Listening to whispers

Our deepest wishes are whispers of our authentic selves.
We must learn to respect them.
We must learn to listen.

-Sarah Ban Breathnach

Two thoughts grabbed hold of me as I prepared to post this quote today.

Thought one:

I made the mistake of journeying through the net to identify the author.

Sarah has a website called Simple Abundance, which at a shamefully quick glance seems to exist to passionately encourage women to express their authentic selves in the decoration of their homes. Decorating would not be one of my deepest wishes, as anyone who has visited the Chicago apartment I've called home for 6 months would tell you. Living surrounding by things I've chosen carefully, over time, and decided I want with me - things that say something to me, every time I see them - well, that is important to me. (You sense the internal conflict, don't you? Important enough to actually spend time in a city shopping center?)

But oh, after 2 weeks of steady work travel, deeper wishes called this sunny Spring weekend - deep, deep wishes - for a bike ride that led, yesterday, to an idyllic afternoon alone wandering Chicago's Graceland cemetery and today, deeper still, for an early morning bike ride to Lake Michigan where I discovered a magical oasis sure to become my Huerto de Calixto y Melibea in Chicago -the Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary. Wise wishes, mine.

You'll hear and see more about Graceland and Montrose Point, later (thanks to that deep wish to take pen to paper) but oh, I can feel I listened well to Sara's advice this weekend, by avoiding the stuff of her site.

Thought two?

I envy Sara her the whispers of her wishes.

My wishes stamp feet and holler, pull my hair hard, flick an icy cold finger on the nape of my neck. My wishes demand immediate action: "Learn Spanish! Go to Spain! Throw some clay, what don't you? Where in heaven are your people, woman? Isn't that a piano in that corner, under all the dust...why yes, it is! What if we learn to...("just follow us here", the wishes tell me, sure they'll lose my attention any wandering moment)....stay? What if we learn to stay? Hmmmm?"

I'm due in a pottery studio, soon - thanks to one of those insistent if inexplicable wishes - but I wanted to first offer you Sarah's thought. And remind both of us about the hoarsest of the stage whispers I proudly call mine: "Cool thought, Corcoran. What if you wrote that down?"

I expect this blog will sputter and spit some as I restart her, I suspect that before we know it she'll be another blog entirely.

For now, I am just going to start walking - and see. Let's see, shall we?

I was led back to TED today, a project I mentioned in a long-ago post from Salamanca.

Today's Daily Good sent me back to Ted for a brilliant talk by Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. The talk seemed to be about classical music, at first listen, but ah, if I didn't find him lighting light bulbs about optimism and possibility and staying in the moment and most of all, how art can be a meeting place where no one is a stranger.

Watch; you're in for a treat.

Me? I'm off to play with clay. Que os lo paséis bien.

A little nostalgia: Hervás, Extremadura, in Spring

Deep into a Chicago winter, yes, yes, I do miss the light - that soft, warm, crystal clear Spanish light. A taste for both of us:

Inaugurations, by Maya Stein

If you have yet to discover Maya Stein's wise and wonderful poems, you owe yourself a walk through her blog. She very graciously gave me the nod to publish the poem she sent round on January 20, the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, a poem that hit the perfect note for me at this new start, for me, my President the Chicagoan, and this country I've just rejoined. Maya's work miraculously appears in my inbox, free, every Tuesday, to lift, delight, move and inspire me. You can sign up, too, in the friendly little Ten Line Tuesday box at Maya's blog.




Inaugurations

Perhaps today is the first of many swearings in, a date
not just for our new president to occupy his office
but a reminder that we are each our own head of state,
the chief of our decision-making, responsible for keeping peace
with the neighbors while holding our private countries intact.

How would it be, then, to take an oath with a hand
held high, and re-pledge our commitment to preserve and protect,
to keep our borders open to fresh alliances, to spare the land
the razing of our spirit and all that self-destruction we're so capable of,
and to plant into the earth the belief in everything we love.

Greetings from a midwinter thaw in Chicago -- and a timely message from Starbucks

My thanks to Angel, who nudged me back here with a few very kind words.


My thanks to the cup my chai latte arrived in today, too. I've been learning to commit - to an exclusive project (ok, say job if you must...), a continent, a city, a routine, a new set of daily practices, a few fiercely loved friends, the learning of a new creative outlet (clay) - and on and on. Today, I took my first sip of a cheerily hand-delivered chai latte to find wise words on the side of my cup:

The Way I See It #76

The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating – in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation.

