Getting up and doing it

This is a popped blister under a toenail.
Yep, it was gross. 

A primary lesson for me from the Camino was the reward of routine. Every day I got up and went through the pilgrim ritual- find the available potty, check the feet,



put the bandaids and protective tubing on my injured toes. Our feet as our foundation is a whole other blog!  After the feet, you put on the same pants from yesterday, the sox you washed out the night before (hoping they are dry) and the various layers for the torso. You pack up the backpack, remember your treking poles and head out. Every day.

This night was in a bedroom, not on a bunkbed. It was a luxury
to empty and reorganize my pack in space and light.
I hated packing up in the dark of a hostel. 

I don't do the same thing every day. In my wholw life, I rarely have. I married young and followed a Marine around the world. I raised four children in seven homes and homeschooled for twenty years.  Days were similar but not routine. I tried. I read the books ( most of my young adult life was before the internet or I'd still be looking for answers!) and watched the others who followed charts and timetables. I After my husband's death and during the flight from the nest of the children, I worked part-time. Then I upened my life and moved from DC suburbs to a cabin ten miles from a town of 900 in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  I like change!

But I want to write. I want to tell stories and I have a half finished book in childhood wounding. I love words and connecting to people with images fleshed out by words. I want to figure out how to have a flexible life and the discipline of a writer.

Turns out life goas are like the Camino- you just get up and do it. Day after day. And slowly, you move toward your goal. Over hills,

through in bare forests,

and past cropland waiting for planting.

The path was to the right, I was fascinated with all the ways they directed irrigation water, like this cement trough.

Some of the Camino has distance markers- the most areonce you reach the western region of Galicia. There they've erected stone markers with the kilometers left to Santiago and you can see your remaining kms to walk.

This is a glimpse of the rugged condition of the path.

Only 100 km left! 

It was reassuring to see another marker and know the goal was closer.



It reminds me to make some small goals.  On the pathwe were always aware of the yellow arrows and the shell symbol.  It wasn't usually this distinct but they were always there as we looked.

 I don't often take the time to assess my goals for writing, to see if I'm on the path I set for myself. The Camino taught me the value of keeping on the path.  

Join me in getting up and doing it!

Dirty boots and a lovely brass shell pointing the Way.