Meanderings & Musings

Santiago, Spain, April 18, 2025 Day 50. Back in Santiago after the coast — my last solo hours before Jason arrives.  Journal entry–0730, Friday, 18 abril, Side Chapel, Santiago Writing today is just an attempt to empty, focus. So that I can be. Still. I was last here, in this chapel, with a heart filled with longing for home. I don’t feel that now. Does that mean I’ve found it or lost it? What is going on inside? I feel as though I’ve dropped most of an octave. Like something inside settled much deeper. Truer. There’s more peace, less angst, for sure. Might this be home? Let go. Sink. Trust gravity. I keep thinking of solitude/silence and the process of the nervous system settling in terms of an extended stretch/hold in the clinic. I'll be in a position, pushed to my max, for several minutes. Suddenly, I let go somewhere, find more space in the joint, and I'm told, "Yes, that!" Yet something inside me always wants to say, "Oh, that? That was easy. I could've...

A year ago today I logged the last and longest day... of my solo trek across northern Spain: 23+ miles, 3,400' elevation gain, 8.5 hours of movement — with every combination of weather (poncho to sunblock and back again), terrain (mud, rock, woodlands, sand, pavement), and views. It has been good to reflect. I ended the day feeling peaceful. Grounded. Internally at rest. Like I'd completed what I needed to do. And yet, the journey continues: through my slow, meandering way home (by train, air, and a transatlantic crossing), through a transition back to "normal life" that felt anything but, through the early attempt to put it all into words here — which stalled somewhere around day three, when the next chapter apparently had other plans — into massage school — an unplanned turn, though I'd considered it for years — and, just this week, to launching my own practice. Walk and the way will appear is still holding true. Taking the next step, making the next right decis...