on age and on edge

10 October 2019, Praia d'Oura. So the other day one of my co-workers asked me what year I was born. I told her '77, and she was shocked. I didn't know why she would be, I thought she already knew because I had already told pretty much everyone at work that I was 41. I …

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self-explaining because not self-evident

Praia da Marinha, 23 July 2019. It would've been easier to leave Germany if I were coming back to Portugal felt just a bit more like returning home. And then, aside from the regular difficulties of immigrant-life like cultural ambiguities, language barriers, infuriating bureaucracies, alienation and loneliness, in my situation I'm faced with the added …

on the road checking in: revisiting the past

I'm back in Germany, visiting some friends in the city where I completed my last master's degree. This trip has provoked a lot more anxiety in me than I expected, partly because it's not just leisure-travel, but also a bit of work: I left a bunch of my stuff here with friends/former roommates back in …

buen camino 2: the way opens up, happiness unfolds

In the introduction to this online course, "The Science of Happiness," Professor Dacher Keltner briefly covers some philosophical ideas on happiness. I find it fascinating that scientific research on happiness only started to really flourish about 20 years ago, and Keltner himself mentions that the science on happiness is arriving late on this subject, while …

buen camino 1: the hard way of happiness

Just after Alto de Mostelarez, near Castrojeriz If you've done the Camino Francés, you probably heard this expression 'Buen camino' multiple times, pretty much every single day you were walking. Some fairly good translations are 'Have a good journey,' or 'Enjoy the way.' When I walked the Francés two years ago, I remember some folks …

bits and pieces

Philosophenweg It's been a struggle returning to this blog. I've tried easing up to it, writing bits and pieces here and there by hand. A couple of weeks ago I wrote up this list in my journal: "Advantages of being alone: 1) you can watch whatever the hell you want on Netflix and not have …

synchronicity 2

This is a bit of an obsession, I know. . . Believe it or not, back when we were still exchanging text messages right after the camino, she actually suggested we go on another one. Ok so maybe she didn't exactly say "we," but she did say, "let's plan it," I think. She said she …

why i left without saying goodbye

Praia Oura, Algarve. I said in the previous post that I had to leave Santiago a day earlier than I'd planned, that I wanted to just be done with it all and never see her again. Below I've typed out a journal entry I wrote long-hand, explaining the reason for my early departure. It is …

synchronicity 1

So. . . Unsure about this blog entry because it seems to stray away from the camino. I said last time I'd delve more deeply into how this one person got me all bothered, but then it's going to be an entry about her, or about me thinking of her, and not so much about …

post-camino blues

I'm well aware, I think, that the funk I've been in since my last camino isn't merely a longing, or "saudades," as the Portuguese might say, for the camino. Yes, I do long to be walking again, to have the simple day-to-day regimen of getting up early, walking, looking forward to the new towns and …