To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.

Anne Morris
Starbucks customer from NYC
Anne describes herself as an “organization builder, restless American citizen, optimist.”

Thanks Anne. Hit the spot. The chai, and your thought.

A quick post about a win-win-win. I'd love your help.

From a snowy Chicago, a quick invitation to help an incredible person and give yourself a chance (or a downpayment :)) towards coaching with the very woman who 5 years ago got me to believe I could live in Spain:



I owe you a thoughtful post on Michael Schwass but until I can get you that:

Sail over to Laura's blog and take a $50 chance on a coaching package and a slew of other prizes. Best of all, if you don't win, you can apply that $50 to coaching with Laura. And you can give the package to a friend if you don't see coaching for yourself right now.

Proceeds from what Laura calls Coaching Powerball go towards Michael Schwass' medical expenses. You can read more about Michael on his website, www.dontblamethegame.com, and in the many posts Laura has written about all he's taught her.

I hope you'll participate, especially if you've ever given thought to working with a coach. No one will work with you like Laura. If you want that statement backed up, write me.

Check out www.nosafedistance.com to learn more about Laura.

Visit this post of Laura's to buy one of the last 2 chances on this round of the fundraiser. If you decide to participate, you'll be able to link straight from that post to enter, or, here, I've stolen the how do you you enter paragraph for you:

How do you enter? Simply e-mail me at Laura *AT* nosafedistance *DOT* com and
tell me how many chances you want ($50 each). I'll invoice you via PayPal unless
you want to arrange to pay by check or credit card.

Thanks for anything you can do. I'll be back soon!

Update: Here's a one-post intro to Michael, who he is, why you would be interested, and how you can help in all kinds of ways, if you decide you'd like to.

When "home" has a whole new flavor to it...

You really haven't lived till you've typed your fingers bloody in your home office, working away at a business utterly, hopelessly "domestic".....

while singing Joaquin Sabina's Pacto Entre Caballeros at the top of your lungs.

MUCHA MUCHA POLICIA

MUCHA MUCHA POLICIA

MUCHA MUCHA MUCHA MUCHA

Here, sing along.

If you don't know the tune or, say it isn't so, the artist, pandora is only a click away. The Sabina channel rocks.
Yes, I really will be back.


So how've you been?

small note: if you can't get through to listen to the tune without registering, just google "sabina pacto entre caballeros imeem" and click through from the search results (should be the first result). That starts the music right up. Mucha mucha mucha mucha mucha...

Here's the thing

So here's the thing.

I am alive. I am well. I am also laptop-less, DSL-less and buried beneath boxes and paper and crinkled up packing tape.

And I am in Chicago.

I have a lot to write, and a long list of entries I've been eager to get writing, but it would seem I am meant only to check in today. A clumsy but lovable cat knocked a diet coke into my laptop a few days ago - the key word in that phrase being into, unfortunately -and it's inserting a long line of f's between every letter I type (hmm, I wonder what the poor gummed-up thing is trying to say? fffffffff...) and surfing round the web all on its own, hands tied behind my back. I've just greeted all the possessions that survived the 6 year wait in a warehouse in California, and while the powers that be have yet to hook up my internet access, I'm not the least concerned about the wait.

Some patient, calm, easily giggling and ridiculously slow- (and late-) eating bilingual woman has returned to Chicago in my name. If we can get her to blog regularly, whatever we decide to call this blog in its new incarnation, I think we're all in for a treat. Me and her included.

But first I have a lot of unpacking to do. So I'll leave you after a quick hello today, thanking you for checking on me, time and time again, thanking you for your e-mails, promising I will answer your comments and mails and questions as soon as I am technologically able.

A year ago today, I was walking the Camino. A few months ago, I made the difficult decision - and I have references for just how difficult I made it, if you're interested :) - to take on the challenge the Camino seemed determined to toss me for my next 45 years. Jung says the parts of ourselves we've left sitting on the bench for the first half of life come leaping out to play in the second. For me, that long walk across Spain was all the quiet time my benched selves needed to get their plans made. I moved back to Chicago in July, for a myriad of reasons I've no doubt you'll read here over the next few months, but most of all, for the chance to trade e-mails for live conversations. As much as I treasure the lifelong friends I've made in Spain, and oh, I do, the people who are most important to me still live in the States. And suddenly, at 45, after a fiercely independent life and a solo walk across Spain, I find myself bored with what I know so well - wandering, absolute independence, everything new every day, just as new and strange as I can get it - and eager to learn what I don't know -what it's like to stick around a little, invest in the people who have watched me wander all these years, hang with some kids who barely know me. I moved here for my people and the chance that they'll let me be an expat in my own life.

