Wyzga On Words

Here I Am In Santiago: 5 Weeks, 500 Miles.

Where *did* the time go?

I intended to post about my Camino as experienced year later.

I began writing last September with my arrival into Madrid.

And then Life Happened - as anyone who is shepherding eldercare parents knows full well.

Right now I want to savor this one moment in time and remember what it felt like to walk through the archway to the cathedral square with  bagpiper playing to herald our arrival (as is done 24 hours a day) and stand in the pilgrim-packed Cathedral de Santiago while the Botafumeiro swung back and forth over our heads

And then I want to go back and retrace those steps because ever since I became a peregrina I have not been the same woman who landed all fearful and uncertain in Madrid. 

Life Eclipses Blood Moon.

 

Like many others on the West Coast I set my alarm for 0215 hours, stumbled out onto an ocean-mist dampened balcony, listened for the occasional echo of crashing waves and muffled sea lion barks while pulling a chair into a space to watch the Most Wonderful Show Off Earth.

Click this link for photo images of this morning's lunar eclipse.  I can say it looked just like these images.

Watching the full moon lunar eclipse in the wee small hours of the morning I realized I have not been invited to deliver a TED talk nor have I been able to master a perfect pie crust; but otherwise, I am quite content with the life I've lived thus far.

Who knew there were so many stars in the sky?

 

 

What Does The Camino de Santiago Look Like A Year Later?

I'm a little behind my schedule.  The plan was to pick up my Camino de Santiago journal on Wednesday the 17th September 2014, a year from the day I boarded a plane at John Wayne Airport, flew to Newark International and then on to Madrid, Spain where I figured out where and how to get the Aeropuerto Express bus to travel across town to the RENFE station where I would board a train to Pamplona and then a bus to St. Jean Pied de Port arriving at my destination some 48 jet-lagged hours later. But I'm getting ahead of myself.  For those of you who know my family, you know that at least one character is himself in transition so plans being what the Goddess laughs at means I have to reconfigure this idea of mine.

Let's begin here by allowing Enya to set the stage with her lyrics to Pilgrim.  Each time I listen to this haunting music I am reminded that even after a year's time has passed this much I know is true: it's a long way to find out who you are. 

I want to use this time and this space to reflect on 500 miles trekked in 5 weeks.  What it felt like then and what it feels like now.

I can tell you that waking up to see Spain spread out below me as we descended was neither thrilling nor exciting.  I was petrified!  WTF was I thinking?  Estoy solo!  It would be easy enough to whip out my credit card, find the United Airlines counter and grab the first flight home.  You think I'm kidding?  Have Credit Card - Will Travel.  

What stopped me?  I fumbled in my backpack and pulled out a letter pressed into my hand a few hours before I was supposed to go to sleep on the last night in my own bed.  The letter began, "Dear Diane, Well done! As you read this thousands of feet above the earth, you may be wondering why I gave you a 'WELL DONE!' card to start your Camino de Santiago journey. But, in actuality, it is a great start.  Why?  Regardless of what does or doesn't happen from here on out, you will be forever changed simply because you showed up.  And that, my friend, is 'WELL DONE!'" 

How did Lorraine know?  I would return to her letter often over the miles.  The words of this storyteller encouraged me to get started on my adventure.  Was I still scared?  You bet!  As she pointed out (and I had no way of knowing how accurate her words would prove to be), some days it would be a trail and other days it would be a trial.  But if I agreed to show up (as I had promised I would) "step-by-step, moment-by-moment, heartbeat-by-heartbeat", I would show myself that this was "WELL DONE!"  

And so it begins.....

Wednesday's Child Is Full Of Woe.

Maybe you've heard this old nursery rhyme:

"Monday's Child is full of grace.

Tuesday's Child is fair of face.

Wednesday's Child is full of woe.

Thursday's Child has far to go.

Friday's Child is loving and giving.

Saturday's Child must work for a living.

But the Child that's born on the Sabbath day is kind and loving and good and gay."

Guess which child I was. Yup - I'm a Wednesday.  The only Wednesday in the family.  Growing up I was reminded over and over again.  A problem with hearing a message like that is you can adopt it for no better reason than its repetitiveness.

Of late and because the days have been so dark and deep I've been wondering: Is this a time of woe to which I have some birthright as a Wednesday Child?  Am I truly woebegone (like a certain Lake of radio lore)?  Or could it be that some great blessing might be attached to this time?  Maybe even a miracle.  But how to know?

