Soria

Yesterday during one of the random reading in the my meditation center library, I discovered this Spanish poet Antonio Machado. He got my attention by the following lines.

People possess four things
that are no good at sea:
anchor, rudder, oars
and the fear of going down.

Hmm! I should stop using rudder and oars in my sea, obviously it is not working. Later I googled him and found some very cheesy poems (I don't know if it is a good poem and lost its charm in translation) about a place I visited in Spain called Soria. I have very nice memories from this place, specially I enjoyed that snow in the summer, in mountains near Soria. Back to my oars, I am in a sea and cant use my oars, How should I move on in my life? I got the same question in my mind, when I was new to Paris, I didn't know how to use maps. In India I was guided by random people in every street corners of my life. Then when I started being comfortable to navigate around people in Paris, I thought I have mastered the art of navigation in the 'western world'. Now in Cambridge, with a GPS mobile and a Sat Nav, I am still lost. Struggling to read the non-existing sign language of people, sometimes misuderstaning a cultural difference as a joke. Standing in vain to be led by someone around this beautiful country side, I felt Antonio Machado gave me an answer to the wanderer in me, to move on in my life!

Wanderer, your footsteps are
the road, and nothing more;
wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.