I’m going on holiday. Twenty days, more than I’ve taken in decades. It is blowing my mind. I’m not there yet. How do I wrap myself around almost three weeks of vacation? I want to stretch, slither, flick my tongue, grin. And not only that, but I have this big longing to truly feel like I’m on vacation. I’m saving crossword puzzles from my L.A. Times, just the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ones, the easy ones before they get too hard later in the week. I’ll have six to do while I am whiling away my hours. I amuse myself thinking I will need to be present a great deal during this time, so I am always appreciating that I am on holiday. And isn’t life a romp?!? So do you think this yearning for the real feeling of being on holiday counts as a dream? Might I use it for a blog post this week? I am hoping, too, for a kind of writer’s holiday, all that public transit, all those good chances to write. Wakes up in me my dream of walking the camino. Watched The Way again last week. One of these years it will be me. I think it is the only “concrete” dream I’ve ever had. I want to walk 500 miles across northern Spain, from France to the sea. I want it like I want soft shoes in winter, down blankets, good goat cheese, an empty page and a favorite pen. I don’t know what year it will be, but I am hoping it will be more than one. I want to walk the camino again and again. I even dream of walking the camino front and back, or forward and backward. Shall I not only take my sweet time walking from France to the sea, but then turn right around and make my own sweet snail pace way back again all the way to France and beyond? Shall I watch the grapes ripening as I walk west in the late spring, see them crushing the dark fruit on my way back in the early fall? There will be nuts on the ground, too, late summer berries. It makes me squiggle. It makes me grin. One of these years. Yo voy. Yo vengo. I am coming.