Perhaps strangers know you best.  And welcome you best of all.  Last year I was walking, hiking, trekking and slogging my way for 5 weeks & 500 miles on the Camino de Santiago.  I knew woe well.  One evening after the pilgrims' dinner a hospitelera held my weather-beaten face in her cupped hands, looked deep into my eyes and offered me this prayer: "May you find what you're looking for, peregrina, even if you don't know what it is." What a kind, heartfelt blessing that was, life-giving and lasting.

As gifts would also have it last night I was re-reading a favorite book: Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Gilead. On page 55 is this passage by the pastor ruminating on days gone by:

"I could have married again while I was still young. A congregation likes to have a married minister, and I was introduced to every niece and sister-in-law in a hundred miles.  In retrospect, I'm very grateful for whatever reluctance it was that kept me alone until your mother came. Now that I look back, it seems to me that in all that deep darkness a miracle was preparing.  So I am right to remember it as a blessed time, and myself as waiting in confidence, even if I had no idea what I was waiting for."

I can't say if he was a Wednesday Child or not.  I can say I do recognize a fellow pilgrim on the road we call Life which, in its journeying can disappoint us as easily as charm. Savoring the passage I had just read as if it were written for me alone I chose to re-write the nursery line this way: "Wednesday's Child is full of wondering & wandering."  I choose to believe that this time is one of waiting in confidence, even if I have no idea what I am waiting for. It's a matter of trust that my life will be delivered.

What about you?  Which child are you and how has that served you?

 

 

 

 

 

When Death Calls During The Holildays.

I did not hear the crash but I vaguely recall hearing the sirens in the wee small hours of Saturday morning. Although I thought it was a dream.  At the top of the street yellow police tape cordoned off a good long section of El Camino Real.  By 0730 hours the car was gone but the sheriffs department was still sweeping up - and would continue to do so for another 5 hours - and the utility guys were working on the fractured street lamps.

The bodies fell just outside a seasonal Christmas tree lot and over the grim day the chain link fence girding the lot blossomed with grocery store bouquets of all sizes and shapes wrapped in their holiday cellophane.  The sidewalk swam with lit candles in memorial pillars of the kind favored here.  Tucked among the candles were photographs, prayer cards, a runner's medal, a few six packs of Guinness beer -  strange because what was a memory might also have been what killed.

The weather here has been cold.  And I have been deeply troubled by this loss: the brutal death of 4 young people, all local to this town, graduates of the local high school, with families and friends right here.  How does a car break in half like that?  Two concrete light posts, one sheared off at the sidewalk.  The cops say that the BMW was traveling 125 mph, incomprehensible on a street with signal lights every few blocks.  But maybe at 0130 hours in the morning all they saw was a pathway of green.

Is it that death in this season reminds us of the intimacy of the holidays?  Or is it the holidays that remind us of the randomness of death?  I can't say.

Last night I stood outside the tree lot leaning against a palm tree, my hands deep in my jacket pockets zippered up against the chill winds that beat in off the ocean. I could make no sense of what I was looking at: the incongruity of Christmas trees being sold on one side of the fence and this spontaneous memorial on the other side.  I knew I was there to stand in silence and in sorrow.  And breathe.  

I was reminded of a sweet folk song my sister used to sing.  The words went something like this:

Bring me a rose in the wintertime

when it's hard to find

Bring me a rose in the wintertime

I've got roses on my mind.

A rose is sweet most any time

and yet,

bring me a rose in the winter time

it's so easy we forget.

Remember to be kind to each other, a little more so now. 

What We Get When We Walk.

 

A month ago I was walking the Camino de Santiago.  I went on pilgrimage, walking 500 miles in 5 weeks.  I still have a great deal to digest and write.  Meanwhile, the following dispatch from Paul Salopek writing for the NYTimes, A Stroll Around the World, reminds me of what I gained by walking one step at a time across Spain.

Above all I am reminded that we were meant to move.  Apparently our bodies were created to walk 3 miles an hour.  Ironically, that's the same pace suggested for The Way.  When you walk 15 to 20 miles a day, every day, day in and day out, you hit a certain pace that's yours alone.  Some days I walked 3 miles an hour, others 4, and when it was pouring down rain or I was chasing a pilgrim who pinched my sticks (trekking poles) even 5.

