Age and ages ago!

It's funny when I tell my friends who've never heard of the Camino and are unfamiliar with the concept of pilgrimage (most of them I'm sad to say....cradle Catlicks !) they always seem to give me comments along the lines of aren't you a bit old to be doing that?  However from what I've been reading...nothing could really be further from the truth.  Making a pilgrimages later in life is actually pretty commonplace.

I've got my Google page on my work computer set up, in a way that I get juicy little quotes delivered fresh every morning.  Some really surprise me by their random appropriateness.  This morning saw the delivery of this tidbit:

"A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight."
  - Robertson Davies

Kinda makes me think of the journeys/adventures of a life time and how they're appreciated differently at each of our stages of life.  Rather like the directions on the shampoo bottle which has  become my favorite advice for all really good things..."Rinse and repeat!"

My long summer in Germany, I enjoyed going to clubs and just generally running under the radar as much as possible.   I did visit the cultural high points of each place, and come to think of it...usually with out my cousins in tow.  I spent quite a bit of time in the beautiful Lorenz Kirche in Nurnberg, bombed almost into oblivion during the war and laboriously rebuilt, often by young men like my dad a semi experienced Army veteran at the ripe age of 15. They worked as brick layers and stone masons apprentices because there simply wasn't any other work to be had.  I spent one glorious afternoon in the Durer Haus, and quietly enjoying an organ recital in Die Frauen Kirche (Church of Our Lady).  But most of my focus was on spending time with my cousins..being silly and just wandering aimlessly till quite late at night.

When I got home, state side, I was "home" for all of three and a half days. Barely enough time to do my laundry, repack and then it was off to Colorado and Peaceful Valley Ranch (yes a dude ranch!).  I lived in a cottage with about 10 other young women.  There were several other cottages and bunk houses for the guys.  We spent most of our days on the ranch itself high in the Rockies. We were waitresses, chambermaids,  wranglers, cooks and lastly me...grounds keeper! But I itched to see more and do more than square dance every night, both for our own entertainment and for the guests.

So on my days off, I'd go hiking with some of the local staff, picking choke cherries and making jam (!) or better yet (my hair turns gray at this one now) hitchhiking my way down to Denver to see what I could see. I remember spending one whole day in the Denver Art Museum looking at a display of quilts, some of whom I can still picture to this day.  I was only there about 5 weeks, but they were wonderful.

Coming home from all that was quite the shock.  I'd changed immensely and irreparably.  The folks, not so much.  So within a few months I was completely on my own, waiting only for the 18th birthday to make it "legal" to get an apartment.   Amazing what a little freedom, a little journeying can do for a body.  The girl who walked down the HS football field for graduation was gone.  Dead, buried.

So I guess I've had a chance to read my great book once already.  I know the difference it made in me, the changes that came about from that summer trip.    I know how it really prepared me, unwittingly, for a lot of the things (trials?) to come.   So now it's time to re-read my great book in my maturity (Ha...stop laughing!) and see what changes it makes in me now.  The exciting thing, according to Robertson Davies, I really ought to do it yet again, even later!  With my family's longevity I might be able to fit in several more tries!  Omi Palm died just shy of 101, Omi & Opa Becker were only 95, and 96 respectively.  Wonder what my friends will be doing when the time comes around!!