Winter Camino off the table..a whole bunch of NOPE!

[William Garza]

Living here in Texas and having got all of..the whole of.. winter this week i have decided that discretion is a benefit of middle age..in my case...my golden years, due to males in my family not living much passed seventy years.

I pride myself in being one of the tough ones...situationally.

Ide dive into a frozen river to get you
Ide run into a burning building for you
Ide run into the chlorine gas filled building again without a moments thought ..
That kind of situation stuff.

But i think voluntairily exposing myself to a cold Camino just for the sake of a romantic notion of a lonely figure out in the expanse..silhouetted against winters skys
The delightfull crunch of snow under the boots
The cawing of Muginn and Hunnin watching from yon trees
Freyja herself offering a cuppa out among the empties...as her cats warm my lap...

Cutting a dashing figure as i walk through solem and silent places..the sacred places of the heart and mind..holy of holies where you become the truest person in fact,deed and thought.

Walking into the ravening dusk as the entropy of winters fall seals the land against man and beast...only those who dare can speak of these cathedrals in the knowings.

Walking past glowing windows..warmed by kith and kin in the transient warmth shared among men. Looking in but not yet welcoming...yet
To walk on and on..drawn inexhorably...inevitably into the darkness..a foretaste of the great darkness at the end.

It would be a sadness to end here...there is yet that hill, that measure still in the heart while the body steadfastly is saying
Stop

But you've a beating heart and a volcanic spirit! That looks disdainfully at the weakness..human
And then
Human at last
At..the last..begin to seek a soft place to land
But some small betrayal of the age persists deep in the tides of the heart...I..am no longer young..
And the betrayal of the body, then the mind far longer before the spirit..lingers like smoke in still air.

Where are they in the deepness of nite..where sleep and ease makes light of the day..laughing at the ease at which..
At..the giving up to the ends..because of the means.

To cramp and pain and rage at the frailty of the body to the will to go on
Tooth and nail ripping the nite to shreds..and waking up red eyed and restless.

Raging against the ticking of biology and the dying of the light
Raging against the coming of nite..

An old toothless lion with hyenas at the balls waiting to die..not..wanting to die
Knowing one day..the inevitability of strength and courage..wont
Cant....

And the slow decay begins...

But stepping out once more onto the road..the old sap flowing
The courage is there...

The body follows what the spirit wills in spite of the protesting minds incessant bitching..always there in the back

This winter has told me that the days grow shorter whistling through the wires

And that a winter Camino..the seductive siren upon which i will break on the rocks of reality..is off the table.

The burning of my hands equals the burning of old injuries on rising..
The warmth escaping the body faster

The fall and spring are full of despair and promise in turn.

Ive been in 75 below zero
We were at zero here

It hurt.

What the spirit wants is sometimes a foolish want i think.

But.
It is not enough
NOT ENOUGH! for a spirit to be floating "out there"
It is a raveous hunger burning deep and hot..infecting the heart and mind.

Wanderlust is a treacherous thing.
Pax

 

[Texas Walker]

Living here in Texas and having got all of..the whole of.. winter this week i have decided that discretion is a benefit of middle age..in my case...my golden years, due to males in my family not living much passed seventy years.

I pride myself in being one of the tough ones...situationally.

Ide dive into a frozen river to get you
Ide run into a burning building for you
Ide run into the chlorine gas filled building again without a moments thought ..
That kind of situation stuff.

But i think voluntairily exposing myself to a cold Camino just for the sake of a romantic notion of a lonely figure out in the expanse..silhouetted against winters skys
The delightfull crunch of snow under the boots
The cawing of Muginn and Hunnin watching from yon trees
Freyja herself offering a cuppa out among the empties...as her cats warm my lap...

Cutting a dashing figure as i walk through solem and silent places..the sacred places of the heart and mind..holy of holies where you become the truest person in fact,deed and thought.

Walking into the ravening dusk as the entropy of winters fall seals the land against man and beast...only those who dare can speak of these cathedrals in the knowings.

Walking past glowing windows..warmed by kith and kin in the transient warmth shared among men. Looking in but not yet welcoming...yet
To walk on and on..drawn inexhorably...inevitably into the darkness..a foretaste of the great darkness at the end.

