Calling!!

It has been a long time since I've posted here.  A really long time.  Not that I don't think of the Camino nearly every day.  Several times a day.  But it has been nearly two years since my last walk. Two years to feel fully grounded and both feet on the earth here at home.

Then it begins, that small shift.  That moment when the tide reaches it's peak and for a moment everything is still.  Then it turns.  I've seen it on the river enough times, kayaking madly happily, up river with the tidal surge.  For just a moment the water is a beautiful mirror.  Completely still beneath you. Yet somewhere deep beneath my little plastic shell bobbing on the top as I lean into my paddle, something shifts and the pull down the river begins again.  That's me with the Camino.  I've been quietly paddling in one direction for a goodly time now, but the tide, she's a changin.

Just as I've felt that pull calling me back to the North of Spain, apparently others feel it too.  Feeling the urge to read and reread posts on various Camino blogs and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but news of others heading back out again!  Sagalouts aka Ian of the Road to Nowhere is heading out soon. Karen Hype and her hubby will be Hyping the Camino again this year, as is Emilene from SA on My Pilgrimage to Santiago.  Also out of South Africa, Sylvia Nilson of Amawalker, will be leading a group of slower walkers beginning in Sarria. Walking in the fall this year will be two more friends from 2011, including Homer of Homer's Travels.  It's going to be a great year for blog hopping my way on the road to Santiago.  Following all of these blogs will help me focus on my preparations over this next year plus of waiting.

It's not just the means, but also life that keeps me here for the moment.  And I do mean LIFE!! On my last Camino I was a newly minted grandmother or Oma of two weeks. Currently there are three beautiful girls who call me Omi and by the time my feet hit the trail again, there will be four little ones!  Waiting, difficult as it is, lets me continue as the main babysitter for two of the girls.  It also allows me to be present for each amazing arrival.  Each first birthday.  All major events that this Oma wants and needs to be present for.  Still the undertow tugs and pulls.

Better than year allows me to plan a route.  I won't have quite as much time to walk, so the entire Camino Frances isn't possible, but there are so many other beautiful options.  For a while the Camino Ingles (the English Route) was top of the list.  Now the Camino Primitivo (First Camino) seems to be at the top.  It's somewhat less traveled and a bit more remote. It also appears to be, from all accounts, a bit more rugged.  So, for me, it sounds like more of a challenge.  Both a physical as well as a spiritual one.  Fewer people means fewer distractions from the internal road.

The Camino Frances was full of pilgrims.  It was wonderful to meet so many people from so many countries.  But there were moments when you had to really work at getting time alone to just be.  Not that it wasn't possible.  I found I had to be more aware of making that time.  For me that usually meant leaving very early in the morning to walk alone.  And as I wasn't well for most of the Camino, everyone else caught up with me pretty easily!  So a little care got me the best of both worlds.

This time I feel something different.  More of a need for solitude.  Not total and complete, just more.  From what I've read so far, I think the Primitivo might do the trick.  Time will tell.  Nice to be thinking concretely not just a vague and ephemeral someday!

Meanwhile, I'll just be peeking over many a pilgrim bloggers shoulder.  Watching postings with joy as they make their way towards St. James.