art Archives - Nadine Walks

Paris of My Dreams

August 4, 2017

I arrived in Paris in my hiking clothes: long green pants that zip off at the knee, a t-shirt over a tank top, my good socks, my sturdy and quite worn in shoes. I wore my pack, too, and over my right shoulder was a small duffel bag, all the extra clothes and items I’d needed for the writer’s retreat I’d just left.

I felt just a little strange, and nervous. My walking stick, which I’d carried for the last 34 days, had been left behind at La Muse; tucked away in the corner of a basement room where, hopefully, I might be able to find it again. My loaded pack felt heavy, though it was a weight that I had gotten used to just weeks before, as I hiked through the Chemin du Puy. Already, I was out of practice.

But I wasn’t in Paris to be a hiker or a walker, was I? I thought that maybe I was here to continue my writer’s retreat but I wasn’t sure about that, either.

All I knew were, well, three things:

1. I missed those full days of walking, and part of me wished that instead of a week in Paris, I had organized a week long trek somewhere new and exciting.

2. I missed La Muse. I missed Homer and the way he would bound up to me and then bound away, dancing in a circle when he knew we were going for a hike. I missed, already, my room with the big window and the view of the mountains, I missed the friends that I’d made, the little writer’s community we’d formed.

3. I love Paris. I really, really love Paris.

But why was I spending a week in the city, alone? What was I going to accomplish here? I already know Paris, at least I know the things that tourists know: where to get a hot crêpe and what the view from the top of Notre Dame looks like, how to find the room with the Van Gogh’s in the Musée d’Orsay and how to open the door of a car on the metro.

I’d spent time in Paris at least a half dozen times during the year I studied abroad in Toulouse, and in the last 4 years, have spent between 1-4 days in Paris every summer. It’s become a regular thing, a mandatory swing through Paris when I’m in Europe. Sometimes all I have to do is buy a baguette and walk down the streets of the Île de St Louis and come upon Notre Dame and stare up in wonder.

Now I was in Paris and I had an entire week and I wondered: am I going to continue to be in love with this city? Am I going to become restless? Will I wish I were somewhere else?

Here are the answers: Yes. No. No.

My days in Paris didn’t exactly have a routine, though I suppose in some ways, little ways, they did. I’d wake up between 7 and 8am, though sometimes if I was awake in the 6 o’clock hour I’d roll out of bed and walk onto my balcony to see if there was a good sunrise. Several times, there was.

Once I was up for good I’d spoon some coffee into the little stove top expresso maker and then take a shower, toweling off just as the coffee was ready. There was a small fridge in the “kitchen” of my place and on my first day I’d stocked it with some essentials: yogurt, fruit, cheese, meat. I’d have a small bowl of yogurt with my coffee and flip through a guidebook and come up with ideas for the day.

Around 9, sometimes earlier, I would set out. The city is quiet in the morning, even at 9 many places are just beginning to think about opening, the tables start to go out in front of the cafes, brooms sweep leaves and trash off the pavement and sometimes I’d pass men or women hosing off the sidewalk in front of their shops. Trash trucks drove up and down the streets, bottles would crash and shatter as recycling bins were emptied.

Usually, the first thing I’d do was stop for another coffee, or a croissant. I found a few cafés that weren’t traditionally French but featured pretty decent coffee, and a few cafés with mediocre coffee and a lot of French charm.

After coffee I would always head off somewhere, walking through the streets, never using the metro (not in the morning, anyway). I went to art museums: the Musée d’Orsay, Espace Dali, the Musée de l’Orangerie, the Musée Rodin. I explored the arrondissements, the neighborhoods: the 5th, the 3rd, the 14th, the 17th, the 6th and 7th, the 3rd and 4th, the 20th. The Latin Quarter, St-Germain, Montparnasse, the Marais, Montmartre.

And more. I walked everywhere. I almost don’t want to write this because it seems absurd, but on two separate days I walked 20km through the city. 20km! Around and around and around.

But I used the metro, too, I love the metro. Even in the summer when it is hot down there in those winding corridors, when the smell is so distinct, it’s a smell that screams to me: “This is Paris. THIS is Paris.” But the metro can take you anywhere, and on the streets you will always find one, there seems to be one at every other turn.

I went to bookshops, and I bought books. I read books, too, in back rooms of the cafés, with a noisette or a flat white (the coffee that is taking over Paris, apparently), and I’d sit and arrange myself on a wooden stool and I would open my book and read.

A few times, I met up with friends: for dinner in a bistrot, for a picnic by the Seine, for a glass of champagne to celebrate my birthday. We shopped for picnic supplies in La Grande Epicerie, a place I’d never been to before and I went back two days later to pick up food for lunches or dinners on my balcony: double crème brie, eggplant and yogurt dip, octopus and prawns and mussels marinated in olive oil, crispy baguettes, fresh raspberries.

I discovered new places: a covered market where I bought hot fries in a newspaper cone, a street market that I walked up and down three times, just to watch the vendors and listen to the sounds. I bought a bottle of wine from a little shop, a chunk of cheese from another.

Parks and cemeteries and canals and squares: I spent a lot of time in outdoor spaces. Jardin du Luxembourg (twice, because it was a 15 minute walk from my apartment), Père Lachaise (twice, because the first time I got turned around and had to leave to meet a friend before I could find Oscar Wilde’s grave. I’ve seen it before- two or three times at least- but it’s like a visit I have to make whenever I’m in Paris. I’m not even sure why, because I’m not a particular fan of Oscar Wilde… I just know that I have to do it). And what else? The Canal Saint-Martin and the Promenade Plantée, the Place des Vosges and the Place de la Contrescarpe. Parc de Belleville.

