PopWars

Peggi’s sister sent us a link to an article in the LA Times about “Strangers on the Earth,” a documentary on the Camino de Santiago. We’ve already seen three movies about the Camino and we were in the middle of watching “The Milky Way,” Buñuel’s 1969 masterpiece. It is surely the wildest movie about religion and the Camino (which is sometimes referred to as “The Milky Way”). I say “in the middle of watching” because the Netflix dvd locked up on us about halfway through because of scratches on the disc. Don’t you just wish everything was streamable?

While we were walking the actual Camino, from one small town church to the next, my cousin told us she felt like she missed out by not going to a Catholic school. I found myself making an argument for how she lucked out. She was never in a class in the middle of math when the teacher rounded us up to go next door to a mass in the church. She never had a nun veer off topic in the middle of an English lesson so we could hear a religious parable. And she probably had a gym in her school building and a phys-ed teacher.

In truth, Religion class, part of our daily curriculum, was sometimes as thought provoking as Buñuel’s movie. In fact, that is what I remember most from Catholic school. And it was the questioning that stuck with me, the same questions that are bantered about in “The Milky Way.” How can it be said that we have a free will when God knows exactly what we will do before we do it? All the things that can only be settled by accepting them as articles of faith, they just don’t make logical sense. The mysteries are meant to be confounding.

A friend of my parents requested a Mass for my parents today on what would have been their sixty-ninth anniversary. The priest had a beard and the altar boy role was played by a woman with grey hair and an ankle length skirt. The church, Saint Thomas More, was rather plain, lots of brick and a simple modern crucifix. I feel as though there is an effort underway to remove the mystery.

We don’t walk in the woods as much as we used to. We are afraid of the ticks. We still go there, once we’ve suited up, and it is a special treat when we do. And its hard to put on any kind of milage in the woods so we walk in different directions each day. Today we parked a the CoOp and walked along the river to Elmwood Avenue where we crossed the river and came back on the other side. Its beautiful over there and not as well traveled.

The path is paved and shared by bikes. Some bikers are better than others when they shout “On your left.” About half the time it scares the shit out of me as they come up on us from behind. It is possible to approach that phrase gently but it usually comes out like an alarm.

We were walking along the lake over Memorial Day and a bike rider who was coming toward us on our right shouted, “On your left.” We just froze in our tracks thinking someone else was coming up on us from behind but it was only him. He scared us and made no sense at all.

My sister, Amy, is the family historian. She remembers dates and places, when and where minor and significant events took place and we rely on her to keep track of things. The boxes of 35mm slides that our parents left behind are in good hands with her. She recently culled a few hundred and we sent them to a place in Utah to be scanned.

Our brother, Mark, was in town this weekend to see the Leo Dodd show at the Geisel Galley so we rounded up five of the seven Dodds, pictured above, and took a look at the photos on our tv. The family is a little spread out so there were very few pictures of the seven of us together. I like the coon hats on Fran and Tim, the smiles on our faces and the Rouault prints that my dad had on the wall behind us.

Our brother-in-law, Howie, brought olives and beer, Genesee’s Ruby Red Kolsch, a picture-perfect combo.
We played Margaret Explosion music from the past month at low volume. I had never seen many of the photos. I thought I identified a young Brad Fox in one one of them, rough housing at the pool with my brother, Fran, but my sister thinks it is someone else. She is probably right. Memory is far from factual and I prefer it that way.

We stopped by the closing party of Zanne Brunner’s art show. She took us over to a stack of her work, looking for a drawing of Peggi and me playing at the Little. She wanted to give us the drawing but someone had already bought it.

I can’t imagine how thick the garlic mustard would be if we didn’t pick it each year. We wait until the white flowers come up out. The plants are up around a foot by then, they are easy to spot and they haven’t gone to seed. Unlike the tooth swallow wort they are really easy to get out of the ground, roots and all. Our friends Pete and Shelley eat them but they don’t have them in anywhere near the quantity we do. Our undergrowth is stressed by the deer and the invasives are opportunistic as hell.

Isn’t the local first movement just a scaled down version of nationalism? I think we are still a long ways off from having too many breweries or coffee shops. And I like the idea Fifth Frame has for combining the two. It’s not an original idea. Coffee shops in Spain have seamlessly shifted gears from coffee to brew for centuries.

We have a friend who’s been talking about opening a coffee shop downtown. Before he does I think he should go to Spain and walk out the door of his hotel and stop at the first café he sees. Have a cup, café con leche or solo, two choices, none of the fancy flavored stuff. A few simple food items will be within eyeshot. Tortilla Espanola and fresh bread. Tostada con aceite de oliva would hit the spot. A bin of fresh oranges would be on the counter. The proprietor could toss a few in the machine and squeeze some zomo de naranja fresco for you. A copy of three or four different newspapers will be on the counter for patrons to chew over and prompt conversation.

Walk out the door and stop at the next café you see. Repeat and steal this intellectual property. Continental substitutions will be allowed when you bring the basics home.

We’ve been back from Spain for weeks but our walking partner, my cousin Maureen, kept going and just finished today. She arrived in Santiago, got her certificate stamped and continued on to the first alternate ending, Finistere (end of earth), and then to the hardcore final stop, Muxia, in the northwestern corner of Spain. We have kept in touch each morning as she is finishing her day’s walk and I couldn’t count the number of times we have said we wish we were on the trail with her.

We walked up to the high school today to vote on the town’s budget and it became clear to me what one of the best features of the Camino de Santiago is that each day is an entirely different walk from all the rest. A new starting point, new route and a brand new destination. It made the five mile round trip to the high school kind of ho hum.

I finally got my photos sorted, If I used a smartphone or if my camera had GPS it would have been done for me but before I put a name on the file I try try to figure out where we were. We were in and out of so many small town and so many churches. I have a picture of a crucified woman and I couldn’t remember her name so a little research was in order before labeling it “Santa Librada” and throwing the Camino Photos up on Flckr.

I discovered there is a trans-fronted rock band in Baltimore called Santa Librida. In the Middle Ages Santa Librada was the patron saint of prostitutes and over time she became the patron saint of women in labour. Apparently pregnant women visit her tomb and recite the following:

Santa Librada,

May the way out

Be as sweet

As the way in!

In Spain for the month of April we got to experience an early Spring and because it was so cold here in April we are enjoying it all over again in May. We put lettuce, spinach and cilantro in today, all from seed. I realize we’re late with those but we’ll see what happens. We picked a batch of kale from last year’s plants. They try to start up again and only get so far. We plan to get over to Case’s on Norton pick the plants we intend to put in. We may be pushing it with those but we hear Mother’s Day is the new Memorial Day for clear of frost days.

My sister thought we were goin to Lourdes and she asked us to pick a rosary up for her. She got confused because we had told her our cousin was going Lourdes for Easter before meeting us in St. Jean Pied de Port‎. Lourdes would have been the place to buy one but we found a nice one in Pamplona at religious store connected to the Cathedral. We dropped that off tonight after yoga.

It was hot in the old Brighton School No. 1 gym. Jeffery had the doors open. Brighton High School had a lacrosse game going on and they cranked a recording of the national anthem through their P.A. system. Jeffery told us the longer you practice yoga the easier it is to block out distractions.