I'll be back Monday or Tuesday. Til then, thanks for the checking up and the patience. I hope you'll come back. I do have a story to tell!

Just walk east

Ermita de Santa Ágata, Arrés

As you've read by now, I just spent 17 days volunteering as a hospitalera in the pilgrim's albergue in Arrés, a town of 15 inhabitants lying along the Aragonese stretch of the Camino de Santiago.

With Ferran, my charming Tarragonese partner, I welcomed pilgrims stopping for a warm word and a cold glass of homemade lemonade (or gazpacho, on the right days) on their way to the next albergue, and then did my best to create a temporary but memorable home for those pilgrims who chose to spend the night with us.

Our days began at 7, with breakfast service, then moved on to the daily sweeping-scrubbing-mopping workout, invariably accompanied by some fabulous soundtrack or another screaming out of Ferran's boombox. After a shopping trip to Jaca, we shifted to warm of-course-we-have-a-place-for-you-to-sleep welcomes, multilingual conversations, a tour of the town's lovely 16th century church and the nightly gigglefest of shared kitchen duty and community dinner. Barring rain, every day ended with a walk to the mirador high above the casa rural to watch Arres' stunning sunset.

I am proud to announce I now speak Pilgrim's Italian and make one hell of a tasty garbanzo bean, spinach and chorizo potaje for 30.

My biggest challenge, however, was neither language nor gastronomy. Seventeen days surrounded by humans was a significant shock to this wanderer's solitary soul. In Arrés I existed to welcome people, to offer an understanding ear, a hot meal and good company. I shared a small bedroom, for God's sake.

And so just about every one of those seventeen days, I stole a few moments to meander down the narrow lane leading east to the town's ermita, alone, gathering fresh flowers for the table while I soaked in the view, and exhaled.

I'll write more about my experience, but first let me make a shameless plug for Arrés. The town is growing, and now boasts a lovely casa rural, where Mari Luz will cook you up some of tastiest homemade meals you'll enjoy in Spain.

And when it all gets too much, I'm telling you. Just walk east.

¡Podemos!

photo from 20 Minutos



All of Spain has a date with history.

So reads the headline at Yahoo.es sports today.

And at 20 Minutos?

Only 4 hours left...

At 8:45 tonight, Spain, yes that Spain of the inexplicable if endearing insecurity complex, plays Germany in the finals of the EuroCup. That's futbol, americans.

The last time Spain won the EuroCup, you ask? 1964. More (translated) from Yahoo:

Forty four years later, Spain can win a Eurocup again. The entire country will stop dead still when the ball begins to roll.

Thursday night I had the good fortune to cross the Plaza Mayor just as the Spanish team made its first goal in the semifinal match against Russia. The Plaza was vertical jumping room only, with thousands of red-clad Salmantinos, young and old, following every game on a giant screen below the Plaza's famous clock, compliments of the city government. (Many with a cold caña and a plate of the Cervantes' stunning jamón ibérico in front of them; surely I've mentioned my fellow Salmantinos know how to live?)

AbsolutSalamanca was smart enough to have a camera along; I was not. The wave of energy, noise and pure shared joy that swept through the Plaza with that goal is something I will not soon forget.

I hope to get a chance to repeat the experience 4 hours from now.

Rumor has it we have 3 giant screens in the Plaza tonight. That Lanzarote (mayor of Salamanca) has more than a touch of Richie Daley in him, you know that?

¡Podemos!

UPDATE: 10:38 pm

¡CAMPEONES!

Spain 1, Germany 0

Here's where the hell Matt's been...

Watch this video.

Dancing Matt from www.wherethehellismatt.com, who blissfully danced his way round the world on YouTube a couple of years ago, took a hint from the African children who spontaneously jumped in to dance with him while he was filming his solo stunt in their village. He set off again, spending 7 months traveling round the world doing his...shall we say unique...running in place dance move, and invited the locals to join him in every stop. The Madrileños do one heck of a job, if I may say so myself, earning themselves the opening sequence of the new world tour. The 105 Chicagoans who met him at the Bean aren't slouches either.

