One Month To Go

Notes written in my journal on 17 August 2006.

17 August 2006 0730

Well, one month from today, I leave for Paris to begin my camino. Its interesting that it started out as "the camino" but, over the months of planning and preparation, it has become "my camino".

Don't know what I'll find (if anything) or what will happen but I'm open to just about anything. Pehaps today will be auspicious - beautiful morning, lovely sunrise, cool and quiet. I love walking through dewy grass, hearing the sibliant swish as the blades paint delicate lines on my boots. Looking behind and seeing ghost tracks across the park meadow, first ones already drying in the sun.

In my neighbourhood, we have a farm, a working model of a mid-1800's Ontario farm. Here, in the centre of our large city, I can pause and watch cattle [both of them :) ] calmly enjoying fresh hay while the subways fill with workers and the expressways jam with motorists - I wonder who is enjoying their morning more! I think this presages more of what I will see on the camino.

Not happy or satisfied with my rucksack, but then, am I ever? I'm sure I will have it sorted out by the time I leave (yeah, right!). Feet are better today. I rarely have gotten blisters over the months I have been walking but when I do - wow are they ever big! (and painful). Usually my duct tape under two pairs of socks works very well but every now and then the system fails and its out with the needle and thread to drain. Had to laugh though - the sole of my left foot looked like a seamstress' bad dream with multi-coloured threads hanging out everywhere!

My favourite little chapel was locked this morning. Sometimes open, sometimes closed, no reliable schedule. Perhaps someone is concerned that God could get in! Or, even worse, a child of God. Oh well, the real chapel is by a towering maple tree under the canopy of heaven

Ultreya