January 1, 2012

Happy New Year!

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Happy New Year one and all! Whew! 2011 is over and I finally have some free time to reflect… I always seem to “hit the ground running” when I return from traveling, and this year was no exception. I had scheduled to organize eleven days of gift wrapping at Barnes and Noble this year. This is more than we have ever taken on before, but I had confidence that my Unitarian Universalist, Cancer Support Community Eastern NC and Buddhist friends would pitch in… and I was not disappointed. We rocked! Thank you one and all for your help and support! Barnes and Noble is very generous to give charities the opportunity to wrap presents each year… and they are very generous to give my groups some of the best days. I am very grateful to them.

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I get asked often if I found any spiritual enlightenment along the path to Santiago de Compostela. My short answer is usually a frank, “No”. There were no bolts of lightning or “ah-ha!” moments that I can point to and say, “There! That’s a lesson I needed to learn!”. But I was grateful each day for the hundreds, if not thousands of people in my life and along my path that have made my journey easier.

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I remember one day I stopped in a little “one church” town. The pilgrim’s hostel I stayed in was attached to the very old church and was run on volunteers, love, prayer and donations. As always, I took a shower first and then washed my clothes by hand… this time in the small space between the church’s stone vaulted ceiling and the wooden roof. When asked, I was pointed in the direction of the clothes line… which I assumed would be in sight of the church, once I got out the door. It wasn’t. It was a couple of blocks away. But I didn’t know this at the time and after walking one block, I decided that I must have gotten the directions wrong and was about to turn around and retrace my steps. Across the street there was an old man sitting on a bench who motioned to me and pointed further up the street. I was SURE I was on the wrong path though, and didn’t really think the old man knew what I needed (despite the obviousness of wet clothes in my hands). I waved to him and was still determined to retrace my steps. That’s when this old man got UP off of his bench and walked over to me… using TWO canes! I met him halfway across the street and he then escorted me the next block to the clothes line. And I had thought MY feet were sore!

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It was that kind of help from strangers that I cherished most! All along the path I met people who pointed me in the right direction or walked me to a destination or helped in subtle or obvious ways. It was an amazing experience!

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The rest of Rome was wonderful too. I spent one warm day in Rome’s equivalent of “Central Park”. I rented a golf cart for a few hours and had a blast tooling around the park. I did end up breaking the law once… riding my golf cart in a bus and taxi only lane… but I really couldn’t see any way of getting the cart back to the starting point without doing so. Thankfully I didn’t end up in an Italian prison!

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I want to thank everyone who supported my walk by pledging for Cancer Support Community Eastern, NC. Each day we get a little closer to bringing a supportive and warm Gilda’s Clubhouse to Greenville… because “No one should go through cancer alone!”

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Life’s a trip!

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Claudia