI_HpVKEbWfV-t8cDGPHvTXGhxn2nOPVVc8__iMf8/s1600/20191221_105706.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_48tjE_ye0v8VWHVeJZ_WujkhX_ZbYTCSKsbGjlMF7wwVITUyh3P5V65QAS-rzVNxNiN3To713iyob5sOIEG9TjabATxZB3Do6wyVI_HpVKEbWfV-t8cDGPHvTXGhxn2nOPVVc8__iMf8/s400/20191221_105706.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">this morning on the Meseta</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Well OK, I
got a little dark yesterday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">It IS the
Winter Solstice today, after all. It’s OK. It’s only natural. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Winter Solstice.
I looked it up, and read maxims and meditations about the Earth’s axis, the “shortest
day of the year,” farmers, crops, light, and of course Druids. (Druids and
Templars apparently did everything that’s mystical or hip.) Everybody was really
strong on the lights, candles, the twinkling brightness, hope against the
blackness of the long, long night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But then
again, I thought, what’s so bad about the dark? Isn’t it just as real and
normal as light? Don’t plenty of good, fruitful things happen in the dark? Don’t
seeds sprout out of the darkness of the soil? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I commiserated
with a friend, like me trying to analyze our anger at the way things are going
nowadays in our countries. I told her to go someplace very quiet, shut the
door, and let herself poke around at the base of her anger – what is it she is
clinging to that no longer fits, that’s not real, that’s frustrating her?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">She stopped
me. Isn’t it sinful, wallowing in that darkness, letting those feelings take
over? Isn’t it kinda… dangerous? Shouldn’t you always strive for the light, the
brightness, the music?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I thought about
that for a minute. I said No. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Babies are
formed in darkness, and it doesn’t do them any harm. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are formed of both light and darkness,
equal parts – light and shadow. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you never
let yourself “go dark,” you will never find out what’s down there waiting for
you. It might be a dragon. It might be Prince Charming. It might be the
brainstorm that’s gonna change your life forever. It’s all You. But if you’re
always busy with light, bright sweetness and chatter, you’re never going to
pull that powerful stuff out of your Shadow and learn to use it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3_vwncEmKZVqNw0D5ZkAZANm8_CWiXTTRfU-Wf6s088duMOnwcBC4DuQRzLWdDl8_NyYJvVBI4kcekhc9TucnmysuTgmn8fu2D-QhXPnJaNrjQ25eQHyi-hrFiZPLxVd5FjsPB3nOX61C/s1600/20191101_100053.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3_vwncEmKZVqNw0D5ZkAZANm8_CWiXTTRfU-Wf6s088duMOnwcBC4DuQRzLWdDl8_NyYJvVBI4kcekhc9TucnmysuTgmn8fu2D-QhXPnJaNrjQ25eQHyi-hrFiZPLxVd5FjsPB3nOX61C/s320/20191101_100053.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">the labyrinth under the trees, in Fall </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I walked in
the rain out to our little labyrinth, on the Camino between Moratinos and
Terradillos de los Templarios. The Ditch Pigs crew reset its stones in
November, it stands out along the path, but most pilgrims never notice it. I
walked the circle in, and then the circle out, praying aloud for my family,
projects, country, town, health, and friends. I do that every Solstice, and
every Equinox, four times every year. It keeps my inner calendar set. It
reminds me of where I am in time, on the Earth, in a medium-size spiral galaxy
of stars. How small I am, how tiny my life is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">How little
it means, darkness and light, evil and good, seasons and solstices. We all are
little solar systems in our own heads, full of daylight and dark, good and
evil, intellect and idiocy. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We gotta be
patient with our darkness, and not fear our long nights and dark sides. God
lives in the dark, too. That’s where she came from. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-88896718150451860072019-12-21T00:18:00.000+01:002019-12-21T00:18:04.195+01:00Damp and Darksome <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOmNGGtEodFLCu3I-Opqql561pO9w32lSYEGl_HbHOmk3_YuX2uBugwj-7UgiDBYn-Uuu05Rlp001Ur9EULXFdL2LWvck_IR-dqwC6oN2xfxxWxICKTTF0AZtNIKNwcvQoshxj0f2tVoiC/s1600/stormPL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="1440" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOmNGGtEodFLCu3I-Opqql561pO9w32lSYEGl_HbHOmk3_YuX2uBugwj-7UgiDBYn-Uuu05Rlp001Ur9EULXFdL2LWvck_IR-dqwC6oN2xfxxWxICKTTF0AZtNIKNwcvQoshxj0f2tVoiC/s400/stormPL.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">a summer storm in Promised Land, described in FFOG opening chapter</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Rain roars on the roof and muddies the gutters. It stays dark all day. Outdoors smells nice in the mornings, but the rivers and rills and ditches are flooding. We kinda enjoy the excitement until our socks get wet.<br />
The book is out, finally. It's doing OK, considering how slowly deliveries are moving. After all the rush and work, it's anticlimactic. I am low. <br />
I bought new winter gloves, and lost the left one immediately. Always the left glove. My left hand is cold all the time. <br />
I miss my children, and my mom. I miss a few things about Christmas.<br />
I ordered a new English-speaking computer, and it was swallowed up somewhere between UPS and Spanish Customs. I had to cancel the order. My old computer, this old trusty HP from 2014, is almost dead. I have a shiny red Dell, but it doesn't speak English. And even after 13 years of full-on life in Spain, I still do not have fluency enough to drive a computer in Spanish.<br />
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Evil people have taken over in England and the USA. No one seems to know how to stop them.<br />
I am on a wait-list for an operation to remove my gall bladder. Maybe after the operation I will not be so splenetic. We shall see. Meantime, it hurts a lot. I wish it was over. I hope I can get the operation before Brexit takes away my health coverage. Life is complicated.<br />
Christmas is almost here. Pilgrims are coming. Very wet pilgrims. <br />
It's raining so much the sewers are backing up. Our upstairs toilet doesn't want to flush. When the wind blows, water comes in beneath the front door. <br />
The dogs are healthy. They sing trios every morning in the barn to wake us up. I walk them to the Promised Land, and they vanish into holes at the rabbit warren. They are having the time of their lives, undermining the fence that keeps them off the fatal four-lane Autopista beyond. <br />
At home, the living room is draped in cats. They are making Paddy unwell. <br />
I had new photos for this blog, but the server rejects them. No can do. <br />
We have a little plastic Christmas tree, and I have a few gifts to put underneath it.<br />
Maria Valle and Joaquin invited us to dinner Christmas Eve.<br />
So even with all the sad-making circumstance, we'll be OK.<br />
The sun will come back.<br />
It always has, so far. Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-88322033306083948722019-12-14T10:36:00.001+01:002019-12-14T10:36:46.774+01:00"Furnace" is Lit Up! <div class="yiv3190930352gmail-" id="yiv3190930352gmail-yui_3_17_2_1_1576315571276_589" style="background-color: white; color: #424242; font-family: adobe-text-pro; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 28px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">
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<div class="yiv3190930352gmail-" id="yiv3190930352gmail-yui_3_17_2_1_1576315571276_589" style="background-color: white; color: #424242; font-family: adobe-text-pro; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 28px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">
The stars are lining up. I drove to Rabanal del Camino on the feast day of Our Lady of Guadelupe, patroness of the Americas.<em style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"> (I am American-born, so she’s my girl.) </em> Somewhere up above that terrific rain and windstorm was a full moon in Gemini, the last of the year 2019 — a great time to launch something new, I am told. <em style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">(I usually leave the witches and fortune-telling and evil-eyes to the Basques and Gallegos and gypsies, but the coincidences lately are reaching Camino proportions!) </em><br style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" /><br style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" />And so here we are in the warm lounge of <a href="https://www.thestoneboat.com/" rel="nofollow" style="color: #121212; overflow-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">The Stone Boat </a>Inn, where Kim and I are launching <a href="https://www.peaceablekingdomcamino.com/books" rel="nofollow" style="color: #121212; overflow-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank"> A FURNACE FULL OF GOD,</a> the memoir I have been writing for many, many years. Right now it is a trade paperback book of 246 pages, clear and bright, funny and profound, colorful and stark, it will make you laugh, it will surely make you cry<em style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"> (that was my specialty, back in my newspaper feature-writing days). </em>There’s also a spankin’ new website that will collect all the blogs, non-profits, webs, etc. under a single umbrella. </div>
<div class="yiv3190930352gmail-" style="background-color: white; color: #424242; font-family: adobe-text-pro; font-size: 16px; line-height: 1.7em; margin-bottom: 28px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">
If you have followed “Big Fun in a Tiny Pueblo” blog lo these many years, you may recognize some of these stories. “Furnace Full of God” is the story of Peaceable Kingdom, our house on the Camino, the pilgrims who stay there with us, the Holy Year 2010, and what happened that year to Moratinos, our tiny pueblo. It is spiritual, but not religious. It is deeply felt, but not mawkish. It is professionally written and edited, and beautifully designed and illustrated. I am very proud of what it’s become. </div>
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And now it’s become, here at Kim’s little Kingdom. The Camino even sent us Graham, an Australian pilgrim who’s a retired editor, and a curry chef! to keep the wheels turning and to act as witness, and to open the champagne bottle…</div>
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I know I am pushing the limit for Christmas giving, but if you order direct from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Furnace-Full-God-Camino-Santiago/dp/098550322X/ref=sr_1_3?qid=1576311837&refinements=p_27%3ARebekah%20Scott&s=books&sr=1-3&text=Rebekah%20Scott" rel="nofollow" style="color: #121212; overflow-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">Amazon</a>, there’s still time! Order <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Furnace-Full-God-Camino-Santiago/dp/098550322X/ref=sr_1_3?qid=1576311837&refinements=p_27%3ARebekah%20Scott&s=books&sr=1-3&text=Rebekah%20Scott" rel="nofollow" style="color: #121212; overflow-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">here </a>for the first-edition paperback. Signed copies will be available from the shop at Casa Ivar in Santiago de Compostela as soon as possible. Kindle and e-reader editions will be available within a week, honest! And because you are already a <em style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Peaceable supporter</em>, here’s a little Christmas bonus for you, a taste of what’s inside the Furnace: Chapter 17. </div>