So why is a video of a happy ordinary guy dancing in emblematic locations all over the world so uplifting and fun? I'm with the tech blogger at the Chicago Tribune, whose post led me to the new video:

"The collection of widely disparate peoples doing essentially the same pointless yet joyful thing is a reminder of what’s universal in humankind."

It's a wonderful reminder. I, for one, like knowing goofy dancing and ear to ear smiling are universal.

The post goes on:

"Part of the charm comes from the unadorned simplicity of Harding himself -- he just looks damned happy to be wherever he is -- and the delight that is his story. A video-game designer disaffected by the industry’s trend toward violence, he quit his job in early 2003 and began traveling."

On a whim, Matt filmed himself dancing at each stop in that first post-work wander and sent the video home to friends. It spread through email and blogs, until Stride Gum got a hold of it, and sponsored Matt's second round the world trip, which produced the video of Matt dancing solo, and now, with what I have to say is a darn moving original soundtrack, we have Matt dancing with all of us.

I've been known to take out the ear to ear grin when traveling. Maybe it's time to add a signature dance. Who might I meet?

¡Olé!

The open stretch of river bank that runs from my apartment building alongside the church of Santiago to Salamanca's Roman bridge never fails to provide me with surprises - and entertainment. Every afternoon for the past week, a group of casually dressed folks have gathered there for what sure looks like a class in bullfighting.

Foreigners studying Spanish and participating in an accompanying cultural activity? That's my guess, and while I was pleased to catch these two in action during one of the week's many tea breaks spent watching the action, I'd much rather have captured the reaction of passing Salmantinos.

That's the bull to the right, treacherous horns in hand.

No te salves

One day, very early in my 17 day stay in Arrés, a Spanish pilgrim slammed her notebook down on the table in front of me, flipped forward a few pages, and, looking me straight in the eyes, gave me a direct order.

"Read this."

Next morning before heading back to the Camino, she tore it from her book and gave it to me. It faced me every morning from the shelf above my bed in the hospitaleros' room.

She gave me Benedetti, in Spanish. No te salves.

Here you have it, then. Below. Treat number 2, as I've just googled it. A quick look hasn't yielded a translation I love, but this is my favorite, transcribed below.

No te salves. I'll be back Thursday, once I've landed safely in Salamanca and (finally) met Alex, with whom I hope to rendezvous in Madrid.



No te salves/Don't Save Yourself

by Mario Benedetti

Don't stay motionless by the roadside
don't freeze joy or love halfheartedly
don't save yourself
now
or ever
don't save yourself
don't become
serene
don't keep only a still corner in this world
don't let your eyelids droop heavy
like judgements
don't stay without lips
don't sleep without dreams,
imagine you're bloodless or judge yourself in haste

but if
after all
you can't help it
and you freeze joy
and you love halfheartedly
and you save yourself,
become serene,
keep a still corner in the world
let your eyelids drop heavy as judgements
and stay without lips
and sleep without dreams,
imagine yourself bloodless,
judge yourself in haste and
stay motionless by the side of the road

and you save yourself
then
don't stay with me.

Are you wandering woman?

I'm back!

Well almost. I left the magic bubble of Arrés Sunday afternoon, made a stop in stunning Santa Cruz de las Serós and then hiked up to the monasteries of San Juan de la Peña Monday morning. Today I've landed in Jaca, and this cyber.

Ah, wanderers, there is much to write, but for now, let me thank the self-proclaimed "bearer of messages" who walked into the kitchen of Arrés (where I was dutifully preparing cuajada for the night's dessert...) and asked, loud and matter of fact, "are you wandering woman?"

I am, in fact.

The message bearer bore just the book I needed, as well, carried overseas from the Florida Keys, and then, on foot, overland from Lourdes, just for me: Annie Dillard's "Holy The Firm".

And she left me with this, which I type now, as your first treat from 17 incredible, still days on the magic road. It's José Gasset y Ortega, from Revolt of the Masses:

And this is the simple truth—that to live is to feel oneself lost—he who
accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground.
Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which
to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a
questioning of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of
his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All
the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost
is lost without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes
up against his own reality.

How did I use to get here? To this blog, I mean.

The "for the blog" list is also beyond any hope of ever catching up and I'm off again.

I'll be here , internetless, blissfully cooking, cleaning and doing what the peregrinos ask of their wandering hospitalera.