So many things, all of this and more. But I also spent time in that little apartment of mine- for afternoon catnaps and a glass of wine in the evening, sitting on my balcony and looking out over the rooftops. At 10pm, and again at 11 and again at midnight, thousands of lights on the Eiffel Tower flash and blink, the tower sparkles for 5 minutes and I could see it from my balcony and every night I was home I would stand outside and watch.

Home. That apartment and even Paris, a little bit, began to feel like home. My friend Alex, an Australian writer I’d met at La Muse last summer, moved to Paris in March. She signed a 6-month lease but always intended to stay for at least a year, and when I talked with her about it, her eyes started to shine. “If I can swing it, I want to stay for at least 2 years, maybe 3.”

I asked her a lot of questions about what it had been like to move to Paris, to live in Paris, if the language barrier was a problem, if the cultural barrier was a problem. She told me about a French course she took, how she connected with other expats, her favorite things to do, the site she used to find her apartment.

And I began to dream. What if I could do this? I have an entire life somewhere else but the thing is, I’ve been dreaming about Paris ever since I was 20, from the moment I first laid eyes on the city. And Paris, after all this time, is still a beautiful dream. It’s the city of my dreams.

7 different people asked me for directions during my week in Paris; some of them were tourists but some were French, one- an old lady- might even have been a Parisian. I could only give an answer to one of them, a French guy, and I answered with a smile and with an assurance. I’d understood his question, I knew where we were and where he wanted to go, and I could give a response, in French.

After a week in the city I was beginning to feel like I knew where I was, where I was going. Could I ever have more time like this? More than just a few days, more than a week? Could I live here for a few months, half a year? An entire year?

In my dreams, yes. And if I continue to write and work and aim high and big, if I take chances and with a little (or a lot) of luck, I might just be able to live out my dreams.

But, that’s one of my castles in the air and it’s a beautiful one but for now I’ll be grateful for what is right in front of me: the magical week I just spent in a city that I love, the work it took to get myself there, the chances that I’ve already taken in life, the persistance of my dreams for where they’ve already taken me.

And Paris will always be there. Whether for a few days or a week or a month, a year or a lifetime; it will always be there.

Memorable Moments of 2016

December 30, 2016

I always get reflective at this time of the year. For years I would journal on the very last day of the calendar year, looking back and reminding myself of all that I’d done (or hadn’t done), what went well in the year, what hadn’t. And then I’d set my sights forward, making lists of goals and resolutions and plans. A new year has always had a touch of magic to it: I still love the idea that I’m starting from a blank slate, that I hold the pen that writes in the story of my next 12 months.

But before we can get to the future, lets look back at the past! I’ve never written a ‘best of’ post, have I? In any case, I’ve been thinking about all that I’ve done this year, and I thought it could be fun to do a round-up here on this blog, going month to month. There were some things that went wrong, maybe some months where it felt like I didn’t do too much, but I’m going to keep this post happy and positive. These are my memorable moments of 2016, along with some of my favorite photos. (And, in case you don’t make it to the end of this post: a great big thank you to all of you. I’m still astounded that there is anyone at all who reads this blog, much less people who have been coming back for years now. My blogging slowed down this year, but I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon. If anything, I want to make blogging a more regular part of my routine for 2017, so I hope you’ll stick around).

January

I kicked off the year in Washington DC, a place I visited multiple times in 2016. I have several very good friends who live in or around the city and so I find myself there a lot: for art museums, baseball games, concerts. And I ended the month in Fort Royal, Virginia, where I met up with a friend for a winter weekend of wine tasting. But aside from these trips, the month was cold, and quiet. I made a few trips into Philly to hunt down the city’s best coffee shops, but otherwise I was tucked into my apartment and doing the tough, but gratifying work of writing my memoir.

February

Another cold, winter month and the few photos I took reveal simple activities: I wrote, I hit more coffee shops, I baked bread, I went on a few long walks when the sun came out.

March

More walks! More coffee! Art museums in Philly are pay what you wish on the first Sunday of the month, and at least once I year I get into the city to see my favorite works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. This year I waited in a long line to get free tickets into the Barnes Foundation, a museum that holds an extensive collection of post-impressionist and early modern paintings. It’s an outstanding collection, and I can’t think of a better way to spend a winter Sunday than in the gallery of an art museum.

This month also held my first big trip of the year: a four-day camping excursion on Cumberland Island in the state of Georgia. It was an adventure, to be sure: I’d never been camping on my own before, and never for more than one night. I bought myself a new sleeping bag, a little camp stove, and loaded up my car and drove 12 hours down to Georgia. I took a ferry out to the island and crossed my fingers that this camping thing would work out. And it did. The weather was stunning, I explored all over the island, saw wild horses and armadillos and the ruins of old mansions.

April

The weather began to get nicer this month, so I took advantage and was outside as much as possible. I went on a far-too-long walk along the Delaware & Raritan Canal (I think it was about 18 miles? My feet were throbbing at the end and I had a small blister forming on the ball of my foot but it was a good to get back outside), spent a weekend in Frederick, MD with good friends, spent time with my family and kept chipping away at my writing.

May

I usually love the month of May but this year it seemed like it rained constantly. Did the sun come out at all? My pictures show beautiful days only at the end of the month, when I drove out to Cleveland over Memorial Day weekend to visit my sister. When it wasn’t raining I spent as much time as I could at my local park, hiking on the trails and getting ready for my summer adventures.

June

The end of work, baseball games, beach trips, hiking, a bridal shower for a good friend. And at the very end of the month, I set off for my 7-week summer in Europe, which I kicked off in Bath, England. I spent a day wandering through the city, finding my travel legs, and hanging out with Jane Austen.

