Calling!!

It has been a long time since I've posted here.  A really long time.  Not that I don't think of the Camino nearly every day.  Several times a day.  But it has been nearly two years since my last walk. Two years to feel fully grounded and both feet on the earth here at home.

Then it begins, that small shift.  That moment when the tide reaches it's peak and for a moment everything is still.  Then it turns.  I've seen it on the river enough times, kayaking madly happily, up river with the tidal surge.  For just a moment the water is a beautiful mirror.  Completely still beneath you. Yet somewhere deep beneath my little plastic shell bobbing on the top as I lean into my paddle, something shifts and the pull down the river begins again.  That's me with the Camino.  I've been quietly paddling in one direction for a goodly time now, but the tide, she's a changin.

Just as I've felt that pull calling me back to the North of Spain, apparently others feel it too.  Feeling the urge to read and reread posts on various Camino blogs and what to my wondering eyes should appear, but news of others heading back out again!  Sagalouts aka Ian of the Road to Nowhere is heading out soon. Karen Hype and her hubby will be Hyping the Camino again this year, as is Emilene from SA on My Pilgrimage to Santiago.  Also out of South Africa, Sylvia Nilson of Amawalker, will be leading a group of slower walkers beginning in Sarria. Walking in the fall this year will be two more friends from 2011, including Homer of Homer's Travels.  It's going to be a great year for blog hopping my way on the road to Santiago.  Following all of these blogs will help me focus on my preparations over this next year plus of waiting.

It's not just the means, but also life that keeps me here for the moment.  And I do mean LIFE!! On my last Camino I was a newly minted grandmother or Oma of two weeks. Currently there are three beautiful girls who call me Omi and by the time my feet hit the trail again, there will be four little ones!  Waiting, difficult as it is, lets me continue as the main babysitter for two of the girls.  It also allows me to be present for each amazing arrival.  Each first birthday.  All major events that this Oma wants and needs to be present for.  Still the undertow tugs and pulls.

Better than year allows me to plan a route.  I won't have quite as much time to walk, so the entire Camino Frances isn't possible, but there are so many other beautiful options.  For a while the Camino Ingles (the English Route) was top of the list.  Now the Camino Primitivo (First Camino) seems to be at the top.  It's somewhat less traveled and a bit more remote. It also appears to be, from all accounts, a bit more rugged.  So, for me, it sounds like more of a challenge.  Both a physical as well as a spiritual one.  Fewer people means fewer distractions from the internal road.

The Camino Frances was full of pilgrims.  It was wonderful to meet so many people from so many countries.  But there were moments when you had to really work at getting time alone to just be.  Not that it wasn't possible.  I found I had to be more aware of making that time.  For me that usually meant leaving very early in the morning to walk alone.  And as I wasn't well for most of the Camino, everyone else caught up with me pretty easily!  So a little care got me the best of both worlds.

This time I feel something different.  More of a need for solitude.  Not total and complete, just more.  From what I've read so far, I think the Primitivo might do the trick.  Time will tell.  Nice to be thinking concretely not just a vague and ephemeral someday!

Meanwhile, I'll just be peeking over many a pilgrim bloggers shoulder.  Watching postings with joy as they make their way towards St. James. 

Emilio Estevez y mi Mochilla!

I may have made a comment about hardly watching TV these days, but movies, well that's another story.  Or maybe it's just the same old story.  The Camino, or The Way of St. James.  On Youtube, I'm forever perusing other peoples videos. Or as I've often said to other pilgrims on their blogs, peaking over their shoulders.  It's a little like slipping yourself into their backpacks, for a mile or so and getting to view the road perhaps from a slightly different vantage point than you might otherwise have done.


In a few weeks, at long last, the granddaddy of Camino videos will be available on DVD!  By this I mean the movie, The Way, by Emilio Estevez, starring Martin Sheen.  Of course I have a preorder in place!  There are other Camino movies in the works, most especially The Camino Documentary by Lydia B. Smith.  More about that one in another post.

The Way.  Long awaited by many of us Caminoholics.  For a number of years, we knew this one was in the works.  We waited.  We chatted on the Camino Forum.  We blogged.  We waited.  The longest wait seemed to be for the release of the film here in the States.  I remember fellow pilgrims from England and Ireland, who'd gotten to see it before they came over and walked last summer.  So lucky.  Or so I thought at the time.  It wouldn't be available in any way shape or form for quite some time after I got home.

