Ollie, Paddy, David, Kim, and me. Very different people from all different places, brought together in one place with a common purpose. We did Christmas together, and almost New Year´s Eve (midnight is too late for most of us, and David had to go to Astorga to fix an engine.)
We had some big jobs to do, at a season when Peaceable is often overwhelmed with pilgrim traffic. We called in our old standby friends, and they did not disappoint.
Oficina de la Pequeña Cocina
Kim holed-up by the pellet stove in the Little Kitchen and designed web pages, and plotted her next big move. She shimmered in between, and made salads at dinnertime.
Ollie buzzed around the house with mops and sheets and spoons, cleaning up and feeding and coddling the steady flow of holiday pilgrims.
David made the electric bike work. He fixed the solar light on the patio steps, and made my IPad play jazz radio from Bordeaux on our little stereo, indoors and out. He tuned the guitar, put on a new E string, and sang “Over the Rainbow.”
I can´t say just what I did. I cooked a few meals, did some laundry, wrote some copy and some emails, paid some bills. I bossed people around, I washed the cat.
Somehow, over the 12 days between the Winter Solstice and the end of the Mercury Retrograde and today, we got it all together at Peaceable and made it happen. We hosted 28 overnight pilgrims, three holiday dinners, and seven drop-in guests. Judy dog had emergency surgery. Jim, the newest Peaceable stalwart, brought a carload of supplies from the restaurant supply warehouse in Madrid, and buried Kim´s little kitchen under tons of pasta, Cheerios, tomato sauce, and toilet paper. He left with Goldie, a feral kitten we´d been trying to tame. We opened the church and rang the bell for a series of Masses, handed Christmas candy bars around the village, and received homemade delicacies in return: This year´s favorite is a half-kilo block of homemade quince paste wrapped in psychedelic cellophane.
Much was given. Much is given still. And today Kim´s little masterpiece was unveiled: this website, the work of weeks.
“Somehow, over the 12 days between the Winter Solstice and the end of the Mercury Retrograde and today, we got it all together at Peaceable and made it happen.”
And as the emails and testimonials rolled in today, I realized how many people I need to be grateful for… old friends who´ve walked with me over miles or sat with me over glasses of Ribeiro, listening while I hashed-out this vision. Family members, professionals who offered good advice, cut me big breaks on the price, or just did the heavy lifting for nothing. Colegas who puzzled out what I was trying to say after a long day of Spanish left me babbling.
Celebrating with a little Port ... a gift from Helena, another kind supporter of Peaceable Projects.
People who saw I needed some space, and left me alone. And people who saw I needed help, and stepped up. People who helped me forgive myself for being less than perfect. People who love me, or just like me an awful lot.
And people who see the website, and the vision, and open their wallets to support the cause. Some people who don´t have a lot of money, and a few who are pretty comfortable. People from Sweden and Ukraine and Washington, and Waterloo, Ontario. People I don´t even know. Generous souls.
People I´m going to keep hitting up for ideas and manpower, influence, letters of support, advice, or collaboration. Or money!
People I would owe so much to, if I didn´t live in this strange and wonderful economy of grace.
The more you give, the more comes back to you.
Just watch us. We´ll try to show you how it´s done.
Great Expectations.
Gotta write something! Gotta get that Peaceable Projects website out there, gotta fill in all the gaps in the fabulous design!
But it´s Christmas day, and the radio was playing Daft Punk, and the sun came out for a while, and the early-arrival pilg was shaking his booty around the kitchen as the turkey came out of the oven. So I danced a little, too. ´Cause I´m happy. (And nobody laughs too hard at the person wielding the carving knife.)
“But it´s Christmas day, and the radio was playing Daft Punk, and the sun came out for a while, and the early-arrival pilg was shaking his booty around the kitchen as the turkey came out of the oven. So I danced a little, too. ´Cause I´m happy. (And nobody laughs too hard at the person wielding the carving knife.)”
I had a load of things to do. Not only feeding three friends, two neighbors, a husband, and four pilgrims a full-on holiday feast, but opening up the church for the 1 p.m. Mass, ringing the bells at 12.30 and lighting all the stoves and candles. After that, back at home, vermouth and cava, nuts and boqueron fillets, jazz from French public radio. Clear out the aperitivos, wash the forks, and bring on the turkey, stuffing, beans, carrots, apple pie and English Christmas pudding, whipped out of the microwave at the last minute by another helpful elf.
And a second round of the same stuff when the last three pilgrims straggled in, accompanied by David on the guitar, singing hits from Prince, the Drifters, Beatles, Bing Crosby, Oasis. I thought about that website copy, thought about how this website is past due, how people are looking for it and not finding it, felt my old aversion to busted deadlines…
So I finally sat down to write this thing, but only after everyone finished singing and dancing and enjoying. Because keeping company with wonderful people is more important than just about anything. And because I was a little afraid.
Once I write this, and it´s plugged-in to the design and sent out onto the Interwebz, Peaceable Projects Inc. is Really Real, and I am Responsible.
This is scary. I don´t know anything about maintaining websites, or running a non-profit organization, keeping track of all this paperwork... I am not sure I do enough to keep a website interesting and fresh. Most of what´s done here, day to day, is dull as Ditch-Pigging.
But I´m throwing myself in.
It´s time to step out into this. Peaceable isn´t just a house along the Camino de Santiago any more. It´s grown into the home-base for several projects, almost all of them aimed squarely at the Camino de Santiago and the pilgrims who walk there. It´s developed a base of supporters, fans, and followers, people who are shockingly generous and surprisingly interested in every kind of local development.
I´m finding more needs and knotty problems among the non-profit Camino community, and I am getting good at matching them up with solutions, often from faraway lands.
We´ve developed a memorial grove, to remember pilgrims who die along the Way. We´re helping to fund an archaeological dig where a medieval pilgrim shelter once stood. I am bringing sustainable architectural design to re-invent a shelter at a rustic albergue within a ruined monastery. Cool stuff!
And day by day, Peaceable Kingdom in Moratinos remains open to pilgrims, travellers, hobos and CEOs, the people of the Way.
It´s about time we got organized. Have a look here on our new website, and get your head around what we´re doing, and how we hope to achieve it all. And if you like, join in the fun.
It´s dark out there. We´re working hard to keep a light burning on the Holy Way.
Help us out.