July

It’s hard to pick the highlights from the month of July: on the 1st of the month I was at Stonehenge, on the 31st of the month I was dragging myself into Oviedo to finish the Camino de San Salvador. In between I had three mostly glorious weeks at La Muse, the writer’s and artist’s retreat in the south of France. If I had to pick a favorite moment from the month it would probably be sitting up at Le Roc with Homer, looking out over the mountains surrounding Labastide.

August

Look how dirty my leg is!!

Lots more walking to do this month! I started things off with 9 days on the Camino del Norte, then spent a week in Scotland, hiking the West Highland Way. Both trips were incredible, but by the end I felt ready to come home and spend the last month of summer with family and friends.

September

I checked an item off my bucket list this month: I officiated the wedding of two good friends! Afterwards I joked that I might make this officiating-weddings-thing a side-gig (anyone need someone to marry them?), but all joking aside, it was an incredible experience. The rest of the month was about transitioning back into work and enjoying the fading days of summer with long hikes and a couple trips to DC.

October

My mom and I took a little trip up to Concord, Massachusetts to see Walden Pond and (most importantly) Orchard House, which is the long-time home of Louisa May Alcott. I wasn’t supposed to take any photos inside but when no one was looking I snapped a photo of the desk where Alcott wrote Little Women. It’s my favorite book of all time, and after the trip I felt re-energized and excited about getting back into my own writing.

November

November had a couple weekend trips: one down to Maryland and Virginia and West Virginia- with a quick hike in Shenandoah National Park and a visit to Harper’s Ferry, and a day trip up to NYC to reunite with a couple friends from my summer at La Muse. There was election day madness and a relaxing trip home for Thanksgiving, and lots of walks and hiking as I took advantage of some mild fall weather.

December

This has been a quiet month. I’ve seen friends, baked lots of cookies, and spent the holidays with my family. Since my summer travels I’ve really struggled to get back into my writing, but I think I’ve set myself up with a good plan for the next few months. I’m ready to get into a new year, and I’m ready to see what I can accomplish in 2017. 2016 was, overall, a fine year, but now it’s time for something even bigger and greater.

Happy New Year, my friends, and I will see you all soon!

Paris and London, Art and Memories

July 5, 2016

I’m on a train heading down through France, on my way to the writer’s retreat in Labastide. There was a little excitement just now, though not the kind that you want: a bag was left in the middle of the aisle in one of the luggage areas on the train, in car 6 (which, incidentally, was just a few rows behind where I was sitting). The conductor and the staff made multiple announcements, searching for the owner, and someone came through our car to ask if the bag was ours. The next announcement threatened to stop the train if the owner couldn’t be found, and before too long everyone in car 6 was being asked to take our things and move up to the first car. We did, the train began to slow down, and just as we settled into our new seats (I think in a first class car- more room!), we were told that the owner of the bag showed up.

It wasn’t until the announcement that they were going to stop the train that I began to worry; I’m not typically a worrier, I don’t like to dwell on stuff that could go wrong. But for just a few minutes this had me a little rattled. It’s all the stuff we see on the news, the things that are happening around the world, the warnings of friends and family before I left for this trip: “Be careful!” they all said. “Europe’s not as safe as it used to be.” I don’t think that anywhere is quite as safe as it used to be, but that also doesn’t mean it’s so dangerous that we shouldn’t leave home. Still though, this was a reminder of how unsettling the world feels right now. In the past I might have just been curious about what was going on; this time, my mind jumped to the worst.

In any case, the train has picked back up to its regular pace, the conductor assured us that everything is fine, and the journey continues.

Or, maybe it’s just not a great morning. Last night I started coughing, and woke in the middle of the night to a sore throat. A few days before- in Bath, actually- the woman in the bunk below me was sick, and was coughing and sneezing quite a bit. “Oh no,” I thought. “The last thing I want is to catch whatever she’s got.” It probably hasn’t helped that I’ve been moving around constantly, that I’m not getting enough sleep, that my meals are a bit erratic and that I might not be eating quite enough fruits and veggies (but the scones! And the crepes!)

So I’m drinking tea and orange juice and I think this was the first time in my life that I was in Paris and didn’t drink any coffee. It doesn’t seem right, somehow. In fact, all of Paris felt a little… different. I was there for under 24 hours- arriving around 2:00pm on Sunday afternoon, and I left just after 7am this morning (Monday). It was such a short time in the city and really I was just kind of passing through. Different than my other trips, even if the others were on the short side as well- this one was just a quick stopover. But for being in such a big, grand city, it was all rather simple. I grabbed a few metro tickets, easily got to my hostel, checked in and stored my luggage then went back into the city, stopped by the place with the best baguettes to pick up a jambon/buerre sandwich (ham and butter, my favorite), then over to the Musee Marmottan, to see all the Monet’s. This was a new museum for me, I liked that even on a short trip I could see something new.

Back to the hostel to get my key, up to my room to have a shower, then back out in the city to wander around. This was when all I really wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep: it was chilly and raining and I was exhausted. But it’s not a trip to Paris without seeing Notre Dame, so I walked over, checked out the new Shakespeare and Company cafe, bought a crepe, then headed back.

There’s so much of Paris that I’m not familiar with; every time I go I stay in the same hostel, so I know just one area really well. But there’s something to be said for this- for maybe the very first time, Paris felt sort of like another home to me. It was easy, and effortless. It was like I stopped by to see an old, good friend. And I thought, once again, of something I realized after my very first trip there, when I was 20: Paris isn’t going anywhere. It will always be there, waiting, welcoming me for however long I want to stay. I like that.

