Sambasue21

In any travel preparation there is the gathering of all the stuff that has been sitting around waiting to be done.There is a feeling of Lets do this before…..Before what ?Before we leave of course ,but its not like we won’t come back and our affairs are in disarray.Maybe that’s how it feels, a bit like how my mother always used to check that I had clean (convent style knickers ) undies on before I left for school, just incase i was run over by bus and had to be taken to hospital.Or worse.There is a feel of tidying /making a life clean and easy/simplifying. Arrangements to be in place to deal with all eventualities in ones absence So already, before starting off on a walk that does cut through the surplus stuff of life to get to the grit the process of clearing the decks(my fathers favourite phrase )commences.Alongside the clearing is the unravelling. The existential question of the meaning of life is rising to the surface again.Sparked by departure .

Ok I have now set up reminders to blog and cannot escape Just got a few entries in for various journals that I have been hanging onto for a while ,continually changing them. Phew! The hardest thing for me is the proofing and the technology -just the simple thing like the entry form and getting the piece in required format onto the form or whatever the instruction is. So is this about preparing for a camino ?Yes.Yes.Yes.

I think though that the question is louder and more complex when the intention is to walk a long way with minimal luggage, spasmodic accommodation ,a few stops along the route ,periods of being completely alone and uncertain despite the markings of directions. The signals and actions which are a part of present existence loom larger as one prepares to leave. Much has accumulated in ones life in the settled time one; Some of it i needed.Some pure slush disguising the bones, slowly moving over the framework and blunting what is real .

This blog is already too long and have probably lost a few readers .But to sum up :preparing for a Camino is not just a physical or organisational thing.For me anyway a lot of it is mental.I realise how much i don’t do ,how much I want to do and find reasons not to.I have moved away not just from writing that is at of the core of my being ,but also from people .Settling in after a while becomes a settling away ,a drawing in of oneself .And each person does this in their own way .

So GO ON A CAMINO