T Minus 19

I am beginning to think I am slightly crazy. No, not in the way my newly ex-husband thinks I'm crazy (that would be bat-shit for real crazy). But crazy in the way that only a new divorcee, eager to shed the hurt and anger of the past, eager to begin her life anew, and eager to take on the universe, can be crazy -- her eyes glazed over with the grandiose thought of every impossible adventure abroad and at home, every far-out, pie-in-the-sky scheme for career contentment and artistic fulfillment. I am going in 10 directions at once now that my life is my own again, pulled like a doting auntie with 10 loving nieces and nephews grabbing at her arms and clinging to her legs saying, "Will you play with me?" "No, play with me!" "But I want her to play with me!"

You want to play with them all, you want to love them all and nurture them all. (In reality I only have two nieces, but I already know the angst over deciding to which one I am going to give my undivided attention. Do I hold and cuddle the angelic, cooing, giggling infant (a.k.a. The Bean, Beanie, or SuperBean), or do I dissolve into the world of make-believe space travel with the loquacious but brilliant four-year-old (to whom my brother has given the decidedly unsubtle nickname: "Mouth").

So do I take the walking trip across England? the one across Spain? the one to the Cinque Terre? Do I look for a teaching job for next fall (I'd better if I intend to have something to live on), or do I try to start a program to teach film making to young teens in the hopes that it translates into a permanent teaching position? Do I restart my theater company and produce a reading? a full production? or both in the hopes that it grows into a regionally renowned and respected venue for new and experimental work? Do I work on my film making and focus on my family history inspired documentary on post WWII ethnic cleansing of Germans in Eastern Europe (which naturally necessitates a trip to Serbia, Croatia, Hungary and the Czech Republic -- naturally)? or do I develop the racy documentary idea on women who fake orgasms and why? or do I get the pilot for my travel TV show going? or the documentary I am already filming on taboo topics in English classrooms with my ex-grad school professor?

Which of these ideas, dreams (or schemes) do I focus on and nurture first? I love them all, I want them all, and the fact that I spent the last 14 years mired in a marriage that left no room for me to pursue any of these loves with all but the meagerest of commitments, I feel like I simply MUST accomplish all this living and achieving THIS year before I go back to work like normal productive folk in the fall. Plus I'm 33 and the grey hairs are sprouting. It is a meat grinder of self imposed pressure I must alleviate.

So I have chosen that the first step must be one of self purging, catharsis and healing after the year and a half drama of my catastrophic divorce. An Eat, Pray, Love experience, if you will, that finds me on a quest for physical, emotional and spiritual rebirth just like my new hero: Liz Gilbert. (Folks, if you have not yet read Eat, Pray, Love you simply must, or the there's no point continuing on in life. It's that simple).

So Spain it is. The Camino de Santiago to be precise. The Way of St. James. A 35 day walking/hiking trek from the Pyrenees in southern France through the vineyards and fields of northern Spain to the ancient medieval church of Santiago de Compostela. And this folks, is why I think I'm a bit yooo-hooo. Why don't I seem to need to contemplate my spiritual higher self and emotional well-being on say, a beach in Tahiti? Why not drinking Mai-Tais in a tiki hut in Bali like Liz, or resting languidly on a massage table overlooking the blue Caribbean while some large-handed Adonis of a masseuse plys his trade on my melting body? Why hiking 22km a day carrying a 25lb backpack with nothing but a change of clothes, blister medication and my restless brain for company? and in winter no less? And I hate (as anyone who knows me can testify) being cold. Why muscle aches and tendinitis and bathroom emergencies with no toilet for three miles?

Somebody at sometime made the god-awful idea of salvation through suffering popular. Oh yeah. I think it was Christ. So for some crazy reason, this is the method I am going to choose as my first step. But I sure hope the large-handed Adonis will enter the picture at some point.

I leave in 19 days. Let the cringing begin.