Trust

I am purging this summer.  I do this about twice a year.  I don't like having clutter around me and am almost sure it's because of the nature of my job.

My busy days of teaching are filled with "clutter" - meetings, lesson planning, teaching, schedules, managing behaviors, maintaining discipline, and building relationships.  Each day is busy; never slowing down until it comes to an abrupt stop each May.  Cluttered.  So when I am home I relish the simplicity of uncluttered surroundings.

After one week on the Camino I lost my credential; the one I needed to get stamped at each albergue, the one that would document each stop along my Camino, the one that would get me my Compostela when I reached Santiago.  I accidently mailed it to my future-self; the one that would be reaching Santiago four weeks later.

What I find ironic about this is that before I left for the Camino I had requested not ONE but TWO credentials.  I'd ordered the second "just in case" I lost the first.  But on the day I accidently mailed the first one off I also purposefully threw away the second because after only one week on the Camino I had learned to purge.

In a world where carrying just fourteen pounds feels like you're carrying the weight of the world I knew that hanging on to that extra little accordian-fold booklet would weigh me down.  It wasn't the physical weight, you know, it was the weight of not letting go, not trusting. So I deliberately threw one away and accidently posted the other, leaving me with none.

Hours later, after realizing what I had done, I panicked.  I wondered how I would ever be allowed to sleep in the albergures without this document but found myself left with just one choice - trust.  Trust that I had everything I needed.  So I did, which wasn't as easy as I make it sound.

It was several days later before I could get a new credential but that did not stop me from sleeping each night in the albergues.  Instead of my credential, the hospitaleros simply stamped my journal.  I had what I needed.

As I continue to purge my home this summer I find myself faced with the same dilemma.  "Trust," I have to remind myself, "Get rid of what is weighing you down and just trust that you will still have everything you need."  Sometimes the most difficult things are really very simple.  Trust.

Why I Love the Train

As I write this I am on Amtrak’s California Zephyr heading to Colorado to spend the week with my daughter and her family.  My granddaughter is now three months old and I haven’t seen her for eleven weeks; since she was three WEEKS old.  I think about how I don’t even really know her at this young age, having put so much time between visits.  But I have a vision of one day taking the train to Colorado to get her, and then riding back home together where we will put on plays, cook, sort through closets, garden, and dance together in the kitchen while singing Kenny Loggins songs.  My daughter calls this “Grandma Camp”.  

 Air travel is great if you need to be somewhere on time, but if you are looking for a quiet, relaxed travel adventure I don’t think you can beat the train. I love the train and I hope that some day I will be able to share it with her.

So here are “Eleven, I Mean Twelve Reasons I Love the Train”:

1.The Crew.  The first person you meet when you get to the train station is the ticket agent, but the BEST person you’ll meet is the Conductor.   There are many behond-the-scenes people as well as a few others who work with passengers, such as the dining car staff and the fella who sells you your coffee in the snack car, but the Conductors keep track of where you’re sitting, so they keep track of YOU.  This is good to know because of #3.  (Don't read ahead, just wait until you get to it.)  

My Pipe Dream

Two years ago I traveled to Spain to walk the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.  I'd first heard about this pilgrimage while watching the movie "The Way, directed by Emilio Estevez and starring his father, Martin Sheen.  I didn't know why, but the Camino immediately compelled me, called me to go, so I went. In the two years that have passed, this journey continues to teach me and bless me.

I kept a daily journal on my six week walk, and after returning home I continued to write, filling in every detail of every day.  After a year and a half I was finally ready to published my journal; an account of the spiritual and physical journey that started with the Camino but continues even today.  I didn't set out to write a book only to document every blessed moment of the Camino, but the story took on a life of its own and I realized it was one that needed to be told.

It was on Wednesday, December 18, 2013, that I received the first 100 copies of my book.  I was excited to open the boxes and hold it in my hand for the first time.  It had been a labor of love. There is nothing that compares to witnessing raw ink on a page that transforms itself into a story unless it is your own story, and that night I held mine.

I quickly pulled out 25 or so copies and began inscribing them for those people who had been such an important part of my journey; my dear neighbors, my children, brothers and sisters, coworkers, old friends and new Camino friends, all of whom had become my life-blood, my touchstones, and all of whom I love.  Inscribing them was a gift I gave to myself, for each message I wrote reminded me how blessed I was to have each and every one of these people in my life.  The Camino taught me many lessons, but I believe this was the most important.