New Projects and journeys

I believe that creativity makes more creativity.

I had one idea, then in the process of making that one idea come true, I sparked off thousands more. Its like all the creativity dying to get out of me since art college has suddenly burst through the dam and I'm ready to roll again. Now that I am settling into my job at work, now that I have money to invest in staple guns and glue from Amazon, I'm able to build on what I know. I'm able to create these things that I have been thinking of.

It feels so good!

However, I'm working very differently than I used to. Instead of using sketchpads for ideas and inspiration, I'm using Pintrest. instead of having a studio, I'm using my bed. I'm not working for a professor or a project review. I'm creating stuff that I think is nice, that I would want to buy if I saw it.

So instead of a physical journey, I'm starting out on a creative one.

I'll show you what started it all off.

 I saw these for sale on gumtree and had to have them, so much raw materials for such a good price! 50 books for £20!

The Encyclopaedia Britannica used to be the go-to point of information for all knowledge in the known world. Everything was there. You could sit down and look at these for hours on end, do your homework from them, pay a fortune for them.

Then once Google came long, they became obsolete. Out of date from the moment the ink dried. It was a tragedy for the industry. If you think about it, people swapped the thousand pounds spent on books, to the thousand pounds spent on a computer and more monthly on the internet supplying them with information. So instead of savings, someone has just hopped in there to provide the same service, with more interactivity. The books mostly ended up just sitting there, like very expensive wallpaper.

I do feel a little guilty buying this woman's father's books from her for little or nothing compared to what they originally sold for.

Then again... now I get to make all these things!


Let the planning in doodles commence!

Knowing where I'm going

I'm wondering whether this should be on my Camino Blog or should I start a separate blog altogether, but seeing as you are all following this one, I'll keep it on here for now.

Speaking of 'you all' Who are you? I don't know who you are all really, I just keep getting threats from my father that he keeps getting requests for more blogs from me, he is very clandestine and won't tell me who is sending in the requests. Foil his mysterious plan and tell me who you are in the comments, either on facebook or below. I'm so curious as to who'd be listening to my babblings.

Right, Where was I?

Oh Yes.

I know where I'm going now.

For the last month and a half, since leaving the Camino, I have had no real long term plan. I have been Unable to plan past starting my job on the 22nd of July. That's where my plan just ended, like a cut string. I had been waiting for paperwork to get through, for the HR department to get going and for the department to get the rota together for the next few months of my life.

I have been in a highly organised system of education for the past twenty two years, even if I had a summer of nothing to do, I always had school starting in September to hang up the responsibility of planning. I always filled empty time with other things though like working, TEFL courses and the most important of all travelling. Time has always been precious to me, or at least since I was old enough to appreciate what little time we all have on our hands, and planning what time I have is so important to me, being unable to plan is hell.

Now the last few weeks have been torture, I have had so many friends ask me when I can travel to see them, when I can have free time to meet up and I haven't been able to give them a concrete answer. Now that I have moved away, I know that it is really important to make time to see the people I love. But I couldn't, until now, make plans. I just got a glorious email from my new boss letting me know my new rota for the next 8 weeks!!!!! I can plan for 8 WEEKS!

It is so lovely! I can go home for a weekend, I can go to Edinburgh for a weekend to see people, I can meet people in London who are coming down, I can go out to Penzance to go surfing for a weekend. I can live like a human being! one who is getting paid and can plan her life!

Gosh Its almost like gaining my freedom, which is odd because I'm going to have to work so hard for it, but in a way there is a freedom in that too. I know I'm just starting here, but I'm going in the right direction. I'm going to feel silly and stupid and nervous for the first few weeks, but then, I'll get over it, I'll know stuff, and then the students will come back, hopefully first years and it will all be easy, because everyone is better than first years.

Dan mentioned something the other day, he told me that people starting at my level are automatically, financially more well off than 75% of the population in the UK. It certainly doesn't feel like it. It feels like I'm starting right at the bottom again, knowing this though it does make me so grateful for where I am now.

Is this what it feels like to have a life?

I'll let you know in a few months.

In the mean time I'm going to be setting up a new blog I think, or going back to one I abandoned. I have a few short stories I need to write to get out of my head. Would anybody be interested in reading them?

All my love my people.

xx

Grace

Home

I know it's been a while and I know the Camino is over, at least the physical bit where I have fancy pictures to show and funny stories to tell is over, but the mental bit is ongoing, forever and ever.