Sitting in front of this computer I want to get up and move again.  Sitting in the car in traffic I want to get up & move again.  I walked my way over mountains, along creek beds, over Roman roads, through vineyards and working farms, around cow pats and puddles, along paved roads and highways, through small villages, in to and out of albergues, cafes, bars, farmacias & supermercados. 

When you are outside and walking you are part of the natural world and the human world in a way you simply cannot be from inside a vehicle hurtling through space and place. There is an intimacy created by the close association we create, by the movement of physical body through physical space. I got accustomed to saying hello to cats, dogs, chickens, cows, horses, men, and women as I followed the yellow arrows & other images that mark The Way.  

I realized that I really like to move and the gym just does not do it.  I wonder if Salopek needs someone to keep track of his camels.....Meanwhile, I'm looking for a job that is joyful, life affirming, prosperous and requires good use of one's body. 

The Letter Of The Law & The Spirit Of The Law.

There are two companion pieces in today's Sunday NYTimes that remind me what happens when we hew to the letter of the law in some blind, righteous, opinionated and judgmental way.

The first by Nicholas Kristoff, "Help Thy Neighbor and Go Straight to Prison, decries a recent conviction in Tennessee.  A man with a past, Edward Young, rehabilitates himself, gets married, has children, and helps the widow of a neighbor clean out the deceased's belongings among which was a handful of shotgun shells. Young puts them aside so they do not fall into the wrong hands - but when some burglaries happen Young is suspected, his property searched and the forgotten shotgun shells found.  Ex-felons are not supposed to possess guns or ammo.  Even though Young had not owned a gun, did not own a gun, did not know that helping his neighbor was a crime AND the burglary charges were dismissed Young was sentenced to 15 years.  No ifs, ands or buts.  He was the stay-at-at-home dad.  Now what happens?

Here's the other. As reported by Frank Bruni, Fatal Mercies, familial pity and compassion can get you in a world of hurt.  A daughter agrees to hand her ailing, elderly, pain-ridden father his morphine so he can choose the end of life dignity should allow.  She is charged with helping a suicide under Pennsylvania law despite the fact that the father rebounded after a 911 call (he eventually died), that the Pennsylvania law is worded broadly and ambiguously about "assistance" and, many's the time that painkillers hastening death are used in hospitals.

I am reminded of a story called Fire On the Mountain about a young man who takes a bet to survive a night on a old mountain top without fire, shelter, food or clothing.  He is sustained by watching a fire on a distant mountaintop that is being tended by a friend. When his master learns of this he reneges on his bet to give the young man his freedom as promised. "No fire! means no fire."

In time and thanks to the intercession of one who knew to distinguish the letter of the law from the spirit of the law, the master gets his comeuppance, the young man gets his freedom and the rest of us get a lesson in discretion, compassion, mercy.

 

 

What Do I Do When I Feel Lost? Stand Still.

Of late friends and colleagues have been saying the same thing to me: "I feel lost. Just lost.  I can't explain it.  What do you think it means?"

I have to reveal that I share their feelings of being lost.

On October 1, 2011 I began a journal of 365 days of small steps.  I was expecting that at the end I would know the way, the truth & the light.

Didn't happen.

I am continuing with the next 365.

Meanwhile, I have begun to read the entire 1331 & counting pages to listen for themes.

Here is what I found on Day 32 from the work of my hero, guide and guru: poet David Whyte:

"At the very core of creativity there seems to be an admonition that says, "Your own way is essential." This is true even in a traditional master-student relationship. The word "expert" seems to be like a fog in which we lose ourselves. We feel our lack before we have done the essential work of touching our own inner longing, in other words, we put the cart before the horse. Creativity has much more to do with giving ourselves over to our deepest longings than it does with giving ourselves over to any kind of strategy.     Often the first impulse people have around their creativity has to do with signing up for school or arranging their schedule to fit more of every- thing in. The great poetic and mythic traditions say it's actually the opposite: Creativity has to do with unburdening, with giving yourself a break, with letting fresh air in through the windows, with allowing yourself to be lost - profoundly lost, deeply lost. There is a teaching story out of the Northwest Native American tradition that would be told by an elder to a young girl or boy who asked the question, "What do I do when I am lost in he forest?" In other words, "What do I do when I've lost my creative fire?" which is really "What do l do when I forget who I am?" It has been rendered into modern English in a marvelous way by David Wagoner. Here is the answer the elder gives:

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead

and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here.