Home, yeah, coming home and trying to get settled.  Trying to feel at home again.  Missing the daily walk to, well, where ever fate and feet would take me.  Missing the openness of the days, never really knowing who you might meet.  It's quite an adjustment after nearly a month and a half of living that way.  Living simply.  Living out of my pack.  Living so small and yet larger than my life has probably ever been before.  Heartfelt sigh here!

So, back to the movie, The Way.  What a gift to have it released and previewed close to where I live.  Not one of the lucky ones who got a ticket for the preview, I went to the theater anyhow. A few friends stopped by too, a former co-worker and his wife.  We waited outside for while, knowing that Estevez and Sheen were supposed to be there for a Q & A afterwards.  While they choose to go home early, since it really didn't look like we could get in, I simply couldn't tear myself away.  Well, I'm too often saying to others that there is always more than one way to skin a cat.  And so there is!

Walking myself back to the theater my plan was to wait in the lobby.  I thought perhaps I'd simply get someone to take a picture of me, pack on my back, Camino shoes on my feet, next to a poster of the movie.  Then I'd buy tickets for when it actually opened at this theater at the end of the week.  That's all.  If I spotted either of the movie makers, great, but lets be realistic, the odds weren't good.  Sigh.  Such is life.

Inside I asked a woman next to me, looking at the flyers and promotional materials on the table, would she use my camera to take a picture, since I wasn't going to be able to get to see the movie on this particular evening.  She looked at me and said "Lets see if we can't get you in with my husband and me."  She promptly grabbed the young man in charge of the list of attendees, and asked him if there were any no shows.  He said yes, he still had quite a few tickets left and simply handed me one.  Wow.  Ask and ye shall receive!

Me, mi mochilla (backpack) and my incredibly dingy Camino shoes walked into the theatre almost in a daze.  There were seats in the front rows.  The first two rows, you know the ones we adults avoid, 'cause they give you a crick in the neck!  I happily sat myself down, propped my feet on the arm of the seat in front of me and got comfortable for the next hour and  a half.

Sitting so close actually turned out to be wonderfully overwhelming.  It made it feel as though I was in the film, back on the Camino.  The Pyrenees, the Meseta, the bars and oh yeah, the bunk beds!  I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and roared with laughter, as did other former pilgrims in the audience, when the main characters were twirling their bourdons or hiking sticks.  Ahh the memories.  So seeing it post Camino was more of a blessing than it would have been seeing it pre-pilgrimage.

Immediately after, from the back of the theater came, Estevez, Sheen and a host of others who were responsible for this lovely film.  My only quibble, such as it is, was the film school that was present. They rather took over some of the question and answer period.  I never got to ask my burning question!  I still, to this day, don't know if any of the filming crew or cast got blisters on the Camino.

As the Q & A drew to a close, assistants began to herd the movie folk out a side exit.  Down in the front.  Right by those two front rows, that no adult wants to sit in.  Where I was.  So, happy that I'd listened to a friend who'd quipped, I should get one of them to sign my backpack, I whipped out a permanent marker and asked Emilio, "?Escribe en mi Mochilla, por favor?"  Ok, so that 'taint perfect Espanol, but he knew what I wanted!   So below, my now two Camino backpack has become a priceless heirloom!   Nah, still a tatty old back filled with the most wonderful memories and still with miles to go before I put it to sleep for good!

"Buen Camino, Emilio Estevez"

Happy New Year!

It's difficult to believe that this year is actually coming to a close.  It's been quite spectacular and will rank as one of the most special in my life.  So far!  Two beautiful granddaughters.  One Camino Frances done and done!  So many wonderful new friends.  Just as many lovely old ones too.  I am filled to the brim with blessings this year, as it draws to a sweet close.  Truly the words, my cup runneth over, have never felt so true. 

Where the road will lead in this coming year I can't quite say.  If the past is anything to measure by, it could be truly amazing.  In fact I know it will be.  So to all who have stopped by here, blessings be upon you.  Blessings on all in your life.  Peace and joy be yours in the up coming New Year!

Now after a long days hiking in the Pine Barrens,  I'm off to slay some opponents at Scrabble!!

Buen Camino all!

Watershed Moment?

