Surrender

June 23, 2012

At this time next week I should be on a plane getting ready for take off from SNA to ERW. From there to MAD (Madrid.) I have tried to stay here as long as I can. That is to say, I have tried to stay in the moment enjoying my time at home for as long as possible, but the transition has begun. For me there is a space between being here and going there where I am floating in a sea of letting go and anticipation. I have noticed that I begin detaching or distancing myself from friends and family, maybe to soften the sense of loss that I feel knowing that I will not hug them for three months. At the same time I begin losing sleep thinking about the adventure to come, pondering last minute details, things to wrap up before I go and anticipating new sights and sounds. It's an interesting place this in between, it happens for me on both ends of a journey.

This particular trip contains a journey within a journey. I will be traveling with my youngest daughter Leea for three weeks in Madrid, Marrakech, Barcelona and Istanbul. At the end of three weeks she flies home from the states and I go to Saint Jean Pied de Port in France to begin the Camino, a 500 mile trek across the Pyrenees and across northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. Whether I make it 500 miles or 5 feet is something I'm trying to surrender on a daily basis. If I make it 500 miles I should arrive in Santiago de Compostela on or before my 66th anniversary of my birth. This trek is no mean feat for someone half my age, let alone someone who has bodily issues as the result of debaucherous years. Car wrecks, billy clubs, bad food choices and ingestion of legal and non legal substances that wreak havoc on your internal systems resulting in multiple surgeries. Well any way, if the body were a used car, it may not be relegated to the junk yard for used parts, but it would not have a high trade in value. But, it is mine and it is what I have to attempt this pilgrimage. 

We are friendly my body and I, though sometimes it does not trust me, me being my head. My body is wise, my head not so much. My head thinks Iit is 20. My body knows It is 65 with a few dings, dents and worn out parts. So, I have been trying to mediate between the two, so that the body can trust the head not to do things that will cause it pain.