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<em style="overflow-wrap: break-word;">Woo Hoo!<br style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" />Reb</em></div>
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-41802127307742791172019-12-07T20:48:00.000+01:002019-12-07T20:48:17.512+01:00Spain is in the House<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">On FaceBook
I sometimes post what country is “in the house,” and often the followers enjoy
a glimpse of life on the international pilgrim trail. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today it is Spain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">The pilgrim
arrived this afternoon, a taciturn Valenciano with pale skin and worn-down
boots. His name is Pop. His Spanish has an odd French twist to it. He did not
take off his hat, or say much more than hello. He had a cup of tea, and ate up
the cookies I sat down alongside. He was gruff. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">He greeted
Paddy with a “You clearly speak no Spanish at all.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paddy surprised him with a reasonably fluent
response, but nothing much more was said. Ollie shot me a look that said, “how
rude!” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We get the
occasional Spaniard in winter, and they often decide to not stay here,
especially if they are traveling solo. We try to make them welcome, but we
clearly are too foreign for them, our house and company a bit too intimate for
comfort. I thought Pop might move along, too, but he was clearly exhausted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">We let him
get on with his shower and nap. Ollie made spaghetti Bolognese. I found some
good wine in the little kitchen, left over from Thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pop showed up for dinner. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">He was
transformed. Once he got his ear around our accents and some food in his belly,
we chatted about Paddy’s painting studio, this week’s visit to a museum in La
Rioja, the arts in Spain. And we learned that Pop is a professional puppeteer
who travels from festival to festival doing “micro-theater,” 10-minute dramas
performed on a stage the size of a bread box, using teeny-tiny marionettes. The
audience watches through little peep-holes. He calls it a “Pop Show.” It
originated in Brazil, he said, and it’s definitely adults-only entertainment. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And so our
worlds expanded. We learned of an art form we’d never seen or heard of before. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Pop got a
hot meal and some company after a long day on a lonely stretch of Camino.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He went to bed early, smiling a big gap-tooth
smile.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">I don’t
like flags, or nations, or the concept of countries and states and tribes. I
think those ideas have served their purpose, and are becoming obstacles now to
our evolution. It’s time we stopped celebrating the things that divide us, and
focus on what we have in common. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">But it IS
fun to scan through the pilgrim registry books here at Peaceable and Villa de
Grado and see where all our pilgrims come from, what place made them what they
are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Tonight it’s
Valencia, over east, along the Mediterranean coast. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Spain is in
the house, along with Germany, England, and the US of A. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-26644155318395430762019-11-28T23:08:00.003+01:002019-11-28T23:08:47.507+01:00Coming Right UPNo, I am not dead. I have spent the last few months dedicating my energies to Peaceable Projects Inc., the US-based charity we founded two years ago. I've edited three books with author Mitch Weiss, and just this very day released this to the whole world and a few thousand email contacts: <br />
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<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;">Back in </span></span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;">America</span></span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;"> it's Thanksgiving Day.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;"><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://peaceableprojects.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u%3D1a82f51814f7af99b6b79d34d%26id%3Dda0ad45c3c%26e%3Dc7b87f19b0&source=gmail&ust=1575064843643000&usg=AFQjCNHt_CVlM1R6xrISOuZMH0znsdXlDQ" href="https://peaceableprojects.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=1a82f51814f7af99b6b79d34d&id=da0ad45c3c&e=c7b87f19b0" rel="noreferrer" style="color: #007c89;" target="_blank">The Ditch Pigs Camino Cleanup</a> is out on the road somewhere between Vilares del Orbigo and San Justo de la Vega, picking up trash in the rain.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;">Meantime, </span></span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;">me</span></span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;"> and Kim are hogging two "office tables" in the bar at Hotel Asturplaza in Astorga, Spain, using their internet and friendly food and drink service...</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;"><em>"A Furnace Full of God"</em> is now registered, barcoded, and posted on Amazon!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;">This memoir is the product of years of work: writing, editing, designing, drawing, and just plain living, by me (Rebekah Scott) and Kim, aka <em>Stone Boat Midwifery</em>, who made it all look so good.<br /><em>(I think this makes us digital nomads!)</em></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, baskerville, georgia, serif;">We still need to look over the final author copy before we make it public, and then we will post the final link and let you know ... and you'll have them in time for Christmas giving.</span></span></div>
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Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-36685680958917774082018-12-25T21:40:00.001+01:002018-12-25T21:40:01.884+01:00Walk in the Dark<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I just walked in the dark down the road to the labyrinth,
trying to settle my Christmas dinner deeper down into my stomach. I am keeping
more fit this winter. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">I saw a star fall down. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It´s been a very full day. The neighbors came over after Mass for a champagne toast and
snacks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A pilgrim was at church, so we
brought her home with us. She was alone for Christmas Eve, but not now for
Christmas day. She´s from New York City. She doesn’t<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>speak Spanish, but we made her welcome. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We ate an enormous pan of lasagne with fennel seeds in the
sauce. Wonderful. (there is no ricotta to be had here, so I subbed-in
smashed-up cottage cheese and mascarpone…wow!)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Greens from the garden, and some<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Caldo Gallego from Maria de la Valle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We drank dark red wine from Valdeorras, a gift from Laurie up in O
Cebreiro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Joaquin and Luca, Maria and
Nancy from New York, Oliver and Paddy and me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Christmas. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No presents, but lots
of gifts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It seems a lot more than average numbers of people are sending holiday greetings this year. Times are scary, maybe we feel the need to hug a little closer... <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There are some fine people in my life. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We got a tree this year, a plastic one. It is very jolly, it
makes me happy. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am working on a book for AP, another sad and harrowing
story. Kim has started production on “Furnace Full of God: Love and Death in a
Camino Village,”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my newest book. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Paddy is well, considering. He´s had a bad cough for months
now, the doctors can´t figure it out so they simply say “wear a scarf,” or
“don´t have ice in your gin & tonics.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Paddy is sure this is going to kill him, but he´s been saying that stuff
ever since I met him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He is slowing
down, and he cannot see so well, and he can´t always hear what´s going on, or
maybe he´s just not listening. He is still dearly beloved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He got a beautiful new black hat for
Christmas, and he won an enormous basket of goodies in a lottery draw at the
local tavern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What more could he ask
for? <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 346.5pt;">
Oliver is here with us again this
winter. He is a great help to us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
house stays much cleaner when he is around, especially as I am working many
hours on manuscripts. <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Peaceable Projects is quiet these days since the Ditch Pigs´
big gig in Portugal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope in 2019 <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to get the Memorial Grove better marked,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>identifiable and accessible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I meet in late January with FICS members who
usually know who has pressing projects we can help with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So there is plenty to do now,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and the future is wide open.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this year has been excellent, if a little
hard on our hearts…<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Harry Dog and
Jean-Marc Kitty both<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>went off to A
Better Place, and left big holes in our household. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am very privileged. My stomach is full, my house is warm,
my neighbors are friendly. I can walk out in the dark alone and watch a star
fall, and know I am loved. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thank you all for making me so very, very rich. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-50115498394055315272018-11-20T11:21:00.000+01:002018-11-20T11:21:12.831+01:00Rain in November<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrNOLOtYY_gK2I6DS0diwSfHB-82zqgwvKcMgbhbNkdCMXbEUD_66yB_lvYbxTidq2azicp031hZJxpJM1X3fQQZs0nYjAIHyPIqpOnEzZcd9XemhkjmDWNwAQVKTOQOvMlsof87V-TN3v/s1600/IMG_2876.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrNOLOtYY_gK2I6DS0diwSfHB-82zqgwvKcMgbhbNkdCMXbEUD_66yB_lvYbxTidq2azicp031hZJxpJM1X3fQQZs0nYjAIHyPIqpOnEzZcd9XemhkjmDWNwAQVKTOQOvMlsof87V-TN3v/s400/IMG_2876.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Paddy and Reb, at Stone Boat, Rabanal</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
