SPRING! Garden tunnels! For free!

the first wildflowers: appearing literally overnight on the mountain

Wildflowers are tougher than lettuce, which is unfortunate, because no one really wants to 'wait until danger of last frost has passed' to plant their garden, and no one can actually start seedlings indoors on their windowsill if they have cats.

Luckily, you can plant directly outside in the garden even when its frosting and pelting hail every day, so long as you do it under plastic (which keeps out both the frost and the cats.) There are fancy greenhouses. There are expensive poly-tunnel-framework systems. And then there are the leftover tomato cages sitting in one corner of your garden, as well as your neighbor's garden, and your grandma's garden, all of which can be pilfered and used to make poly tunnels for free! Because nobody needs their tomato cages back until it's actually hot enough to plant tomatoes. Which, incidentally, is exactly when you'll no longer need plastic tunnels. This is perfect.

• Round wire tomato cages.
• Plastic painters' drop cloths, 2 ml thick, a few dollars each. So, not quite free. But almost. (I know. Plastic. Ugh. But you can reuse these every year; you'll only buy plastic once.)
• Seeds for cold-weather crops that love to get a head start in spring: beets, spinach, kohlrabi, cabbage, lettuce, radishes, swiss chard, kale

Note: I've never had plants die of cold doing this, even when there's snow sitting on the plastic for a full day. I start this mid-March, at elevation 4500', when day temperatures reach 50 on a good day but there are still plenty of snow flurries and nights below freezing.
    By comparison, around here it's considered safe to plant a garden unprotected the first week in June. That's almost a 3-month head start. PLANT AWAY.

1: Dig up dirt. Turn over soil. Add compost, or a bit of manure, to freshen up nutrients if possible. (Grandma tells me it's better to spade up gardens in autumn, so winter snow oxygenates the soil and pulls all the nutrients deeper... one of these years in autumn, I'll actually remember to do that.)

Rake smooth. Hoe the rows where you'll plant, one or two rows for each tomato-cage-tunnel.

Lay down cages, and wedge into soil. (Note: You'll disturb your lettuce's roots a bit, pulling these wires up in June. Whatever. The planties will survive, and will have happily had a two-month head start in compensation.)

WATER THE SOIL FIRST, before planting, and water well— not quite to mud consistency but almost. You'll be covering this damp soil with plastic and leaving the seeds to sprout and embiggen undisturbed for weeks; make sure they'll have lots of condensation under their plastic.

Plant seeds. RADISHES can be scattered and planted amid anything else, as they'll be ready in 23 days (or whatever your package says) and pulled out before the rows of lettuce and spinach and beets get big. My grandmother disapproves of my planting radishes in a disorderly fashion. But if (like me) you don't really bother pulling weeds, I say scatter the radishes everywhere, dust with the standard 1/4" of soil, and give them room to grow. 

Water seeds again, lightly.

Cover with drop cloth. (I used 2 ml. thick, 9'x12'; then cut in half to 4 1/2' x 12'.) To keep plastic in place, bury all edges in soil, leaving no flapping corners exposed to catch the wind. THAT'S IT! Don't peek for 2-3 weeks, except to check if seedlings need water.

In a month, start eating lettuce.

• Plant radishes in 2-wk cycles, in spaces between rows or sharing rows with other crops.

• Forget the swiss chard and just plant more BEETS instead, because beet leaves taste just as good as chard and are just as good for you, and then, after 70 days, you also get BEETS! Beets freeze extremely well - boil them with root and stem attached, then peel them, freeze in chunks, and reheat for blissful dinners all through the bleak midwinter.

Happy gardening, happy scribbling, and happy spring naps in the sun:

- mlj

Fire season in Montana: feeding firefighters, mobile catering, and what to do when your whole state is burning

The plume of smoke starting on the ridgeline above our 40 acres

Fire season in MT. 

July to September, every year, every single Montanan crosses their fingers that lightning doesn't strike the ridgeline in their backyard, and that whatever local forest fire fills the sky with smoke - because there always is one - starts on the opposite of the river.  Not theirs. 

This year a late-season fire started in our town.  It was early September.  We'd started to relax.  No rain in sight but it was September, after all - surely fire season was nearly over and we'd made it through another year unscathed.  Then a lightning storm came through on a Tuesday evening, with dozens - dozens - of lightning strikes on the surrounding peaks and dozens of ensuing fires smoldering by the next morning.  (A caveat: we have a small cabin on 11 acres, and 40 separate acres at the other end of the valley.  Nothing smoldered near our cabin.  So our home was never really in danger.)  But above our 40 acres, that plume of smoke pictured above was rising by Wednesday afternoon. 

Our crossed fingers had failed.  It spread fast.  My grandma picked this charred piece of pine branch off her back deck.  Fragments of incinerated trees were landing all over town:

By the next week, 10,000 acres had burned and trees were torching a mile uphill from our land.  I sat on the riverbank, with what felt like half the town, and took this photo as massive pines and spruces turned into columns of flame:

It felt like half the town was out there with me.  Cars lined the road, everyone watching the hill like a late-night movie.  I thought, this would make a great story.  Except the things that make great stories are so nerve-wracking in real life!  The next thing I thought was: I am so glad I live in a place where when you call for help, people answer.  This country.  This state.  This town.  A place with emergency responders, and fire crews in water trucks, and helicopter pilots dropping bucket after bucket of water from the river below, and someone always standing guard.  Politics aside, this summer I saw the inner workings of federal fire camps, and felt firsthand the gratitude of having strangers save your property.  This summer, the system did not fail us. 

I spent August and September working with a mobile caterer feeding hot shot crews at fire camps, anywhere from 50 to 350 people.  When I signed up for this I had no IDEA what was in store.  Baking cakes for 300 hungry men.  Cakes in 3-foot-long cake pans, sometimes 3 or 4 devoured in a night, pieces flying off the table as fast as you can dish them.

(I do love baking in quantities.  At home, I tend to make too much.  At fire camp I did not have this problem.)

  And the meat!  Federal regulations require about 6,000 calories a day for these hard-working firefighters.  Supper must include at least 10-12 ounces of protein (Or something like that.)  It meant... a lot of meat.  Dozens of pork tenderloins the size and weight of a small child:

So much pork.  Nightly cleanup, in our mobile kitchen in a semi truck

My job was tending the salad bar and desserts.  This was the early morning, the breakfast-fruit-oatmeal toppings with dawn illuminating the fog behind our camp:

For supper, that salad bar was stuffed with lettuce and pasta and vegetables.  And after a hot day the crews of hungry firefighters fell on that salad bar of cool, crunchy greens like a horde of locusts.  They were soot-stained.  They smelled like smoke.  I've heard that 'not showering until the fire is out' is sometimes a rite of passage, especially for the new initiates on their first job.  Some of these men and women's faces were blackened, just their eyes peering out.

Serving food has never been so satisfying. 

This summer I - like everyone else working fires - made good money while it lasted, and I felt like one tiny cog in a gigantic seasonal machine.  It was reassuring.  It was heartening. The fire crews and support staff were incredible -  so many interesting people living seasonal and present and non-traditional lives.  I met a man who works fire lookouts!  Another seasonal job!  Weeks and weeks alone on a mountaintop!  Writing time!  Fresh air!  Next summer, perhaps. 

In the end, our 40 acres did not burn.  The fire crews dug dozer lines and dumped water, but in the end it was mother nature who finished the job.  Nights fell below 50 degrees.  And then finally, finally, rain. 

Liquid gold

One of many similarly grateful business signs, throughout town:

Yup. 

Happy scribbling.  And may you, too, be rescued by strangers.

-mlj

Day 43: Cee, the Sea, and Spiritualism

My callused and blistered feet reaching the sea, at Cee/ Corcubion.

This is a delayed account, because I found myself unable to write about the sea while actually at the sea.  I was too busy feeling my mind go blank, staring dumbly at the waves.   (Like these, in Muxia.  I mean, oh my word.  Watching the waves explode against the rocks was like watching fireworks.  You could stare for hours:)

Waves in Muxia, on the rocks below the Santuario de nuestra Virgen de la Barca

As usual, the anticipation of the thing was almost as good as the thing itself.  The day of walking the last stretch to the sea was particularly long: 34 km, with the last 15 of it having no services at all, not even water.  I got a late start, as usual (somehow after Santiago my feet seem to be moving slower.)  So by the time I finished 20k and got to the small hamlet of Hospital, it was already 2 in the afternoon and the sun was blazing hot.  I stopped for a coffee at a cafe and debated stopping for good, staying the night, because the cafe owner told me she had a perfectly nice albergue right here, and then I could walk that last leg in the cool of the morning!  Her sign made the desolate stretch beyond look quite menacing: 

Smart advertising.  She got business.  

I eventually decided to keep going, and if all the beds were full when I rolled in late so be it ('late', in pilgrim terms, being anyone who starts walking after 6 am and is still walking after 2 - these pilgrims are crazy) but regardless, I was going to reach the sea.  I put one very good song on repeat, and started walking.  

Three hours later I'd hardly seen a soul.  

The trail was pristine, and deserted; the terrain changed slowly around me from tall eucalyptus forests to windswept heather studded with boulders, but though the soil occasionally seemed sandy, I still could not glimpse the sea. I thought: how much farther could 15 km be?  

Surely the sea must be around here somewhere.  Occasionally I thought I smelled it.  But still the rolling hills continued, hills and more hills, and I began to understand how - centuries ago - someone might have lived 50 km inland from the sea and never seen the sea.  On foot, with this being your fastest speed, suddenly everything in your world shrinks.  But at the same time, you see more details, so I don't think those long-ago people would have had less knowledge - they just had a deeper knowledge of one very local place, instead of a shallow knowledge of many distant places.  You could have lived your whole life within twenty square miles, and known its soil like your skin.

Anyway.  Eventually, I stopped to rest.  I thought: the heck with it.  I'm snacking here, not at my first glimpse of the sea as planned.  And then, wouldn't you know it, after a half-hour's rest with my boots off, I got up to continue onward and not fifty feet further around another bend, there was the sea.

 There it is!  The sea!  After walking all the way from the border of France, 900 km ago!  I hadn't recognized it, because in the shimmering heat haze and humidity the blue horizon of the water seemed to fade straight up into the sky.  But this is it!  This photo was the first view of the sea, where that slightly darker blue meets the hills.

Two coastal towns were the destination for the night: the picturesque sister towns of Corcubion / Cee.  

I walked into a humble-looking albergue.  When I asked if they had a bed or if they were full, the owner said Si, si, por supuesto tenemos una cama.  I was only about the tenth pilgrim in a hostel for 45 that night.  There were empty beds everywhere.  So it turned that, as has so often been the case, all my worrying was groundless.  

I made a trip down to the town beach and felt quite emotional, putting my now-callused feet into the sea.  I picked up scallops.  I stood in the water and grinned.  My feet made it.

Now, at this lovely albergue, the pilgrim dinner cost only an extra 6 euros.  They had a kitchen, but I must admit I wasn't feeling particularly energetic about seeking out a supermarket, though I do prefer simply buying groceries and eating alone.  I've been doing a lot of eating alone on windswept hillsides, and loving it.  But the few times I have eaten at pilgrim tables, it's usually wound up being with a dozen other interesting people and well worth the price for the stories.  So I thought, okay.  A communal meal.  With luck this will be painless, and the dozen other people will be talkative, but only to each other, and I won't have to say a word or draw attention to myself, only listen, and be completely ignored.  (This is what I prefer.)  

I was thinking, afterward, that a good theme for this trip might be something like, "Kali wants to be left alone; Kali does not get what she wants; Kali learns a very important lesson."  

When I showed up for dinner at 7:30 sharp, there were only 3 places set.  The owner's wife had made up lovely salads and pastas for the three of us eating.  But she wasn't eating, and neither was the owner.  It was only me and two middle-aged men, a Korean and a Spaniard.  The Korean spoke a little English.  The Spaniard spoke only Spanish.  Which meant that neither could talk to the other.  Only to me.  And both were extremely talkative.  

Luckily, the Korean was also very patient (turns out he'd studied with Buddhist monks) because the Spaniard talked a lot, animatedly, so it was often quite some time before I got around to (attempted) translating.  I have never concentrated so intently for any stretch of 3 hours in my life.  We talked about spiritualism, and metaphysics ('la metafisica,' as the Spaniard put it, because he started this whole conversation) and karma, and the Tao, and Buddhism, and reincarnation, and how to best live one's life with purpose and intent, and how the universe reflects back what we think and desire, whether positive or negative.  And - imagine it - BOTH these men heard of the Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto, who photographs water crystals, to prove that our thoughts harm or heal the physical world!  They both had!  Unbelievable!

This small dining table was such an unassuming place, to have such a vivid encounter:  

The next morning, I woke up quietly, thinking - with a mix of joy and wistfulness - that it was my birthday, and nobody here knew it but me.  Then, as I sat near two German women and ate my boiled eggs for breakfast, the owner wandered past and wished me a feliz cumpleaños (he'd actually remembered it from my passport)... and then, to one of the German women, a feliz cumpleaños as well.  We looked at each other.  Really?  Really.  She was turning 60 to my 29; her name was Gërlinde (sp?), and she was also walking to the lighthouse at the end of the world for her birthday.

In German, happy birthday is 'alles gute zum gebortstag' (I'm sure I butchered that); someone with your same birthday is a 'gebortstag kinder', and 'jetzt, wir gehen zum ende der welde', is...

Now, we're going to the end of the world.

Setting off that morning, I felt a curious reluctance leaving Cee behind.  It was to happen in every single little seaside town that followed.  In every one of them, I had this powerful feeling of: I could have stayed.  (Though I do not think I would get very much writing done, living by the sea.  My productivity seriously tanked when there were waves to watch.  I turned extremely lazy.  And so... blank.  I felt no need to go anywhere or do anything.) 

Halfway to the Finisterre lighthouse, I stopped at a picturesque and - impossibly - deserted beach, and swam.  This wound up being my only swim in the ocean.  I dubbed it 'birthday cove'.  The locals had put up a sign rating water temperature, and gave this only 1 out of 3 stars - barely satisfactory.  At first I thought Spaniards were just sissies, but then I got in.  