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger.

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers.

I have made this place around you.

If you leave it you may come back again.

saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven.

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you.

You are surely lost. Stand still.

The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

This poem makes three important points. First of all, it reminds us that the world demands our attention, tremendous attention. You cannot sleepwalk your way into this, hoping that things will turn out right. You have to face up to the fiercer aspects of life and to the eyes glittering out of that dark forest that may see the selfish part, the "expert" part of you as prey."

Deer Park Monastery & A Slice Of Bread. The Whole Cosmos.

Deer Park Monastery sits in a valley that nestles and shelters all who come there for quiet and for things you might not even know you need or are in need of.

Meals are taken in silence.  The practice is to line up after the sound of the bell, select a bowl and chopsticks, serve yourself, and find a seat at the communal tables where you will sit and wait until the next bell signals that everyone may begin to eat.

What do you do while you are sitting with your hands in your lap waiting?  What I did one morning was to look at my bowl which had a piece of banana bread perched precariously over my oatmeal, peanut butter, almond milk concoction. I thought about where each ingredient of banana bread had come from: sugar, flour, eggs, milk, butter or oil, spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and salt.  I thought about how each ingredient had to have come from a place on the earth that was planted and watered and harvested. I thought about how each ingredient had to be farmed by someone who was born on this earth because of other someones as far back as time.  I thought about each of those ingredients being transported to market in a bag or can or box that sat in a ship or on a rail car.  Each of those conveyances had to be built along with the rails, roadways or ports.  And that took people.  I thought of the market where the ingredients were shelved, then purchased and carried to the kitchen where they were assembled into the batter that went into the pan that went into the oven to be baked.  And how everything had to be made before the gas was turned on to heat the oven to bake the bread.  When the bread was baked someone had to take it out of the oven, pop it from the pan, cool it, slice it and serve it where I would pick up a piece to enjoy as my breakfast.

I never quite got to thinking about the rest of that particular breakfast meal - where it all came from - who was responsible for it.  But even now I am reminded that a simple slice of bread holds the whole cosmos.

You Know It's Been Too Long When.

I've been considering life of late.

I recently attended a memorial service for a friend's brother.  The service was held in a cozy meeting room of a nursing home where he worked as a recreational director for almost a quarter century.  Gathered around me were many residents of the assisted living home in various states of dis-ability, in wheelchairs, heads bent.  The fellow whose life we had come to celebrate lived almost 5 decades of his life in a wheelchair after a car accident at the age of 18 rendered him a quadriplegic. 

One of those speaking at the service said that his reply to the injury was, "I can do the same things I did before, just differently." He did not live dis-abled.  He advocated for the dis-abled to be accommodated to live independently.  He lived life fully and with a young heart.

I looked at my own arms and legs - still temporarily able-bodied - and sat wondering what I could be doing differently, for whom, where, and how.  You know it's been too long when a memorial service wakes you up to join the living.

Signs of life are all around me.  My very breath reminds me I am alive. As my dear story-friend Michelle says, "We are not here for a long time; but for a good time."  What are you going to do with that one wild precious life?

Here is a a poem I want to share with you.  All I know about the author is that she suffered some trauma that caused her traumatic brain injury.  And still she lives - looking to tomorrow:

YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW

Yesterday
I was a Brownie, a dancer, a baseball player.
I valued long walks, good friends, and horses.
I appreciated fine woodwork, the beach, and
my surroundings.
I enjoyed going to carnivals, staying out until 11,
then sneaking back into my house.
I hoped to grown old.

Today
I am disabled, more thoughtful,
and am a great writer.
I value handsome men, the past,
and all of the kitties I have owned.
I appreciate the fresh air coming through the door,
not being encumbered by anyone at the moment,
and all the vacations I have taken over the years.
I enjoy coffee, he theater, and cleaning fish tanks.
I hope to learn to drive, change oil,
and out gas in the car.

Tomorrow
I will be a good looking astronaut, an animal keeper,
a writer, and a woman whose body temperature
has gone up five degrees.
I will keep a special eye to not lose my body,
and I want to get closer to Jesus.
I want to join an astronaut school,
and go exploring up to the heavens.
I hope the cities will turn into George Jetson cities,
but I hope the pasture lands and
the beaches will be left as they are.
And I hope I will go out to dinner tonight.
And I really do want to live in Japan.

Lise Schurig