A voice cries in the wilderness... A longtime reader wrote and said "Please write a blog entry!"<br />
He asked Please. So here goes.<br />
I am not in a writing kind of mood these days, even though there are a few things happening that are blog-worthy... especially knowing so many blogsters will write about their every eyelash, for audiences of thousands.<br />
<br />
It´s raining hard in Moratinos, the pellet-burner, draped in cats, is humming away in the corner. We are down to three dogs (two of them ours) and four cats (two and a half are ours.) Someone suggested I write about how I name our animals, and why so many of them are from two particular villages in the mountains west of here. All our critters have human names, except perhaps Juan Carlos Gato, who I call Punkinhead. (Juan Carlos is not my cat, he just lives here for months at a time and is involved in a deep intimate relationship with Gus, in whom we hold a half-share.) It´s complicated. And probably very tedious to those who are here looking for Camino Tipz.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggy5HenaB1uyvRQiLrqQQrr3C-QRmCgkN5aqR6o2igr3VRqXBqazaqD0C1RTL50cAr1zqYwWvy1T6hG4ilqBeGloGYgBxFEqct2tCkxzZyO3XLsxXIRbMyYyP63k_iNG4t6y2Z18RfJBkb/s1600/IMG_0319.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="480" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggy5HenaB1uyvRQiLrqQQrr3C-QRmCgkN5aqR6o2igr3VRqXBqazaqD0C1RTL50cAr1zqYwWvy1T6hG4ilqBeGloGYgBxFEqct2tCkxzZyO3XLsxXIRbMyYyP63k_iNG4t6y2Z18RfJBkb/s320/IMG_0319.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ruby, Judy, and Laika </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
I know much of our fame is built on our connection to the Camino de Santiago. I still enjoy individual pilgrims a lot, we are still listed as a <a href="http://www.aprinca.com/alberguesinvierno/" target="_blank">winter camino bunkhouse</a>, but in the last few months I find myself ever more bored and ill-disposed toward the whole Mystique, the Mystery, the Tourist Commodity That Is The Camino. I am not suffering fools gladly, especially the ones who want to be my friend so they can somehow monetize me. It´s Camino that people want, but I don´t have a lot of it to give right now. That is why, I think, I´ve pulled away from blogging.<br />
<br />
I am putting my writing chops to work for the Associated Press. I am helping an investigative reporter turn their long-term projects into book-length narratives.<br />
<br />
The Ditch Pigs continue. We meet up on Sunday outside Oporto. The weather forecast says rain, heavy rain, and showers. We shall see! On the other side of that somewhere is a trip to Grado, Asturias, to wrap up 2018 at the albergue there. Milio, the magical guy behind the whole operation, has it all under control... I am not really sure what my role is, hospitality-wise. But I´ve been recruiting volunteers for next year, and the Power of Social Networking is working in my favor. I only need about four more people to have the whole March-through-October rota covered! I think that is why FICS keeps me around. That, and because I am American -- they need a few non-Gallegos so they can keep the "international" in the title.<br />
<br />
We have a lot more Spanish volunteers this year, and Dutch. And one each from Bulgaria and Uruguay!<br />
<br />
The apartment and house in Torremolinos are sold, thank God. I am not sure why that was so difficult for me, knife-wielding burglars notwithstanding.<br />
<br />
Ollie is here, right through December. His presence is directly due to a timely reading of St. Paul´s Epistle to Philemon. Being a Benedictine means spiritual disciplines like "Lectio Divina," a close reading of obscure scriptures and holy books. Which are by their nature demanding, character-wise! I am driven more and more to silence, and solitude. It looks a lot like my old nemesis Depression, but it is not.<br />
<br />
At least I don´t think so.<br />
<br />
Paddy is slowing down, slowly. He has a cough that the doctors do not take seriously, because he´s had it for so long. He cannot see very well, and his dicky retinas won´t let him fly in airplanes, and he doesn´t like walking for more than a mile or two. So if you want to see Paddy, you have to come here. He is still very much himself, but a bit worn around the edges these days.<br />
<br />
And now I must go and make a pumpkin pie, and a pumpkin roll... Thanksgiving Day is Thursday, and we have company coming, and 16 tons of roasted pumpkin in the freezer! <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-36522256021643982432018-08-13T01:17:00.001+02:002018-08-13T01:17:46.701+02:00We Go To Hell and Meet Machete Man<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was an
8-hour drive to Torremolinos, but I took a wrong turn and ended up in Cordoba.
By the time we could see the high-rises and smog against the sea, the sun was
way up and the autopista was steaming. We made it past Malaga and through the
tunnel to the sudden turn-off for Torremolinos. Paddy has family down there.
Lots of working-class English people do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Torre was
the place to be in the 60s and 70s, and Brigitte Bardot and Frank Sinatra shot
movies there and posed with cocktails and fishermen. Spain was sunny and cheap,
and some say the package holiday was invented in Torremolinos – weather-weary
English and northern Europeans flooded in on charter flights, bought little
studio flats in concrete towers, spent their Golden Years in little ethnic
enclaves here. Many never learned a word of Spanish. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMqsTku2KT1NFf0bbRSJX7KzVLmf3XzZFzBqMilPqWHH1x_5Safc0XToeQvdRu-nIDqj8hqltFtL0FtesoHRq6FTl2vhDXWchukpUT-gImERegX43BDoKQJ0uzIvWNl2ioeuEwE6E8Xhn6/s1600/36913843_10155389885025614_7862168674503753728_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMqsTku2KT1NFf0bbRSJX7KzVLmf3XzZFzBqMilPqWHH1x_5Safc0XToeQvdRu-nIDqj8hqltFtL0FtesoHRq6FTl2vhDXWchukpUT-gImERegX43BDoKQJ0uzIvWNl2ioeuEwE6E8Xhn6/s320/36913843_10155389885025614_7862168674503753728_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Torremolinos in 1966</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Torremolinos
was an early bloomer. The rich and glossy soon moved on to Marbella, and Torre
headed downhill and down-scale. Think Daytona Beach, Atlantic City, or Margate.
Still fun, but scruffy, too. Sunburned binge drinkers and the people who prey
on them. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Apparently,
even on a weekday, everyone in the world wanted to go to Torremolinos, too.
Traffic was backed up onto the six-lane highway. We joined the start-and-stop
queue, inching along to a tangle of roundabouts and underpasses. I saw people
in a car ahead waving their arms and shouting, then another carload doing the
same. It was hot. I switched on the air conditioning and rolled up the windows.
I was just in time. A cloud of hornets descended from the shade of the
underpass and flowed over our car. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I looked at
Paddy. He looked at me. “Welcome to Hell,” he said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I should
not have laughed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We had
lunch with an aged relative in shocking decline. Something had to be done, and
soon. The reason we went down to Torre was real estate. The ailing lady asked
me to sell her apartment for her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">She sent us
over to see it with her niece. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was in Aries
Block, a dark canyon of a high-rise development with a once-groovy zodiac theme.
There´s a little bar outside the front door that caters to Danes. Any hour of
day or night, a collection of stoned Birgits and Bendts is parked in plastic
lawn chairs, watching life go by. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“It´s
pretty bad,” said the niece, jangling the keys. “Squatters lived in there for a
couple of years. We just now got them out. It stinks in there.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Paddy
looked at me. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What the hell,” I said.
We stepped into the elevator. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We stepped
out of the elevator, and up to the front door of the apartment. A man was
there, shirtless, jiggling, jangling something against the door handle. He was
a burglar. We asked him what he was doing. He said he was opening this door,
that this place belonged to his uncle who had died, and because it was empty
and his place downstairs was crowded, he was moving in. His child needed a place
to live, he said. I have a child, he said. He said a whole lot of things very
quickly. He was scared, angry. Probably high. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The niece speaks
fluent street Spanish, and that´s a good thing. She also has a steel backbone.
And steel other things, too. She told him to go back downstairs and we´d forget
about this. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">He told her
to open the door if she had keys. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“I´m not
opening anything long as you´re here,” she said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“This man is the uncle,” she said, pointing
to Patrick. “He´s alive. This place belongs to him. He´s got children to think
about too.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Oh great, I thought. Give
him someone to hate!) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“If you go
inside that apartment, I´ll be back here with my friends,” the man said. “We´re
all home downstairs. Five, six of us. And I have a machete. You go in there,
and I find you there, I´ll kill you. I´ll kill all of you.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">“I am
phoning the police now,” I said, pulling out my mobile. “It´s time to go home.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I dialled the emergency number, then realized
I did not know the address of the building. I didn´t hit “send.” I bluffed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I turned the phone toward the man, I
pretended to snap his photo. </span>“Hola! Policia? Si. Un ladron, sin camisa,
con muchas tatuajes... <span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">En el
acto, rompiendo el candao…” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The man
scuttled down the stairs. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We turned to
one another. “What are the chances?” we cried. “What´s the address of this
place?” I said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And then
the man came back, swinging up the stairs two at a time, still no shirt, still
wild-eyed. And now he had a machete. Forty, fifty centimeters, silver. Japanese
style, with holes along one edge. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I don´t
recall what the niece said next. She got right into his face, and I held up the
phone and snapped away, and said, “si, si, that´s him. How soon can you get
here?” Paddy shoved his way forward, in case the guy started swinging that
knife… but the niece kept talking, kept the guy engaged, and he kept running
his mouth, threatening, angry at the great injustices of his life. I think
that´s why I never really thought the guy would use the weapon. He couldn´t
shut up. And he finally went downstairs. A door slammed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We got the
hell out. Called the cops for real, and after what seemed like forever six
carloads of Policia Nacional rolled up in full riot gear, Policia Nacional.
