Riverside walk

I'm currently trying to build up my strength for El Camino, which I begin in two week's time. I'm well out of shape, or at least my legs are, after such a long winter. It was one of the warmest they've ever had, but that's not saying much. It's usually utterly freezing, what with being in the middle of a land mass. So it wasn't as bad as usual. But for me to go for a good long walk it needs to be warm and dry. We didn't really get 'warm'. I was warned. It just suddenly got very hot, though they tell me this is a heat wave. It's glorious. It is around 35 degrees in the afternoon. Perfect. But it's only been perfect very recently so my muscles are rubbish.

Anyway, I walked for 2-3 hours yesterday (and this is all in crappy footwear) to get going and ached a bit last night, which is unusual for me. Then today I set off and was walking for around 4.5 hours in the sun. I wore my trainers this time to support my feet better, though they did rub a hole in my toe. I've been stretching and I don't feel it at all. The only pain I feel is from using an elipitator which I thought would be the perfect solution to having relatively smooth legs on the 5 week trek without carrying anything with me (e.g. shaving foam). All I can say is, OW, and screw having smooth legs. I'd rather be a yeti than go through that again. Why do women have to have smooth legs anyway? I can't believe I'm facing a 5-6 week trek and spiritual pilgimage across Spain and the only thing that's really perplexing me is hair removal. I want to say I just won't worry - but I will. Men can just grow a beard for the duration and they'd be all hippy-like. Women with hairy legs (well I must make a distinction, who are SEEN with hairy legs) are far less acceptable. Or did I imagine that? I mean, I don't bother that much unless I've got them out. I will be wearing shorts, you see. I shouldn't care. I know I shouldn't care. But it's like wearing a top with food down the front. You know you're not going to elicit respect. Well, apart from feminists I suppose.

I find this most frustrating. On all other counts, I can manage this walk. I may strain a few muscles or cripple myself for life, but as far as taking very little and being 'lost' for 5-6 weeks is concerned, it's all going to plan. I just can't carry something as heavy as a can of shaving foam, and my skin will not cooperate with anything less. Oh well. To Hell with it. No make up, no pretty clothes (I just bought a pair of men's shorts because they have practical pockets as opposed to the women's which are cut to show everything off and have no practicality, plus a men's sleeveless T-shirt to keep the sun off my front and back. Women's T-shirts are made to assentuate the bust so my front would be exposed to the sun whereas the men's keeps me covered to my neck line. I do not wish to have boot-leather skin) and yeti legs. As nature intended. Bring it on. On other issues of feminine 'care-taking', I feel it necessary to celebrate the sheer excellence of the Moon Cup. It's good to know there are some practical advances happening for women. You can learn more here, though most of you probably won't want to. If you're male, just don't go there, unless you're interested in advances in saving the environment.

Well anyway. The pain from having individual legs hairs torn out one by one over around 20 minutes is slowly beginning to subside. My knee hurts a bit, but from experience, the more I walk, the more the muscles around it will strengthen, provided I stretch. I was run over nearly 10 years ago now. I walked around the back of an ambulance and into the path of a van. Can't do anything without irony. I was thrown several metres but my head was saved by a fluffy rucksac I was wearing (a present for my 18th birthday from the siblings - they may have saved my life). However, my left knee has never recovered. I couldn't walk properly for months. But walking really helps, as does swimming. If I have to bail out of El Camino, it will be because of the knee (or being carried off by a crazed donkey, you never know). But I suspect it will be OK.

Today was just magical. I walked down to the river and followed the path that follows it around the city. Which is next to a couple of nice big mountains. There is some strange flower (or tree I suppose!), I'm not sure what it's called, but in Spring it scatters white fluffy bits everywhere. For some time now, walking by the river in the hot sun has been accompanied by the appearance of heavy snow. It is utterly beautiful. It even settles on the ground. If anyone knows what this stuff is, I'd like to know. The whole town has been subjected to it for weeks.

There are many colourful flowers on that path. I hadn't realised, but I'd never seen a poppy before. Not a real one. I'd followed the English tradition of pinning a fake poppy to my top on November 11th (11.11) to mark Armistice Day, but I'd simply never seen a real one. I've never seen something natural so red. Due to the masses of rain we'd had until recently, lots of the usually brown landscape is still a lushious green. I love that walk so much - it's peaceful, hardly any people, and combines mountains, a river and flowers. It's like how I'd imagine Eden to be. But in my mind Eden has less dust.

But the best thing is the sound. Silence. With so many different kinds of bird song. I feel guilty for not being able to appreciate it more. I know nothing about birds or what kinds they are. There was some information but all in Spanish and being an obscure subject, translating was beyond me! I wish I knew something more about them so I could have identified a species - to have understood just a bit more about the singing. It was enchanting.