It was really cold.  

Now, on the approach to Finisterra and the 'end of the world', I was initially inclined to not be impressed.  This area has been revered as the Finis Terre since before Roman times.  It had - and still has - the Roman 'Ara Solis', an ancient altar to the sun, and supposedly even older sites of worship on this holy rocky headland.  But as enchanting as these sound, I'd heard it was getting overly touristy, and so busy that it didn't really feel like much of a spiritual anything any more.  

Then I rounded the peninsula, and got a view of Finisterre, and thought: ah.  I can see why tourists come here by the busload. 

 A full km of pristine sandy beach.  And that headland rising past the town is 2 km of rocky woodland jutting out into the sea - with sunrise on one side, and sunset on the other, the ara solis and sacred rocks somewhere on it - and the lighthouse at the tip.  The town of Finisterre wound up being crowded, but lovely.  

 I wanted to visit the lighthouse, obviously.  But even more intriguingly, the guidebook - and plenty of other guidebooks - also mentioned these 'sacred rocks that moved'.  Las piedras que mueven.  Las piedras sacras.  They are vaguely indicated on maps, but only as being up on top of that 2 km of rocky headland. Somewhere.  Supposedly, in the year 1500, a pilgrim wrote an account of these rocks and stated that 'horses by force could not shift them, but they can be rocked by a single finger.'  They've been constantly visited, before and since.  And according to some legends, in ancient, ancient times, pagan priestesses used to bring new initiates here, to test young girls at the rocks that move, to - somehow - see if they were fit to be priestesses.  

No idea what those ancient rites entailed.  But I thought:  this.  This is what I'm going to do on my birthday.  I'm totally going to find the priestess rocks.  With luck I'll find them at sunset, and I'll be there all alone.  

Well, I went to the lighthouse first, as per pilgrim tradition.  (There were people camping here in their RV's at the edge of the world; I could totally see my grandma setting up her RV at the base of a lighthouse.)

RV camping below Finisterre lighthouse

 And it was lovely, and I did indeed feel quite small and awestruck and emotional staring far, far down at the pounding surf pummeling the boulders, and realizing that whether I was here to see it or not, the sea never.  Stopped.  

Anyway, then I left and climbed up and up to look for the rocks.  

 Well, there were lots of rocks.  I was indeed up there the moment the sun set on my birthday.  And I did have what felt like the entire headland to myself - apparently, most pilgrims stay at the lighthouse.  

But I could not find those rocks that move. 

 There are supposed to be two: that's all I knew.  For some reason, I thought they would be marked.  A sign.  An informative plaque.  An explanation in several languages, and an arrow, and a worn trail beaten to them, with a crowd of people taking selfies. Instead, there was an abandoned power plant, old graffiti'd concrete pillars, dozens of footpaths and dozens of potential boulder piles in every direction, and it was getting dark.  

So I hiked back down to the albergue.  Then I decided to stay a second night to look for them, and I googled 'the rocks that move'.  (Totally cheating in my priestess test, I know.)  Google... did not yield much.  

I resorted to asking the albergue owner, but even she was rather vague.  She spoke only spanish, and was kind, and exuberant, and bubbly about everything else, but when it came to giving me concrete directions to las piedras que mueven, she turned hazy and simply said 'arriba, arriba' (up, up), which I did not find particularly helpful, then concluded with a fatalistic shrug: 'some pilgrims find them... and some do not.'

Well, I thought, I am going to be one of the pilgrims that finds them.  

That evening, I gave myself three hours.  I climbed with the attitude of taking any footpath - however small - that seemed to go up.  I wound up trekking through blackberry brambles, and stumbling across the ruins of San Guillermo: another famous site on the headland, and it was hardly marked at all.  Perhaps some of the overgrown elusiveness is due to the climate here, and how fast brambles and bushes overtake the paths.  Or perhaps Galicians just don't particularly want to help tourists find their sacred sites  (understandable.)  As it turned out, this ruined San Guillermo was a 12th century monastery built over what was believed to be the original Ara Solis.  The original Roman - probably even pre-Roman - altar to the sun.  And it wasn't even fenced off.  

You could just go sit in there, between these ruined cells of rooms built up against this looming hunk of granite with a cave beneath, facing directly east.  I ate honeysuckle beside the altar of the sun.  This was that shadowed cave built into the ruins and probably a holy site for who knows how long:

I wasn't entirely sure where the 'altar', specifically, was.  But just before leaving, I saw this massive slab of rock with what seemed to be a human figure carved into it - just a head and body shape, like a sarcophagus, but indented.  More like a space carved out for a human to... lie inside.  Somebody had left flowers in the head.  After a quick look around, I thought, gleefully, well, I will try to lie on this ancient rock.  Just, you know, see if it fits.  

 It totally did.  It fit perfectly.  I felt a lovely affinity with this rock, like I could lie there and stare up at the sky for hours, like I was communing with something ancient.

I found out later that this was the legendary ancient fertility rock, 'la piedra de la fecundidad'.  (Where couples come in secret to make love, and that any female who lies upon it is bound to get pregnant.  Ye gods.  The Spanish really should have these things more clearly labeled.)

Anyway, onward I climbed, in search of the stones that moved... and after an hour's trekking, I crested the rise and found myself right by the graffiti'd concrete poles again.  Exactly where I'd been the night before.  

I'd no sooner stopped and scowled to myself, annoyed, when a young man rounded the bend of another footpath, following his phone and looking confused, and asked me in broken english about the stones that move.  I gave him a helpless shrug.  I said I'd looked for them yesterday and was looking for them again today... and that I thought, maybe, by photos I'd seen online, they might be that distant rock pile over there to the right.  After some mutual discussion, he said he was going to call a friend who lived in Finisterre to ask her.  He wandered left; I wandered right.  In truth, I was glad to leave him behind.  I meandered along footpaths, heading toward the rock pile that was my best guess, where I figured I could start poking and prodding boulders, and with luck that guy would go in the opposite direction and I'd see no one the rest of the evening.  

A few minutes later, much to my consternation, he came jogging up behind me.  His friend said they were further in this direction.  

I rolled my eyes when he wasn't looking.  This was my direction.  He was interfering with my priestess-quest.  And, he was using a cell phone.  His friend had told him take the second dirt track to the left; it would be a tiny track.  When we reached the imposing rock pile where I would have turned, it was only the first left.  I thought that rock pile looked promising.  It was certainly the most obvious, and vaguely looked like a Google photo.  "But," he said, "My friend, she told me the second, the second left."  

The second left was a tiny footpath, that crested a small rise, out of sight.  And the rocks were... unassuming, at first.  Big.  I never would have thought I could move them.  They lay like two hippos, or something, on a flat bed of granite, two long boulders of almost identical size, vaguely rectangular, separated down the middle by a gap of several inches, like they'd long ago been split in two.

We looked at them for a moment.  He shoved one, from its short end; nothing happened.  I said, dubiously, "Well, at least there are two.  That seems right."  Then he moved away, and I took his place, and tried pushing from the long side instead, to rock it on the long axis, like you'd roll somebody lying down, and it totally moved.  So easy!  I tried rocking it with just one finger, like that pilgrim in the 1500's did, and you totally can!  These stones didn't even make a sound.  No scraping.  No crunching.  No knocking together.  But they're both perfectly balanced, somehow, perhaps cushioned by so many milennia of dust and moss now that it feels almost... soft, when you rock them.  

I whooped, positively amazed, and then rocked the other.  The guy tried for himself, and it moved, and then he went scrambling on his knees around the base of the rocks, peering beneath them, saying "I just don't understand it, how is this possible..."  

Turns out his name was Daniel (pronounced 'dough-nyel') and he was from Hungary, the first Hungarian I'd met.  Adding him to the list of countries I've met - along with a Russian girl I met yesterday - that makes at least 25 countries so far.  We had a delightful time photographing each other moving the rocks with a single finger.  (It really, really did not seem like those were rocks ten people could have moved; they looked firmly planted.)  

 Then he had to hurry off to watch the sunset from the lighthouse, per tradition; he'd also just finished walking the whole Camino Frances, but in ten days less time than me, and he had only one night in Finisterre before having to head back to Hungary.  I shook his hand and thanked him profusely, and told him I really didn't think I would have found these rocks by myself.  Then we wished each other buen camino, and he trotted away... and I had the rocks all to myself.

 For the whole rest of the evening.

The sunset was stunning.  

As the sun went down, and I rocked the stones again, more gently, each in turn.  (I decided not to post more detailed photos, lest they wind up on Google and ruin someone else's search, by making it too easy and not a quest at all.)  I realized my priestess lesson had been a clear one: no matter how much I may want to do a thing alone... sometimes, I obviously need help.   

Late that night - long after the sun set, as I picked my way down an overgrown trail while the moon rose - I found myself glad there was no sign marking those stones.  I hope if anyone tries to paint yellow arrows pointing the way, the locals scuff them out and keep the stones obscure and unmarked forever.  

 Then, the next morning:

The beach of Finisterre is the classic beach for pilgrims to pick up their own 'concha' (shell).  Before walking down to this beach, I'd feared that with so many pilgrims, all the shells might be taken. Then the day was drizzly, the beach was nearly deserted, and scallop shells coated the sand like gravel.  

I realized pilgrims could come here day and night and the sea would never run out of shells.  The ocean washes up more conchas than anyone could ever pick up.  There is an abundance here, more than we could ever pack away.

Wishing you luck on your own priestess quest, wherever it may be.

-mlj

Day... 40? Leaving Santiago, and saturation

Those are the spires of the Santiago de Compostela cathedral fading behind me, as I press on toward the sea.  About 90 km to Finisterre; that's a chocolate-filled pastry fresh from a pasteleria, to fuel the first leg of the journey.  (As a side note, I do also eat fresh vegetables.  And healthy things.  Though being less fun than street food, they usually don't get photographed.) 

I've reached and passed Santiago, and am continuing on to the sea.  On to Finisterre, the edge of the world!

I'm typing this at 16:00, on a top bunk in the upstairs of a small stone-walled bar called 'Casa Pepa', run by a very industrious woman in the tiny town of San Mariña.  This may be short, because in truth all I feel like doing is napping (or perhaps reading: I found 'The Light Between Oceans' at a tiny bookshop in Palas de Rei, one of only 4 english books there, and it's shockingly good - about a lighthousekeeper.  I may still be reading it when I reach the Finisterre lighthouse.)  Except, I feel so guilty for napping.  I feel guilty for tuning out, too, and for daydreaming while walking, and for not taking photos of everything that's beautiful, and for not taking the time to try and talk to everyone I pass if they're in the mood for talking - because many people are more in the mood for talking than me.  I know they all have interesting stories.  I know there's something to be learned from everyone.  So it's not that I'm being dismissive, or that I don't admire the other travelers, and I certainly still smile and say hola and buen camino to everyone.  But I've been finding that more and more - starting about 100 km before Santiago, when the huge influx of other more touristy pilgrims hit the trail, and continuing now, after I've passed the city and kept walking on this less-traveled leg of the trail - I've been keeping to myself more and more, smiling but then walking on, and relishing the alone-ness.  

Incidentally, about that same time was when my phone memory started getting full of photos.  

I realized - with mounting horror - that I was running out of old photos to delete, and I'd already deleted all the audiobooks.  I realized that in order to make room for new photos, I'd have to start deleting some of the photos I've taken here in Spain, which were not backed up on any computer, anywhere.  I thought this might be easy.  Surely there were duplicates, excessive landscapes of the Pyrenees, photo after photo of masonry farm huts.  But when I started trying to delete photos, every photo brings up such a specific memory - of the moment or the feeling or a person I'd just met when I took it - that I don't want to let any of them go.

2,775 photos.  That's how many I can easily fit, before my old 16 GB iphone 4S says its full.  2,775 moments.  You'd think that would be plenty of space.  But now I've been walking past house after picturesque house, and rosebush after picturesque rosebush (the Spanish really know how to grow their rosebushes: like this one.  They're everywhere.  Alleys and doorways and trellises, with little old ladies diligently spraying all their thousands of blooms against bugs.  I mean really, these people are just showing off:)

And I've been seeing so many more photos I could take - of everything, everywhere - but then I... don't.  Because I can't. It's just all beautiful.  It's all worth documenting.  Every sunrise.  Every sky.  Every rosebush.  

 And I just know every person who passes me is worth talking to, worth hearing and get to know and learning from, but I... don't.

 It seems the people who have been walking the longest - with the dustiest packs, the oldest boots, their hair greasy but their eyes warm and wise as you pass - are the ones least eager to talk, and most content to let you pass by with only a smile.  It's not that they're unfriendly.  If you start talking to them they're clever and surprisingly zippy and great conversationalists, probably from all that pent-up cleverness during long silences.  

It's more that they've... stopped trying to hold it all.  

They're the ones who aren't desperate to keep track of anything.  They don't snap photos.  They don't wear GoPro constantly-recording cameras, to video their whole camino and re-watch it later.  They don't try to get emails or phone numbers to contact anyone later.  They're just not desperate at all.  It's like, they've stopped attempting to hold all these infinite moments and encounters, stopped trying to capture all the beauty like it's going to run out, stopped trying to record all the feelings in order to re-feel them later, because the beauty's never going to run out.  The world just keeps coming.  There's so much more to see, so many more places, so many more people.  So many more rosebushes. 

Part of me feels guilty for passing them by.  But if I stopped to smell every rose along these manure-splattered farm lanes, I'd never get anywhere.  If I tried to photograph every abundant flower - in this humid, hilly land of forests and fog and lillies all sorts of things that ought to be found in a botanical hothouse, growing wild by the road. (Like these white lillies, which grow as house plants in the US, but sprout here along farm walls and cow pastures, as abundant as the red roses:)

If I tried, I'd be out of space within moments. 

And if I tried to talk to everyone, I'd never stop talking.  

 I'm starting to realize what the difference is, now, this shift from intensely experiencing everything, to suddenly wanting to... pass by.  Keep walking.  Not take photos, and keep to myself, and take naps.  I think it's the difference I've seen in others who are long-term travelers vs. short-term travelers.  It's like, when I first met Julia-the-teacher-from-Ohio (who, incidentally, I met again just a few days ago, in a tiny cafe, after a week without meeting) she was typing quietly on a laptop, at a communal albergue table, not speaking to anyone.  I actually shared a bunk with her without doing more than exchanging greetings, because she was just so quiet - I wasn't sure if she was shy or just very private or flat-out indifferent and disinterested, but she kept to herself.  