Left or right?  Yes or No? High road or low road?  There come moments in all of our lives when there is a shift or a line that gets crossed.  A change.  A choice that gets made, and everything that comes after will be different.  Sometimes it's obvious and clear for anyone to see.  Sometimes the changes can be so subtle.  I think sometimes those quiet ones may have the most lasting effect.

I knew the Camino, this Camino, was important for me.  I knew I would have time to think, uninterrupted.  Time to just be, completely removed from all the "things" that make up my so called life. No distractions.  To the point I lost all track of the days of the week! The most obvious and funny one was sitting in Hontanas as the bells began to peal, looking at another pilgrim and wondering why.  It was it turns out, Sunday morning!

I find myself viewing  a lot of my life as before and after the Camino.   There were immediate and obvious changes, like the 16+ lbs left behind in the Pyrenees and the mountains of Galicia.  There are others, quiet ones that aren't as easy to define.  And I don't think El Camino is done with me yet!!  Seeing where this all leads is going to be interesting.  Probably almost as interesting as the Camino was.  Interesting for me at least...I do realize that for others, it might be as exciting as watching grass grow or paint dry

Strange, but I have been told by a few people that while they can't put a finger on it...they think I've changed.  I don't know that I thought any of this to be obvious to anyone outside my family.  A friend from the gym, had no idea where I'd gone or what I'd done, stopped me and asked what was up, why did I seem different.  I think maybe the changes are a little like what happened to my hiking shoes.  When I left home they were green and grey.  Each day that went by they grew a little more worn (and a little more cofortable too!).  When I got to Santiago, they were nearly unrecognizable.  I have similar pair of Keens here at home that have seen way fewer miles and still resemble their original color and shape.  And, while at times it felt like I'd worn my feet 'n legs down to mere nubs, here too is proof that the feet came thru in one piece too!

Just a few thoughts and samples of little things that have changed:

• Writting - constantly.  Which is funny, 'cause I didn't write a journal 'cept for this blog while actually on the Camino! Then I just wanted to in the moment.
• Trying poetry even!  Ok, so haven't exactly gone public with any, but I get immense satisfaction out of it.
• Watch very little TV, some times nothing for days on end.
• Really making space and time for all the good people in my life. Only the good...the others, I just don't sweat anymore.  I don't specifically push them away, I just don't make room for them. 
• Haven't set foot in a shopping mall since my return, and very few other retail establishments outside of the grocery store.  Now FYI, I live only a few miles from the first ever modern indoor shopping mall.  It all started here in NJ! Sheesh!
• Do more things completely independently.  So I want to go hike in Wharton State Forest.  No one to go with, no problem.  Tell the rangers and head out.  Simple as that. 
• Have not bought a single article of clothing since the scarf I bought in Santiago de Compostella. My last job was in a clothing store so this is pretty funny, and I like it!
• Finally got the courage to paint and I don't mean change the color of a room!  I drew a sketch for a particular space below the stairs in our house ten years ago.  Now I finally have the courage to put it on the wall!  Great art? No, but very satisfying!

So on a note of absolute bravery...for me...here is that sketch made 10 years ago...soon to be

on the wall it was drawn for:

Last but in no way least, perhaps one of the greatest changes is the acceptance of things that are simply, unchangeable.  Myself or rather the body I inhabit.  For all that I lost weight walking the Camino Frances, I've learned that this is a sturdy strong body that I live in.  Size is not important.  Being healthy is.  Being comfortable and confident in my own skin is.  Accepting who I am at 55 is.  And that, as the ole Master Card commercials say, is priceless!

Memories of a Museo

Museums.  I think if this word was to be in a word association "test", most, if not many would answer dust!  Or perhaps in a kinder moment, simply old or perhaps boring.  I don't know why but it's never been that way for me.  Maybe because they've been a part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember.

As children we were taken (yes some days dragged!) to museums of all sorts.  A favorite was the Trolley Museum in Connecticut.  The Trolley Museum meant being able to climb all over the machinery.  There were trips to other museums with my stateside grandparents.  They lived just outside Philadelphia.  We kids would get to stay for a week, all by ourselves, reveling in being the center of attention.  I remember Omi asking me where I wanted to go each time I was with them.  The answer was rarely anything but the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  One of my all time favorite rooms has a lovely reflecting pool in the center of the gallery.  Sometimes it was hard not to want to play in the water!  Just sitting on the marble bench swinging my feet, next to my Opa, that was fun too.

