When April with his showers sweet...

When April with his showers sweet with fruit

The drought of March has pierced unto the root

And bathed each vein with liquor that has power

To generate therein and sire the flower;

When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,

Quickened again, in every holt and heath,

The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun 

Into the Ram one half his course has run,

And many little birds make melody

That sleep through all the night with open eye 

(So Nature pricks the, on to ramp and rage)-

Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,

And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,

To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.

-Prologue, Canterbury Tales

And so it came about that I heard, many years ago, of this modern revival of the ancient pilgrim road to Santiago across Northern Spain, and ever since the thought of taking it up has not left me.  I still have no real sense why the simple idea of it has been constantly humming along in the background, or why it again lept out to be done when the plans for this broad year were in their nascent stages.  

No matter.  Our best meal in Italy, incidentally, was in the fisherman's village in Sorrento, where the waitress greeted us with the words, "You have the embarrassment of a choice."  As if implied in the concept of choice there is the possibility of error and, thus, embarrassment. Not a quote unique to our waitress either, as Google attributes almost exactly the same phrasing to Vauvenargues, apparently some French moralist of the 18th century. Sometimes it is better not to pose the question "why" and just get on with the doing.

And so here are my supplies all acquired and spread out on a random floor in Paris waiting to be packed.  Soon I will shave my head for the first time and face for the last time in awhile, and let the slow process of growing it back out mark the days spent off the grid.  Should be simple living with ample opportunity to experience that wide range of thoughts Che Guevera refers to at the outset of the Motorcycle Diaries, from the heights of philosophical conjecture to the most abject longing for a bowl of soup - in perfect harmony with the state of the stomach.  I am quite looking forward to it.

See you in a month or so.