Then, days later, I realized she typed on her laptop because she had a part-time copyediting job, to make money while she traveled long-term.  She'd taught for 2 years in India, and 2 years in Turkey, and volunteered at a language center in Poland (she gave me the name of this language organization that offers free room and board to English speakers) and I realized: 

Ah-ha.  She is neither shy, nor indifferent, though she is very private.  Because she's turned this into a life.    

 She was a long-term traveler, though I hadn't recognized the shift in myself yet.  It's like, at some point instead of actively swimming through this sea of new experiences and vivid strangers, one starts to simply drift, and be carried along in the current.  It's like, the people who are only here for two weeks document everything to go home to their routines and be able to remember it later.  But the people who are here for two months, or two years, stop trying save everything for later, because there will be just as much later, and this is their routine.  

I remember feeling so, so blatantly irresponsible and extravagant for sitting on a park bench in Burgos reading A Tree Grows In Brooklyn instead of sightseeing, ignoring the many sights that were doubtless waiting in that lovely historic city.  I read for hours.  It felt luscious and greedy.  I loved it.  

 There's a saying that I think is Buddhist, about how 'A wise man is he who sits on the riverbank all day without moving.'  

 I've often felt critical of Buddhism for being too passive, encouraging calmness instead of intervention, and leaving all things as they are.  And I'm still feeling critical of myself for wanting to take a nap, instead of going out to explore the small town of San Martiño, and do a sketch, and document something, and freeze a memory in time, so I can come back to it later.  But I'm starting to realize the wisdom of that man who can sit all day simply watching the river.  (Side note from the bunk room: these three incredibly noisy old Italian pilgrims just got vigorously shushed by at least 10 other groggy people of various nationalities, who are all trying to nap.  Naps are quite popular.  Pilgrims are excellent sleepers.)  Today, I took a lunch break after about 15 km, in a field of tall grass under the shade of two trees.  I've been doing less multitasking, as this trip goes on.  Less eating-while-reading.  Less sketching-while-drinking-coffee.  I've been... just eating.  Just looking.  Just sitting.  Just seeing.  I sat for almost an hour snacking with my feet propped up and watching a farmer plowing his field and noting the direction the seagulls passed. 

 I did a very quick sketch, just enough to place that moment on a page, and record the bliss of it.  But mostly I just sat.  And I love how physical this is.  The living on your body's terms, and measuring how far you can go between water, between food, between rest.  It feels primal and animalistic and so present.  

I love the gradual realization that all the beauty in the world is not going to go away if we don't photograph it, and that all the marvelous things we've seen keep happening whether or not we see them.  People are still crossing that vast stretch of Meseta right now, every day.  People are entering the cathedral in Santiago right now, at this moment.  That wild boar that crossed the road way back in Week 2 is probably still rustling in the bush somewhere, in the hilltops.  There's just so many wild things and so many flowers and so many people, and they go on living, day after day, month after month.  Maybe the individual moments are fleeting, never to be experienced again, and that's sad, but it hardly matters, because new interesting things just keep happening all over the world forever. 

May your days be filled with enough amusing and interesting moments that you give up on trying to record them all. 

 -mlj

Day 39: Santiago de Compostela! Rituals, modern religion, and cathedrals

The marble steps to hug the altar statue of St James, grooved by millions of pilgrims

On reaching Santiago!  The approach turned quite cheerful about 10 km out.  There's a town beside a stream, called 'Lavacolla', which supposedly means 'wash private parts', where pilgrims traditionally bathed the month's stench away to enter Santiago clean.  The shrubbery was quite thick.  I could indeed have imagined myself washing private parts there, in privacy. 

 (Very private stream being pointed at by walking stick.)

I also passed several more stone cruceiros on the way:

These crosses are everywhere.  They're either stone or concrete, depending on the age; they're in plazas and alongside country lanes and in the middle of forests; and they usually have Jesus hung on the front, and Mary with face downcast on the back.  Usually there's a sitting bench on Mary's side.  It's like... this interesting duality of  male and female.  Like Jesus is the public face, that watches the cars pass, that gets photographed.  But Mary is the quietly-waiting female with the bench to sit on, the one looking not out at the audience but down at you, the one the old women of the town actually pray to. The female.  The mother, who comforts.  

Very interesting.  

The 'Monte de Gozo', or mount of joy, now has a gargantuan statue marking the point where you can first view the cathedral 5 km away.  

It's fairly hideous.  I mean, you can't even interact with the thing, and its like fifty feet tall.  It's not like pilgrims could climb on it to get a better view.

Despite the touristy loudness and obvious proclamation of arrival, it still didn't seem quite real, to be seeing Santiago through the haze:  

The view from Monte del Gozo - ahead and to the right! Santiago! 5 km away

  I took a photo of those two black horses picketed under a tree, to the left... then realized they were the same two horses I photographed weeks ago, as they passed me with their rider on the long stretch near Leon:

(I didn't approve of the rider.  He used spurs unnecessarily, and kept shouting at his horses, and didn't seem very confident, as they were doing nothing wrong.  Luckily they made it to Santiago in one piece despite him, and were happily munching grass.)

A cafe on the way into Santiago had delicious mini cheesecakes for a euro, which fueled me all the way to the huge Seminario albergue, where I promptly finished eating my cheesecake while unpacking on the tile floor: 

 (That's the mini cheesecake.  Oh, wow.  Also, the longest toe on my left foot has been black and blue under the nail since the second day of walking; I have no idea why.  But it doesn't hurt.  More like single-nail purple nail polish, a sort of hiking decor.  And that wrap is for the tendon on my left foot, bought at a friendly farmacia before Samos 100 km ago; it's helping.)

The Seminario albergue is in an old, echoing monastery.  It's huge.  It's spartan.  The walls and hallways are simple, but there are massive windows everywhere, and a peaceful hush - the perfect place for contemplation at the end of the trail.  I got a bed beside giant windows:

Let me tell you, there's nothing better than worrying about finding a bed, then not only getting a bed... but having it be a bed next to giant windows that open for fresh air.  (Mine is the second on the left.  Not the first one with the tidy blue sleeping bag.  That was a German man.  I am not a tidy nester.) 

 Perhaps I should have gone out exploring immediately, because instead I laid down and didn't move for three hours.  

Luckily, when I finally reached the cathedral they were having another late mass for pilgrims at 7 pm (since I sure as heck didn't make the noon one.)  The cathedral itself was grungy and crowded and musty and old, but the golden altar sure did glimmer:

 I've seen men on high scaffolds polishing the goldwork in a few churches; clearly the Spanish take altar-polishing very seriously.   

 I sat, and surreptitiously sketched, and admired the huge jutting pipe organ.  I'd heard that part of the pilgrim's ritual - upon arrival in Santiago - was to enter the cathedral by a side door, and hug a particular golden statue of Saint James from behind, to thank him for a safe journey.  Now, I thought this statue would be in a side nave, some secluded spot.  But while sitting there waiting, as the pews filled around me, I realized there were people filing behind the gleaming golden altar - climbing steps up, then climbing steps down again.  They were taking turns - patiently, one after the other - to put their arms around the neck of the altar from behind.  It was the golden statue of the main altar. In the front of the church, in view of all the pews, raised on a dais.  And an endless line of people kept climbing up to hug it. 

Then the priest started talking, and the arms just kept reaching around to hug the golden statue from behind.  I thought surely they'd stop soon.  Surely church security would cut off the flow of pilgrims, because holy mass was starting, and surely one couldn't have holy mass while the holy altar was being hugged from behind by one pilgrim every three seconds, occasionally peering around the statue to peer at the priest and the audience. 

But they didn't stop it.  All through the mass, that constant procession of people just kept shuffling up the stairs and hugging the statue in gratitude and shuffling down the other side.  

At first I thought (as I'd thought earlier, with so many people photographing the altar) isn't this all sort of... desecration?

And then, I realized: no.  This is just a place of very active rituals.  

Maybe this is how all rituals are meant to be.  Maybe this is how all rituals used to be, repeated 10,000 times a day, in constant renewal.  Maybe all churches wish they had an altar so popular, that the priest is forced to give mass while a never-ending stream of well-wishers hug it from behind.  (There's also the crypt of Saint James below, and a statue of Santiago Peregrino elsewhere, a famous pilgrim himself.  Is he a saint too?  Perhaps the patron saint of pilgrims.  I have no idea.  There are so many saints.  And the Spanish love them all.) 

The priest made a lovely inclusion in the sermon that day, calling up the leaders of all the pilgrim groups who had arrived that day.  There was a guide from Poland leading over one hundred Polish pilgrims.  A priest from Hong Kong, leading pilgrims.  A priest from Korea, leading pilgrims... and then one of the Polish women got up and read a long Bible passage in her language, and the foreign priests were up alongside the altar, each making statements in their languages, and when the time came to recite the Lord's Prayer it rang out from the audience in at least a dozen different languages.  It was lovely. 

Rather than trying to have a traditional mass despite the pilgrims, they altered the mass to include the pilgrims.  

I left the church feeling satisfied and satiated and warmed by all the communal contentment, but also slightly weary.  I haven't hugged the statue yet.  I will when I return.  For now the Cathedral didn't really feel like an endpoint, more just a highlight along the way.  I'm looking forward to making my ritual offering when I reach the bones of the sea.

Buen camino,

-mlj

Day 12: Still walking! Villafranca! Snails! Storms! Paella!

A macaroon while sketching the local church in Villafranca, right next to the albergue.  (The panaderia bakery was right next to the supermarket, so I figured if I balanced out the macaroons with fruit it was almost healthy.) 

Day 12.  How has it only been 12 days? This feels like a forever's worth of walking, and there's still 530 km of the 800 left to go...

Now, until yesterday, I had started to think maybe the good weather was just following me around. Last week we did have that little squall before Villamayor, when I got the last bed in town; I thought that was a rainstorm, and felt quite the explorer for pressing on and walking through it.  It lasted about half an hour. 

No.  Yesterday was a rainstorm. 

We woke to grim cloudy skies and gusting wind, leaving the tiny town of Cirueña and its rather strange artistic-reclusive hostel owner.  The sky looked vast and ominous, made more ominous by the straight road showing just how far we had to go through rolling farm fields.  Just when I was thinking this land was all cultivated and domesticated and settled, a WILD BOAR tore across the road, racing away across the hay fields and heading for the forested hilltops.

That woke me up.  There were a few drizzles, which gave way to patchy sun and more drizzles, and I was thinking this was rather annoying weather to be outdoors in- first overheating in a raincoat in the sun, then getting soaked all over again when you take it off - until I noticed all the old ladies coming out in droves with their umbrellas, busily hunting in road ditches and looking for something.  This took my mind off overheating.  Eventually I found a friendly pack of them pointing and searching together, calling out "Aqui aqui, hay dos, que gordos," and I realized they were hunting for snails and seeing who could find the fattest.  These ladies must have been at least 70; they were having a grand time.  When I asked, they said snails are delicious, and this was perfect snail weather: rain mixed with sun.  Snail is "caracola", I learned, and apparently these are cleaned and boiled and prepared with chorizo and tomatoes and ham and bread crumbs.

Anyway, the weather wasn't too awful yet, and I was thinking maybe drizzles were okay if it meant I got to talk to cheerful Spanish ladies about snails.  All the 10 km through Santo Domingo and Grañon, the gray skies got lower and lower.  Then - in one great heavenly gust - I stepped out of a lovely small church and straight into a horizontal gust of rain.  I happened to bump into a lady from Denmark that had shared my albergue the night before, and together we stumbled sideways into a bakery for sustenance, then stumbled back out into a narrow cobbled street that directed the wind like a funnel.  An elderly man yelled in Spanish that we ought to link arms for safety; I'm not sure whether he was being sarcastic or not.  I told him that was a good idea.  Then we started to eat our bread (mine chocolate covered) with our hair whipping around our faces as we walked.  By the time we reached the edge of town we had our heads bent like two emperor penguins huddled against Antarctic wind, and every once in a while we'd squint bleary-eyed for the next yellow painted arrow or seashell symbol, to follow on the dirt tracks out of town.  (Finding these arrows is rather like a treasure hunt.  Especially when they're on the sides of old crumbling buildings in a narrow alley, or on a sidewalk and mostly washed away, or on old irrigation ditches out in the middle of nowhere - like these two days ago, when the weather was much finer:)

Back to the rainstorm: eating a chocolate-covered pastry in a wind funnel, with storm clouds rolling in:
 

At first I was eager to get back to walking alone and listening to my music, because this Danish lady seemed quite reserved and I figured pounding music was the best way to get through the storm.  Then I realized I couldn't hear my music through the gale buffeting my coat hood, not even slightly, and after 12 more km and several more tiny towns, I learned her name is Melanie and she was not boring at all.  Not even slightly.  She and her husband and two sons have taken 6-month road trips through both North America and Australia, and the way they do it is this: they buy an RV when they arrive, travel in it for 6 months, then resell it and go back home to Denmark and go back to work.  Incredible!  At the moment, their latest RV here in Europe is being repaired, and when it's fixed in a couple weeks her family is driving down from Denmark to pick her up (wherever on the Camino she's walked to) and going camping in Spain. 

Anyway, during this rain squall we hobbled doggedly onward and saw very few other pilgrims and eventually decided 23 km was enough for the day, so we stopped in the tiny town of Viloria de la Rioja.  Population: 50.  Now, in this tiny town, there were two tiny albergues, each with just a dozen beds, so we had two choices.  A trailside billboard advertised them both.  One albergue was known for having homemade paella cooked in a gigantic pan.  The other albergue was known for being sponsored by Paulo Coelho, the Brazilian writer who wrote the Alchemist.  I thought that sounded pretty cool.  So we went and waited in front of the Coelho albergue, until they opened their doors at 1:30, and as we waited I started thinking about the book The Alchemist, and how the protagonist wandered and wandered on foot and met all sorts of spiritual mentors on the way, and how in a way this experience of the Camino is so very similar, because by coincidence or fate it seems you somehow wind up meeting the very people you most need to meet, and having the very conversations you most need to have on a particular day.  What destiny, I thought, that an albergue is here plastered with photos of Paolo Coelho and the Alchemist, at just the right time to make me think of this. 

