since feeling is first

3 years ago today, I walked up the Alto de Perdon... It was one of the windiest, most uncomfortable hikes of the camino. I was with my camino sister, whose company made the rough day much more than just bearable... I learned a poem by e.e. cummings but as we walked with muddy boots over a crossroads, "where the path of the wind crosses that of the stars", spoken words were blown away with the intense windy gusts. Then in Puente la Reina, we forgot about the blisters with a half litre of Rioja....

Today though, I woke up looking at the freshly fallen snow outside my apartment window.... Hours later, it's still melting away... Spring will come, someday...

I dreamt of the camino today. Maybe because it's the third year anniversary of my hike, or because I'm close to another crossroads again, but I love it. I know, just like on the beautiful camino, it won't be without more gruelling mud-dragging days, but bring it on. I'm ready for the adventure.

Many of my friends are also at their own crossroads. You are tying your lives together with nuptials, or starting fresh and whole by yourselves, or even delivering sweet new little lives to the earth. Know that all the stuggles you may encounter are all worthwhile. Summer is coming.

Rilke's letters are part of my camino, and I feel this excerpt is often appropriate when facing the wind at the Alto de Perdon, or trudging in the mud, or just embracing the next great adventure: "...it is clear that we must trust in what is difficult; everything alive trusts in it, everything in Nature grows and defends itself any way it can and is spontaneously itself, tries to be itself at all costs and against all opposition. We know little, but that we must trust in what is difficult is a certainty that will never abandon us"

Congratulations to you all in the crossroads, I wish I was everywhere at once so I could share the moments with you. Know I'm thinking of you.