Time beyond

Autumn passed and winter set in. I walked in the bitter cold and for a time tried to forget my pilgrimage. With the spring the American Camino group I follow began to have numerous postings of people planning their trips and exchanging information. It has made me think and remember. I keep in touch with a couple of my pilgrim friends. Anthony has become a monk. Chantal became very sick in Morrocco and returned to Canada, later taking a trip to the South Pacific before returning to her job. I haven't heard from her since she returned to work. I interviewed for the museum job I applied for then when they asked for a second, in-person interview I declined. I was not ready to leave the north country nor have I come to believe that I can return to South Dakota anytime soon. I applied for and was hired for a couple summer jobs and completely enjoyed reconnecting with the human race after being quiet for so many months. The lively challenges of a job encouraged me and in June I began looking for a more permanent type of a job which brings me closer to my son, yet not back to SD. There turned out to be more opportunities than I expected. I am still waiting and hoping that a very promising one will come through. I am ready to try something new I think. I am very restless these days and cannot seem to enjoy my cabin on the lake. I still need my private space and the cabins nearby have been so busy that it disturbs my peace to the point where I am unhappy in a place I have long wanted to find. To me this tells me it is perhaps time to move on. My plans to continue on to a PhD have also redirected back to obtaining another Master's degree, this time in Library Science. I was previously accepted at the University of Arizona and they have happily reopened my admission to the program. I have realized, however, that it is a very expensive program, almost 3.5 times what my current program costs, and I will have to work while I take these courses. In the end I should be very marketable as a library director in a larger system. And the opportunity as it presented itself seems akin to walking a path that leads down the right road no matter which way you take - the idea that I want to write history and first have the degree to write, then the understanding of history; then the need to have a job to support my hobby, in a field in which I have proven my ability and attained previous success seems fortuitous. As other things the path that the psychic foretold seems to, at times, be continuing to unfold before my eyes. And my pilgrimage is still with me.