The Camino is only ever truly over when you go home, they say. I would like to disagree a little there. When you go home, you bring all the thoughts of the Camino with you, unless you go home and immediately forget everything. I don't think that ever happens really.  You bring it into your old life, try to stuff those extra corners into old round holes. It doesn't work. You need to start cutting away at that small little life you had carved, comfortable and rounded, no sharp edges, to make room for all the new things inside you. Maybe this is too hard for some so they just slide back into the old ways. Maybe that means throwing away some crap in your life to help the new stuff fit. For me it was my fifteen thousand body lotions and skin products that I never use, and my very last pair of heels, they are gone, dead, forever. My feet are precious and I will never put them through the torture of heels ever again. I shall never buy another pair in my life. There are also certain people that have been removed from my life, through distance and silence. It's another lesson, like the Camino, they might come back when you least expect them to, but right now they have left or I have left them behind, they are walking slower or faster than me. This is the way of life, the way of things, though it makes me sad.

My situation is a little different to others in that I'm not really moving back into an old comfortable life. I'm starting a brand new one. I'm lucky in that it is probably easier for me to make space for new things, because they might not fit in the car I'm renting to drive down, there is a lot of fresh slate happening in my life right now. I have to make sure I get it right, or at least as right as I can. I want to make sure I remember what I value now, what I can do for others and what I can only do for myself.

I do this a lot, starting over, and I'm quite lucky because I actually really enjoy it. I like seeing the potential in a new clean room, meeting new people, finding little secret places around my new neighborhood, the nearest shops, the nearest bus routes, the confidence in my own ability to always find my way. Most of all, and what I am most excited about is setting up my studio for the first time in two years. I can't wait! All the plans I have had for the past few years churling around my head are going to just roll out onto the page. I have found a Printmakers workshop around here too, Double Elephant Print Workshop, while I don't have the money yet to join, I would like to start working towards doing a series of prints based on both the Camino, and a number of other projects. Maybe this will be a way I will fit the Camino into my brand spanky new life.

There are another few things that I want to keep with me, the exercise, the open state of mind, dealing with life's little ups and downs with the same smiles and care as I did on the Camino.

There are a few things I need stop doing that I did on the Camino though. A major one is my diet. I need to cut back on the cheese and sweets, and start eating more vegetables. Damn you Spain and your terrible peregrino food. I also REALLY need to cut down on spending till I get my first paycheck. Once I get settled and fill my kitchen full of food I'm going to start seriously working on this girl's recipes. She lives on £10 a week and makes some glorious food out of the basic food that she buys.

Simplicity.

That's what I need.

But I know I'm not going to get that.

I'm going to get a very busy couple of months, back and forth to London, Edinburgh, travelling all over Europe hopefully, if I can afford it, as well as starting my new job, and all the headaches that that brings.

Life is never really simple is it? There are always more headaches, but I'll face it like I always do. There's only ever one direction to keep going, sometimes there aren't any arrows to show us but after I make a decision I stick with it. I take pride in the fact that I can make good with whatever life throws at me.

I'll keep going, try to see the simple things in all the complicated part of life.

What do you think?

The Cathedral

Echoes and whispers
Bounced back from the stones
Reaching and singing
To the pillared sky

The first notes of heaven
Fluted through steel
Echoing upwards
And down to the bone

We soak it up here
Among the gold and the stone
Hot warm bodies
Blistered and brown

We come to sit here
On old oak and sins
We hide here
In hi-viz and Lycra

Bringing our fears
Our fights and our tears
To this temple
This ocean of stone

And give it
That which is ours
We give
We always have

A handshake
A fist to hold
Down steep hillsides
A shoulder

We give it
And now we sit
Cried empty
Waiting to be filled.

Peregrino Daddys

Let me tell you the story of my father, and the many fathers I have met on the way.

My dad loves things, loves life, loves seeing how things work, loves making things work and seeing other people figure things out. He is the perfect daddy (according to me). He starts strange, off the wall traditions that make you appreciate life, such as swimming at 6am in the Shannon river every morning, or walking the train tracks on Christmas morning. He likes to see the other side of life. He wanted to do the camino, for if the camino is anything it is the exact opposite of life.

It is waking up at obscene hours in the morning, walking until you fall down, seeing the back of towns and the In between secret paths in the county, seeing little signs only meant for you, being part of a tradition a thousand years old, making a family of the people you meet and accomplishing something.