They stormed into the lobby and swarmed up the stairs and bashed on the doors
til they found our man. They dragged him out in cuffs, but they made us go
around the corner and out of sight. They brought out knives, said “which one?”
and we pointed and said “that.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The Danes
got a great show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Me and the niece got a
ride in the broiling-hot back of a police cruiser down the station, and cooled
our heels for another couple of hours before a nice man took our statements. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We spent another five hours at the Night Court.
At the end of it all, the man was sent to jail for four months. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I learned
his name is Miguel. He is 23 years old, without any prior convictions. I felt
bad for a few moments… he evidently loves his child, and wouldn´t see him for
so long. But as time went on, and we talked it all over for a while, I realized
he could´ve just walked away down that hallway when we showed up. He didn´t
have to get all macho-man. He really didn´t have to come back upstairs with
that corn-cutter. He had a choice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">With Machete
Man safely away, we finally got inside the studio flat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It was as
nasty as we´d expected, but still desirable. A neighbour told us another family
of vagrants from upstairs had been there earlier, testing the door and locks. We
scrambled to get a locksmith, a new door, someone to clear out the place and
paint it. Valuations. Powers of Attorney. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Hell. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-41040379163613610002018-07-31T15:33:00.001+02:002018-07-31T15:33:32.153+02:00Still Alive Out Here! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJg_ZO0E4s6N2MqDJqZgtneLPxW6yXcIjWBUqbglqVoB86D0dnr6Bsi5gnGe-x_JcY6wO06Br1vNzXP2SgOtamIMUcnLm2wQJ2QMo6bm2I88S3CUN8307LkMRZsmgNIxLJm15hRPFFPya/s1600/IMG_3645.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="360" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrJg_ZO0E4s6N2MqDJqZgtneLPxW6yXcIjWBUqbglqVoB86D0dnr6Bsi5gnGe-x_JcY6wO06Br1vNzXP2SgOtamIMUcnLm2wQJ2QMo6bm2I88S3CUN8307LkMRZsmgNIxLJm15hRPFFPya/s400/IMG_3645.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
After all these years of blogging and chattering at you all and "building a platform," it looks like I have got up and walked away from it all.<br />
<br />
Like I said at the last posting, the ground is shifting underfoot.<br />
We don´t see so many pilgrims these days. We don´t go to local pig-stickings, or bull-runs, or baptisms so much. We hole up at home, we read books, we walk the dogs who remain with us (we are down to a mere TWO!).<br />
Much of it is to do with Patrick´s health. He cannot walk so far these days, and he does not like to travel far from home. He´s getting older, and sometimes crotchety. I cannot leave him alone here for more than three days or so.<br />
<br />
Some of it is me. I am spending more time in contemplation, when I am not working on someone´s book manuscript, or out saving someone´s butt. It seems that making measured decisions and following them through with calm action is now a Superpower. It wasn´t always so... or maybe I only recently got my own act together enough to step up and help out other people. I dunno.<br />
<br />
In June I walked from our house to Santiago de Compostela with Jon, my 17-year-old nephew. I am still not sure that was a great idea, but we both made it in one piece, and I got a real close-up look at what this holy path has become since I last walked it long-term, lo those 9 years ago. I have walked the Camino Frances three times now. It will never lose its fundamental juju, but let me tell you folks, it ain´t what it once was. The trail is changed, yes -- parts of it I have no memory of ever seeing before in my life! But what´s changed most is the pilgrims. Don´t get me started on those! (Maybe the next blog post?)<br />
<br />
I swore a great swear at the end of it, however. I will not walk the last 100 km. of the Frances (Sarria to Santiago) again, at least not in pilgrimage season. It is no longer the Camino de Santiago, not so far as I can see. It´s become a parody version of itself, a cardboard-cutout pilgrimage for people who kinda like the idea, but don´t really want to walk too much -- and a great gang of rapacious capitalists <br />
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angling to empty their pockets.<br />
<br />
Yeah, I´m crotchety, too. We are dealing with a family crisis down in Malaga, sad circumstances that take a ton of emotional energy. We may live on a magical trail, but real life still happens, and it happens hard.<br />
<br />
I need to write. I love you guys. I will do better, promise.<br />
<br />
Meantime, the sunflowers are glorious. The barn is full of swallows. Combines cut and comb the fields and lay a layer of golden dust over everything and everyone. Venus and Mars shine bright alongside the blood moon. Wine prices are way down, and I am refilling our depleted bodega, even though we don´t drink so much these days. The apple trees bow low under a huge load of fruit, but the vegetable garden is making a lot more leaves than fruit.<br />
<br />
We are still alive. Come by and say hello.<br />
<br />
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-84058105683898498402018-04-18T22:58:00.000+02:002018-04-18T22:58:08.744+02:00The Lord Taketh Away<br />
Continental shifts are happening here.<br />
Harry Dog is gone. He was ill last week, and on our Saturday walk in the Promised Land he ran off and did not return.<br />
We´ve had an awful time with animals in the last year or so. Lulu, much like Harry, ran off into nowhere last January. She is still deeply missed. Hillary the lovebird flew away in mid-summer, and Tim, the last of the Old Firm, shuffled off this mortal coil not long after.<br />
Heartbreakingly, little Rosie Dog died of a sudden cancer in December. Momo, my half-tail ginger cat, vanished right around Christmas. Maybe he figured it wasn´t safe living around here!<br />
And now goes Harry, sweet goofy Harry Dog.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5MRcYe3IQgeRZFUorsaknNApElrnNd4oGFOG-tf0nbwvdNc5VzG8d2u138O1vu8-eDGDlt2Qq6CSdN2zxX8VkIdR09qNlYpybb43Yb2ekNARpWTrpd8UGeIY41Cr0WKrRKAW5x2dgdyBK/s1600/P1010383.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5MRcYe3IQgeRZFUorsaknNApElrnNd4oGFOG-tf0nbwvdNc5VzG8d2u138O1vu8-eDGDlt2Qq6CSdN2zxX8VkIdR09qNlYpybb43Yb2ekNARpWTrpd8UGeIY41Cr0WKrRKAW5x2dgdyBK/s320/P1010383.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
We love our animals, they are thoroughly vetted, petted, loved and fed. But they do not live long lives here, and that makes us sad.<br />
They come, they live with us a while, and they slip away. You would think we´d learn not to become so attached, or we´d learn to not let them off the lead.<br />
<br />
We are down to two dogs now, plus Laika, who we are dog-sitting.<br />
We have three cats, a canary, and six hens -- only one of whom still lays eggs. We are letting them live out their old ages. We will not replace them when they die.<br />
We will not replace Harry. We could not.<br />
Our animals are dismissing themselves. We don´t know why. Our load is lightening.<br />
We have to stay and wait and see what happens next.<br />
<br />
On April 6 I became a Companion member of the New Benedictine Community, a religious order in the Anglican Benedictine tradition. It is small and new. The members are scattered all over the world. We meet weekly, online, for Vigil Prayers in English. It´s become a highlight of my week. <br />
<br />
I am hard at work doing rewrite on a book manuscript, a memoir by a DEA agent who hunted down El Chapo, a Mexican druglord. It is very hard work and the deadline is tight, but the money is good. This work keeps my writerly skills sharp, and it´s kinda fun to see my handiwork in print, even when someone else´s name is on the cover.<br />
<br />
I am rewriting my memoir. I will hunt down a druglord in the meantime, so maybe then a book agent or publisher will want to see it. <br />
<br />
And right now, I am hunting down a bicycle for the hospitaleras at the new parochial Casa de Acogida in Hontanas. There is no grocery store in town, they have no car, and the nearest store is in Castrojeriz... I am thinking of giving them my bike, but I kinda need it myself. That bike was the very first gift that Paddy O´Gara ever gave me. Which means it´s probably pretty old now!<br />
<br />
Peaceable Projects was quiet for a while, but this week I took a pilgrim with me to Astorga and we set a new stone in the Pilgrim Memorial Grove -- in memory of Fr. Gerard Postlethwaite, a pilgrim who was also a friend. Gerard was a Camino Chaplaincy priest from England. He died last September on the Camino Portuguese, and is mourned by many. May God hold him near His heart. <br />
<br />
The Lord gives, the Lord takes away.<br />
Blessed be His name.<br />
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-22616960479642828412018-04-02T16:05:00.002+02:002018-04-02T16:05:28.271+02:00Float the Stone Boat! It´s a kind of beehive, because a honeybee flew inside right away. A live bee, in mid-January, up on a mountain! Or maybe it´s a cat´s nest -- a cat named Nellie moved in as soon as the door opened.<br />
<br />
Right now, on the right side of the main street, something wonderful is happening in Rabanal del Camino. It´s a dream coming true, a blossoming, a springing-forth. And now, finally, I am allowed to tell you about it!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEionVzko3MyIaMfweZ4_7TfQ7WrWA6O0JJoXm80EL8JskjS65fusvFzqSYWy-pOk2cHti7xscf856hqrUVSEXkrUh4-cdc6xjwOVX-8MMa6tt0cyFcMoMm7KKX7l-7XcZZGH3SApsjNOb20/s1600/28954202_1781557148563740_4098526827019410119_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEionVzko3MyIaMfweZ4_7TfQ7WrWA6O0JJoXm80EL8JskjS65fusvFzqSYWy-pOk2cHti7xscf856hqrUVSEXkrUh4-cdc6xjwOVX-8MMa6tt0cyFcMoMm7KKX7l-7XcZZGH3SApsjNOb20/s320/28954202_1781557148563740_4098526827019410119_o.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<br />
It´s about Kim, aka Soulful Road, or La Perla, our dear old friend and Peaceable Person from Colorado and Key West. After a decade of saving, dreaming, and planning, Kim´s ship is come in -- she has legal residency and work papers, a little car, a kitty cat, and most of all: The Stone Boat! Stone Boat is a little house in Rabanal where six pilgrims can stay, drink, and dine with a true Camino Character as their host.<br />