My friend's blog has had more than a few mentions about me lately - about the conflicts I've been facing - getting 'real' over following my dreams. A friends of her's wrote in to her blog with the following insight, and I was reminded of it today as I meandered by the riverside.

Bobbie Bobstein writes:

Loved yesterday's blog message (We are the only people we will spend our entire lives with. Who would we rather disappoint at their end of our lives, people who are out living their lives the way they see fit, or ourselves?)

Also, Tuesday's part about what others think of creative people "Because artists love what they do, the rest of the public considers it frivolous AND people thinking actors, writers and musicians are taking up valuable space and ought to get real jobs." I DO believe, as you do, that we need creatives to TEACH us, encourage our own imaginations and bring art and beauty into our lives. They are as necessary as the air we breathe.

But when you said "When we do take jobs as a necessity to stay afloat financially, we need to put a deadline on them and we need to spend a few hours every day (before or after work hours) working on our REAL goal: taking steps to segue from the "necessary" service to the "sublime service."

THAT is what reminded me of Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening"... you sure do have a great memory for so much of it!!! Where it speaks to me in relation to what you said is this:

The big-shot who owns the woods, lives in town and does NOT know of the beauty he possesses ... he's only doing the business, paying the bills.

The trespasser on his property, though, has seen the beauty of G-d's creation and has been mesmerized by watching Nature work its magic.

The pony, like the owner in town, also does not SEE - he impatiently shakes his bells, wanting to move on and do the business at hand. Practicality and the call of the Present keep him blind to the treasure all around him.

Ultimately, the trespasser succumbs to the needs of the day and trades his awe for the necessities he must cover in the miles before day's end. BUT, unlike the other 2, the LAST LINE REPEATED shows that the trespasser is also aware that the constant battle to balance the "necessary service with the sublime service" will follow him all the miles in his life to come, until his FINAL SLEEP.

And one more thing - perhaps in imitation of life, the apparently lyrical content and easy flow of Frost's poem is actually governed by a rigid rhyme-scheme. In each quad,(except the last) the 3rd line's last word does not rhyme with the rest in its group ... but DOES form the sound of the next quad's rhyme pattern:

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Such a lovely, simple poem. And I think I know how he feels.

"The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort" - Paulo Coelho

I could spend the rest of my life appreciating such riversides and snowy woods, and I hope to. I've seen life come and go, and I know with perfect clarity how brief, how delicate and how amazing it is. I have enough sense to know when it is time for the necessary and time for the sublime. But I would rather die poor, or prematurely, having taken risks, having allowed myself to pursue my creativity than live a long life with wealth, predictability and security. My philosophy for a long time has been, if were to die tomorrow, what would my regrets be? What would my wishes be? There are many things I want to do and see, and people I want to share things with, but I am every day living my life in a manner which allows these things to happen, that facilitates my dreams and is an open path rather than a diary which tells that on 7th November I have a meeting with such and such for so and so. I cannot live like that (not at the moment at least). If I die tomorrow I will die happy, because I know I'm on the right path for me. The destination is not important. I live my life in a manner which leaves me open to intuition and spontaneity - that follows what the Chinese call the Tao, and what some may call God, so that I might become everything I want to be, do all that I want to do and meet people through the law of attraction that I might feel at home with. After I saw a life taken away in the smallest of moments, who am I to gamble with weeks or months or years? I cannot live like that. I need to be alive and in the moment, and I suspect I always will. To follow each and every second of the day in everything I do. Even in necessary work. I must find something that I don't end up wishing the time away for.

I've never seen such bright colours, nor felt so free. I'm beginning to believe that what I think and feel is right for me, is allowed, is inspired. And that I shouldn't work against it to please others. I knew this before, but I must have forgotten. I keep forgetting. I don't want to travel forever, but I need to at the moment. And 'at the moment' is all that counts. Don't ask me about the future because God only knows what's in store and unless we concentrate on the present, our future will be pretty dull anyway.

Well that's my thought for the day. The pain in my legs has gone, though they are covered in small red spots. As a woman, I'm glad I wasn't born any earlier. I'm so pleased I have the freedom I do. But will someone please give me an answer about hair removal? Why do we do it??? It's illogical, Captain! But I know I'm too conditioned not to. And why are all the products on the market so much more expensive than those for men?

Oh well. I cannot complain. I do not have to get married to survive. I can work in several kinds of job. I can travel alone. I am dependent on no-one. I am committed to no-one. And nothing, except for the flat. Lonely, but for now, quite satisfactory.

Here are some of the pictures I took today:





And the curious white fluff..