So I guess, me finding my way into museums in Santiago was just natural.  I wandered thru parts of the Cathedral Museum with Hunter prior to our taking the trip up to the roof.  On my final day in Santiago, as I continued to struggle finding tokens of rememberance for the family back home, I found my feet unerringly leading me to the Museum of Pilgrimage. It is actually incredibly close to the Cathedral and to where I was staying at the Seminario.
The entry fee isn't much.  As a perigrina, with credencial or Compostella even that small fee is waived!  Doesn't get much better than that does it!

The first few rooms were dedicated to pilgrimage in general.  There were examples of different pilgrimages around the world.  In one of those rooms I found this lovely mandala.  

In one of the halls, these tiles were on the ceiling.  I would have loved to have had copies of them.  The beautiful green and the soft ochre tones of the shells...very restful, I think.  Almost like looking at them underwater.

My fascination with columns and capitals continued here in the museum where they were wonderfully displayed where someone like me can truly examine them up close and personal.  This was like a dream come true for me, getting to see them so close and no ladders! Both my feet firmly on the floor. 

Now mind you there was a lot more to be seen there besides capital!  There were arches!!

As beautiful as this is now...worn and weathered, imagine how stunning it must have looked like when the velvet was new!

I had to fight the urge to touch these...so I zoomed in with the camera to compensate!

This is one of the most beautiful paintings, in my opinion!  An absolute jewel.

So, next time your in Santiago de Compostella, and looking for something to do, wander round the corner and have a look see at this lovely little gem of museum.  The staff are very welcoming, although the ones working that day didn't speak much English, they could not have been nicer or more helpful.  I'm including a link to their website so you can find them even more easily.  They absolutely should be on everyone's visit list!

www.mdperegrinacions.com

I'm also including the link to the cathedral, and the information about the museum there and the hours are included.

http://www.catedraldesantiago.es/ing/webcatedral.html

It was in the museum that I finally found things to bring home that felt right.  I bought a cd called Canto de Ultreia.  If I was more talented on the computer, I might even be able to include some of the haunting music from this CD, which is playing as I type here.  I also bought three tiny blue and white plates with a scallop shell on them, one for each household.  Supporting the museum by making these purchases also just felt right to me at this particular time.  They didn't feel like just purchases for the sake of buying something.  They were tangible reminders of my journey, and a way of sharing it with family back home.    Another friend bought rosaries along the way.  Again, a lovely way to bring a piece of the Camino home.  Funny, still haven't been able to go into a mall since I've been back!  Not once.  Several museums...no malls!

Up on the Roof!!

The days I spent in Santiago were desperately needed.  They were very special in their own way.  Talking with other pilgrims in Santiago, I found I wasn't alone in that feeling.   To grab a flight straight home seemed simply unimaginable, and in a way wrong.  Even now, months later, I'm really just starting to feel like my feet are on the ground here at home.  As much as they ever may be again!  But then...they weren't exactly on the ground all the time I was Santiago either!

The last time I'd been in Santiago, in '08, I hadn't even known there was a roof top tour.    The tour is currently running at 8 Euros, and is worth every bit of it.  I had the good fortune to get to share my experience with Hunter a terrific young man, a great pilgrim, from Florida.  We'd met on the trail a while back and bumped into each other again, as pilgrims do, in Santiago.  We both enjoy church architecture and art, so sharing it with him was great.

The our actual tour began a 7:00pm with a flight of ancient stairs.   We nearly had to run up those stairs, because I was late! One wrong turn while trying to shop for family and I ended up several blocks over from where I shoulda been.  Not an auspiscious beginning for a tour with lots and lots of stairs.  That however turned out to be the only off moment!

