Small things

I feel like I’m stuck in a lull as far as work and life go. Summer is an odd time. No classes, no TA responsibilities mean most people travel or spend 23 hours in a lab every day. I split my time between the library and the metabolic lab running statistical models and VO2 max tests. And applying for Indian visas.

I’ve had a solitary summer. No picnics, no dinners, no swimming. I have less than a month to change that.

Five small things:

1. On Monday, Jamie left me a voicemail wishing me a happy Feast of St. James. It’s been four years since I walked the Camino, but among pilgrims the saying goes that the true pilgrimage begins when you leave Santiago de Compostela. (Now I know why people go to Finisterre. They want closure, but there is no closure.)

2. I saw seagulls in a parking lot today. I grew up with them in California, but there were none where I lived in Texas. It still surprises me to hear them now.  They remind me that I’m near water.

3. Flipping through the stations today, I heard “I and Love and You”. (I sang this while walking in Brooklyn in the rain on my way to a ballroom competition…it was one of those my life is incredible moments.)

4. My roommate’s cat is hilarious. I moved her food, and I had to pick her up and plop her down in front of it before she found it.

5. My ukulele is awesome. Currently working on “Sin Ti No Soy Nada”. I was introduced to Amaral in Spain and love them. Also working on “Mack the Knife” because it’s just too awesome NOT to know.

Joy with a purpose

I took this picture in the summer of 2007 after walking 27 km (16.77 miles) of the Camino de Santiago in the frigid rain.  Yes, I was exhausted. Yes, I was in pain.

But I was triumphant.

That simple baguette with honey, eaten in a humble pilgrim’s stop, gave me great satisfaction because I had earned it. I had a concrete goal, and I could not stop until I reached it.

Now at 12:28am in Ithaca, New York, I am buried in mountains of macro mechanisms, piles of publications, and swamps of student submissions (alliteration, woo!).  I have to remind myself that this is all part of the goal.

Thank you, friends, for all your encouraging phone calls, letters, cards, and emails this past week (and every week).