I never got a chance to write about my other days in England, but they were great. Rushed and fast and maybe a little too much for someone like me (who wants time to sightsee, AND time to hang out in cafes and write). But I saw a bunch of stuff that meant a lot to me to see- things that are sort of on my unofficial ‘list’ (you know, the things in the world you always assume you’ll get to do/see one day. Lately, I’m realizing that I’m never going to see this stuff if I don’t actually plan a trip and make it happen… obvious, I know, but I guess I just feel that I no longer quite have all the time in the world for all the things I want to do).

So I saw Stonehenge, and I really loved it. In London, I went to the Tate Britain and spent a long time in the Turner rooms- JMW Turner was the first artist I ever really studied, way back in high school, when I was 16. (Come to think of it, I wrote a paper on Notre Dame for that class, too!). Whenever I’m in an art museum I check to see if there’s a Turner, and I was overwhelmed by the number at the Tate. And then I saw another painting I recognized- in another connection to high school, my English class was reading Hamlet and there was a depiction of Ophelia on the cover of our books. When the books were handed out to us, a boy across the room exclaimed, “Nadine! This looks just like you!” Everyone started laughing (maybe because Ophelia was floating down a stream to her death), but the boy was serious. I blushed, and ducked my head. At the time, I wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not.
But then I was walking through the halls of the Tate and came across this painting and I started smiling, almost laughing, at the memory.

The final connection to high school was also during my day in London; an old friend lives there, someone I haven’t seen since I was 18. She invited me over to her family’s apartment; that evening, in the square down below, the neighbors were having a communal bbq. It was an incredible evening: everyone spread out on blankets and chairs in a beautiful garden, a DJ playing tunes (a Beatles song was playing when we walked in), the smell of charcoal, kids running around, twinkle lights in the trees. Standing at the grill, my friend leaned over to me. “They don’t know how to grill stuff here.” And as predicted, the men around the grill watched as my friend flipped her burgers, then put down rounds of bright yellow pineapple. “American,” she explained, and the men all laughed, then asked if she could help them with their food.

Later in the evening, after lots of drinking, people started dancing. But it was the strangest sort of thing- it was like a wedding. There was line dancing and the Bee Gees and even the Macarena. That one brought everyone out to the floor. I was standing by another American and he kept shaking his head. “Don’t they know that no one dances to this anymore?” He gestured to the crowd. “Welcome to Brexit.” It was a combination of every age group: little children, a few teenagers, twenty and thirty-somethings, parents and grandparents. They were swinging their hips and waving their arms and smiling and laughing. England might be a bit of a mess right now, but on that night, in that square, it seemed like everyone was in it together.

Next up, I’ll be checking in from the south of France!

In the footsteps of Monet and Hemingway; Day Two in Paris, and the end of my Camino

August 11, 2015

I’ve been trying to write a post about the last day in Paris and the end of my trip, and I’m reminded of why I loved writing in the moment so much: writing about something that happened several weeks ago is a completely different experience than writing about it when the memories are fresh, when they’re all around you.

So I’ll start how I often do, with what’s around me in the moment: it’s just after 8am and I have a half finished cup of really strong coffee on the table next to me. I’m in my living room and despite the early hour it’s dark in here; the skies are a thick grey and rain drizzles and pours through the trees, onto the stone porch that’s just outside my door.

I’ve had a disjointed and crazy and wonderful few weeks since I’ve been home: a day in my apartment, a week on the road. A few days home again and a few days back out. Back and forth, home and away, over and over. I have one week left of vacation before I return to work, and at the start of the summer, I was tempted to pack in as much as possible: go to Europe, walk the Camino, come home and travel south for a wedding and to see friends. Then take off again- maybe California, maybe Maine, maybe an impromptu backpacking trip in the woods. I realized I was totally unprepared to do any of this, and what’s more, I didn’t want to do anything big. I wanted to sit still for awhile- and even though I’ve been back and forth and continuing to move, there’s also been so much calm in the past few weeks.

I moved so much on my Camino. We all do- anyone who walks a Camino- and I certainly moved last year, but this time? I was running, sailing, gliding through Spain. I could feel it- even in the early days of pain and fatigue and blisters, I pushed on, I pushed harder, I made myself move. And by the end, I felt like I was flying. I’ll write more- hopefully- about how I did this walk, why I decided to walk those long days and what I got out of it- but what I’m thinking about now is my mental state, especially at the end of the Camino.

My mind was strong. It was solid and confident and settled. I was so present in my moments on the Camino, but towards the end, I was also aware of what would happen when I returned home, aware of how I felt when I returned home last year. I’d thought about this as I walked, I thought about this during my conversation with Andrea, on my last night in Santiago: the Camino begins when the walking ends.

And I thought about this on my last day in Paris. I did a small day trip out to Giverny, the home and gardens where Monet spent the end of his life, and where he did some of his most famous work. I lingered over this trip- I could have rushed to the Gare du Nord and made it on the first train out to Vernon (a town near Giverny), I could have hopped on a bus that would take me with the first wave of tourists into the property, I could have tried to enjoy the gardens and the pond before the crowds would arrive. But instead, I lingered over my MIJE breakfast, I slowly wandered through the streets of my quartier and over to the nearest metro. When I arrived at the train station I learned that the next train to Vernon wasn’t for nearly two hours, so I walked through the streets around the Gare du Nord, and found a café near a church. It was on a bustling street corner but inside the café was quiet. I drank a café crème and wrote in my journal and chatted with a man delivering gallons of milk.