The guide took us up to one of the rooms of the Cathedral Museum, and showed us what would have been a banquet room and gave wonderful explanations of the various carvings and colors that would have filled the room.  Even ceilings weren't left alone.  There is a whole other language being used, a kind of shorthand, that many of us are unaware of these days.  Just as we speak in sometimes unintelligible shorthand while texting, in a way so did the builders and artists who made the cathedral and surrounding buildings.  We may use the phrase IMHO (In my humble opinion!) or LOL (laughing out loud).  When these buildings were being mapped out, you might have been told your "place" in someone's humble opinion by a simple glance around you.  Look up and see plain and few ornaments in your little part of the universe and you didn't need to wonder where you fitted into the larger picture. Then all of this would have been painted too.  While our current sensibilities are accustomed to the tans, taupes, grays and browns, in their time much of the rooms as well as the cathedral proper would have been beautifully painted.  Add then banners of all sorts, tapestries and the rich colored robes and the place would have been a riot of color.  So very different from what we see today, cool and calm and monochromatic.

From these rooms our guide, Andy, took us up yet another flight of steps which brought us to the gallery in the Cathedral itself.  Amazing things to be seen and discovered here, many completely unexpected.  In it's hey day this gallery running around the cathedral would have been where pilgrims spent the night.  All of a sudden the botafumeri clearly is much more than a show stopping ornamental incense burner.  It's essentially a giant room deodorizer!

This pic was taken in '08

Look at the thickness of those ropes!!

Can you imagine waking up in the morning...looking down and seeing this in the cool light of dawn!

Here we also got an incredible up close view of what was once a rose window in the original facade of the cathedral. So sad, at least to me, to see what was once someones beautiful masterpiece pushed aside by a change in fashion.  But that still goes on today, doesn't it, out with the old and in with the new?

This area is off limits unless your on the tour, or one of the lucky people who are working on restorations up here.  This is also turns out to be the attic area of the cathedral.

Imagine this as your workspace!!  Ahh one can dream!

These giant figures are used during feistas! We were told the represent in a humorous
way pilgrims from around the world.

This is how it rests on the person carrying it!
Somehow it looks like the ultimate headache.

Now it was onward and upward to the roof itself.  I had no real idea what it might be like up there.  It was amazing.  The one and only complaint, was of myself, for being silly enough not to inquire about footwear.  I had my crocs on, which were ok, but my hiking shoes would have been much more secure.  Especially for someone who doesn't like heights all that much.

Andy our intrepid guide who patiently answered all our questions.

As you come out of the stair case this is the view that greets you straight ahead.  In clearer weather it must be unbelievable.  Although this cloud cover gave us nice even lighting.

Looking left this is what you'll see. It was funny to see how comfortable some people were up here.  Funnier still how uncomfortable some us were!

Get really brave and start wandering about anywhere...even the ridge line!

Looking down at the Plaza where I'd had a glass of champange
with Arlene the day before, celebrating our arrival in Santiago.

This curved door completely intriuged me.

Look around the city, heck look anywhere in Galicia and you'll see mosses, lichens, flowers and ferns popping out of crevices and clinging to walls.  While I found them beautiful to look at, they worried me.  I was concerned they might be causing damage to the buildings.  Andy our guide assured me that they don't.  In fact he said one of them and I'm not sure which color it was, actually acts in a protective manner for the stone face. You can see at least three colors of lichens, one moss, and two different flowers just on this one piece of ornamentation!

While looking at the building was fun...looking in was almost as much!  Being able to view parts of the great gilded altar from the roof top windows was amazing.  Someone needs to tell housekeeping they missed a spot!

Interesting and understandable, to see how the gold is only on the parts that show!

Ok...so I don't like doing windows either.

This tour was terrific and I truly recommend it to any and all going to Santiago!  But now it's time for a beer, a reward for climbing so high and getting clamy hands and feet!!   I'm off from there...humming me a little James Taylor.!!

Since my friends and family know how much I don't like heights...I had to have this picture taken up there as proof positive!  See I didn't just send my camera up with Hunter!

Homecoming

I first heard about the Camino at least 20 years ago.  There was an immediate deep visceral response.  I knew in every fiber of my being I wanted to do this thing, walk across the North of Spain.  This isn't a surprise if you really know me.  Or, it shouldn't be!

Growing up my first heroes/heroines were adventurers.  I remember getting lost reading an entire series of biographies in the elementary school library for young readers. Bios of people like Lief Erikson, Kit Carson, Lewis and Clark. My bedtime reads often included old (I mean 1915!) copies of National Geographic, often all black and white.  Someday, I will go to the Gobi Desert and be surprised that it doesn't smell like old books, that delicious dry, ever so slightly moldy dusty aroma of ancient paper. Ahhh... the dream of travel.