Back June 19!

If I owe you a comment or an e-mail...you will someday receive it, perhaps when you least expect it.

¡Ultreia!

San Esteban, Salamanca

This weekend I had a welcome opportunity to show even more of my beautiful town to an eager returning visitor, seen above checking out the cloister of the Convento de San Esteban.

Wait, don't I have a blog?

I shall make no excuses. I've been hopping continents, switching up plans and cooking up what's next.

I stopped back in Rhode Island to visit family and friends and meet Mary Oliver (did I say MEET Mary Oliver?) and Coleman Barks, among other intriguing folks at the Block Island Poetry Project.

And I took a few much needed walks along the RI coast. I was tempted to post a much more beautiful photo of myself wandering the rocky coast of Newport, RI, but this photo holds a little surprise. Look closely, now. That's me, tracking along once again in the footsteps of the Roving Photographer, though, this time, hmmm...her footsteps seem to be pointing skyward. Tidal pools, you understand. Photogenic tidal pools.

I have lots to say, it would seem, all of a sudden and plan to be round here writin' in the next two weeks, before I wander off to Arrés, in the province of Huesca, in Aragon, to do my first and much anticipated stint as an albergue hospitalera along the Camino. More to come on that front...

Ah, and if you've written and I've yet to respond, bear with me. I made a big dent in the inbox today and will likely be back to you by tomorrow.

¡Buen camino! Hope you've been stumbling into (literally into, if you ask the Roving one) some fabulous tidal pools of your own.

Life in 6 words

Qaminante doesn't post everyday, but ah, when she does, she delights me.

Today Feedblitz served up breakfast with this gem from my favorite blogger in Brussels:

"I was just reading about a book collecting six-word memoirs, entitled "Not quite what I was planning". The one I liked best was "Me see world! Me write stories!" (Elizabeth Gilbert, who seems to me to have been on much the same track already with the title of her book "Eat, Pray, Love", about stays in Italy, India and Bali). I also liked "Am I lost or just wandering?"
It seems the inspiration was an ultra-short story by Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” "

Read an NPR article about the book here.

Qaminante set me to thinking. How might I write my life story in 6 words?

A few drafts are well underway, on this vesper of vacation-time for me...

The first draft is a response to one of the original titles quoted by Qaminante:

I'm not lost, I am wandering...

Or how do you like:

Wandered well. Wondered whether. ..Wrote while...

Alliteration, eh? Suits me. But then again, there's:

But I like what's behind EVERY door.


And this title for me, all 7 delicious words:

Never did play by the rules, much.


Or more likely, a good description of my winding road, so far:

Just one good turn after another.


I'd hope to quote Yogi Berra but he ran long:

When you come to a fork, take it.


So I went back to basics:


Have grin, will travel.


See? I don't need no stinking 6 words.

Hmm... or there's:

For our next act, Erin will...


or

What's next? Well I thought I'd...


And there's this, a blissful response to my fellow salmantinos:

Sí, rubia, guapa y tu niña.



Or let's be realistic:

Ask me later, I'm still living.



No? Ah...

From rat race to pata negra.


True. But so is this:

What d'ya mean, just choose one?

What d'ya mean d'ya is two words? I'm a RhoDylander, people. Let me say the same thing about my life another way:

I'll take one of each please.


or..

Albergue to albergue, just cruising between.


and I like:

Talked fast, ate slow, smiled wide.


I'm sure I'll be working in this for a while. What about you? Got a 6 word memoir, any language?

Whoever answers the red phone, they'd best know good jamón.

photo: El País

If you missed the news, jamón ibérico arrived in the US several months ago and I immediately took heat for not having properly and proactively informed every American friend I had introduced to this heavenly treat during visits to Salamanca.


Then El País proudly published this photo of Barack Obama sampling mediterranean treats at a charcutería in the Italian Market in Philadelphia during a campaign march through Pennsylvania. The (very generous) man behind the counter sliced our candidate a nice thin slab of $99 a pound jamón ibérico - Salamanca pata negra, in fact - and let him know he was tasting a recently legalized gem.

Obama asked what he meant by "legalized". "What, it's like a drug?"

Just taste it, he was told.

Moments later our rapt candidate spoke again. "I only know it's really good."

An understatement, but it's better than a campaign season exaggeration. I'll take it.

