My Summer at the Lighthouse
At last check you may remember me heading to California to live and work at the hostel with the lighthouse, in Montara. I went for the summer and stayed for a lifetime. At least it contained enough joy, learning, experiences, laughter, and tears to count as a lifetime. And enough laundry to count for...?...how many lifetimes?
The original plan was to work last summer at the hostel and then head to Spain in September to walk the Camino again. Hmmm. I got as far as Fort Lauderdale and then turned around, back to California, back to the hostel, back to the lighthouse, and back to the beautiful and powerful Pacific Ocean. And not incidentally, back to love.
If I tell you the California coast is beautiful, I must also tell you that you have to see it for yourself. You have to feel it and hear it and walk along its shores. And you have to, just once in your life, sit above the pounding waves watching the beam of the lighthouse sweep across the thick fog on a chill August night.
You must also someday meet the people I spent my 9-month long summer with. (This is where the love comes in.)
So now that summer is over, sadly, but with the joyful anticipation of what's next. I leave for Europe in the morning, on March 27, 2007, to experience Germany with Erdmute, who I met on the Camino in 2005, and to walk again the long pilgrimage trail across the north of Spain.
When one walks the Camino, one is greeted frequently with the saying "buen Camino", literally translated as the wish of "good way." I can't wait to hear and say this for the first time, on my second pilgrimage. More about that to come...but first I have to get used to this blogging thing!
The original plan was to work last summer at the hostel and then head to Spain in September to walk the Camino again. Hmmm. I got as far as Fort Lauderdale and then turned around, back to California, back to the hostel, back to the lighthouse, and back to the beautiful and powerful Pacific Ocean. And not incidentally, back to love.
If I tell you the California coast is beautiful, I must also tell you that you have to see it for yourself. You have to feel it and hear it and walk along its shores. And you have to, just once in your life, sit above the pounding waves watching the beam of the lighthouse sweep across the thick fog on a chill August night.
You must also someday meet the people I spent my 9-month long summer with. (This is where the love comes in.)
So now that summer is over, sadly, but with the joyful anticipation of what's next. I leave for Europe in the morning, on March 27, 2007, to experience Germany with Erdmute, who I met on the Camino in 2005, and to walk again the long pilgrimage trail across the north of Spain.
When one walks the Camino, one is greeted frequently with the saying "buen Camino", literally translated as the wish of "good way." I can't wait to hear and say this for the first time, on my second pilgrimage. More about that to come...but first I have to get used to this blogging thing!
posted by No Day But Today | 3:23 PM
4 Comments:
Dear Nancy,
Hi!
Here is to your first "buen Camino."
peace,
cecilia
SO glad to see you finally have a blog to share your travels and experiences... Look forward to seeing your pictures here to. Look me up if you visit (or want to) southern Spain, along the Costa del Sol.
nancy! buenos dias, senorita! I am still studying in the coventry, england. one more month here, during which i visit barcelona. Please let me know if you are in barcelona between april 15 and april 20. I am visiting friends there. it'd be great to see ya. buenos suerte! hope your feet and muscles do really well on your pilgrimage. : ) --mike o'rourke p.s. you are very right about the beauty of the lighthouse and CA coast.
Please come back eventually, Aunt Nancy! But have a focusing time in Spain on the Camino. Oh, and I'm going to try the vegetarian thing. For the month of June. See what all the talk amongst the dirty hippies is about.
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