I’d become confident with my French- or, at least, confident in attempting to speak- and the attempts paid off. The delivery man laughed with me, tried to teach me a few words, told me I had a beautiful smile. On my way out, I passed a waiter who was standing alongside the bar, and dancing slightly to some pop music that was coming from the stereo. When he saw me he grinned, “Il faut dancer!” he declared. I shook my head, laughing. “I’m not good at dancing,” I told him.

I waved goodbye, and the waiter, the woman who served me my drink, the delivery man- they all stood together and smiled and waved at me and wished me a good day.

It was strange- in a way- to experience something like that in Paris. I love Paris, but Parisians are often rushed and reserved and formal and they just don’t seem to smile so much. Not at tourists, not at people they don’t know. But those moments in the café were different, and I thought about this as I rode the train out of the station and into the countryside: I could have sat quietly at my table and not engaged with the man delivering the milk. I could have smiled politely and not tried to speak. I could have kept to myself, and remained to myself, as I so often do. But I thought of my conversation with Andrea, the Italian, and I thought of what I resolved to myself, just two nights before: that I want to keep the energy of the Camino with me. I want it to shine through and into my life. Maybe I was already practicing this.

When I arrived in Vernon, a town about 5 kilometers away from Giverny, there were buses lined up outside of the station to deliver tourists to Monet’s home. But I chose to walk. Of course I did! There is a flat walking path that runs behind houses and past fields, leading straight from Vernon to Giverny. Most took the bus and several rented bicycles but a few others, like me, chose to walk. And when I arrived in Giverny, an hour later, instead of going to see the gardens, I first sat down to a long lunch. I’d heard great reviews about the restaurant which is part of the Hotel Baudy- just down the street from Monet’s residence- so I found a table on the terrace and ate like a queen: a glass of Bordeaux and slices of fresh baguette. Salad with goat cheese, salmon, broiled tomatoes, crème brûlée.

When I finally made it to Monet’s home, it was packed with people. The gardens were beautiful but so crowded. I walked up and down the rows, admiring the flowers, but I didn’t feel particularly overwhelmed with the beauty or inspired by the setting. But then I walked through a small underground passageway and over to the Japanese water garden and when I saw the weeping willows and wisteria covered bridges and the pond full of water lilies- all of that green- for a moment, it took my breath away.

On my return to Paris I felt full of a quiet energy and inspiration. Those feelings followed me to Shakespeare and Company, an independent bookstore on the Left Bank. I’ve been there before- maybe I’ve been there every time I travel to Paris- it’s my favorite bookstore in the world. As I walked through the stacks of fiction I saw a pile of slim paperbacks, a black and white photo on the cover of a man standing in front of a building. I picked up the book- it was Hemingway’s ‘A Movable Feast’, and I promptly took it over to the register and handed over some euros. My dad had just mentioned this book, when he was driving me to the airport before my Camino. “Have you ever read Hemingway?” he’d asked. “You would like ‘A Movable Feast’, it’s the memoir of his early days as an ex-pat in Paris.”

I’d had no idea. For as many times as Hemingway has ‘appeared’ in my travels these past two years, I’ve never read a thing by him. And yet, ever since I walked into Café Iruna last year in Pamplona, with Ibai and Mirra and Ji-Woo, I’ve felt some sort of small connection with Hemingway. I think maybe it had to do with being a foreigner in Spain- out on this strange adventure, stepping through towns where he spent so much of his time. When I was in Venice, this past winter, I discovered a bar where Hemingway had spent his time, stationed at a corner table in the cold winter months, working on a book. It was Harry’s Bar, and I made a point to walk inside. I’m not sure why, but suddenly it seemed like if I happened to be in the same places where Hemingway used to be, I should try to track down his favorite spots. Maybe I was trying to capture those same feelings that I had when I was gazing over the water lilies at Giverny: that quiet, energizing inspiration.

And this year, on my Camino, there were the words from a local, as I was sitting in a bar, writing: “Hemingway started like this, you know.”

I started reading ‘A Movable Feast’ right away- that night on the stiff, narrow mattress in my hostel room, the next morning, leaning against the concrete wall in the underground of the metro, waiting for my train that would take me to the airport. Twenty pages in and he writes about Shakespeare and Company, how he was shy and poor and had to ask to borrow books. I ate up his words as I read, and I realized- amazed though I probably shouldn’t have been- that I really like the way he writes.

And this is how my time in Paris ended, these are the feelings that I carried back with me from my trip this summer: feeling strong, feeling peaceful, feeling quietly energized, feeling ready to come home, feeling ready to write, feeling ready to figure out how to keep walking my Camino.

Lost and Found; Day 13 on the Camino del Norte, Santillana del Mar to Comillas (back to Santillana and then back to Comillas…)

July 2, 2015

I’m in Comillas and I like this town. Santillana del Mar, where I was yesterday, was great too, but in a different way. It was like this perfectly preserved medieval village that is now one big tourist attraction (but I read that as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, it was “undiscovered”, and cows roamed the streets. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but I definitely didn’t see any cows on the main drag).

Comillas is not as polished, not as quaint… but it’s still got cobblestoned streets and a beautiful old church and great architecture. There are tourists here, but there are locals, too. I’m sitting on the outdoor deck of a quiet bar/restaurant with a drink, and I have a view down a long street where I can see the corner of the church and the spire of another off in the distance.
It’s only 6pm, and I feel like I’ve done everything today. I started walking at 7am (which is pretty typical for me on the Norte, and sometimes I don’t start until 7:30, once not until 8:00. It’s later than on the Frances, when I would start by 6:00 or 6:30). I walked for 30 minutes then passed a bar, where all the pilgrims were stopping for coffee. I had my cafe con leche and some toast, and I tried to linger there a bit so I could space myself out from the other pilgrims. I wanted to walk alone today.