Then the owner opened the door and said they were full with online reservations, and had no free beds.

We cursed under our breaths (she in English as well - she spoke excellent English) hoping that in that 15 minutes of waiting the other albergue hadn't filled their beds.  Then we turned our backs on the posters of famous Coelho and retreated to the other, smaller, unassuming albergue, with a simple concrete floor and giant pan waiting for paella.  A round woodstove was crackling in the center of the floor, and through thebig glass windows we watched hail pummeling the ground outside.

It was incredible.  The perfect albergue for a stormy night, with such amazing encounters.  Perhaps that other place was full for a reason.

(Photo from later in the evening, when the pan was indeed filled with paella, spiced with saffron as is customary:)

These albergue owners spoke no english, and so I had the first real conversation about ideas and deep topics that I've ever had in Spanish, largely because they were so patient in repeating things.  It was surreal.  I'm a very clumsy and slow speaker in Spanish, but still - a conversation!  Ah!  About the need for art, and whether a greater percentage of humans are generous than stingy, and government funding for the arts in schools, and positive thinking, and deciding to be optimistic regardless of one's situation, and how the mind never deletes memories, it just stores them deeper and deeper in the subconscious...

Anyway.  Then there was paella, and the others at table were: an Irish couple, a German couple, Melanie from Denmark, three women from Poland, and a guy from Brazil.  I got to practice Spanish again with the guy from Brazil, and that was so, so amazing.  I just... love having words. 

The board behind the table was covered in 'good day' greetings from literally dozens of languages from previous guests, which we read out while we were eating.

Words.  There is nothing more exhilarating. 
 

Buen camino,

-mlj

Day 9: Ventosa, and the familiar faces of the Camino

A Ventosa wall covered in ceramic seashells, the traditional Camino symbol

Today was about 20 km, from Logroño to Ventosa.  We're still passing through red wine country, and all the red earth vineyards have been stark and beautiful, along with scattered olive groves.  I had no idea some vineyards pruned their vines back so severely, but they look like severed tree trunks with this year's new growth on top.  For reference, these vine-trunks in the photo are only about are only about 3 ft tall:

Right now it's my absolute favorite time of night: nesting time!  I have the top bunk at this hostel in Ventosa, which I much prefer to the bottom, because on top people can't see you.  It's 8:45 pm, which on these people's crazy schedule means almost everyone's snuggled in bed, and some are already fast asleep (it's still light outside, and the normal Spanish citizens are wandering around in the streets having lively conversations, not going to bed yet).  But here in the albergue, it's nesting time.  I'm stuffed full of lentils-and-eggs-and-sauteed-onions-and-carrots.  Face is washed and teeth are brushed, though not hair, as I haven't brushed my hair in several days and I don't think the difference is noticeable.  (Curly hair makes excellent pilgrim's hair.)  I've gotten my hand-washed clothes off the line, now dry after being rinsed out when I first got here mid-afternoon.  I have my sleeping bag unrolled to claim my bunk.  And, gathered all around me, I've heaped my nest: clothes and book and notebook and sketchbook and guidebook and phone and water bottle and headlamp.  Its like the bunk is your only real personal space, in the hostel.  Like, for 10 euros a night you get a twin-mattress-sized piece of real estate, and access to communal rooms along with this one tiny private zone of your bed.  It's sort of mutually understood that when somebody is in their bed, it's like they're having quiet time in their 'room', and everyone- regardless of language - will diligently ignore you while you're in your bunk, all playing along with this charade of pretending we each have actual privatebedrooms, pretending we're each invisible if we're changing clothes, when actually we're in plain view of everybody. 

My second favorite time of day is... supper scavenging.  The arriving in a new town, unloading the bag, and then scurrying off in search of food.  It's like being a modern hunter gatherer, in every new town, with a budget of approximately 6 euros to make oneself feel stuffed full and satisfied and hopefully have some fruit left over for breakfast.

My third favorite time of day is... eating the food I have scavenged.  (Hunger makes all food taste infinitely better).

And my fourth favorite time of day is... the morning break, finding a spot to sketch somewhere in a small town, after 10 or 12 km.  This usually involves mixing up instant coffee in that travel mug (with cold water from a fountain, but it still dissolves, with enough shaking) and a sketch, and a sunbeam, and saying hello to the constant trickle of passing pilgrims.  This was me finishing up the last of the German chocolate yesterday, while my socks dried in the sun on a stone wall:
 

Today I walked for about 5 km with a Taiwanese guy named Li, who was very talkative because he said it took his mind off his sore tendon; he'd been a workawayer in Australia and New Zealand, and also studied Spanish in university and read part of Don Quixote.  He'd taken an excellent self-portrait of himself by the windmills, with his trekking pole raised like a sword to attack them.  I... could not believe it.  He was from Taiwan, but had read Don Quixote (while studying Spanish, and he also spoke English) and took a selfie of himself with trekking pole raised in battle toward modern industrial white windmills. 

Humor is so universal. 

I also met a Canadian and South African, and now here in the hostel there's a whole PACK of Germans - not traveling together, just a dozen individuals who all happened to stop here - and two are from Ulm!  I complemented their Ulm cathedral.   It's very comforting to see everyone else limping around and bandaging their feet as well.  There's a British girl with terrible blisters on the small toe of each foot, and she'd never gotten blisters in her life before.  We agreed it must just be a Camino thing.  Perhaps God just smites all pilgrims with blisters to make us more humble. 
 

The guidebooks all warn about 'ugly' days of walking past industrial zones.  But today, passing a wood chip and wood pellet factory in a sprawling industrial zone, there were stray wood scraps blowing everywhere, and in what was clearly the work of years, the chain link fence was interwoven - for at least a half kilometer - with all these lovely wood scraps picked up by people and turned into crosses:
 

It was unexpected, and beautiful, and so clearly the work of thousands of pilgrims over years. 

And, my favorite graffiti yet, from a trail underpass along the highway:
 

I think the artist had blisters.  Judging by the ample graffiti on signs and bridges, pilgrims obviously have much free time to think of doodles.

My blisters are doing much better, and as far as bodily ailments go, I'm in good company.  When I took a break on the trail today, I saw one man limp past with a knee brace, then one woman hobble past in flipflops with her boots hanging from her backpack, and then one Korean guy walking with his heels sticking out over the back of his boots (all one after the other; it seems like the majority of people are walking stiffly at this point).

It's also rather amazing how often you bump into the same person day after day - for example, on the very first night in St. Jean, I was in the tiny 10-bed hostel of the crazy cat lady with a german girl, Magdalena.  Then I saw her at the next hostel, didn't see her for three days, and bumped into her on the streets of Los Arcos - in the middle of the day, seventy kilometers later - as I was buying antiseptic and she was going into a barbers to get her hair cut.  We've coincidentally wound up in the same hostels 3 times since.  I also repeatedly meet a Canadian ex-massage therapist who slept next to me in the bunk way back in Pamplona, along with about a dozen other familiar faces.  I suppose if you take a giant herd of people, and funnel them all along one single trail, a few are bound to keep bumping into each other, even after splitting up at different speeds. 

Another figure I keep passing and spotting - and by far the most memorable person so far - is the elusive 'red-cape man'.  He started near the same day as me, because I first spotted his ridiculous red cape in the Pyrenees, and first wrote him off as being someone silly seeking attention.  I've since decided he might actually be a high-quality human being.  He wears an old leather hat, and has a bushy beard, and wears the cape draped over his pack so he looks like a strange billowing hunchback; also, he's always in the company of an old man smoking a pipe.  Since that first sighting I've grown to feel great empathy for the red-caped man, because I saw him limping along in socks and sandals yesterday, and the few times I've passed him by the side of the trail he has a very kind smile.  I think he's a German speaker; not sure.  I've developed a long-distance crush on him, and it's become my mission to find out who he is before we reach Santiago.  This is the red-caped man yesterday, ahead of me entering the streets of Logroño:

Buen camino,

-mlj

Camino Day 7: Villamayor, Torres del Rio, and rain

Impending rain, from a rooftop albergue room in Villamayor

For the first few days, the heat and sunshine was intense. 

Now, in northern Spain, the weather is changing.  I thought I would have been glad for clouds and cold weather, until it dropped to about 50 degrees (or maybe lower - it felt lower) with rain squalls and gusty wind.  The farmers' vineyards and olive groves are surely happy for the rain - we're in wine-and-olive country now, and the soil already looks parched.  Some of the farmers here already have their first cutting of hay baled in the fields, even though it's only April:

Those are black-plastic-wrapped rows of bales, a first-cutting harvest that's a full two months earlier here than at home.   That stormy sky turned menacing,  along a 12 km stretch of road between Villamayor and Los Arcos with no services and not so much as a single hut, though there were some lovely wetlands and rolling hills.

Speaking of wine country and wine, apparently this region of Spain is quite famous for its red wine, and one particular vineyard - the Irache Monastery - is famous for giving away wine to pilgrims for free.  Yesterday passed the much-talked-about FREE WINE FOUNTAIN, which had been discussed on the trail for several kilometers in anticipation leading up to this point.  (Several, several kilometers.  While many of us are listening to music while walking, that doesn't change the fact that it's just... a lot of walking.  At the start I thought camino-walkers were just friendly, for striking up conversations with everyone they passed.  Now I think it's sheer boredom.  I've begun to feel the same desperation, when kilometers pass without a soul in sight and then you hear the clatter of walking sticks and think delightedly, "Ah!  Someone's passing me!  How exciting!" And if it's another solo walker, you meet each other's eyes and say with a sort of frantic need for distraction, "BUEN CAMINO!  Where are you from?!" Today I met a very friendly Italian man who spoke barely any English but did speak German, because he's working in Stuttgart, and he recommended another long-distance walk - the 300 km 'Strasse Romantico' that leads to Neuschwanstein Palace.)  Anyway, shortly after the 100 kilmeter mark - a marker which at first I found heartening, until I then realized it meant there was 700 km to go - came the Irache Wine Fountain.  It's a very elegant setup on the monastery's wall outside, with two metal spigots.  One dispenses water; the other, wine.

  A sign begs for restraint, saying the fountain is stocked with only 100 liters a day so please indulge modestly, that other pilgrims may enjoy their taste.  But no one monitors how much you take.  I put a few generous swallows in my water bottle, to save for later:
 

(I later enjoyed it in a freezing-cold attic room with two Lithuanians and a Frenchman and another guy, after the Lithuanians gave me antiseptic and taught me how to string thread through a blister)  (It was... not bad wine).

Toward the end of that day's walk, I came upon the most magical spot yet.  It was after a rain squall, and the trail was deserted.  I'd heard about the 'Fuente de los Moros' ruins, an old water source rumored to be from the Moors but possibly much older, but I wasn't paying much attention.  I was mostly just sodden and cold and my feet hurt from the blisters and I was worried I wouldn't get a bed in the upcoming town of Villamayor, because there were only 2 small albergues and NOBODY would want to continue through that desolate 12 km stretch in weather like this, so everybody would be stopping.  Then I turned the corner, and directly beside the trail - which must be an ancient trail indeed, if a Moor water source was built alongside it - was this:
 

Quite solid-looking despite its weathered stones, which are growing moss on closer inspection.  And from inside in the shadows - behind those arches - came a gentle, mysterious trickling.  The inside had steps leading down - old, worn stone steps - and they descended straight into a pool of water, with an old sort of cistern submerged in the center, and goldfish living in the pool.  Goldfish.  Just living in this ancient moorish water source, all year round, while it seeps softly from a hole in the back wall, day and night. 
 

Such a simple building - three solid walls, with steps from left to right, flush with the walls on both sides, and that cistern centered in the water, and arches looking out across the hillside above. 

So symmetrical and focused.  One of the most beautiful spaces I've ever been in, even after all our fancy modern architecture lessons and field trips to modern spaces.  Stone.  Trickling water.  Goldfish.  Worn steps.  Descent underground.  And this feeling of eternity, the echo amplifying that trickling that never stops. 

Anyway, after seeing this I got one of the last beds available in Villamayor, just before a rain squall.  I climbed to the attic loft.  I unrolled my sleeping bag on a bed, beside two Lithuanians.  Then I limped to the grocery store, and then limped to the small village church, and I sat in the empty dark alone with gray light trickling through slit windows... and wept.  It had been years since I cried.  This was a helpless sort of crying, and when the church-tender came in to trim the candles I think I scared him.  But I couldn't stop.  Helplessness, how I hate it.  I hate being in pain, and I hate not being in control, and I hate relying on others, and I hate being poor.  I think I got the very last bed in Villamayor; all the walkers arriving after me had to continue on, or buy a taxi.  I could not have continued on, not 12 km to the next town.  And I don't have money for a taxi, not if I want to last 7 weeks here with what little I have saved.  So I cried alone in a dark church, and bowed my head and felt embarrassed for crying, and sent up a prayer of gratitude and apology to a god that might be listening. 

I'm sorry for thinking this would be easy.

Walking.  Just walking.  I'd arrived thinking a pilgrimage would be nothing.  A cheap way to see the country, not a trial at all.  Blisters aren't even a serious injury, and already the fear of being unable to continue - the vividness of having only your own body for transport, and the terror of being left stranded should your own body fail - had me humbled and ashamed.  I'd seen so many others limping, in so much more pain than me.

Anyway.  I thanked the hostel owner for the lovely pink-sheeted bed in the attic, and then thanked the Lithuanian lady who helped me disinfect and thread string through my blisters with a needle:
 

Mostly, I just thanked a lot of people.  And the next day, walked about 20 km onward (on threaded blisters- it helped) to Torres del Rio.  Beautiful little hill town!  With plenty of picturesque old stone benches tucked into alleys, perfect for enjoying a 5-euro supper of canned garbanzo beans, canned sardines, bread and cheese.  