My dad gives me music to listen to, poems to say, things to think about, songs to learn, and books to read. After Christmas two years ago he gave me a book about a father and a daughter doing this thing called walking the Camino de Santiago. Two years later I finished the official pilgrimage of 800 km from St Jean Pied de Port to Santiago de Compostela and I'm still going as far as the sea (8km to go.

For the first part of St Jean to Santa Domingo de Calzada my dad was with me, as well as my mum, my uncle and a family friend Kevin. Technically they were almost always 5km ahead of me but they were always in the square drinking vino tinto as I arrived and ready to suggest a swim or a plate of calamares.

This time I'm on my own, but like I have repeated again and again, I wasn't alone really.

Like the camino mommys there are also camino daddys. Ones that talk to you and are amazed and somehow proud of you. They want to give advice, a joke or two to help you up the hill, to offer to carry your rucksack, to reminisce about their own kids and to give you something more valuable than anything you can carry which is encouragement.

The first time I got this feeling was with a French Canadian leaving Burgos and entering the meseta. He said I really reminded him of his eldest daughter and that he wished she could experience this like I was. Then he almost pushed me up a hill and helped me with my French verbs.

The second was a birdwatcher who I shall always remember as the birdwatcher, (pretty cool superhero name, or sidekick name) his actual name was as cool as his title which was Atilla. He was a Hungarian, which probably explains the Mongolian influence in the name. He was travelling with his mother, Artillo (not entirely sure of her name, someone correct me if I'm wrong) she spoke no English but a real mommy, I got more hugs off her than words. Atilla was quiet and smiled all the time, he had English learned from time spent at Cambridge or Oxford. I met him three times before he told me that his mother and himself had been talking about me. Apparently I really reminded them both of his eldest daughter which he really missed dearly along with the rest of his family. She was 14 and always smiling. I laughed and told them that I smiled because it was easier than crying, but we all knew that wasn't true. I smile because I like it here. I like the people I meet and the simple beautiful things like being told the bird I saw yesterday wasn't a hawk but a black kite and the geese I saw in Samos were probably Canadian geese because they had little white bibs under their beaks, and that birds only sing in this area of Spain in the mating season which is right now and we are lucky to hear it.

And then there was Steve.

He first saw me reading a John Grisham novel which now resides in Santiago, and eating white chocolate. He thoroughly approved and I found a fond ally against the evils of terrible books and healthy food.

Steve became something special, it was around him that my last little camino family grew, two other girls and a boy with Steve buying the wine and the M&Ms. It became completely normal to see the four of them in the distance at a bar at around 11am with the wine out and sandwiches being offered around. The battle of who got to pay was always won by sneaky Steve. He was always able to find the best food and the best wine. I have never eaten or drank so much fantastic food and drink before in my life with such good company (Killonan neighbour parties are exempt from this sweeping statement).

Steve was always there with a smile, always with a hand offering something. When we finally arrived in Santiago together there was no one better to break down in tears with. In the plaza, the cathedral, during mass, after mass, at dinner, at breakfast the next day. We shared bandages and shoulders as tissues and I will always remember that day as one of the best in my life.

The next morning we all got up to say goodbye to Steve, 6.30 in the morning we were to meet for breakfast.

Only

No Steve ...

We had been his alarm clock for six days and the hotel had failed to wake him on time. We hauled him out of bed and dragged him half way across Santiago to find an open cafe to let him pay for breakfasts one last time. We are generous like that. And then that was it.

I will admit I did watch him walk off the plaza Obradioro one last time with that determined walk, ready to conquer finistere and muxia and meet his sweet Betsy on the plaza on the 12th at 12pm. (So romantic!) I would love to meet him there too one last time.

Well before we all show up one day in October at his vineyard in Napa Valley to do some MOGging in our pilgrim outfits looking for a cama.

I'm totally serious Steve, never invite an O'Neill to something unless you mean it, we always show up. Always.

Xx

Buen Camino.

Arrivals and Distractions

I know. It's been ages and ages since I wrote a post. Going from three a day to one a week must have been tough, however it meant that I was having a great time! Now that I have arrived and all my sins forgiven, I don't even feel bad about it!

So let me tell you how I have been doing.

Really really really well.

