It is early and it is dark.  The red security light from the apartments across the street blinks on and off.  I am sitting here in China drinking coffee. My bare feet are cold in this apartment, but it’s only coffee I want right now. Soon I’ll go shivering into the shower and put on my public face.  The time has come for me to start off.

I’ve taken no common badges of honor…namely, designer jeans and tennis shoes.  That brings a wry smile to my lips.  I look at my wardrobe now.  Where did that other woman get off to?  I’ll walk around Turkey looking as if I have been deported from some obscure Eastern European country… at least in my imaginings that is how I will look.  I’ve packed two pairs of long underwear… tattered now from two years of constant use.  One pair and I will have a close relationship for the next three days, and I hope I can launder everything in Turkey so I won’t smell too badly.

I suppose this journey is a lot like all of the other journeys.. .a wandering off down alleys and anonymous streets… the relationship with the nothing that is everything.  I think you would understand that.  You are a person who has journeys that sing a different song… and end up in the same place.

God willing, this journey will flow along with the longing to travel toward the people in Spain,  all met by accident or fate who have given my life a certain meaning in these years.   In the end, after the discovery of new places, it is still  people, and those people in particular, who make my life what it is.

Enjoy this time before Spring.  Lick your thumb and page through seed catalogues.  Imagine the pots stacked in the shed… the picture of them simply sitting there empty… waiting

… and now, the light is coming.  I can see the mountain.  It is foggy and very much time for me to go.   P.