$disanpoter

tilting at mountains

the nice thing about jet lag is that it builds solitude into even the most ambitious travel plans. like here on this overnight bus to bilbao with Bis sleeping, albeit fitfully, in the seat next to me, and darkness all around. it's close to 3 and i'm far from sleep. outside the terrain is growing hillier and more ragged, and i'm realizing the minor miscalculation in scheduling all our travels between destinations for times when i won't be able to take in the landscape. in the darkness, what i can mainly see are the texture of the wild grasses, the stretches between the larger bushes and trees, the smoother tracts of the dustier surfaces. they form a cadence in their passage across the bus window. It'll be interesting in the morning to see if it is as arid as this midnight vision suggest and it will hold any of the colors my mind anticipates...

a moment ago, we passed a random hill with 2 upright trees on it which looked almost exactly like an illustration of Don Quixote I once saw. i could be wrong, but i believe that's from an entirely different part of the country. just goes to show how willing a mind can be to find connections, yet it's still got me wondering about how much of what we see as fresh and new in works of art and literature is not so much to the credit of the creator as to their surroundings or the social context of their life - or not even that, so much as the difference (or differential, really) between what is familiar and real to them and what is familiar and real to us who are absorbing their work. not such a mind blowing thought, that...it's funny though, because i think it also highlights how much energy people can spend pursuing a contradictory ambitions of experiencing a different reality from their own (however temporarily) but also perpetually seeking out intersections among ones personal reality and that of others that serve only to reassure them that there is such a thing as commonality and communal experience.

where ever we are now along this route, there's a persistent glow along the horizon. it gives the impression of massive cities aglow, just behind the hills (or mountains, i suppose, though we're in them so i'm not sure of the right term, here), but then the road rises and the countryside is only vaguely dotted with towns or clusters. with the nature of my own thoughts, it's as if the landscape is playing tricks on me, feeding into my own skepticism about human connections. like it's winking at me.

...i'm going to have to read Don Quixote again; i remember too little of it...

mi bubble es tu bubble

in a few minutes, bis and i will be out the door and on an overnight bus to Bilbao and a 6 day excursion through el País Vasco - Basque Country, but the last hour or so has been a pleasant lull after a frenzied day trying to sort out lost luggage issues and buy a few replacement items to keep the cold out of my toes and the stink of over-worn clothing out of my nose.
christmas eve and christmas were surprisingly americanized since we spent our meals with other students in bistra's masters program, stopping by one girls apartment for a drink with the entirety of her boisterous and jovial family then having a more subdued dinner with another girl and her nuvo-hippie cousin. he was a nice guy and eager to share his recent experiences (and pictures) from burning man and a month long meditation training. after a photo tour that included several shots of the making of a plaster booty-monster, he very sincerely offered to walk us through a short meditation exercise. being christmas and all, we were up for delving into the somewhat spiritual, but i had a very difficult time keeping a straight face afterwards as we went around describing the ambiance and particularities of our imagined safe zone 'bubbles.' there's more to that, but the bus awaits....or won't, which is the real issue.

we is just me the wrong way around

since practically the first day here, we've been talking about going on this long rather challenging hike. sort of as a goal we've set for ourselves for the week. of course, we keep staying up to late and oversleeping...so it came down to today or never, and i hardly slept at all last night worrying about waking up at my alarm.

we got up at 7 and headed out a bit after 8, down the side of the mountain (it's not such a craggy one) and then out across the beach to the old sugar mill a mile or so around the coast. the thing was, we didn't quite remember the trail as well as we thought (this is the point where that title becomes relavant). We went over a somewhat challenging strech of rocks, but it seemed earlier in the hike than we remembered. Then we trooped past some more pleasant beach. I took my shoes off and waded through the water. Salt water usually feels dense and, well, salty to me, but today it felt wonderfully cool, refreshing and light.

when we were starting to feel the effort, we came to a second set of rocks. We didn't really remember having to climb up almost sheer rock face on the first climb, but after some musing we determined that it must have simply been low tide the last time. thus began our adventure on the rocks. it was pretty splendid. a bit iffy at times but we loved it. um, i loved it. it made me realized how much i really really (really  really) like climbing. i like looking down; i like having to cling to the wall; i like having to swing from my arms and stretch for better holds. i like it all. as it turns out, though, We didn't find it as thrilling and by the end We were fairly certain that had not in fact been the path we took the first day. the return trek was by a somewhat different route, though that was after the hike to the waterfall and the purple flowering plant there, and the second hike to the beach over an incline that was unpleasantly steep and muggy, and the blissfully cool dip in the ocean once we got there.

there's more (almond skin smell, petroglyphs, and sharp and flat) but it's for a different post.

plans

after work today the author of Kripalu Yoga - a book that's just coming out - gave a free class at work. we also got free copies of the book. the class was great and i'm so excited that the timing was so good, since i'll have plenty of time next week to devote to it.

it's also solved the dilemma of vacation planning for the year. it's still quite a novel thing for me to know ahead of time how much time i'll have off all year, and i'm going to have to start saving seriously now to do anything interesting. this yoga class coinciding with me taking my planned winter vacation has given me the idea of going to a yoga immersion intensive as my next vacation. i think i'll try to go in early june. that's enough of a ways away, i think, to not be ridiculous. i don't want to front load the year with vacation or i'll be desperate for one come december.

it also just seems like a good year to plan on something like that. i'm in a stable place, and i wouldn't be leaving anyone behind or feel semi-obliged to share that time off with someone else. i'd be able to deeply enjoy the solitude and introspection of it. plus, it give me something to plan and prepare for and look forward to. that alone significantly diminishes the stress that comes with trying to dream up an interesting and affordable vacation. i'm excited. yummy! yay!

and with next week to really integrate yoga (and exercise in general) into my daily life and the desire to get the most benefit out of the immersion while i'm there, i'm feeling optimistic about staying motivated and sustaining good habits. it makes me happy. plans make me feel so good. ::dreamy smile::