Right now I am listening to a wonderful person I met today play If I Only Had a Brain on a flute made out of a seashell that he had made himself, using a method that he invented. It’s pretty rad, and involves the amazing fact that the natural shape of the shell allows for a perfect eight note scale to be put in with holes, and then you can motify how hard your blowing to get to twelve notes, or maybe even more. Alex did his disertation on microtones, and so has been utterly facinated by these flutes. I think they’re pretty amazing too, actually. They have a really cool tone. I bought one, actually.

The maker of the flutes, Michael, is just a wonderful person. He knows a lot about a so manu different things. This is also his second or third time walking the camino, I’m not sure which. He joined me, Alex, and Theri today, and it was a welcome change of energy. Alex and Theri are great, but a new person changes and freshens things in such a wonderful way.

I’m using the word wonderful a lot, but it’s such a good word. It can simply mean that something is really great. For example, I use wonderful to describe Michael because he is so amazingly pleasant. But wonderful also means that something inspires wonder, which the camino certainly does. It is something special to look back behind you from the top of a hill and think “that is where I was this morning. That’s where I was yesterday.” And then you can turn around and keep moving, because there’s still a long way to go.