But after another 30 minutes of walking I saw Jenna (New York) sitting by the side of the road, and as I approached, I wondered if she was waiting for me. We’ve gotten to know each other a bit in the last few days, and the group of people she had been walking with have either ended their Camino or bussed ahead, so she’s back on her own.

I asked Jenna if she was okay and she admitted to having a bad morning, and asked if she could walk with me for awhile. I hesitated, just a bit, but then immediately said ‘sure’. I know how some days on the Camino can be hard, and it’s not always about blisters or knee pain. Often the hard days are because of emotional reasons, and sometimes that can be harder to deal with than the physical stuff.

So we walked and talked for about 40 minutes, and even though it wasn’t part of my “plan” for the day, when Jenna lingered in a small village and I walked away, I felt happy. We had talked about how sometimes on the Camino, you give what you can: if you’re a nurse or a doctor, you might give medical advice or help. If you can speak Spanish, you might help translate. If you have extra food, you share what’s in your bag. In my case, I think the thing that I can sometimes give is my company: when someone is lonely, when someone is struggling, when someone needs a smile.

I’ve always been good at this- it’s why I became a counselor. So in my life, I do this a lot. But as I’ve walked these Camino’s I’ve been so focused on what my own needs are, what I want from them, how I need to do things in my own way. That is still my priority here- nothing is more important to me than being able to feel free and able to walk my own way. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t sometimes put my own plans to the side for a moment, and help someone out. And it doesn’t mean that I want to stay solo for the whole walk- sometimes it’s good to sit with someone and have a coffee, sometimes it’s good to have a meal together, and sometimes- even for me- it’s good to walk with someone.

After I left Jenna I had a good, strong walking day. The terrain was pretty easy, with just some slight hills but mostly flat walking. The views were decent but not incredible, though most importantly the day was overcast and felt 20 degrees cooler than yesterday. So I sailed along, not wanting to stop, and not stopping until I reached my destination for the day, Comillas.

I arrived just after 12:30 and found Richard sitting on a bench in the main square, finishing an empanada. The albergue didn’t open until 3:00 and he was going to continue walking. I stood around for awhile, trying to decide what to do. The town looked great and judging from my guidebook, there wasn’t any place too interesting to stay in, in the next 10 or 15 kilometers.

So I said goodbye to Richard and settled in at a small bar where I ordered a beer and fried calamari, and I pulled my day bag out of my back pack and reached inside and discovered that my money wallet- with my money, bank cards, and passport- wasn’t inside.

I could feel my heart start to beat really fast and I felt a quick panic, but I let it pass. I took a deep breathe and told myself that I just needed a plan, and that I would figure things out. There were 30 euros in my pocket and I knew that I could figure out the phone number to the albergue where I stayed last night, I could find a taxi to take me back to Santillana, I could track down a familiar pilgrim and ask for help to make a phone call or to borrow money.

So I drank the beer and ate the calamari and looked in front of me and saw a line of taxis, waiting for passengers. It seemed perfect. I paid my bill and walked over to ask how much a trip to Santillana would be. We stashed my pack and my walking stick in the cab and drove off, back to where I came from, and the drive took 15 minutes.

15 minutes!! During the drive I would point to places I had been, hours before. An entire day of walking seemed to be erased as I backtracked, and backtracked quickly.

Everything worked out perfectly- I went back up to the room I had stayed in last night and new pilgrims were just checking in. They pointed to the woman who was cleaning the room and she had my money wallet in her hand; she had just found it moments before. I think I said “Muchos gracias” about a dozen times then I ran back out to the cab, who was waiting for me. 15 minutes more and we were back in Comillas, and I was deposited at the door of my albergue. It was now 2:30, I still had 30 minutes before the albergue would open. Just before he left, I think the cab driver suggested getting coffee, but I’m not really sure since I don’t speak Spanish. I just smiled and waved and lugged my pack over to the albergue.

I had just been thinking that it was great that I hadn’t lost anything or left anything behind so far on this pilgrimage; and then I forget the most important thing. I was so lucky that everything worked out okay, and now that wallet is glued to my side, at all moments (which it usually is, but I just wasn’t careful enough this morning).

It was kind of amazing and awful to take that taxi ride; I’ve walked about 350 kilometers over the past 13 days, and it feels like I’m really moving and making progress. I am, and yet, when an entire day’s walk was reduced to a 15 minute cab ride, it made me feel that what I’m doing is an awful lot of work.

The albergue is another good one; an old building that used to be a lady’s prison; 5 euros for a bed, there’s a “kitchen” (really just a sink, a fridge and a microwave but that’s better than nothing), it’s in a great location of the city and the building has a lot of character.

I was the fourth into the albergue, so I picked a corner bed in the room upstairs and went downstairs to take a shower. When I returned, I found a young, good looking Italian man spreading out his things on the bed next to mine. Oh, Camino. A reward, maybe, for the stress of the lost passport…

All jokes aside (because really, I AM joking), there are a bunch of people I know at this albergue: Jenna and the French-speaking Spanish couple and the drink-offering Austrians and Fernando and the German couple. Jenna and I are going to make a big salad for dinner tonight, and I told the Austrians to come and have some wine with us.

I’ve been out to explore the town, and took a tour of the Capricho de Gaudi, a private residence that was one of Gaudi’s first important works. I’ve seen the church and have had a drink, and will sit with some of my pilgrim friends tonight for a little food and conversation. All of this, AND a full day’s walk plus returning to the town I started in to retrieve my passport. I’m amazed at how much life is packed into these days.

Broken down and smiling

January 6, 2015

I’m back from Italy, and the return has been quite a welcoming. This morning I dragged myself out of bed after an incredibly deep sleep, loaded my work bags into my car, cleaned the falling snow off the windshield, and then my car wouldn’t start.