The albergue in Torres del Rio was over a bar, and when I went down to the bar to borrow a pair of scissors (to cut a new pair of insoles down to size, because I got a pharmacist's recommendation on disinfectant, moisture-wicking insoles, and blister bandages) I got the most excellent advice.  A random man was sitting there at the bar eating quiche, when I asked the bartender for tijeras, and held up my new insoles which needed cutting.  I mentioned something about my feet hurting, and blisters, and this middle-aged guy stopped eating his quiche and took one at my insoles and said very wisely, "Mira, mira".  Then- with great fanfare - he reached into his coat pocket. 

He said (in spanish) that I had to keep my feet dry, and he knew just the trick, he'd been doing this for years.  He flipped my insole over, unfolded something across the bottom, and asked if I knew what it was. 

A women's maxi pad.  Already unfolded in its wrapping, ready to be stuck to the bottom of HIS insole the following morning.  I said "si, si, por supuesto, una cosa para mujeres", and, with a secretive look around the bar to make sure no one else had seen him pulling maxi pads from his coat, he tucked it away again as several more customers came in through the door.  "Exacto," he said.  He told me to buy some of these, the thickest kind I could find, and if I could, buy the kind with wings, to wrap around the insole from below, to keep it in place.  (I will now never forget that the word 'alas' means wings in spanish, because I heard it from this man at the bar making flapping gestures with his arms as he tried to explain to me what kind of maxi pads I should buy.)  Stick the maxi pad under the insole, pad facing down, sticky side stuck to the insole, and it adds some padding to keep the ball of your foot from slipping while also absorbing moisture.  Change the maxi pad every 1-2 days, and voila.

Excellent advice from a long-walk-loving Spaniard in a bar.  The following morning at sunrise, I bought maxi pads from a small shop beside the trail, which sells them individually for just such occasions as this.

Buen Camino, 

-mlj

Camino Day 5: Uterga, after Pamplona, and blister treatment at the mercy of strangers

The village of Uterga, 16 km past Pamplona

At the moment its 22:30 pm and I'm on a couch in a small hostel in Uterga, Spain, not remotely tired because I dozed for quite a few hours earlier this evening.  I thought I wasn't a napper.  Then I lucked out and got a top bunk right by an open window, with a breeze flowing through in the heat of the day... and with a view of other sweaty pilgrims passing through on the Camino directly outside (still walking, which should have made me feel lazy), I kicked off my shoes and fell asleep.  

Pamplona was crazy last night.  Apparently they'd just won some sort of soccer game.  All night long the streets were packed with revelers and tubas blasting and marching bands leading cheering hordes of people up and down the narrow streets.  After reaching the Pamplona municipal albergue, I re-bandaged my blisters and put on my flats and limped out- gingerly - to find an ATM, and a shop with better woolen socks.  I had no choice.  I needed money, and I needed socks.  But being in the midst of a city-wide party, I felt nervous for the first time since arriving in Spain alone, because I realized - suddenly and painfully - that if necessary, I did not think I could run.  So rarely in my life have I felt like a cripple.  Once with a sprained ankle; once with stitches in my foot.  Both times it was humbling.  Now?  These are only stinging blisters, just a flesh wound, just an inconvenience.  But it's made me realize, all over again, how lucky it is to be able-bodied and able to walk without pain. 

Just to be able to walk.  So many pilgrims here are elderly, with arthritis, and chronic pain.  In truth I should be grateful. 

The municipal albergue in Pamplona was rather incredible, design-wise.  It made me think of so many architecture lessons in adaptive reuse and historic preservation; I limped around staring and drooling, admiring their retrofit.  The 'Jesus y Maria' municipal albergue is inside an old church building, near the Pamplona cathedral.  There are vaulted ceilings and echoing halls.  But the designers added colored partitions and bunks, and made it all into a two-level sleeping space, with glass catwalks on the second level so you could see people's feet passing on the floor above while you were sleeping:

Jesus y Maria municipal albergue, Pamplona

So cool!  That photo was around 2 pm, before they ran out of beds at 5 pm.  It sleeps 114.  And boy did it echo, with all those hard surfaces.  It was like an orchestra of snores.  Even I used earplugs.

The view from beside my bunk, number 49: 

8 euros for the night!
On the way out of Pamplona this morning, there were patriotic banners for the Basque country on the doors:

Partially in English?  I don't know why.  A mere publicity stunt?  But the Basque language itself is incredible, with crazy spelling, and just as crazy pronunciation (what little I've heard).  The compactness of all these cultural regions is shocking.  Coming from America - Montana in particular, where you can drive hundreds of miles without passing a town, or even a cow - it's surreal how close together such diverse languages can be.  After only 5 days of walking we've already passed from the French-language Pyrenees all the way through Basque.  Basque is 'Euskerra,' in their own language. 

I think today I walked through the exact photo on the cover of the guidebook - a dusty track leading through yellow and green fields:
 

Up to a hill crested with windmills, rows and rows of them stretching like white sentinels in both directions.  Yesterday I learned from a Spanish girl that windmill is 'molina de viento', and she referenced the Don Quixote windmill scene.  I learned that Catalan is its own separate language, which she speaks... and then after her I walked with a Ukrainian woman for the last stretch to Pamplona, and spent 4 km trying to learn phrases in Ukrainian.  Her boyfriend is walking the Northern Camino route while she walks this one, and they're meeting at the cathedral in Santigo (so romantic).  She spoke very little english or spanish and had not met a single other Ukrainian or Russian as she walked alone.  (So brave). 

Hearing her story was an excellent distraction from blisters.  Today I walked a while with a German girl who suggested threading a thread through the blister - like, with a needle - so when you walk the thread helps all the fluid drain out.  I told her that sounded like serious surgery, though I do have a sewing kit; we'll see how desperate I become.  Anyway, then we reached this ridge of windmills, and pilgrim sculptures to commemorate the climb:

 

Complete with plenty of real-life pilgrims lounging and taking in the view.  The path itself was mild and meandering and not too steep; mostly, it's just hot. 

There were literal heat waves coming up off the fields approaching Uterga.  The whole town looked like a mirage.

Now, while walking away from Pamplona - while eating fruit, and stopping at wayside cemeteries, and listening to music, and enjoying the view - I had been thinking in the back of my mind, 'if Grandma was here, she'd tell me to soak my feet in Epsom salts.'  Something to make the skin harden and turn those blisters into calluses fast.  Then, lo and behold, when I stopped at this small Uterga albergue and told the owner I had blisters, he said he had 'la solucion!' and told me to go wait in the garden.  He brought out a tub of steaming water with salt, and a carefully folded towel, and looked quite pleased when I told him my grandma would have recommended this too. 

It's amazing how hard kindness hits you, when you finally admit you need help, and it comes from a stranger.  I almost sobbed.

Perhaps it's just being vulnerable.  I'm not used to feeling vulnerable, but these blisters so soon, with the long road ahead, have done it.  I feel ripped open and raw and at the mercy of others, and lying here tonight - having encountered only kindness - I'm left with overwhelming gratitude for this small hostel owner who gave me steaming saltwater and asked for nothing, and kept me safe all afternoon in the shade of his garden. 

Buen camino, and may you always find the help you need when you need it most.

-mlj

Day 3: Zubiri, and BLISTERS

Concrete stepping stones across a stream, in a beech forest near Zubiri

 My Mom asked what time pilgrims wake.  My grandma asked if I'd still be able to sleep in til noon.  Well, I'd heard horror stories of the early risers on the Camino, waking and walking before dawn.  (I thought: I'll never wake before dawn.)  The first hostel, in St. Jean in France, made me think it might not be so bad.  The owner actually told us - in no uncertain terms, in multiple languages - that we were not to wake up before 7 am under any circumstances, because the poor villagers of St. Jean were sick and tired of pilgrims wandering around when the town was still asleep ('before dawn', she said, 'is the nighttime!')  However, this morning, waking up at the second hostel in Roncesvalles was an entirely different story.  There were signs posted everywhere saying we must be cleared out by 8 am... and since this was a 182-bedder, I imagine they need time to clean.  Also, since everyone was exhausted and crawling into bed immediately after the welcome mass finished at 9 pm, I guess that is technically enough sleep.  I, however, found a whole room of books to choose from (probably left behind by other hikers who decided after the first day that books are too heavy), so instead of going to bed early I stayed up reading a battered copy of Game of Thrones.  The German man in the bunk beside me cheerfully commented that this must be an arm workout, as I held it up to read by headlamp.  He was soon snoring away.

I set my alarm for 7:15, thinking I'd push the snooze.  Then, lo and behold, at 6:15 am the hostelers came in a red-shirted parade through every single dormitory, playing guitars and singing a good morning wake-up song.  (No joke.  They were all volunteers from the Netherlands, the whole staff; at 6:15 am they were quite cheerful.)  Their song was not particularly complex, though it had a lovely melody - 'Good morning, good morning, good morning to you, time to wake up, el camino is waiting for you... good morning, and god bless you...'

I got up.  On the road with a steaming coffee cup (filled with more instant coffee, from the hostel kitchen sink) by 7:30.  Perhaps this is good training for me; perhaps I'll maintain this schedule when I get home.  As we traipsed away, all 182 of us, we crossed through 3 km of old, old oak forests that ended with a cross on the trail, and a sign saying this particular forest in the Basque region of Spain - close to the border of France, and directly south of Roncesvalles - was known for magic in medieval times, and the site of at least one witch burning.  Quite eerie and ethereal, in the pre-dawn light, with frost all around us still silvering the grass. 

Anyway.  Today was farmland, with cows and sheep and a whole field full of pregnant mares and their foals, and even the horses wearing bells around their necks:

(One horse watched the pilgrim ahead of me pass on the road). 

Then, what was supposedly the last of the old beech forests, as we headed south.  Beech trees are beautiful!  Gnarled and huge-trunked with vivid waxy leaves, and moss on all their trunks. 
 

Their size totally does not come across in that picture, but moss on their pale bark was just lovely, and also very clearly growing more on the north side of the trunks, just like in old foresters' tales.  And the sunlight.  Oh the sunlight!  Perhaps it wasjust because we started so early, with frost chilling our hands, our breath misting as we waited for the sun to rise.  But by 10 am, when most of us had been walking for hours, the sun filtering through the trees felt particularly golden and warm, and the trail like this otherworldly fantasy trek through an ethereal forest (perhaps it was just the signs speaking of magic earlier, planting thoughts in our heads? This forest felt like magic).  On the coldest mornings, I think, the sunlight feels warmer. 

In one town, a picturesque but somewhat questionable-looking water source was labeled as 'potable-good to drink...;' but I refrained from filling my water bottle, due to the large quantities of moss:

(The potable water is that little trickle emerging from the moss.) 
 
Through more beech forests, and more beech forests, 20 km onward to the little town of Zubiri.  Leaving by 7:30 am did mean I got here by 1:30, which was quite nice.  My bunk is above a Ukrainian lady's, and beside a Spanish lady's, and I joined them both in washing and hanging up clothes on the communal lines, before they fill up with other pilgrims' clothes:

I love the communal living.  I'm sure there are tons of other pilgrims staying in fancy hotels and having their luggage mailed ahead each day, but the travelers staying in these cheaper albergues are all prowling for grocery stores, and walking with apples and cheap baguettes sticking out of their backpacks, and handwashing clothes in the bathroom sinks. All the rustling in the bunk rooms at night makes me feel like one bird in a flock of birds, or one horse in a herd of horses, safe and anonymous and tuned to some shared rhythm.  Also, the bunks are quite close.  On the closeness of the bunks: last night in Roncesvalles, the bunk beds were organized in pairs, so both top and bottom bunks were so near to their neighbors as to be practically double beds.  I slept beside a retired German man with glasses, who cordially said good night, and then - when I stopped reading Game of Thrones long enough to smile and ask where he was from - told me all about the smallest German county beside Luxembourg and France, with a population of only 1 million, and a name that starts with a C which I've now forgotten (though he said it was a tiny county compared to Badem-Wurtemburg).  He also told me Germans go to Montana to buy Quarter Horses, and then ship them all the way back to Germany across the sea!

In other news, I have two blisters, one on each foot.  I was wearing multiple socks, but no good - blisters anyway.  With luck they won't last long, though in my experience that's never been the case with blisters.  They tend to last for weeks, the miserable companions.

I've been typing this in the heat of the day, from 2 - 3 pm in Zubiri (in that small building to the left of the clotheslines - the kitchen, with surprisingly strong WIFI).  Now off to explore the old stone buildings and sit by the river bridge, and undertake the first day of an experiment: whether I can learn to write in the afternoons instead of the mornings, because it looks like I'll be walking in the mornings. 
 

Buen camino.
 

-mlj

 

Camino Day 2: the Pyrenees, Roncesvalles, and no blisters yet!

The Pyrenees were extraordinary.  Nothing like Montana mountains, and not very high elevation (I think just a few thousand feet?) but nonetheless it felt alpine, climbing out of St. Jean, up and up and up winding roads.  This was me before starting (so nervous, as if I might twist my ankle on the way out of town and ruin it all before walking even one of the 800 km) with trusty guidebook and travel mug of instant coffee in hand, the coffee just mixed up in the hostel sink:

It was so surreal, being able to step out the door with nothing and just... go! 
After about 10 km of the 25, there was this little cafe/wayside rest, before the French town of Orisson - a single-lane road for miles in both directions, and just a cafe perched in the foothills:

The cost of the hostel tonight in Roncesvalles was just 8 euros (Yes!) and money spent on food was 0, thanks once again to this fantastic gallon bag of oatmeal-raisin-peanut butter trail rations, and to the boiled eggs I cooked and carried.  Today the Gorp waseaten in alpine meadows:

It felt so strange and selfish to be sitting there eating alone.  Like, can we really do this?  Are we really allowed to do this?  To land in another country, and pay nothing - no entry fee, no registration - and just start to walk, and spend all day taking in the vistas of their fields and meadows?  What I cannot pay the people of Spain back in money I will pay them back in awe.  I feel lightweight and deliriously free and overwhelmed by the unexpected sense of having nothing to do but wander and observe, to see it all and really see, and when we first started out this morning, like an idiot, I was just grinning.  The few Spanish farmers I passed smiled back with knowing nods.  I think they must see this expression often, shining out of pilgrims' eyes.