<br />
Kim´s put everything she´s got into this place, and it´s ready to debut... BUT. Kim needs to replace the beds, mattresses, linens and rugs. She needs to get the wiring up to Code, and hang some cupboards in the kitchen, and get her Stone Boat listed on Booking.com. All this stuff costs money, and at the last minute she´s run out!<br />
<br />
So... We the People can help her over the hump! Kim needs about 8,000 euro to put everything just so, and 10,000 would give her enough boost to feel secure right into next year. Kim being who she is, could not just take your money, oh no.... have a look at the GoFundMe site, and see all the goodies she´s offering to people who pony up to help out. Nothing to sneeze at here. A very worthwhile project, and a person I´ve known and trusted for a decade now.<br />
<br />
Every little bit helps! Check it out.<br />
<br style="background-color: #f1f0f0; color: #4b4f56; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre-wrap;" />
<a href="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.gofundme.com%2Fthestoneboat&h=ATNACzqUX7UNn1BOqhqnqLPDmeGWNKKQxZvlVqqa2JsHZO_lTMvJ-2MwPavh8ezg6twCgmIGRDe8gLj8h7bIsh3345YGItffuyaa7-p8TA2_9FrEfDM" original_target="https://www.gofundme.com/thestoneboat" rel="nofollow noopener" saprocessedanchor="true" style="background-color: #f1f0f0; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; outline: none; white-space: pre-wrap;" target="_blank">https://www.gofundme.com/thestoneboat</a> Be a hero for the cause! You may be the next one here!Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-59294477934584320642018-03-27T01:41:00.001+02:002018-03-27T01:41:39.302+02:00Ten Days of Silence: the Buddhist Boot Camp<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAn1S7Zd_u2S8GFSAr0WKp_EO7bc2X6mtpOTvaQvBD132JYXGg-ToK0oiuzrdLf72C_uqn4a7DrlvBlGwvJGz4r2W6EpdVhzBDFq5zKaehHqn3AHLv6xqqL99P8ofhZlqb7nehU87zBbI0/s1600/th.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="95" data-original-width="127" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAn1S7Zd_u2S8GFSAr0WKp_EO7bc2X6mtpOTvaQvBD132JYXGg-ToK0oiuzrdLf72C_uqn4a7DrlvBlGwvJGz4r2W6EpdVhzBDFq5zKaehHqn3AHLv6xqqL99P8ofhZlqb7nehU87zBbI0/s400/th.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
No phone, no internet. <span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">No talking, no touching anyone, any how. No looking people in the face,
no sexual nothing, the genders strictly segregated. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Vegetarian food, two meals before noon, and
two bits of fruit at 5 o´clock. No alcohol, drugs, music, talking, no reading
or writing or entertainment, no outward expressions allowed. I turned-in my car
keys on the first day. Nothing around but sheer mountain fastness. There was no
escape. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This was <a href="https://www.es.dhamma.org/" target="_blank">DhammaSakka, a Buddhist</a> Boot Camp in Avila province. Ten days of cloistered monastic
discipline, arcane instruction, inner examination, and incredibly deep sleep. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Up at 4
a.m., and on the mat by half-past, meditating (and sometimes just dozing) in a
big warm room. Eighty souls pinned to zafus and zabutons and pillows and
yoga-rolls, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>focusing for a day on the
breath moving through their noses. Another day for the breath moving over their
upper lips. Another day and outward to the throat, head, and beyond, until
every little tingle or itch or ping of pain was carefully observed and noted,
but not responded-to. We were learning to observe, but not react. Sensation is
real, but it does not require response. Left alone, the sensation fades away on
its own, sooner or later. Usually. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I learned
to meditate years ago. I thought I had my posture ironed-out, but I´d never sat
for longer than 60 minutes at a stretch. Sitting Vipassana was eight or ten times
that, hours of stillness that set my hip joints alight. An old shoulder injury
flared, and on Day 3 I humbly whispered my petition to the teacher during
question time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My post was duly shifted from
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the pack of toned Portuguese yoga moms
to the rear wall, a lineup of older ladies. I spent the following week
flattened against that wall, tucked into a lopsided pretzel shape my component
structure could live with, face-to-face with the reality of my 55-year-old
frame. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But no one
was looking at me. I wasn´t supposed to look at them, either. When I did sneak
a peek over the room full of bodies lined up in rows before me, I was secretly
pleased to see some writhing and wriggling going on. I was not alone. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">This Ten-Day
Vipassana Course, an introduction to Buddhist meditation as taught by a S.N. Goenka,
a roly-poly charismatic Burmese businessman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a surprisingly modern approach to
spreading philosophy. It depends on video teachings each evening, offered in
the mother tongue of every person present via headphones or dubbed translation.
The main course was arranged by the Portuguese national branch of the
India-based Vipassana Foundation, and offered here in Spain in (heavily
accented) English and Portuguese. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
group listened in <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russian, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Czech, Dutch, German, Spanish, too. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">We were
herded, guarded, and looked-after by a team of 20 volunteers, people who
underwent the course themselves and now enjoy spending their holidays here at
the camp, sitting silently for many hours between their work assignments. The setting is spectacular. Dhamma Sakka stands
on a hillside in the Gredos Mountains, with spectacular white peaks, green
pastures, and drifts of spring wildflowers. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We could not sing, but the music of cowbells,
frog songs, and larks filled the valley through the day, and a wind roared down
from the peaks during the night. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Or maybe
that was just the snoring from the next bunk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">There was chanting, however. Very weird, low bass warblings and yodelings of Pali prayers, sung by the Goenka himself. I did not like it at first, but the phrasing was catchy. I didn´t know what the words meant, but they stuck in my head. I made up my own words, silly ones, which were probably not always duly respectful. I made myself laugh. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Our bunks
were clean and comfortable. The center is only three years old, scrupulously
maintained. The food was excellent, if a bit Organic. Perhaps because the
Portuguese group arranged this session, the chow had a distinctive Portuguese
flair. Sadly, my innards are tuned to the Spanish channel. Tasty as they were,
all those whole grains and pectins combined with the odd sleeping and eating
schedule and the sudden loss of my usual couple-of-miles walk in the morning.
So my digester, in its wisdom, simply shut down for a couple of days. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">So yes,
there was physical misery. There was a day I balked at all the rules, feeling hemmed-in
by the rather short walking trail roped-off for women to use. (The men paced
their own, similar-sized corral on the other side of the camp during the
designated hour.) There was another bad day when Marcella, the only one of my roommates
whose name I knew, developed a fever and was sent home. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was Day 8, the day they announced three
one-hour sittings where we´d be expected to not move at all. Oh, lucky
Marcella! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How I envied her! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">But I did
it. By Day 8 I pretty much had the body stuff nailed down, and the inner work
was well underway. I had to push through some heavy resistance, but I did it. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And I did
it again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It never
became easy, but it became do-able. With my body settled-down, I could go deep
into my mental basement and start clearing out accumulated junk I´d forgotten I
had stored in there. Notebooks, bad poetry, bad decisions, politics, dead dogs
and dreams, rags and bones. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">A rare
opportunity for real mental maintenance, a mid-life re-boot, even. It took an
awfully long time to get down in there, so I made good use of the opportunity.
I stayed deep. I felt drowsy even in the times between sittings, but my senses
were sharp. The evening fruit break was such a high point, and on Day 9 I felt a
bolt of true joy when I snatched the last banana from the buffet table. My banana! So
delicious, so full of vitamins! What joy! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I wasn´t
brainwashed, but I was not in my right mind. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I looked at
it, and at the people around me slowly savouring their apples and pears. I
realized how beautiful some of us were. An exceptionally good-looking group,
just a little tired. And so wonderfully silent! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">Outside
that night, the sky was spangled with stars, the sliver of Equinox moon, the
Milky Way. And the following day, after the morning´s Hour of Great Resiliance, the
Noble Silence was lifted. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">The entire
atmosphere changed in an instant. Our lips were unsealed and speech began, and with the joy of
children let loose for summer, we introduced ourselves, we laughed, even. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I was courteous, it was fun, but I never was much good
at that shmoozing. I slipped away for a walk down to the creek, where the frogs were singing.