I sat in the driver’s seat of the car, turning and turning the key to see if something would catch, watching the snow quickly filling up the windshield again, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone to Italy at all. Maybe I should have stayed at home and spent more time with my family and friends. Maybe I should have used the money that I spent on the trip to save up for a new car.

Maybe. But I’m glad I didn’t.

Italy was interesting. I’m sure there’s a better word that I could use, but it’s the best I can come up with. I didn’t go to Italy to eat amazing food or to see beautiful towns and cities, or to bask in the glow of famous art and architecture. I got to do all of that, but the reason I went to Italy was to see what the connection with my Camino friend was all about.

I don’t think anything about getting to know this friend was ever going to be simple, and it’s not just that we live in different countries. He’s leaving in a few weeks to travel around the world, so the possibility of building something with him, of having anything concrete, was always very slim.

And knowing this made the decision difficult for me. Why even see what there could be if I was almost certain that there wouldn’t be anything?

But the thing was, I was almost certain that there wouldn’t be anything. Almost. If I’d been totally certain then I wouldn’t have gone. I would have gotten my car checked out before it left me stranded, I would have spent time with my oldest friends, I would have relaxed and had a peaceful vacation.

Instead, I traveled thousands of miles to see if what I felt could have some greater meaning for my future. I think I have my answer- which is no- and maybe it wasn’t the answer I was hoping for. But it doesn’t mean, not for a second, that I regret going.

The trip was beautiful, even if it was a bit different than what I expected or hoped for. There was this one moment in particular, when I was feeling down and sad. I was in Florence, standing in line for the Uffizi Gallery. I’d already been in line for an hour, and noticed a screen that said the wait would be an additional 3 hours. I was freezing, I was conflicted about my feelings, and for a moment, I wondered what I was doing there. In that line, in Florence, in Italy.

And then a woman came by and asked if I wanted her ticket, which was a reservation for a timed entry that would let me into the museum immediately. I bypassed the line, walked through the crowded galleries and then suddenly was standing in front of the bust of a Roman Emperor, and I recognized it instantly. I’d studied this bust of Caracalla in my freshman year art history class, and for some reason had been captivated by him. To stand in front of this bust rather than study a photo in a book reminded me of why I travel, of the places I had vowed to visit when I was young. Later I gazed up at the Duomo, I studied Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise, and I felt awed.

I had lunch with my friend in a tiny restaurant overlooking the Arno river and the Ponte Vecchio. Somehow I had the perfect seat: my view was nothing but river and bridge and beautiful buildings and sea gulls flying by for the bread that the owner of the restaurant was throwing out the window.

Later we watched the sun set, and I leaned against a stone wall and stared out at the buildings of Florence, the city blanketed in a soft pink light.

So this morning, as I was shivering in the cold snow, cranking my engine while a guy with a tow truck banged on my car and lights on my dashboard blinked crazily at me, I didn’t wish that my life could be any different.

I’ll get my car fixed. Eventually I’ll buy a new one. And one day, maybe years and years and years from now, I’ll go back to Italy. I’ll stand in the Piazzale Michaelangelo and look out over the city and remember the last time that I’d been there. The time when I went to Italy to follow a gut feeling and take a risk and to see about the possibilities of my future. I think remembering this time will always make me smile.

Twix and Van Gogh and some thoughts on traveling (and life)

January 4, 2015

I’m eating a Twix bar in my bunk bed in Copenhagen (a top bunk, of course); Twix seems to be my comfort food when I’m in foreign places. I only have a little less than a day in Copenhagen, and by the time I arrived this afternoon, the sun was setting. So I figured out how to get from the airport to the train station to the hostel, stashed my bags on my bed and locked up my valuables, and then set off to see the city while there was still a bit of daylight.

But for all of my planning (though really there wasn’t much), I couldn’t for the life of me figure out where to go. My flight had been delayed for an hour in Bologna, so I no longer had time to walk to the art museum I’d wanted to check out. I headed in that direction anyway- what I thought was that direction- only to realize that I couldn’t figure out where I was on my map.

I ended up in a different art museum, 40 minutes before they closed, and didn’t have to pay because entry is free on Sundays. I walked through quickly but paused for a long time in front of a Van Gogh painting, one that he did in the last year of his life while he was in St Remy.

It’s been incredible to think about the last year of my life. In August, after I finished the Camino, I went to St Remy, a small town in Provence, France. I walked the streets that Van Gogh walked, I took in the same views, I looked out the window of his room. And now, today, I’m in Copenhagen, of all places. I found myself in a small art museum that I didn’t know existed, staring at a scene that Van Gogh painted years ago and one that I saw, myself, just months ago.

It makes the world feel a bit smaller. In the grand scheme of things, I haven’t traveled that much. Not when I think about the entire world and of all the places I’ve never been to, and may never get to.

But these recent experiences in Europe? They’ve taught me that the world doesn’t have to feel quite so large and so unknown. There are corners that I can discover, moments that I can experience that feel like they should be impossible… but aren’t.

And these thoughts are stemming not just from the Van Gogh painting, but from being in Italy. I’ll write more about the trip in the days to come, and talk about some of the beautiful things I saw, the amazing things I ate. But really, I think what might stand out about this trip is that it didn’t feel so foreign, or strange. Traveling is still a very big experience for me, and I think it always will be. But the more I travel, and the more I expand on the types of experiences I have, the more that this all feels possible, like it can be an active part of my life. Not just a big trip that I take once every 5 or 10 years.

