Estrella (on the Camino)

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On the Camino.
Shoulders tight, calves sore, fourth left metatarsal blistered, skin tan, beard long (for me), clothes hanging on a line after being hand washed with packet of gel, stomach growling soon, food ingested (porridge with banana for bfast, nuts and seeds, coffee, and orange during the walk, bread with sausage for lunch, water, water and more water), body cleaned of all sweat by shower, feet happy in flip flops after 22 km in hiking shoes, yoga mat sitting at my side here because I´ll go outside after this and do some stretches. Thank god for all that acting training in how to be aware of the head, neck, back, etc. Handy when you have a heavy bag and you are dragging along all sorts of things you don´t really need but you are too sentimental to just drop em off or give em away. Actually, I did dump my 1000 page book, Shataram, which was good, but I just haven´t been reading it out here. I´ll pick it up for 1400 cents in NYC if I really want to.
Wish I could say something profound after all this walking. Maybe soon. It´s been pretty much "walking as usual" and as the saying here on the camino goes: Just Walk. Slight variation on the Nike slogan, a bit less sexual.
The colors here are magnificent. Never been so color conscious. Wish I had Van Gogh´s diaries with me. That would suit me here. Something cool about a painter writing about what and how he sees. Although Van Gogh would probably be writing stuff like:

How miserable life is! Last night I drank myself into a stupor and then asked the girl at the bar to marry me and settle down. I truly long for the calm of the family life. I think I can do it. I only need to have a lobotomy and trim my beard a bit, reduce the scary intense gaze in my eyes by a few degrees and give up painting. Shouldn´t be a problem. Oh wait....how green that tree is! The way it shimmers in the early morning light! Oh it´s so beautiful it hurts! Ouch! Oh shit, I think I just had an aneurism. No, just shit my pants. I really shouldn´t drink so much. Where´s the girl from the bar, I want to lay my weary head upon her ample bosom!!!!!!

But, see, I would LOVE to be reading stuff like that on the camino. An insane artist going insane over the sight of beauty.

On the walk today I thought of many things, some deep, some extremely mundane. There was a man and his son, both Spaniards I think. I was walking behind them for some time and he was whistling the tune to Indiana Jones for about 30 minutes straight. He was even whistling the part of the score that is not the main riff. I kept telling him to shut the fuck up under my breath. Very camino like, my behavior. Very irritating, his. Eventually I stopped walking and let them get ahead enough. Then I could hear the birds sing. Much better. I thought then of some lines in Sarah Ruhl´s play "Eurydice".

Animals don´t have a word for practice
A deer doesn´t run for practice. He runs because he is hungry or scared.
A bird doesn´t sing for practice. She sings because she is happy or sad.

Occasionally after walking enough, a rhythm sets in, and it doesn´t matter if you are completely alone with no other body in sight or near others. You just kind of fall away, or fall in. Things get really simple. The task is clear: Walk. No temptations otherwise. No worries like: oh but if I turn this way I might run into that girl from the bar, or if I turn this way I might get famous. Just walk on the path, follow the yellow arrows and see what comes up. Pretty cool, huh?

the updates

Day 1: St. Jean Pied de Port - Roncesvalles 27 km
Day 2: Roncesvalles - Larrasoana 26 km
Day 3: Larrasoana - Pamplona 16km
Day 4: Pamplona day off
Day 5: Pamplona - Puente la Reina 24km
Day 6: Puente - Estrella 22 km

Walkin Blues, Reds, and Greens,
DREW

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Comments

[Josh]

Drew
Rock on Drew!!!!