That photo does not do it justice, but the slope was STEEP!  There was snow on some mountains in the distance - and all the grass we walked through was grazed quite short, by sheep and cows and lots of mountain horses.

Finally, waiting on the other side of the mountains, after a very steep 4-mile downhill through lovely forests ankle-deep in leaves, lay the town of Roncesvalles, with a whole cathedral complex containing a massive 182-bed albergue and nightly 8 pm masses for pilgrims.  I attended the mass and it was all in Spanish and I understood... maybe half?  At least I captured the bones of a very good message (all-inclusive, regardless of faith) about praying for peace and an end to violence, and about being a light and a source of peace ourselves as we traveled.  The priests described each pilgrim as a light.  Whatever path we walk, whether here or in our normal lives, every action and interaction we have casts ripples, for good or bad. 

So choose to make them good ones. 

The perfect message for the world today.  Lastly, I guess it's normal to have all pilgrims take off their shoes immediately upon entering, and store them on shelves, in side rooms, to contain the overwhelming stench.  Witness these impressive racks of hiking boots, all identically dusty after traipsing through 25 km of mountain lanes and paths and oak forests:
 

(That's just one corner.  The entire room was filled with boots.  Many simple worn brown leather like mine, nondescript and beaten-in by lifestyles involving lots of walking, and virtually identical; I stashed mine in a lower corner, to be sure I'd find them in the morning.)


Also, no blisters yet!

Buen camino,

mlj
 

Camino de Santiago Day 1: France!

St. Jean-Pied-de-Port, France, start of the Camino Frances through Spain

Today, I left Stuttgart in a mild snowstorm (after visiting my brother, who's studying abroad in Germany.) I landed in Bilbao, Spain, to sunlight glinting off the ocean and palm trees.  It's my first time traveling alone. 

I was terrified. 

First, public transportation: I love to walk, so the Camino will likely be a good fit, but public transportation terrifies me (it's out of my control!  What if I get on the wrong bus!  What if I misread the schedule!  Ah!) and to reach the classic starting point of the Camino Frances all the way up at the French border, in St. Jean, France, there is... really no easy way.  I found other blog posts.  I fretted.  I suspected I'd need to find three separate buses, none of which could be pre-ordered online, and did not see how this wouldn't end in disaster.   And then - as is usually the case - everything worked out... fine.  The Bilbao airport has buses straight to San Sebastian, and from there another bus to Pamplona (or, alternately, to Bayonne, France, but I didn't realize this in time) and from there, a hellish, winding, nearly vomit-ridden ride across the Pyrenees to St. Jean, France. 

I had a two-hour layover waiting for that last bus through the Pyrenees.  And, as if to teach me to relax and that all my worrying had been for naught, the Pamplona station was the prettiest bus station I'd ever seen: all underground, with escalators rising up to emerge from this glassy cube beside the most amazing public park:

Old fortified ruins, in the middle of Pamplona.  There were teenagers climbing the walls.  Mothers pushing strollers.  Numerous dogs, and strolling couples, and a general Spanish enjoyment which shattered my German punctuality.  After the plane flight, I was actually quite tired.  I mixed instant coffee under a cold bathroom sink (the bathrooms in a tunnel of this old fortress were also beautiful) and learned that yes, in dire situations and with enough shaking-up, instant coffee can indeed be dissolved in cold water. 

The drive through the Pyrenees was one of the worst 1 1/2 hours of my life.  I came within inches of vomiting, but managed to hold it in by both plugging my nose and deep breathing.  So many switchbacks!  Up one mountain vale and down another, and now starting tomorrow we get to walk it and climb all those switchbacks on foot, but thank goodness because at least it won't be in a bus!  I'm getting carsick again just thinking about it, so on to:
 

The town of St Jean!  Really, really beautiful.  I'd heard the south of France was beautiful, but man, if it all looks like this!  Full of rolling hills and terraces and switchbacking roads.  For some reason I'd imagined myself arriving alone, this early in April, but our bus unloaded after other buses, and I joined a long line of pilgrims with backpacks:
 

That's a trail of fellow backpackers, as we all wandered in bewildered circles trying to find where we registered and got our seashells.  When one hostel filled, they ushered me up the road to the next hostel, run by an extremely assertive frenchwoman who has ten adopted cats, two dogs, and does not allow shoes inside, declaring that anyone who wears shoes inside will be thrown out back with the chickens (she can say this in at least four languages).  (I later learned this was a rule in every hostel, to reduce the stench of hundreds of hiking boots: she got us well trained.)  On this first night I met: 3 friendly Americans,  1 Portuguese, 2 Italians, 3 Spanish men, 1 Spanish girl, 1 Czech woman, 1 German girl, and several Koreans. 

Amount spent on buses: 17 euros + 7 + 20 (GROAN!  20 euros for that hellish switchbacking near-puke-fest!  These people KNOW there's no other way for us to get to the start and we'll pay anything for the last leg of the journey!  Though, maybe it was just more expensive to pay for all the brake pads they run through on that bus line.  Our brakes definitely smelled like burning rubber.)

Amount spent on hostel: 10 euros (yes!)

Amount spent on food: 0, thanks to my brother's incredible bag of super-gorp, mixed with peanut butter, raisins, and granola before I left Germany:
 

The sheep were really wearing bells.  Also, that is a gallon size bag filled with high-calorie gorp; we'll see how many kilometers of walking it fuels. 

And lastly:
 

The official camino entry sign through the archway: the seashell we'll be following all across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, 800 km down the trail, and a figure of slightly hunchbacked-looking old pilgrim.   (My backpack feels light now.  But I have a feeling I'll be wanting to abandon belongings... to type on I bought an older version of this Logitech keyboard, which weighs ounces and connects via bluetooth to my old iPhone 4s phone; no laptop or ipad to carry.  Nothing heavy, and nothing valuable to steal.  This first trial - typing late at night on my phone - is perfect.  An Italian guy is snoring above me, I just heard a cowbell pass in the street outside, and this keyboard is almost silent, typing in the dark with 8 other people sleeping around me.)

Tomorrow: on foot to Roncesvailles!

Buen camino,

-mlj

The Pilgrim's Tale

the view from a hilltop 'wanderweg' trail in Germany: thE GerMANs hAVE walking trails... everywhere.

First, the story of the old German pilgrim.

Years ago, a friend and I were sitting on a bench in Lucca, Italy (or someplace similar) and an old gentleman walked up and asked if he could sit down beside us.  Of course, being young females at night, we started inching immediately toward the opposite side of the bench.  A healthy caution, to be sure, but as he sat and talked - just visiting with fellow foreigners, because he was traveling alone - he told us the most amazing tale, and if we'd left we would have missed it.  

He loved to walk.  He’d always loved to walk, alone most of all.  His favorite way to see places was on foot.  He didn’t have much money, but on occasion he’d leave his wife at home in Germany (“She,” he said, “does not so much like the walking”) and he’d take off on one of the old pilgrim’s trails criss-crossing Europe, which are still used today.  As a pilgrim, he said, you get a pilgrimage card, collect stamps at each church you stay at, and even sometimes stay there for free. 

“Old Catholic trails,” he said. “For pilgrims on their way to visit holy relics.”  

I told him that sounded amazing.  Unfortunately, I was not Catholic.  Though hearing of these pilgrim trails, I almost wished I was.  

Then he gave us the most conspiring smile.  He pulled out his card, already stamped by a dozen Catholic churches.  “Ssh," he whispered, glancing around the piazza, which babbled obliviously on in Italian.  "Do not tell anyone.  But, I am not Catholic either.  I am Protestant.”  

And with that, as my friend and I grinned in helpless delight, he got up and winked and strode away.  After a few paces he turned back to say:

"One thing.  One thing you must remember, when traveling alone.  Wherever you stop, always look back to be sure you haven’t left anything.”

He surveyed the bench where he’d sat, checked the ground with great flourish, then gave us a bow and wandered happily away across the plaza.  His pants were worn.  His shoes were dusty.  His face looked at once solemn and mirthful.  I remember he seemed both wise and on the verge of laughter - the same way I always feel when walking alone.  When I come untethered, and I’m reacting to no one, and the slightest startling bird song makes me burst into a grin.  

As he walked - ironically - something fell from his pocket, and he did not look back or notice.  He left it behind.  

A pencil.

I picked it up from the cobbles, in the lamplight: short, wood-colored, sharpened down to only a few inches long.  I remember keeping that pencil, tucking it away.  I stashed it safely in my toiletries bag, where it sits to this day.  I’ve carried it everywhere.  Though now,  reading the pencil’s label, I almost doubt it was his, because the writing is in English.  Shouldn’t his pencil be in German?  Am I misremembering?  Was this pencil really his?  And yet, it’s the pencil I remember being his, worn and short and dusty, and I’ve carried it ever since.

As the man walked away I remember gazing after him, and thinking: I love to walk.  

Of course, back then, I still didn’t know quite how much I loved to walk… but even then I knew it.  I knew walking stirred stories in my head, and cemented directions in my mind, and that I’d never feel at home in a place until I’d walked it alone.  And I'd just met someone else who felt the same.

I remember thinking: I, too, have very little money.  I felt guilty buying anything.  I always felt inadequate, especially then, on that summer abroad in Italy, like no matter how hard I worked I didn’t deserve to be there, couldn’t afford it.  I really couldn’t.  I’m still paying off the loan, and will be for the next ten years.  But that summer abroad in Rome - among the ancient monuments and myths and ruins, along worn cobblestones so many millions of heroes and villains had walked - was like a summons, the sort of longing that comes along infrequently, and turns you illogical.  

Perhaps it’s a longing for the life you want to have, or the person you want to be.   

It happened when I watched that pilgrim walk away.  A deep yearning, though I didn’t know it at the time.

He became one of those visions: of who I wanted to be.  I didn’t dare, I couldn’t imagine, but I think in that moment I started dreaming, and as so often happens when we encounter a person we admire, the whole world readjusted to accommodate this new vision of what I could be.  I’ve had that feeling several times since.  Once was in my fifth year of architecture school, nearing graduation, a year after meeting this pilgrim.  It happened when I started reading writer’s blogs, and learning famous writers were also insecure and filled with self-doubt and good humor and years of trials and failures just like me.  Laini Taylor.  Marissa Meyer.  Kristin Cashore.  I devoured all their blog posts on writing and I felt galvanized, like I’d met them, and now that I’d met them and seen what they’d done it seemed possible.  To have writing as a career, instead of a practical office job, like architecture.  I’d been writing for years and always felt selfish for doing it, like something I loved this much ought not to be legal.  

That became the reason for writing this blog.  I imagine these posts going unread for years, but still, I ought to start writing them now.  Because somewhere down the line two decades from now, a young writer may read these after reading my books, and see that I, too, was filled with self-doubt and ran out of money and felt selfish for choosing writing over an ordinary career, but I did it anyway.  Even though it was hard.  Even though I felt I wasn’t good at it, not good at all, that writing must be easier for everyone else, but still, in the quiet hours before I fell asleep, when I daydreamed about the sort of person I'd want to be, they were always daydreams about a brave woman who wrote wild and unruly stories for teens, and traveled alone, and went on pilgrimage treks and talked to strangers in the piazzas of foreign countries at night.  I imagined myself writing blog posts that inspired young writers who doubted themselves, blog posts made them say yes.  

I imagined myself at the end of the road, instead of the beginning.

Now, this Wednesday, I'll be in Spain starting the 500-mile Camino de Santiago: my first pilgrimage trek.  I'll be following the yellow seashell symbol all across Spain.

It's a well-worn trail from France across Galicia all the way to the sea.  Pilgrims walk with only packs on their backs, just like the bards of old, in the fantasy novels I always loved to read.  Pilgrims stay in cheap municipal hostels or churches and do it for all sorts of reason: religious or otherwise, spiritual or transitional, or just plain gratitude and a desire to marvel at the world. 

Mostly, I just love rituals.

I'm scared and excited and anxious.  Years ago, when I daydreamed about traveling and walking alone I never daydreamed that I'd be scared. 

But maybe the people we admire were always scared when they started. 

Happy scribbling.

- mlj

Prague, and heraldry, and beasts, and finding your style of travel

Some people travel for food.  

They eat local dishes, in local restaurants, and feel like they know a place.  Some people travel for pubs.  Some people travel for museums.  Some people travel for selfie shots.

I think I travel for stories, and for words.

I love guided tours, and broken conversations with local shopkeepers, and spying on locals’ lives, but more than that, I love learning the stories layered in old spaces, and collecting the myths of a place, and walking where legends once walked.  If I learn the story of some past tragedy or some local’s hopes and dreams, I’ll remember that place forever.  Stories make it real.  

And I love using real places in stories.  

Especially real places in fantasy stories.  Especially gritty, specific details that I know will make a fantasy story seem real.  In Prague, I’ve been deliriously recording statues that show part-humans part-beasts, and recording all the shield-symbols of medieval heraldry I can find, scurrying about the city’s old town like  a delighted sketchbook-clutching crab.  I don’t have money, but this doesn’t cost any; I love finding pastimes that give me an excuse to go weaving around an old historic city, anything that lets me look busy for free.  Imagining histories for characters.  Imagining how particular old symbols or etchings or cobblestone patterns could be clues to some archaic magic system.  I’m imagining all these underground cellars used by characters in hiding, and the heraldry shields painted on ceilings identifying ancestors of old.

Whoever you are, wherever you are, I hope you find the style  of travel that suits you best, and don’t worry if it’s a strange one.  

Happy scribbling.

-mlj

Recipes for Writers: Homemade Ginger Tea

What qualifies a good Writer's Recipe? 

First, it must acknowledge the facts of a writer's life:

1: We have no time.

2: We are stressed.

3: We will eat whatever leftovers or snack is most easily reached by our keyboard-numbed fingers, be it healthy or terrible for us, in order to finish a makeshift meal within five minutes and get back to writing a scene. 

4: We tend to be overcaffeinated, dehydrated, and probably malnourished. 

Therefore!  An ideal writer's recipe is quick to prepare, low-stress and uncomplicated, lasts for several days of leftovers (therefore saving future food preparation time), and... is good for us. 