So, now I'm all grown up (lol) and been married for 33 years.  A lifetime!  Married to someone whose idea of vacations is a polar opposite.  Not wrong, just undeniably different.  It can be fun to go to the same shore spot year in and year out.  To see how things change. Or not.  Measuring yourself against things seen only once each year.  However, for someone whose earliest memories are airplanes, airports and autobahns, this can feel at times like an almost imperceptible dying, unless well seasoned with periodic adventures.

An amusing example of our differences is simply in the expectations of where people live after marriage.  His family all tried, at least initially to stay as close as possible.  Five miles was good.  Same neighborhood, even better.  Next county, well that was seriously pushing the envelope.   I pushed the envelope.  My envelope always was bigger to start with.  Thousands of miles bigger.  My childhood impressions of marriage were, you married and moved.  Far.  My maternal grandparents married in Germany and moved to England. My paternal great grandparents married in Germany, and moved to America.  And then back to Germany, to fulfill military obligations during the WW I.  My parents, my uncle and aunt either married and then moved to the US or vice versa.  So if you'd ever asked me as a youngster, what I thought would happen when I married, the answer would have been simple.  Marry and move to the west coast!  Finding myself living within a few miles of where I went to high school, essentially wedded (or is that welded?) to the state university via marriage to a tenured professor, is, well - a shock! 

Even something as benign or boring sounding, like visiting grandparents was a little different. I remember looks of pity when I told other kids I was going to my grandparents for vacation. I just neglected to mention they lived in another country.  On another continent.   I learned early on to fly alone to Germany. Then to negotiate the train from Frankfurt to Nurnberg and then finding my Opa at the Hauptbanhof.  Even at thirteen and fourteen. So traveling, even on my own has been in my blood and a habit for as long as I can remember.

So I've often felt a little out of sync.  It really began to hit me how much my version of travel and "normal" weren't, aren't exactly that.  There have been many times when I've expressed my interest in visiting places that don't show up on shiny travel brochures and gotten such strained smiles.  Comments like "that's not safe" or "we aren't that kind of people"  or "not a woman, certainly not alone...".  A kind of loneliness became normal.  Quiet.  I simply learned to be quiet.

That doesn't mean I gave up dreaming.  Plotting some might call it.  Watching, waiting, a little praying too.  Somehow I knew I couldn't possibly be the only one.  Oh, I knew I wasn't, but it sure felt that way sometimes. 

Then the Camino.  Here were people who quite literally stepped out of "normal" and into another way.  Men, women, young, old, people who weren't afraid to meet the world full on.  To live in ways, many, at least here in the US couldn't (or perhaps I should say wouldn't) conceive of doing. 

Finally, I found home or could I say I found my tribal lands. We are tribe of nomads on the Camino.  For more than five weeks I slept in a different bed nearly every single night. Most of the time, I and my compadres on the road, weren't even sure where we might be sleeping for the night. I ate in different towns, with different people.  Yet in it's own lovely way it finally felt, well, like a home.  Even now, more than two months out, I find a comfort, knowing there are pilgrims out there.  On the road.  Pilgrims who will pick up in a few hours and walk forward.  Where to exactly doesn't matter.  Exactly with whom doesn't matter.  They will get to know still more people.  Tomorrow, on the road.  The tribe will continue.

I'm beginning to realize too,  how many other pilgrims moved with me when I was on the road. Other pilgrims were invested in me and my pilgrimage, without ever meeting.  Every day in Santiago at Mass, prayers of thanksgiving are said for those at the cathedral.  And prayers are said for those still on their way. How many pilgrims at home, were remembering, as I do now, their days on the road and pray for those currently walking.  How many pilgrims, lurk on Internet forums and wonder about those walking.  Wonder will it would be like?  And perhaps pray for those walking.  How many of us say prayers of thanksgiving for advice we've received from those who walked before us and shared their knowledge.  How many feet have trodden those routes over the years?

I almost wonder how much of the dust we breathe in on that road is partly dust of those who've gone before us, the dust of our pilgrim tribe.  Perhaps in a way that was part of what I smelled, all those years ago in my attic bedroom.  Reading my ancient National Geographics under the covers with bedside lamps or flashlights or however I could manage it on that night.  My nose already knew, the familiar smell of the dust of the road.  The smell of homecoming.