It would be a sadness to end here...there is yet that hill, that measure still in the heart while the body steadfastly is saying
Stop

But you've a beating heart and a volcanic spirit! That looks disdainfully at the weakness..human
And then
Human at last
At..the last..begin to seek a soft place to land
But some small betrayal of the age persists deep in the tides of the heart...I..am no longer young..
And the betrayal of the body, then the mind far longer before the spirit..lingers like smoke in still air.

Where are they in the deepness of nite..where sleep and ease makes light of the day..laughing at the ease at which..
At..the giving up to the ends..because of the means.

To cramp and pain and rage at the frailty of the body to the will to go on
Tooth and nail ripping the nite to shreds..and waking up red eyed and restless.

Raging against the ticking of biology and the dying of the light
Raging against the coming of nite..

An old toothless lion with hyenas at the balls waiting to die..not..wanting to die
Knowing one day..the inevitability of strength and courage..wont
Cant....

And the slow decay begins...

But stepping out once more onto the road..the old sap flowing
The courage is there...

The body follows what the spirit wills in spite of the protesting minds incessant bitching..always there in the back

This winter has told me that the days grow shorter whistling through the wires

And that a winter Camino..the seductive siren upon which i will break on the rocks of reality..is off the table.

The burning of my hands equals the burning of old injuries on rising..
The warmth escaping the body faster

The fall and spring are full of despair and promise in turn.

Ive been in 75 below zero
We were at zero here

It hurt.

What the spirit wants is sometimes a foolish want i think.

But.
It is not enough
NOT ENOUGH! for a spirit to be floating "out there"
It is a raveous hunger burning deep and hot..infecting the heart and mind.

Wanderlust is a treacherous thing.
Pax

I feel your situation. (RGV, just got power back yesterday, thanks be to God!) I have always known, since our first Camino in 2014, that I cannot retain heat. In 2018, the year that winter just wouldn't give up, we were, as expected, shivering the first week or so until our bodies adapted. But that was late May into June. Spring! Winter would be entirely beyond us.

(I never realized how wonderful electric lighting is until this week. And refrigeration, and heating. Not to mention a functional cable modem and router so I can stop in and "visit" with y'all.) (edited for grammar)

blessings...

 

[henrythedog]

I feel your situation. (RGV, just got power back yesterday, thanks be to God!) I have always known, since our first Camino in 2014, that I cannot retain heat. In 2018, the year that winter just wouldn't give up, we were, as expected, shivering the first week or so until our bodies adapted. But that was late May into June. Spring! Winter would be entirely beyond us.

(I never realized how wonderful electric lighting is until this week. And refrigeration, and heating. Not to mention a functional cable modem and router so I can stop in and "visit" with y'all.) (edited for grammar)

blessings...

Your post reminded me. A young Texan friend many years ago told me that the plural of ‘y’all’ is ‘all y’all’.

 

[Marbe2]

I feel your situation. (RGV, just got power back yesterday, thanks be to God!) I have always known, since our first Camino in 2014, that I cannot retain heat. In 2018, the year that winter just wouldn't give up, we were, as expected, shivering the first week or so until our bodies adapted. But that was late May into June. Spring! Winter would be entirely beyond us.

(I never realized how wonderful electric lighting is until this week. And refrigeration, and heating. Not to mention a functional cable modem and router so I can stop in and "visit" with y'all.) (edited for grammar)

blessings...

@Texas Walker, @William Garza and all Texans who are currently experiencing this disaster in The Lone Star State. May your electric and heat be restored soon! Blessings...

 

[Arn]

I live in a Colonial Virginia Gentleman farmer's house (circa 1793...or so, I hardly can remember). My electric bill is highest in Winter. The last one $74 in January. I have seven working fireplaces, though the only one I use is in the parlor and I don't fire that up unless the temperature is 40 F/4C or less at 3 pm. It easily gets up to 60F/15C by 6pm. When I do lose power, I have a gas generator that runs essentials, the most critical being well water.
If it's that cold, i don't care if the fridge, freezer go out...it's likely warmer in there than out here.
I have taken showers outside. If the shower is running, it's warmer than the air temperature. When stationed in Kirkenes, Norway, the average water temperature in Kirkenes in winter reaches 3°C/37.4°F likely due to the Gulf Stream.