Enter, the ultimate writer's drink: homemade ginger tea.  This is the perfect hot drink to stave off writing doldrums and winter blues.  Also, ginger is supposed to make you smarter, or some such thing.  So next time you're stuck on a plot line, boil up some ginger root for super-tea.    Caffeine free and delicious.  Boil a gigantic pot and reheat the ginger water for days to come.

Go ahead.  You deserve it. 

Ingredients: hunk of ginger root, 1 lemon, honey

(optional: dash of red pepper powder and himalayan sea salt, if you're going for the five chinese flavors of salty, spicy, pungent, sweet, and sour in one mug of sheer perfection.*)

Full disclosure: I did not invent this recipe.  I worked a summer at a backcountry chalet in Glacier National Park, spending 10 weeks 7 miles away from any roads or civilization or wifi, and our wonderful manager would make a batch of this whenever one of our crewmembers seemed to be coming down with a cold, or worse.  (The last thing we wanted was a flurry of flu in the backcountry, with no hospitals and no replacement staff if we keeled over.)  It worked, every time.  

Use real lemons instead of extract if you can afford it (but don't feel bad if you can't.)  There's always more vitamins in the real thing.  And if you slice up a whole ginger root, and boil your biggest pot, you can have ginger water to reheat for a week.  Many, many mugs of tea.  

Step 1: Peel ginger root and slice into flakes.

Step 2: Boil ginger root for 30 minutes to several hours.  30 minutes if you don't want a strong ginger flavor...  3 hours if you go out to feed the horses or go for a long walk on a back road and forget about your tea.  Not to worry, it'll still taste fine.  (Boiling on a wood cookstove not required.) 

Step 3: Scoop hot ginger water into a mug, stir in a tablespoon of honey, and squeeze in the juice of half a lemon.  Stir until all the honey's dissolved, and...

Enjoy the perfect concentration-boosting mug of ginger tea.  Boiling fresh ginger packs more punch than any tea bag. 

* Now, the reason I also add a dash of red pepper and sea salt to my mugs of tea...

My lesson on electrolyte depletion and dehydration. 

Last winter, I went to see an acupuncturist during the computer screen headache fiasco.  This was my first time trying acupuncture - it was AWESOME, and I came out feeling lightweight and airy.  But the most lasting thing I learned from that session was to hydrate with more than simple water.  This acupuncturist was incredible, and so kind.  She talked about how common caffeine addiction is these days (cough, cough) and, as a result, widespread dehydration.  We all know to drink lots of water.  But water alone is not quite enough, and gatorade and so-called electrolyte sports drinks tend to be mostly high fructose corn syrup (yuck, yuck.  Avoid at all costs).  Caffeine and diuretics force fluids through our body faster, and as a result you're losing more trace minerals too, in your urine every time you pee.  Sometimes you get so dehydrated you can drink water and more water but still just feel... empty.  Your body can't process fluids, without also receiving salts and electrolytes to add to your cells.  So, this acupuncturist shared a lesson from her own days as a recovering coffee addict: an older mentor gave her the advice to follow the system of 5 Chinese flavors, and replenish her body's vital nutrients as well as water in every cup of tea she drank. 

Add lemon, and ginger, and honey, and salt, and hot pepper.   You can add these to your mugs of actual green tea, too.  Cayenne pepper for Spicy/Acrid; lemon juice for Sour; honey for Sweet; sea salt for Salty; ginger for Bitter/Pungent. 

There is some ancient wisdom to be had here (more than can be learned in one lifetime).  If you haven't yet looked into the five flavors and corresponding effects on organs and healing in traditional Eastern medicine, I'd strongly suggest you keep investigating.  And if you want an incredibly enlightening and also lightheardedly-written guide to QiGong and energy healing- complete with scientific evidence and explanations- I'd strongly, strongly, strongly recommend 'The Way of Qigong' by Kenneth S Cohen.  (Given to me by a friend; I read it three times in one winter.) 

I had further proof of just how many trace minerals and essential salts we lose every time we sweat and urinate this summer, in Glacier Nat'l Park.  The mountain goats (which are usually somewhat rare, and fairly shy) positively congregated around the backcountry chalet where I worked, their bulging black eyes fixed hopefully on every passing human.  They wanted... salt.  If hikers left socks drying on railings, the socks soon disappeared; mountain goats stole and chewed on multiple sweaty articles of clothing.  If hikers walked off trail to relieve themselves in the trees, mountain goats recognized the distinctive tinkling sound and came running, in a sometimes-frightening horde.  And every morning, without fail, a handful of mountain goats would be feverishly licking the rocks in front of the chalet, where male guests sometimes failed to make the walk to the outhouse the night before, and simply relieved themselves over the railing (despite frequent reminders by chalet staff to not do precisely this.  So much for keeping the wildlife wild). 

An unexpectedly... intimate relationship with the local residents. 

We want your pee.

Anyway.  Enjoy your ginger tea and replenish your body's salt!

Happy writing, fellow scribblers.  Whatever your current project, may it go well, and even if it doesn't, carry on.  We want to read the worlds you write. 

-mlj

Visual Outlining: Drawing your novel's chapters and word count on a narrative arc

If you're a visual thinker, and you haven't yet tried this, let me tell you: there's nothing so clarifying as seeing your novel unfold from left to right.  Lists are nice, and bullet-point outlines are fine, but nothing ever points out blank spaces in a plot quite like... drawing it and seeing the literal blank spaces.  I write out word count along the bottom like a thermometer: from '0 words' on the left, to whatever your final estimate is for your finished novel- 50,000, 75,000.  400,000 if you're Brandon Sanderson or Patrick Rothfuss.  For mine, I put 100,000.  Then I split the whole plot arc into 1,000 word increments.  As writers with computers, we're all so used to thinking in word counts now- with scrivener giving word count for individual chapters- this is one way to picture just how far along that narrative arc you'll progress by chapter 5, or how many words you envision for a certain scene.  

Because if you've thought up ten incredibly epic scenes?  With funny dialogue and great character friction, and brilliant explosions, or kissing, or sleuthing, or whatever the point of your genre is?  And if you estimate each scene, once written, will take 6,000 or 7,000 words?  Then that's... basically your novel.  Just figure out the transitions that will tie it all together.  (I find this hugely comforting.)

First, a pressing question: I imagine you're wondering what that lovely sheet of paper is in the photo.  It's extra long.  It's off-white.  It's just the right size for making atractive plot arcs as wide as a desk.  Or the whole wall of your living room.

Answer: PAPER TOWELS. 

How convenient.  The ideal tool for drawing out your very own plot arc can be found in any commercial bathroom near you!  Long lengths of unspooled paper towel can unfurl like a scroll, if your plot just keeps expanding, and best of all, they're free.  I've found I brainstorm much better with non-fancy materials.  There's something un-intimidating and inviting about swiping a length of restroom paper towels and scurrying away to your nearest writing hideout, scribbling plans for a future bestselling novel on something that would otherwise have been used to wipe soapy hands (or worse) and thrown away.  A diamond in the rough; you're Aladdin.  It's like magic.

1: First, draw your curve.  This is a narrative arc, the sort you've seen on blackboards in English classes.  A long, steep rising action where we build tension, a hump where the climax / final battle scene / romantic confession all reach explosive showdowns, and then a short decline to the finish.  Most stories - regardless of length - follow this rhythm.  You can complicate it if you wish, by adding additional ups and downs to show the highs and lows, excitements and disasters of your story.  The spiky up-down-up-down of try/fail cycles.  The deep dip of a character's 'long dark night of the soul' just before he picks himself up off the ground for the climax.  Add whatever you like, but the simplest is just this curve.  The buildup is long; the climax usually starts around the 4/5 mark; and after the climax, the dropoff to the conclusion is as short as possible.  After the hero wins (or doesn't, maybe she dies) end it quick while readers are still high on the buzz of your story. 

2: Draw a line under your plot arc; this is where we'll label word count. 

3: Next, pick your word count estimate - your best guess for how long your novel will be when you type 'The End'.  If you're doing Nanowrimo, try 50,000.  I usually put 100,000.  To look up word counts for your favorite novels and see how long they are, check out perma-bound.com under 'reading information' after you search for your favorite novel.

Split your word count into increments, at the halfway mark, and quarter mark... 0, 25,000, 50,000, 100,000...

Then keep dividing, smaller and smaller, until your word count bar has increments of 5,000, or 1,000.  (Doesn't have to be perfectly even.  Don't bother using a ruler.)  When you're done you'll have a road map of teeny tiny increments leading all the way to 'the end'.  Each of those dashes signifies a few pages in a book, all lining up to make a narrative arc.  I love this part.  Each of those dashes - each 1,000 word mark - is two or three or four hours of writing, depending on your speed.  I mean, I know the hard part is figuring out what to write.  I know every chapter gets revised three or four times.  But still, to finish a first draft?  When you look at it like this, word by word?  The actual writing of a book seems so possible.  That narrative arc is built of tiny chunks of words, just like bricks on a house, and you can do it.  Brick by brick.  One word at a time.  Whatever story you're dreaming of, you can write it. 

4:  At the middle mark, draw some sort of squiggle or tormented symbol to mark your character's 'mirror moment'.  This is a great concept I first heard about at an SCBWI Montana event, and I've since realized James Scott Bell wrote a whole book around the idea.  (James Scott Bell on The Magical Midpoint Moment).  At the midpoint of many stories - almost all stories - the main character has an epiphany, or a crisis of identity, or gets backed against a wall, and they resolve to keep going.  It's a moment of literal 'reflection'.  Your character looks at what they've done so far.  They may almost give up, almost lose faith, almost turn back... but after reaching deep inside, they decide: no.  They're going to win.  They're going to try again, keep going, keep pursuing their lover, keep chasing the bad guy, etc. 

Another way to look at it?  Up until the middle, your character is reactive.  They're reacting to the bad guy or main antagonist / rival.  Someone else is striking blows at your protagonist.  Outside events force his life to change, and he's surviving as best he can.  After the middle?  Once your character has taken stock?  Made up his or her mind?  Become resolved?  Recommitted?  Then, he or she is active. 

For the second half of the story, she's fighting back.  Making a plan.  Not running from the bad guy but chasing the bad guy.  Planning how to stop him.  Not hiding from the enemy forces, but actively planning the final battle. 

You don't have to know how this works in your story right now, but draw it on your arc - it's just one more tool that might help generate ideas later, if you get stuck. 

I draw a jagged thing like a shattering window.  Like my character is literally having their soul cracked in half, as they choose to leave behind who they were and become who they will be. 

5:  Next, around the 1/5th mark, draw some sort of symbol for a doorway: the first 'doorway of no return.'  Somewhere around here, events happen that force your character to leave their old life behind and plunge forward into the unknown.  (James Scott Bell on 'Doorway of No Return').   Maybe it's a decision; maybe it's an attacker, or a job offer, or a war.  Whatever inciting event changes the status quo, some new element enters your character's life, and once they've passed this doorway of no return... there is no going back.  

This is the trick of any plot, really.  Your characters will probably go through terrible, terrifying, nerve-wracking, difficult, or humiliating things.  If not, it's boring.  So the trick is... why do they go?  Convince us why they care, and we care.  The more your character's pulse pounds and they want something, badly, the more our pulse pounds and we want it, badly.  The crafting of a good plot means you devise a reason why your character cannot simply turn around go back to their safe and normal life. 

Either, a) they don't want to.  (Because something is wrong, or missing, and they're determined to fix or find it.) 

Or, b) they can't go back because someone's chasing them.  And they'd die.

The more interesting the reason, the more interesting your plot.

Around the 3/4 mark, draw another doorway: the second 'doorway of no return.' Around this point, an event or revelation or discovery probably forces your character forward into the climax.  The climax is the epic battle or showdown, the most highly-charged point of your novel: the second doorway of no return is the event or decision that makes them decide to go for it.  They're going to risk it all.  (Reputation, their life, their honor - whatever they'll be stripped of if they lose.)

The exact placement of these 'doors' really doesn't matter.  Ignore the ratios completely if you like.  But as a tool, this helps generate ideas.  If you're stuck, wondering what should be happening at some point in your story... the 'doorways of no return' might spur breakthroughs.  Draw them on.

(I draw a literal doorway.  Like, if your character was walking uphill on the narrative arc, they'd have to go through it.)

6: Finally, and most important: Whatever the core conflict or quest of your novel is? Write it down.  This is the thread of awesome you'll cling to when all else seems foggy. 

Jim Butcher's 2-sentence 'Story Skeleton' (taken from his own writing instructor) is the best and most brilliant technique I've found for clarifying your story idea:

How to write a Story Skeleton, by Jim Butcher

If you haven't already, go read his post, because he's funny and clever.  Then write out your book's conflict in 2 sentences.  Fill in the blanks:  'When ____ happens, your protagonist decides to ____.  But will they succeed when ____ stands in their way?'  (Note: this is really hard.  I always want to skip this step.  DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP.  If you do ONLY ONE THING for any story, do this.  Give your character a goal they're passionate about.  And throw in someone who's trying to stop them.  Anytime your story's sagging, it's probably because your character either is not actively trying to attain a thing they badly want... or, nobody is trying to stop him/her.  All the trappings and set dressing and fine prose can fall in around this, but that concept of a story skeleton makes a gripping story so much easier.) 

Now, write that 2-sentence story skeleton straight along your narrative arc.  It's literally the spine of your plot.  What does your character want?  Every chapter, every scene, your character should make progress toward that goal.  Maybe it's a battle; maybe it's a clue, a whispered meeting in an alley.  Progress can be physical or mental.  A character can work toward a goal by moving toward it or thinking about how to solve it.  Either way can be equally satisfying and gripping to read. 

Bravo!  You're done!  Add chapter divisions if you like.  I do, because it makes the chunks of the book look more manageable, and finishing any monumental task is all about breaking it into manageable chunks.  Eating a twenty-pound cookie.  Building a skyscraper.  Writing a novel.  I guess that chapters will be about 6,000 words (in reality some are 3,000 and some are 9,000, but at this stage nobody cares) and I draw in 6,000-word divisions, in pencil.  I draw in the chapter numbers, too - 1, 2, 3, 4 - and if I have any idea of a chapter name, I label it in pencil, just to see ideas start filling up. 