It was quiet there. I spotted a couple of other introverts hiding out in the woods. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">At 5:30
a.m. the final morning, Goenka made his final video appearance. After a half-hour of the Yodeling Yoda´s Greatest Hits, he expalined how we all can donate some money to cover our costs, and/or do some
volunteer work. Starting with cleaning our rooms. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I did both. I believe in donativo. Everyone ought to pay his way, and years
of hospitalera work have made me an expert at cleaning up bunk beds and folding
up blankets with speed and efficiency. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">I probably
will not put myself through another 10-day wringer like this one, but my hat is
off to Goenka and his merry crew. Their message became a bit incoherent at the
end, but their gentle sensory deprivation technique slowly brings a determined student
to deep places in a way I´ve never seen before. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">And their “pay
what you can afford” approach brings Buddhist practice within reach of everybody.
Sadly, western Buddhism, in my opinion,
is an exclusive, suburban, upper-middle class phenomenon. American Dharma
Centers are designed by and for wealthy, well-educated elites, and a 10-day
program at any American Buddhist center would cost thousands of dollars.
They´ve priced themselves out of the reach of most American seekers. The Vipassana people, on the other hand, have centers like this one scattered throughout the world. The courses have long waiting lists to attend. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">It´s good to see I am not alone in this hunger and thirst for righteousness.</span></div>
<br />Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-31693014636936074062018-02-06T23:54:00.001+01:002018-02-07T00:06:12.000+01:00Paddy, who is my husbandPaddy, Patrick, is my husband. He would hate it if he knew I was writing about him.<br />
He´s English, a retired newspaperman, a thinker, a wag, a working-class raconteur. Or he was.<br />
Paddy dreamed for years of retiring to Spain, but the rural life on the pilgrimage trail part was my idea. He was happy enough to sign on when the time came. His gruff silence is just a front for a kind, generous heart. He´s been a fine volunteer hospitalero for almost 19 years, longer than we´ve been married.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmRGnWg7C7MpvFn95fXLeOh1q2PMLwMLgTpFixNi29WBQ-PP2Q2yuNeQuvG30hkPdljOf0SL6JEC5A4OzHCA4ucfBOUoHAQdSpFNF18mnOTzyNxRPXvEYOPInsP7pe-7bHiqnXLuGRhTxj/s1600/IMG_3312.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="360" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmRGnWg7C7MpvFn95fXLeOh1q2PMLwMLgTpFixNi29WBQ-PP2Q2yuNeQuvG30hkPdljOf0SL6JEC5A4OzHCA4ucfBOUoHAQdSpFNF18mnOTzyNxRPXvEYOPInsP7pe-7bHiqnXLuGRhTxj/s320/IMG_3312.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Years ago, in Oviedo</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Paddy´s become the background player in our duet. In years past, Paddy was more engaged. He used to answer the phone and tell people to come on over, or answer the door and tell people to come in. He invited his friends in England to visit us here. He went on his own for long weekends to Cuenca or Pamplona or Madrid, to see art exhibitions, or went with me to look at Romanesque chapels up in the mountains, or off to Paris or Ghent or London, just for fun.<br />
I´m a night-owl. He´s a morning person. We balanced-out nicely. We spent years in none but one another´s company, but didn´t got too sick of one another.<br />
At home he took the morning shift. He rose at dawn and gathered the eggs, fried up a panful if there were pilgrims in the house, and sometimes walked with them and the dogs a little way up the camino.<br />
Paddy still walks the dogs every morning, but not until later. He chops firewood and makes superb omelettes sometimes, and he helps out with whatever he´s asked to do.<br />
But these days he mostly crouches in the chair at the end of the big kitchen table, peering into this computer screen.<br />
Pilgrims come and go. They ask the same questions, tell the same stories. Paddy says hello, he speaks to them civilly, but often as not he quickly puts his headphones back on and goes back to his YouTube art history lecture, or the 3-year-old mare and filly handicap at Epsom Downs.<br />
He´s not usually outrightly rude to them, but Paddy is done with pilgrims.<br />
Meantime, I deal with the ongoing Peaceable business, with a lot of help from Ollie. I answer the phones, make up the shopping list, run into town, pin up the laundry, make pasta and flan and plans.<br />
Paddy´s lost much of his eyesight. He cannot read books any more, but he can bump up the print on a computer screen enough to write a column every couple of weeks for The Toledo Blade. He plays gadfly to a gang of radical online Catholic traditionalists, under the <i>nom de plume</i> "Toad." Paddy cannot see well enough to enjoy museum displays, or art exhibits. He still likes cuisine, but he doesn´t want to go down to Villada for a <i>menu del dia</i> any more. Some days he cannot hear well enough to follow a conversation in Spanish. He puts on Shostakovich or Mahler recordings, turns them up loud enough to shake the timbers of the house, then dons his headphones and turns on another lecture video.<br />
He goes to bed early and sleeps a long time. He spends many hours on the patio with Harry, Ruby, and Judy Dog, basking in the weak February rays, sipping red wine. I see them all out there, and I know I love him.<br />
Today, Paddy turns 77.<br />
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Maybe he is depressed, or lonely. Maybe he is fixing to die. The doctor says there´s nothing really wrong with him, except he´s 77 years old. People around here live into their 90's if they don´t smoke, or roll over their tractors. <br />
I often think it´s time to tell the pilgrims to go somewhere else, to let Paddy live in peace in his home. But maybe that would be a big mistake.<br />
Without them, Paddy would have nothing coming in from outside. Just three hound dogs, three cats, a canary, five hens, and the internet.<br />
And me. His wife.<br />
And that could be fatal.<br />
<br />
<br />
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-83994790524427515452018-01-13T21:53:00.004+01:002018-01-13T21:53:59.717+01:00The Books You Wrote <div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I want to
write about fear, and about being a mystic. I want to write about stones, and
fire, and the stars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But instead
I will write about pilgrims, because that´s what I know most about, and that´s
what people expect and enjoy. I found
our first pilgrim register today, fallen behind the bookshelf. We ask pilgrims to put their name in a register
book, the date they arrive, and where they´re from. Then we stamp their pilgrim
credential with our “sello.” It´s just what´s done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The books
are not fascinating reading, unless you are me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jean-Marc doesn´t see the appeal</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The first signature
is from 12 October 2006, nine days after we bought the little farm that became
the Peaceable Kingdom. It´s Kathy, my best friend from California. Three days
later, Marianne´s name is there. Marianne was a German-speaking Swiss, a
hospitalera, a strange bird. She ran the shelter at Eunate for a season, I
served there with her the following January, and just about froze to death. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here´s my
friend Filipe from Portugal. He brought us a slab of salt cod we tried to soak back
to useability, but the only place large enough was the sheep trough in the
patio. Birds came and pecked it to bits.
Here is Sebastian from Belgium, who stayed to help us fix up the place,
and Bernd from Braunschweig, on the run from the law. Here´s my daughter Libby,
who visited that darksome, muddy February. I drove her all the way to Bilbao to
catch a bus, and when I got home I found Berndt and Sebastian and one of the
villagers kicking the tar out of one another in the dark, in the street. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here´s Anselmo,
a blithe spirit from Valencia, a forest ranger. Colin and Margaret from Walkes,
and Frank, the merry Scotsman who taught us to be hospitaleros. John Murphy,
the man whose name we gave to our first and finest cat. Ann, who´s now a
hospitalero each October in Grado, all these years later… People with heroic names: Doug Challenger. Christian
Champion. Dael, a policeman in a kilt.
Patrik Kotrba, a Czech art historian turned hobo. Alan, a CIA agent who didn´t
know he was dying. Mike, a fresh-faced boy from Ohio who´s now living in
Santiago, writing guides as “The Wise Pilgrim.”
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Tomas
Konopa lived in Holland but he was a Croat. He came and helped, and came back
to help some more. He was a shipwright, a hard drinker, veteran of the horrors
of Bosnian war. His DNA is in this place. I wonder how he´s getting on. I think
he might be dead. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here´s
Paddy´s son Matt, who designed the Peaceable sello, and Michael, a
priest-in-training from Hawaii. Hedwigs, Heidis, Jennifers, Janes, Ragnhilds,
Cristobals, Bobs and Timos, Kevins and Claires and Jyo-Jeong Kims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here´s a
Korean family of nine, spreading the Gospel, and my old bestie Jeanne and my
godson Nicolas, here from Paris for a disastrous visit in 2008. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Then came
Malin and David, still so important to us, and Philip, my son. And the
guitarists came, too, the first sello from Camino Artes, the first concerts.
Paddy´s old London friends Derek and Rimmer, blown-away at what Patrick´s life
had come to. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And Kim´s
in here, too. The names in the book thank her for her kindness, because she was
hosting them right alongside us. She´s been here almost from the very start,
Kim. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Here is
Brian from Pittsburgh, who was not who he said he was, and Leo from Cuba, who
is exactly what you see. A recording
crew from Israel, who made a guitar and violin album at our church. Stretches
of Korean text, Japanese characters, Cyrillic letters, unreadable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I close the
book, only three years into our history. Golden years, terrifying times. Such
giants walked the trail in those days… We
had so many people in and out of here, and we didn´t wear out the way we do now.
