summertime saunter

At last and once again, I return to this online record of my comings and goings. It's been a while, quite a while, and many things have happened since school ended on May 31st that I didn't capture in text as quickly as I would have liked, but maybe the good parts get weeded out of the excess of information when you wait a while to write them down. How about a quick list of highlights to get things started:

1. El Camino de Santiago from Oporto, Portugal to Santiago de Compastela, Spain (250km).
2. A leisurely month at home (A Corunya) with some good visitors.
3. El Festival de Ortigueira.
4. Festival de Percebes.
5. I bought my first roadbike.
6. Awesome dayt rip through Galicia and Asturias.
7. The Trip-- Madrid, Segovia, Barcelona, San Fileu with my main man Mike, his lovely wife, Danaya, and my sidekick, Claire.
8. Gran Canaria.

Looking at it like this makes me very impressed, although while everything happens, well, it just happens, and one doesn't often consider the greatness of  it all in the moment. I suppose that's why the ability to reflect is one of the supreme human characteristics (see earlier post with the poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"). I see clearly now, and I've been told that I would eventually, that the ability to look back on these times in my life will bring me much contentment later in life, and I remind myself of this frequently when I feel that innate guilt emerging from the depths of my mind when I'm overly bored or lazy and begin to question the merit of my current lifestyle. Everything is temporary, though, and this too shall pass, and I will undoubtedly miss it immensely when it does. But I'm in it now! And I'm in it deep! And I've read some good books recently:

1. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
2. Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
3. Saltwater Buddha by Jaimal Yogis

All are highly recommended and it's a diverse fiction trilogy if you're in the mood.

Finally, to end this recap, the theme song of the summer...