Now, go crazy.  Stick on sticky notes for ideas you've had; color code scenes; erase and cross out and add and delete.  Write in random bits of dialogue.  Draw pictures of places characters will wind up.  That cave.  That island.  That spaceship.  Tape on photos from Pinterest that inspire you; put them in the places they'd appear in the story.  Experiment.  Learn what works for you.  Think of all your favorite parts of stories you loved, and analyze why you loved them.  Draw arrows and write notes to yourself, and at this stage, no matter how crazy the idea seems, don't say no.  Outlining is half organizing and half brainstorming.  The brilliant idea-generating half of your brain is like a hurricane; the strict outlining half of your brain is like the Red Cross arriving to sort through the wreckage for salvageable building materials and survivors and clean up the mess.  

After this stage, then you'll start building. 

But in the meantime?  Give yourself permission to be messy.   (It's a lot easier to change scenes before you write them than after.  Unleash the hurricane.)

Happy writing,

-mlj

Recipes for Writers: cheapest homemade jerky? Beef heart!

Ingredients for this simple and easy homemade jerky are: heart meat, Bragg's Liquid Aminos (a soy sauce alternative - you can use soy sauce instead), powdered ginger, coarse black pepper, brown sugar, salt, and a dehydrator to dry it on.  Also, a really sharp knife.

In keeping with the writing lifestyle, an ideal writer's recipe must be:

Cheap (because we are usually poor.)  Low-stress (so as not to stress us out more than we already are),  Healthy (to fuel our writing brains).  And, preferably, something we can prepare once and eat for days or weeks after (to save on cooking time).  Ladies and gentlemen, you can make jerky once and eat it for months.

If you eat meat you probably love beef jerky.  But, store-bought jerky is expensive, and usually packed with preservatives.  Making jerky from scratch is simple, but buying all that meat can be expensive, too. 

Enter: beef hearts. 

This may be the cheapest- and quite possibly the healthiest- meat to use for homemade jerky. 

Now, if you think that looks disgusting, think again.  Once you cut off that thin casing of fat the meat inside is rich and red and perfectly fat-free; if you buy it in a grocery store instead of a butcher's shop, the heart may already be sliced into more appealing chunks.  (If this is the case, lament, because you'll miss the grisly fascination of slicing out heartstrings from inside the ventricles.)  I discovered heart meat in college, when I browsed the meat sections and realized it was cheaper than the cheapest of the reduced-price beef cuts.  Heart is delicious, highly nutritious, and (here in Montana, at least) a third of the price of steak.  But, don't let the low price fool you: for nutritional value alone, heart meat is a steal.  It's packed with iron and other nutrients, and is as low in fat as white-meat chicken.   If you've never tried heart, there's no strong organ flavor (like liver) or greasy texture (like tongue) or stored toxins (liver again.)  Just delicious red meat.

No wonder wolves go for the heart first. 

So, learn from the wolves and indulge your inner carnivore.  If you're feeling anemic, or just want some good on-hand ready-to-eat protein to fuel long nights of writing (for months to come) make a batch of beef heart jerky. 

Note: the slicing of the hearts is time-consuming.  I listen to audiobooks on headphones while cutting.  Slicing meat for hours on end is the perfect brainless listening-task. 

Second note: you'll need a dehydrator.  If you've never dehydrated before, prowl craigslist.  Used dehydrators come cheap. 

Step 0: Dig out your dehydrator.  (Make sure the racks are clean, and that it works when you plug it in.)

Step 1: Find heart meat.  (At grocery stores with a good meat section, or any butcher's or meat shop.)  I do jerky in big batches, and have the dehydrator running for a week at a time.  For this, I get a box of 8 or 9 hearts - about 20 pounds of meat. 

Step 2: Prepare marinade.  For approximately 5 lbs of meat, mix 1 32-oz bottle of Bragg Liquid Aminos soy sauce alternative (or about 4 cups of soy sauce) with 2 1/2 cups brown sugar, 4 Tb powdered ginger, 4 Tb coarse-ground black pepper, and 1 tsp salt.  Bragg Liquid Aminos are packed with soybeans' amino acids and super good for you; they're a healthier version of soy sauce, and I think they taste better.  (I use liquid aminos as a healthy dressing on salads, too).  Some grocery stores stock it, and all health food stores.  The bottle looks like this:

image source huffingtonpost.com

Marinade can be reused to soak a second round of meat, the following day. 

Step 3: Cut.  Slice meat as thin as you can while still making jerky-sized pieces.  I use a big finely-serrated knife.  Aim for the thickness of a ruler, or of a house key, but don't stress the slicing thinness.  Thicker pieces and chunks will all dry fine, they just take longer.  If you're slicing from whole hearts, remove all the white fat casing from the outside, and all the heart strings from inside the ventricles.  (Until this, I'd only ever heard of dragon heartstring as the core of Harry Potter's wand -  I never knew hearts had actual heartstrings.  They're incredibly strong, like super-thin nylon cord fused to the inside of the ventricle.  Bodies are amazing.) 

Heart strings

More heart strings, cut loose.

Heart strings are these tiny, slippery white strands that... keep the flaps closed in our heart.  They're called 'chordae tendonae', the tendons connecting the valves to the heart muscle, and they're about 80% collagen, 20% elastin.  These keep blood where it's supposed to be when our hearts are pumping, to maintain blood pressure, so our hearts can pump it out through our arteries.  Every single time our heart beats, these little strings are working.  For our whole lives.  Isn't that crazy? 

Anyway.  Back to jerky. 

Step 4: Soak sliced meat in marinade for 12-24 hours.  (Longer won't hurt, if you've marinated more meat than can fit on the dehydrator in one batch.  Marinating longer just makes it saltier.)

Step 5: Dehydrate.  Lay meat flat on dehydrator racks and dry for 8-12 hours, depending on thickness.  Dry until meat is no longer sticky, but preferably not so long that jerky strips shatter when you try to pry them off the racks (although there's nothing wrong with jerky being that dry, it's just incredibly annoying to pry it off the racks with a fork.)

All racks of the dehydrator filled with jerky, now ready to be lidded and plugged in to dry...

Step 6: Devour.  Save for your own late nights or long trips, or give to fellow carnivorous friends. 

As a note on preservation: I'm not sure how Bragg's Liquid Aminos compares to soy sauce for salt content.  Both salt and dryness preserve the meat.  You can easily carry this jerky around for a week in your backpack without it going bad, probably a lot longer.  I've never had jerky spoil, and I've kept it in a car while camping for two weeks.  But, best not to take chances.  Always freeze all homemade jerky in ziploc bags, until you're ready to pull out a bag and eat it in the next week or two.  Just in case. 

Happy eating (and writing.)

-mlj

Nanowrimo: Finding character names in cemeteries, and taking advice from the dead

Counteract the Nanowrimo crunch with a trip to the graveyard. 

WHAT, you say.  I'M DEPRESSED ENOUGH TRYING TO NAME MY CHARACTERS AND WRITE MY STORY WITHOUT A TRIP TO THE GRAVEYARD.  I ALREADY FEEL LIKE THIS NOVEL MIGHT KILL ME.

I know.  Day after day! This task is too big!  We're just mortals!  We'll soon be dead!  Probably sooner rather than later, thanks to these novels! 

If you're worried about your word count this month, or this week, or this day, or this hour, consider an expedition to a place those measures of time no longer matter.  Cemeteries are real great for putting things in perspective.  A disclaimer: I have no one buried here.  My grandfather's ashes were scattered in the mountains; grandma wants to follow suit, so I don't know if our family will ever have stones to visit, or plots of grass.  These aren't my dead.  They're simply the dead, and the words they always whisper are these:

This too shall pass. 

The people buried here saw plagues and famines in their lifetimes, crop failures and bankruptcy, marriage and heartache and loss.  Whenever I get too caught up in myself- in an encroaching deadline, a dead-end plot thread, a whole scene thrown away, a whole chapter, a whole novel- I come here to realize how small those worries are in the scope of an entire life.  And how small an entire life is in the scope of the world. 

Also, I come to steal names. 

Rule #1 for stealing names from graveyards: Don't ever use the first names and last names together.    
Rule #2: Don't let anybody catch you sitting on their dead uncle.
Rule #3: Enjoy the soft grass.  

Cemeteries are extraordinary places.  Memory, and permanence, designed to outlast lifetimes.  Plus the cemetery caretakers do such a lovely nice job of mowing and putting out benches.  And cemeteries are quiet.  I like the older sections, with the crumbling mossy headstones.  If the dates are all from the 1800's, chances are not many people visit any more.  No one will find you scribbling away beside their relative.   
    Cemeteries are wonderful places to write.  
    I don't think the dead mind; I don't sit on their headstones.  I keep them company, and they repeat their slow reminder that grows more soothing the more frazzled you are: 
    "Whatever you're worried about, small young mortal thing, it's really quite fleeting, and not so scary at all.  We saw worse, in our lifetimes.  We survived.  At least until we didn't.  This too shall pass."
    The sun will set; the sun will rise.  Winter fades.  Spring returns.  
 

Happy writing.

-mlj

Nanowrimo: how much is 50,000 words? Looking up book word counts with perma-bound.com

So, how much is 50,000 words?  And how long are the novels on your shelf?

If you're just dying to see how your work-in-progress measures up to your favorite novels, or you're in the depths of despair because it might be longer than any feasible book ever written, or you're mortified it may be too short, or if you're just looking for another way to procrastinate instead of actually writing...

Look up book word counts at perma-bound.com. 

Perma-bound lists word counts for almost all the books they sell, except some very new ones that probably haven't been counted yet.  Go to perma-bound.com; search for your book; click it, and then click 'Reading Information.'  (I've heard Renaissance Learning lists word count too.)  Perma-bound is splendid.  I've come here dozens of times, usually wondering how long YA Fantasy tends to be (shorter than mine), how long debut novels tend to be (much shorter than mine), and how often a debut author has published a first book as long as mine (not very.)  Eventually, I stop procrastinating and get back to trying to cut words. 

If you're in the throes of Nanowrimo (Happy November!  Happy Novel Writing Month!) and you're wondering just what 50,000 words looks like, here are a few shortish novels followed by others in increasing size: 

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt: 27,848

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho: 39,242

The Giver, Lois Lowry: 43,617

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams: 46,333

Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson: 46,591

The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner: 68,519

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling: 77,508

Cinder, Marissa Meyer: 87,661

Redwall, Brian Jacques: 101,289

The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater: 110,085

Seraphina, Rachel Hartman: 112,929

Graceling, Kristin Cashore: 115,109

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss: 255,986

Happy writing, regardless of word count. 

-mlj

Nanowrimo: Naming your characters! A variety of methods.

(Naming assistant)

Firstly, if you're in the midst of Nanowrimo and you're in a breathless hurry, here's the simplest and quickest and most efficient name site I've found:

behindthename.com 

I've browsed online name sites for years and somehow never managed to reach behindthename in a search, so I'm reposting it here.  It's thorough, it gives ethnicity and meaning, and it displays in a nice long list to scroll through so you don't waste have your writing time clicking next and waiting for the screen to load.  And, best of all, it lets you easily search by top letter in the top bar. 

Step 1: choose a different first letter for all your characters. 

Step 2: Pick your favorite by sound, spelling, meaning, or cultural origin (preferably all 4) 

Now, must you have different first letters for all characters?  This is common writing advice (a la Orson Scott Card and many others).  At first I was skeptical, but I started paying attention.  As a reader, did I really find it confusing when two main characters had same-letter first names?  Was it really that much easier to read fast when all I had to identify was the first letter?  Actually... yes.  In a few recent books, where multiple characters' names began with A or D, and they were not only in the same scene but having rapid-fire conversations, the sort of banter you want to read quickly without mistaking names... yes.  It slowed me down a little.  Not much, but those first letters made it just a little more difficult to read, and if you want your readers to have an easy time, why bog them down with such an easy fix?  Burn your difficulty points elsewhere. 

The easier your book is to read, the more people will read it. 

So!  Now I make alphabet lists, with names by first letter, and when naming a new character, choose a letter not yet taken. 

This only matters if characters' names will apper side by side in the text.  No need to fuss if they're in alternating points of view from Sri Lanka and Siberia. 

While you're analyzing names:

• Vary the length and number of syllables between characters. Sam, Rachel, Jackalope, and Al-Faridi just look better and more interesting together than Sam, Ray, Jack, and Al.  (Or, far worse, Sam, Sal, Sarge, and Seth.) 

• The literal appearance of the name on paper is the first visual readers will have of your character.  Bob seems solid; Valinesse seems ornate and slippery.  Probably a villain.  Probably why so many villain names include the snake-hiss-sneaky sounds of the letters S, V, and Z. 

•  The ethnic background of a name will form our picture of a character more clearly than any description you give.  Choose wisely.  This is tricky, especially in American families, where our lineages are thoroughly scrambled.  We are mutts.  But for sheer ease of readers visualizing a character: if his last name is O'Malley and you describe him once as Hispanic (entirely possible, if his Mom's Venezuelan and his Dad's Irish, and he's got his Dad's last name), then repeat the name O'Malley dozens of times throughout the book… maybe we'll remember he was Hispanic.  But that O' in front of the last name is so traditionally Irish, that we also might forget.  If you name him Rodriguez, problem solved.  Sometimes all we see of side characters is what their name looks like on the page.  So if you want us to picture a team of professionals or staff of teachers as racially diverse, choose racially diverse last names, and readers see it with no further description. 

Anyway!  Where else can you find names?

1) Ethnic registries.  If you know your character comes from a certain culture, search it: 'Traditional Pakistani Surnames', or 'Common South Korean first names for girls in 1980', if you know when and where your character was born. 

2) Mythology, if you want to add history to a character.  The middle name 'Medusa' is bound to foreshadow something about a character's dangerous hair, or dangerous eyes, or turning some life form to stone. 

3) A Latin dictionary (or other obscure language), if you want to invent your own name from root words.  The Latin for poison is 'venenum'; the meaning could lend a foreboding clue to the means of murder preferred by a villain named V.E. Nenum. 

4) And, my personal favorite, because this is also one of my favorite places to write: cemeteries.  (to be cont'd.)

Happy writing.

-mlj