We took them more easy then. I remember the pilgrims as more easy-going,
flexible, ready to stop and talk and come home for coffee, to sleep on the sofa
or even the floor. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We only get
the full pilgrim flow in winter, but it´s not so easy nowadays. Maybe it´s us who´ve changed, life is more comfortable
now with heated floors and a laundry machine. We are older, more tired, less
willing to shlep out to the storage room in the morning dark when more jam is
needed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Paddy is
getting beyond all this. And Paddy is more important than strangers from the
trail… this is his home. The pilgrims have other places they can stay. We
should take our names off the Winter Welcome list, I think. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But what would
this place be without the pilgrims? What would I write about? Fear, and mystics,
maybe, or stones, and fire, and the stars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Who wants
to read about <i>those</i>? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-47489681296483569242018-01-03T16:18:00.003+01:002018-01-03T16:18:41.688+01:00Gracias <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRjfNvS3sNyxTXAO79rPX6ndkk3meg9Kz9tuNw9daAg94NgK9RoENpe8tDcx268DH8Bh6c9gL21SRMfkcyvtVYtN2nbpLPBQEHud54MeB0nFzlub-ahMvv-zxBLoD_QpfnrO42PJrIl_E-/s1600/portcelebration.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRjfNvS3sNyxTXAO79rPX6ndkk3meg9Kz9tuNw9daAg94NgK9RoENpe8tDcx268DH8Bh6c9gL21SRMfkcyvtVYtN2nbpLPBQEHud54MeB0nFzlub-ahMvv-zxBLoD_QpfnrO42PJrIl_E-/s320/portcelebration.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Helena sent lovely port from Portugal... another gift. Perfect for a celebration! </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ollie,
Paddy, David, Kim, and me. Very different people from all different places,
brought together in one place with a common purpose. We did Christmas together,
and almost New Year´s Eve (midnight is too late for most of us, and David had
to go to Astorga to fix an engine.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We had some
big jobs to do, at a season when Peaceable is often overwhelmed with pilgrim
traffic. We called in our old standby friends, and they did not disappoint. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Kim
holed-up by the pellet stove in the Little Kitchen and designed web pages, and
plotted her next big move. She shimmered in between, and made salads at
dinnertime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Ollie
buzzed around the house with mops and sheets and spoons, cleaning up and
feeding and coddling the steady flow of holiday pilgrims. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">David made
the electric bike work. He fixed the solar light on the patio steps, and made
my IPad play jazz radio from Bordeaux on our little stereo, indoors and out. He
tuned the guitar, put on a new E string, and sang “Over the Rainbow.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I can´t say
just what I did. I cooked a few meals, did some laundry, wrote some copy and
some emails, paid some bills. I bossed people around, I washed the cat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Somehow,
over the 12 days between the Winter Solstice and the end of the Mercury
Retrograde and today, we got it all together at Peaceable and made it happen.
We hosted 28 overnight pilgrims, three holiday dinners, and seven drop-in
guests. Judy dog had emergency surgery. Jim, the newest Peaceable stalwart,
brought a carload of supplies from the restaurant supply warehouse in Madrid,
and buried Kim´s little kitchen under tons of pasta, Cheerios, tomato sauce,
and toilet paper. He left with Goldie, a feral kitten we´d been trying to tame.
We opened the church and rang the bell for a series of Masses, handed Christmas
candy bars around the village, and received homemade delicacies in return: This
year´s favorite is a half-kilo block of homemade quince paste wrapped in
psychedelic cellophane. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Much was
given. Much is given still. And today Kim´s little masterpiece was unveiled: this
website, the work of weeks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And as the
emails and testimonials rolled in today, I realized how many people I need to
be grateful for… old friends who´ve walked with me over miles or sat with me
over glasses of Ribeiro, listening while I hashed-out this vision. Family
members, professionals who offered good advice, cut me big breaks on the price,
or just did the heavy lifting for nothing. <i>Colegas
</i>who puzzled out what I was trying to say after a long day of Spanish left
me babbling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">People who
saw I needed some space, and left me alone. And people who saw I needed help,
and stepped up. People who helped me forgive myself for being less than
perfect. People who love me, or just like me an awful lot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And people
who see the website, and the vision, and open their wallets to support the
cause. Some people who don´t have a lot of money, and a few who are pretty
comfortable. People from Sweden and Ukraine and Washington, and Waterloo,
Ontario. People I don´t even know. Generous souls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">People I´m
going to keep hitting up for ideas and manpower, influence, letters of support,
advice, or collaboration. Or money! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">People I
would owe so much to, if I didn´t live in this strange and wonderful economy of
grace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The more
you give, the more comes back to you. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Just watch
us. We´ll try to show you how it´s done. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><i><b>This post also appears on "On the Perimeter," the new blog on the Peaceable Projects Inc. website. I now have two blogs to keep up with! I hope this will spur me to greater writing achievements -- this one to cover the day-by-day personal homey things, and that one to cover the non-profit projects. Not sure exactly how to un-twist the two, but I will try, at least for a little while. </b></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><i><b>Please be aware that the PayPal button here sends money to my personal account, which pays our daily expenses and is not non-profit... I don´t want to confuse anyone. If you want the PPInc. non-profit, please head over to <a href="http://peaceableprojects.org/">peaceableprojects.org</a> and give to your heart´s content. </b></i></span></div>
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-63822953106982054052018-01-02T11:50:00.000+01:002018-01-02T12:09:57.378+01:00Blastoff! I´m telling everyone I know... the long-awaited <a href="http://www.peaceableprojects.org/" target="_blank">website </a>is finally a go!<br />
Have a look, sign up for updates, let me know if it works OK. It´s a proud day at Peaceable!<br />
<br />
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Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-5349116242717006222017-12-28T18:25:00.000+01:002017-12-29T01:11:14.080+01:00The Long Tale of a Lucky Dog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
She´s lucky I didn´t kill her myself, back when we first met.<br />
A year or so ago, on a dark, snowy afternoon in the mountain village of O Cebreiro, I drove my car very slowly up the single cobbled street. I peered through the sleet, hoping for a decent parking spot. I hit the curve at the top with just enough momentum to avoid touching the gas. And there it was, sprawled out lengthwise on the snow-covered street -- a huge black hound dog.<br />
I touched the brake and slid, just a little. I stopped in time. The dog didn´t move. It was dead, some idiot had already run it over and left its body there, I thought. Poor, unlucky beast. I pulled over to the side, turned on the emergency lights, got out of the car.<br />
The dog rolled slowly over and got to its feet. It ambled over to me, wagging its shaggy tail. It was a filthy, yellow-eyed brute, a shaggy rag of a hound dog, lying in the street like all good Spanish dogs do. At least until some local hot-rod puts a permanent end to their restful lives.<br />
I happened to have dog treats in my coat pocket. I gave them to the dog. He wolfed them down and ambled away. He´s not starving, I told myself. He´ll be alright.<br />
I got on with my errands, got on with my life. I didn´t know that dirty old dog wasn´t done with me.<br />
St. James works closely with St. Francis sometimes, where I am concerned.<br />
My friend Laurie is Canadian, but she´s been part of the O Cebreiro community for decades. She noticed when the big black dog appeared along the edges of the town a year or so ago, scrounging for scraps, sniffing around the dumpsters, sidling up to pilgrims. Near enough to be obvious, but not close enough to touch. It was a female dog. People threw bits of bocadillo to her. The restaurant cooks left bones and trimmings by the back door, which vanished overnight.<br />
Everyone agreed the dog must´ve been dumped by a hunter, or escaped from a local shepherd. No one came looking for her. Nobody wanted a big black dog. The dog was so shy, she didn´t seem to want to be anyone´s pet. She survived the first winter by holing up alongside a horreo on the edge of town, out of the wind.<br />
She made friends with Carlos, a portly pet dog who lived with the Esperanzas, two ladies named "Hope," at a local bed and breakfast inn. The two dogs spent last summer working the tourist crowds, cadging treats from the delivery vans down along the LU-633, taking long naps in doorways, garages, and sometimes in the middle of the street.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJIAzKJoCbTgbAF-kRaX9L1zARkx3U9j2pp7WM0wwS7z2VrOsM2jlh0xNKS279F1a-EIvibo5ZeM2c_Nav1H-DwZ70dRMLXTano8Tp0GBo-rf6f6tlHcvQbnLsU4LY9lUVGWdonEiHIYvz/s1600/24463199_10156000329878594_1245969776_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1068" data-original-width="1600" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJIAzKJoCbTgbAF-kRaX9L1zARkx3U9j2pp7WM0wwS7z2VrOsM2jlh0xNKS279F1a-EIvibo5ZeM2c_Nav1H-DwZ70dRMLXTano8Tp0GBo-rf6f6tlHcvQbnLsU4LY9lUVGWdonEiHIYvz/s320/24463199_10156000329878594_1245969776_o.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cinders in O Cebreiro, Summer 2017 (Rachel Thompson photo)</td></tr>