Is this post making sense? I’m tired and confused about where I am. I know I’m in Copenhagen, I know I’m going home tomorrow, I know that it’s now 2015, but it all feels jumbled and crazy and wonderful and strange. But I think that’s what traveling does. It takes us to a time when we’re blogging from a top bunk, wiping bits of carmel from the Twix bar off of the sheets, listening to guys speaking whispered French from somewhere in the room.

Tomorrow, things go back to normal. But it’s a new year, and I’d like to have more experiences like this: like Italy, where (at least some of the time), I felt like I was settled and home. And Copenhagen, which feels random and exciting. And, for that matter, like Spain, where I could learn how to feel comfortable in a foreign place, on my own.

I’m not sure what 2015 is going to hold for me. Not sure at all: I have no plans, only ideas. And that’s sort of an exciting place to be in.

Becoming French through Tears, Espresso, and Surrealism

December 3, 2014

I woke up this morning and, for some reason, thought about my time as a student in France, when I was 20. Maybe it’s the weather- chilly and gray and damp, it reminds me of the winter I spent in Toulouse, where I would wake up and open the large shutters of my bedroom window and peer out onto the black morning. I’d eat breakfast with various members of my host family- hot chocolate and toast (hard to believe that there were ever days when I didn’t drink coffee in the morning)- and then I’d hitch a ride with Etienne, my 13-year old host brother and another neighborhood kid. The father would drive us in his van to the center of town where I’d hop off at the metro stop, Etienne always calling out, “Bonne journée Nadine!” as I clambered out of the van into the gray, misty morning.

I both miss those mornings and I don’t. I love my memories of that year in France, I love that I studied abroad when I was 20, but would I go back, if I could? To some moments and places and people, of course. But it was also a very challenging year, of uncertainty and confusion. Feeling like, in a life immersed in all things French, that I was always missing something. I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be; my program strongly emphasized complete French immersion. ‘Becoming French’, I called it. Speak no English, live with a host family, make French friends. Shed your old life, discover a new one.

That year was a coming of age experience for me, and some of my most frustrating and gratifying moments were as a student. In addition to classes I took at our American college’s satellite campus, I took 3rd year Art History courses at the French University, Le Mirail. I still think it was a mistake to put me into this level- most students in my program were in 1st or 2nd year courses- but I was serious about studying art history and the program was good. My level of French, however, was not so good, and many compared 3rd year courses to graduate courses.

It was a comedy of errors, at least I can say that now. I remember showing up for my very first class (we studied nothing but stained glass windows), and waiting in a hallway outside the classroom with two other girls. We were early, but the longer we waited the more we realized that something was wrong. I tried to ask them about the class and they stared at me like I had three heads. Suddenly one of them shouted something (probably, “Mon Dieu, we have the wrong building!”) and they shot up and bolted down the hallway. I ran after them, not knowing what else to do. We weaved through the campus, in and out of buildings, down walkways and across grassy fields, then finally into a large room where a class- my class- was already in session. At least 100 heads turned to look at us as the door banged shut and when the professor saw that we were trying to sneak into a back row, she shook her head and pointed to the front. It was a walk of shame: paraded through the room, the class put entirely on hold as we found three open seats. My face burned and I sank into my chair, wanting to disappear out of that room, out of that campus. Out of France, maybe.

The only class I could remotely understand was Surrealism, which is maybe a bit ironic. But I loved it- we’d often begin class with the lights dimmed and classical music piped through the room, while we sketched for 10 minutes. The French hated this. “We’re not artists!” they complained, furiously scrubbing their papers with large squares of rubber eraser. But those 10 minutes were an equalizer for me, and sometimes, the only chance I ever had to excel in class. Language, culture, it didn’t matter when we sketched. I felt like I fit in. And it helped give me confidence for the rest of class. I learned how to take notes like my French peers- in graph paper notebooks with different colored pens, a ruler to underscore the important parts and white out to conceal mistakes. I didn’t understand all of the lectures but I understood enough, and when I didn’t know a word I would make tiny sketches of the paintings in the margin of my notebook, to jog my memory.

My other classes were nothing like this. History of Architecture lectures might as well have been delivered in Greek, for all I understood. Many mornings I would sit in the middle of a darkened room as slide after slide was projected on the screen and tears would fill my eyes. Students around me filled pages of notes and I could barely follow the professor and his complex lecture.

Some mornings I never made it to this class. I’d hitch a ride with Etienne and the neighbors, squeeze onto an impossibly crowded metro, walk to campus in a daze and stand with other students in the cold as we waited for the library to open. And I’d sit there from 8-10am, in a soft chair in a corner next to the photography books, ditching class. I remember begging the director of my study abroad program to let me drop the class, but he thought I was exaggerating my difficulties. My final grade didn’t prove him wrong, either, somehow I managed to get an 18 in the class (French grading is on a scale from 0-20, and an 18 is unheard of, even for the brightest French student). I suspect that the professor had a soft spot for me; in the beginning of the year he told me that he had a niece studying in the states. Maybe he imagined that he was giving his niece an A+, rather than me, the girl who didn’t understand a thing.

These are my memories: the chilly gray campus, my graph paper notebooks filled with fragmented French. The automatic coffee machines, strong and bitter espresso pouring into small plastic cups. I would drink this espresso like a shot- down in one gulp, hoping the caffeine would fortify me for the day ahead. When it was over, I met my American friends as we took the metro back to the center of Toulouse, where we’d stop for an “I survived Mirail” pastry before heading home for dinner.

Travel forces us out of our comfort zone, and as I’ve been doing more traveling in these past few years, I’m reminded often of that time in Toulouse. I’ve thrown away most of the notes I took in those art history classes, but I still have a few of my Surrealism sketches. They remind me of trying to become French.