Living The Dream

By Sharon Brothers

What does it take for a dream to grab ahold of you with such strength that you’re willing to turn your entire life upside down to follow that dream?

That was our experience with the dream of moving to Spain.  More specifically, to move to the city of Burgos, right on the Camino pathway, and focus on living the journey in an expanded way.  We aren’t here just to be tourists, although we find ourselves acting like total tourists often, as we “ooh!” and “aah!” at the unfamiliar, old-world sights that are on nearly every corner of this ancient city.

We’re here to build a new business that supports people walking on the Camino, helping to enrich their experience and connect more deeply with others around them.  In fact, we’ve selected as our company tagline: “Walk Far, Connect Deep.”

For us, that’s what this stage of the journey is about.  It is about walking far, every day, whether we’re on the Camino or off it.  We want to keep moving, experiencing life in a rich, full kind of way.

At the same time, we’re about connections with others.  Not the bragging-on-Facebook sort of connections. Real, true heart connections where you walk away from the encounter feeling a glow of warmth and affection for a friend, new or old.

So now we’re here in Burgos – one week here, in fact.  We’ve gotten to know the neighborhood fairly well, found a few favorite coffee spots, and met the elderly lady across the hall from us.  We can’t communicate with her well – it’s mostly smiles and sign language, but this morning she greeted me with a double-cheeked kiss and a warm, tight embrace, only reluctantly releasing my arm after her morning lecture (unintelligible to me).  Although we’ve left all our friends and family on the other side of the world, perhaps we’ll begin to build a new community here, to add to those we love that are time zones away.