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Around July, the black dog produced a litter of puppies. They tumbled around the streets for a little while, then suddenly vanished. No one can say where. No one much cared. No one wanted a puppy.<br />
No one wanted a big black female dog.<br />
Time went by. The tourist crowds thinned out. The days grew short.<br />
Laurie named the hound dog Cinderella. The Esperanzas let the dog sleep in their garage, but they didn´t want to adopt her. They spend their winters in a little apartment in Lugo, they already had one too-big dog. Laurie spends large swaths of time in England and Canada, so she couldn´t take her on, either. Cinderella was facing another long, hungry winter on the mountaintop.<br />
So Laurie called me.<br />
I was due to visit O Cebreiro in November, so Laurie and the Esperanzas fixed things up.<br />
I arrived with the rear hatch of the car all done-up for a scared dog, but I needn´t have worried... the Esperanzas had lured her into the entryway of their elegant stone house, and drugged her into oblivion. We four ladies dragged and lifted the dog into the back of the car.<br />
The Esperanzas wept. Laurie grinned her great grin. And so Cinderella left her mountain home.<br />
I won´t tell you what happened when I stopped at a service station halfway home to let the dog relieve herself. She did just that, but getting back up into the car was too much for her. She dropped to the ground and lay there, supine. I thought it was the drug.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaxlQUNjEwI95-bi-ZlrGc0Ks22L5aMRlkpfosxAQc7FnSKk3JTQZWblN4kfZ-ur_GjEU3T9vjs_oSvvfmuIQ65NUsoi95gqOTXC2BkkwZmujP-7EVyQjCl2drMS_fKE2MJkqi01PmuqiS/s1600/24131092_10159611312050076_6348117417027959559_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="960" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaxlQUNjEwI95-bi-ZlrGc0Ks22L5aMRlkpfosxAQc7FnSKk3JTQZWblN4kfZ-ur_GjEU3T9vjs_oSvvfmuIQ65NUsoi95gqOTXC2BkkwZmujP-7EVyQjCl2drMS_fKE2MJkqi01PmuqiS/s320/24131092_10159611312050076_6348117417027959559_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">doing the Ghandi drop, November 2017</td></tr>
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That turned out to be her default response to any stressful situation: Drop down and lay flat.<br />
This is a huge dog, 35 kilos, 77 pounds. A smart dog. Wily. Unmoveable.<br />
She did that when a Ditch Pig accidently let her out the front gate, and I caught her by the collar.<br />
She did that whenever Ruby and Harry Dogs came to sniff her over and check her out.<br />
She did that on our walks, when we were turning left and she wanted to keep going straight.<br />
Slowly, eventually, she warmed up. We took away her collar and put a harness on her, and she stayed on her feet. She began nosing up to us when we petted the other dogs, asking for her share of love.<br />
Finally, out in the Promised Land one morning, I let her off the lead when the other two ran free. She ran after them, in a big wide-stride lollop.<br />
And when they came back, Judy Dog came, too.<br />
The veterinarian said she´s young and healthy. He gave her rabies shots and worming tablets and a microchip with my name on it. We called her Judy, because she seemed to like it.<br />
I booked her into another vet who does spay-neuter operations on dogs -- not an overly common procedure in Spain. We waited until after Christmas, til after the vet got over a cold.<br />
Late yesterday morning I took Judy into Sahagun for the operation. <br />
In the afternoon the veterinarian phoned just after lunch, her voice anxious. She´d opened up the dog, she said, and found a terrible surprise. Judy had an acute pyometra. Her uterus and ovaries were a massive infection. The operation was going to take a lot longer, and be a good bit riskier, and cost a lot more money, she said -- or I could opt to just euthanize her, there and then. Without the full operation she would not survive more than a day or two.<br />
I told her to go ahead with the surgery.<br />
Five hours later I took Ollie and David to help collect her. The vet was exhausted, Judy was drugged-out. In the sink of the dispensary was Judy´s uterus. The normally pencil-size organ was a great, 3.5 kilo loaf of eeugh. (The vets here always show you the spare parts.) <br />
"This is the luckiest dog I´ve ever met, and I´ve met plenty," the vet enthused. "I can´t believe she could be walking around with this inside her, and not have at least a fever. I can´t believe she could stand up, even, and there she was this morning, prancing in here with her tail wagging. I can´t believe she´s here for something routine, something scheduled, and wow. And a couple more days and she´d have been dead, and you´d probably never have known she was sick. Exceptional. Extraordinary. Lucky." <br />
"It´s St. James," Ollie said.<br />
"St. Francis, maybe," David said.<br />
"Lucky dog," the vet said. <br />
A survivor. A black dog made of old car tires, rubber bands, shoe leather. Tough as nails. Lucky as hell.<br />
I might start calling her that. Lucky.<br />
Lucky Dog.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Post-surgery, wearing my nightgown </td></tr>
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Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9018985237438196013.post-57533062649635324072017-12-26T12:31:00.001+01:002017-12-26T14:24:16.879+01:00Great Expectations<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/CJrs3MV_iX8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CJrs3MV_iX8?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">My mind
shouts: Gotta write something! Gotta get that Peaceable Projects website out
there, gotta fill in all the gaps in the design while the website-builder is here! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But it was
Christmas day, and Daft Punk was playing on the radio, and the sun came out for a
while, and the early-arrival pilg was shaking his booty around the kitchen as
the turkey came out of the oven. So I danced a little, too. ´Cause I´m happy. (And
nobody laughs too hard at a person wielding a carving knife.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I had a
load of things to do. Not only feeding three friends, two neighbors, a husband,
and four pilgrims a full-on holiday feast, but opening up the church for the 1
p.m. Mass, ringing the bells at 12.30 and lighting all the stoves and candles.
After that, back at home, vermouth and cava, nuts and boqueron fillets, jazz
from French public radio. Clear out the aperitivos, wash the forks, and bring
on the turkey, stuffing, beans, carrots, apple pie and English Christmas
pudding, whipped out of the microwave at the last minute by another helpful elf.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And a
second round of the same stuff when the last three pilgrims straggled in,
accompanied by </span></div>
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</div>
David on the guitar, singing hits from Prince, the Drifters,
Beatles, Bing Crosby, Oasis. I thought about that website copy, thought about
how this website is past due, how people are looking for it and not finding it,
felt my old aversion to busted deadlines… <o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">So I
finally sat down to write this thing, but only after everyone finished singing
and dancing and clowning around. Because keeping company with wonderful people is more
important than just about anything. And because I was a little afraid. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Once I
write this, and it´s plugged-in to the design and sent out onto the Interwebz,
Peaceable Projects Inc. is Really Real, and I am Responsible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">This is
scary. I don´t know anything about maintaining websites, or running a
non-profit organization, keeping track of all this paperwork... I am not sure I
do enough to keep a website interesting and fresh. Most of what´s done here,
day to day, is dull as Ditch-Pigging. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeenZ1woYRoh05OF7Wx8IuJbDqdOON6Ca6cpEisXMfa5XB1TbY2ZJL4G7dxTfVy8VSinKPEYC4cZn0IPLV0wcYwa25tF5WpXWGtI6zIKRuF07WzEZxzYtWM07dV0t3Q6ND64-15eAsZ1pY/s1600/IMG_1778.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeenZ1woYRoh05OF7Wx8IuJbDqdOON6Ca6cpEisXMfa5XB1TbY2ZJL4G7dxTfVy8VSinKPEYC4cZn0IPLV0wcYwa25tF5WpXWGtI6zIKRuF07WzEZxzYtWM07dV0t3Q6ND64-15eAsZ1pY/s320/IMG_1778.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">But I´m
throwing myself in. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It´s time
to step out into this. Peaceable isn´t just a house along the Camino de
Santiago any more. It´s grown into the home-base for several projects, almost
all of them aimed squarely at the Camino de Santiago and the pilgrims who walk
there. It´s developed a base of supporters, fans, and followers, people who are
shockingly generous and surprisingly interested in every kind of local
development. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">I´m finding
more needs and knotty problems among the non-profit Camino community, and I am
getting good at matching them up with solutions, often from faraway lands. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">We´ve
developed a memorial grove, to remember pilgrims who die along the Way. We´re
helping to fund an archaeological dig where a medieval pilgrim shelter once
stood. I am bringing sustainable
architectural design to re-invent a shelter at a rustic albergue within a
ruined monastery. Cool stuff! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">And day by
day, Peaceable Kingdom in Moratinos remains open to pilgrims, travellers, hobos
and CEOs, the people of the Way. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It´s about
time we got organized. Within the next day or two, HONEST, we´re launching this
rocket of a website, a place where you´ll easily see what all we´re
doing, and how we hope to achieve it all. And if you like, join in the fun. Right
this minute, send me your email address (at rebrites (at) yahoo.com) and we´ll add you to our subscribers list –
you´ll be the first to know if-when things happen! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">It´s dark
out there. We´re working hard to keep a light burning on the Holy Way. Come
join the fun! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Rebrites@yahoo.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11827625656760747239noreply@blogger.com1