I was writing a lot at the start because I didn't have that many people to talk to, then my sister arrived and I slowed down a little, then Dan arrived and I slowed down a lot! Then when he left, I met very generous, happy, funny, interesting, smart distractions in the form of Steve, Katherina, Corina and Gwen, Marcella, Jane, Blair, the Spanish/Irish dancers, Claire and countless others who invited me out, planned the last stages, ate, drank, drank some more, slept, washed, lived, loved and walked a lot in between. My loads of time got taken up with real live people buying me drinks instead of people living inside my phone. Oops!

I have arrived in Santiago, and tomorrow, I go on to finistere, the end of the world, I have decided to go on alone if I can, if I just happen to run into Steve or new people on the way then all the better. But I feel ready to start alone again. It will give me time to decompress, to reconstruct the Grace that fell apart in the cathedral during the pilgrim mass. To get ready to face the big bad world with a tough skin again. I'll be honest, I feel like jelly, soft and vulnerable. I need to harden myself up again, what better way than to keep walking, and to make it harder, it's going to rain for the next few days. Just what I need! Haha!

So I have plans. Lots of notes and pictures that I have to put somewhere and this blog is going to be it.

Since I can't have a blog without a list here us a list of future blogs to look forward to. Also look forward to some heavy editing when I get access to a proper computer.

Peregrino daddies - in honour of my Daddy and the daddies I found along the way -Steve I'm looking at you.

Camino food - this is going to be a long one with so much more on Galicia

The camino dream - everyone has a dream at some point to open an albergue.

Camino sounds - many many many sounds.

The camino as a direction - the camino as life, as time, as all.

Arrivals

Departures

Where do we go from here?

Camino lessons - with a little help from Katherina who has been keeping track.

How to let people go.

A film review of "Camino- the way to Santiago"
-----

And I'll leave you with something special

Xx

Buen Camino

Grace Babbler O'Neill

Alone but not Alone

There is a saying here that goes,

"You are never alone on the camino"

There is another that says,

"You walk your own camino"

These link two very separate concepts that I have realised through my own walk and through watching others. I have had the pleasure to start my walk on my own, then be joined by my sister and my boyfriend. Dan is about to leave tomorrow and we have just finished our last walk together into Sarria. I start from here, the last 100 km to Santiago on my own again.

In Santiago to get the Compostela and the free ticket into heaven you have to walk the last 100km under your own steam. Sarria is just over 100km away and a lot of people stuck for time start from here. I am 5 days away from that cathedral, from the end of the Christian pilgrimage and the start if the pagan one to finistere.

Dan initially joined me as my support, as a tag along, kind of just to see me, but by the end he had been totally head over heels been converted to a peregrino, in mind, soul and body. He had changed from being there for me, to being there for himself. It was amazing to see the transformation, so quickly from that to this.

I think you can tell by how often people start to smile and greet others, of your growing affection for the little hamlets and fields and sudden unexpected revulsion of the big city. How time becomes monitored in kilometres, coffee stops and foot pain. And how amazingly fast twenty kilometers gets eaten up by your own two legs.

I guess what I'm trying to say was that even though you may come to the camino with someone, it becomes your own. Only you can experience the pain, the pleasure, the views of breathtaking brevity, the wonderful love of lying flat for long periods of time and how amazing octopus can taste in front of a fire on top of a mountain.

You walk it on your own, nobody can make your legs move for you, (well you could get a bus but PLEASE, ugh) you carry your own pack, you walk as far as you can, or want. The people who you choose to walk with are just that, a choice. So I thank you Dan, for choosing me.

Now that he is gone, I walked from Sarria to Portomarin on my own. However I have met twelve people today who I have met before, the lovely Marcella who I shared a coffee stop with, Claire and Reina who chatted about life and counselling, a few I only bumped into once or twice in hostels or hotels or albergues. I just met two German girls Dan and I met two nights ago and I have been invited to dine with them tonight. I'm sharing a room tonight with a woman I met with my sister in Astorga who told us to put panty liners in our shoes to help with slipping and blisters. And I have been invited to a showing of a documentary on the camino in Santiago at 8pm on Wednesday the 5th if June.

So many people! So many things! So never alone, ever on the camino.

Plus it was a gorgeous day and I only got accosted by cows twice.

Bittersweet start, fantastic middle, sleepy end.

Buen camino my people!

Ps- This blog is for Dad because he won't stop harassing for more. Xx love you!