Fermín, a jamón producer based in La Alberca, in the my home province of Salamanca, won permission to be the first producer of pata negra jamón to import its products to the States last December.

So what do my neighbors say about all this, you ask? Well to be honest, the talk here is endearingly Spanish. Salmantinos are certain all those jamón-lusting Americans are going to drive up our local pata negra prices until only wealthy foreigners can afford the stuff.

But I'm not worried. Yet. I'm going to a wedding Saturday. And guess what they're serving during the wine-sipping hour? One guess, Laura?

Columns of the Knights Templar, Hervás

All the tourist maps list the Columnas Templarias, a series of columns left from a Templar church, as a must-see in Hervás, a city once protected by the Knights. After an ardent and fruitless search, we stumbled onto the columns, unobtrusively leading visitors into a series of small businesses in a building alongside the town hall. I've decided I've snapped a soldier here, do you think?

Rings a bell

I did a brief but energetic jota last week when I read that a story I blogged back in April about Joshua Bell's poor earnings as a busker in a DC metro station had earned a Pulitzer.

As I told the story in my original post:

"El País told me last week that during one hour in the metro station at L'Enfant Plaza in Washington DC, 1070 people rushed right by the violinist playing in his heart out. Twenty seven people threw him a coin, nickels, the odd quarter. He made a little over 32 dollars in that hour. Rush hour. One woman, a young employee of the US Commerce Department stopped, stared and listened. For an hour.

She recognized the violinist, since she'd seen him perform 3 weeks before in the Library of Congress.

The violin was a 1713 Stradivarius, and the 40ish man playing it, in baseball cap and jeans, was Joshua Bell.

Leonard Slatkin lost a bet in the whole deal, according to El País. He was sure a crowd would form, and 50 and 100 dollar bills would hit Bell's violin case.

Made me wonder what prodigies and wonders I walk by every day, going where I have to go, without ever knowing......"

I hadn't read the original story, Pearls Before Breakfast, written by Gene Weingarten for the Washington Post, but I'm delighted the prize led me to it.

Seems the Washington Post was behind the whole experiment:

"His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities -- as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?"

The original article looks at the results from all sorts of view points and includes video clips of Bell playing while the harried crowd hurries by him and interviews with both Bell and manuy of the commuters who passed through the station that morning. It's pure pleasure to read and plenty of fun to chew on, afterwards, as well.

Heads up. There's beauty all around.

A door in Candelario

Improvisation, and fateful encounters

"A walk, following your intuitive promptings, down the streets of a foreign city holds rewards far beyond a planned tour of the tried and tested.

Such a walk is totally different from random drifting. Leaving your eyes and ears wide open, you allow your likes and dislikes, your conscious and unconscious desires and irritations, your irrational hunches, to guide you whenever there is a choice of turning left or right.

You cut a path through the city that is yours alone, which brings you face to face with surprises destined for you alone. You discover conversations and friendships, meetings with remarkable people.

When you travel in this way you are free; there are no have-tos and shoulds. You are structured at first only, perhaps by the date of the plane departure. As the pattern of people and places unfolds, the trip, like an improvised piece of music, reveals its own inner structure and rhythm.

Thus you set the stage for fateful encounters. "

-Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art (Line breaks mine.)

I can't recommend Nachmanovitch's book highly enough, for anyone who wishes to bring improvisation to music, or writing, or pottery... or travel. A poet, improvisational violinist and computer artist, he delighted me with images and lyrical prose while giving me new insight into my creativity -and the many masterful improvisers I have watched, among them my father, a professional musician.

And yes, yes, I say, travel, in a foreign city, along a pilgrim's path or just round your own hometown with a new pair of eyes, is improvisation. It doesn't flow from such a different creative surrender than art or music do, does it?

This passage reminded me of how I got started wandering. When I was in grade school I would ride my bike through strange neighborhoods, pushing myself a little further afield every time I reached familiarity, continually scouting out places and streets I hadn't yet explored. Every day I rode out of our garage with one goal: to get lost. I loved to be lost, with no idea what lay beyond those woods, or at the end of that street, free to head any old way I'd like at every intersection. Sooner or later, I'd reach a recognizable main street, and wend my way home.

The photo is Prats de Mollo, in the French Pyrenees. The fact that I inexplicably snapped the sign as a mirror image, from behind? Improvisation, I guess. The odd photo did lead to a memorable Spanish to Catalan conversation with the lovely old woman who owned the charcuterie.