Stage 19: Arigawa - Shimonokai, 36 kms, Cloud with sun, windy, 23

Flow 

I'm sitting outside a Lawson's kombini at 12:30 having just finished a wonderful packaged plate of pasta with white cheese sauce and whole shrimp accompanied by a full half litre of ice cold chocolate milk! Surprisingly good after 33 kms since I departed early this morning just after 6:30. Except to take photos and buy an Aquarius at a drink machine I haven't stopped. On my own now, I can walk as I please, usually through-walking, though I will stop if I see a good place. I know this doesn't appeal to everyone, but I started this style before the Frances and then rediscovered it on the Plata. As a matter of fact, I was experiencing just such a solo day on the Frances when I made the decision to retire! Good decision!!! I enjoy it so much that it's become a part of my DNA. However,  when I walk with Annemarie we stop together to take breaks... the middle ground. Actually it turns out that this too is fun, and we have some wonderful memories from these stops. More than a few good bakeries!

As I walked down from yet another pass I started to have that feeling I so often get when walking alone. I'd just passed through a 1.6 km tunnel, a first for me when walking, and still having my headphones on to kill the loud truck and car noise in the tunnel, some great music started to play....Neil Young's Wild, Queen's It's a Beautiful Day and Dire Staits Wild West End. These songs kind of reflected how I was feeling having broken the back of today's walk, heading downhill, beautiful landscapes out front, lunch just 3 kms ahead and a strong tail wind lifting me along. Now these feelings When I walk are nothing new. I've experienced them many times, frequently enough that after completing last years walking season I returned home determined to see what I could find in the literature about my experiences.

Something that struck a very close cord to these sensations showed up when reading one day. I stopped and said out loud, "that's it!".  I wrote it down and have carried it with me in my wallet ever since. I've been feeling it off and on these past couple of weeks, but more and more the past few days as I find my rhythm. So as I descended today, I decided that I'd make this journal entry. Maybe not for everyone, but that's ok. I write how I feel, and this is exactly how I feel when I walk solo and find what Rob calls, the zone.

A concept named by Csikszentmihalyi, called 'flow': when a human moves in a state of oneness with the body, when there is full immersion of the consciousness in the activity. He believes the signs of flow are feelings of joy, even elation, while engaged in the action, a sense of oneness where there is a loss of not just self, but of time also.

Ok, enough touchy, feely stuff. I'm not loosing it, simply expressing.

Today's report! Mostly in picture form. The storm last night raged into the early morning hours before finally blowing out. It was all over the press here last night. I shot this through the glass of my sliding door as the rain was pounding on the glass.

 

The four Japanese Henro who kindly put up with my presence last night at dinner all decided that breakfast would be at 6, so an early morning. One of the fellows, just a year younger than me, works for Toyota and has some English having lived in London many years ago for 4 years. He's travelled a bit as well. He and I got talking after dinner and he stayed around to chat for about an hour. Great experience! Wants to retire now, but is caught in the pension numbers game. Four more year for full pension. This morning he made sure that we had toast and eggs for breakfast and that I got tea, not coffee. The eggs were boiled and he decided that wasn't what he ordered last night, so two eggs sunny side up showed up in front of me. Great! Toast here is about 4-5 cms thick! We also had salad and miso soup...part way there:) They were walking about 18 kms so said so long and off I went. Home village last night.

 

That far point to the left, I plan to round it tomorrow morning and make it to Tosa-Shimizu City. In fact I have to, I have a reservation! T38 is out on thT point. Not sure I said this, but it's 86.2 kms from the last temple to this one. The longest gap on e circuit. After T38 it's another 52 kms to T39. What was he thinking!?

Last night with Annemarie's help in Tokishima and a very helpful front desk person at her hotel, we made reservations for the next four nights. It was really hard to find me a bed, er, a floor. I'd planned out the next four days and then messaged Annemarie and it turned out that my plan was flawed. No floors. So we made some little adjustments and presto, set for now. There are 6 different routes moving away from the coast and I'd planned to avoid the main route. Turns out they all converge where sleep is needed and there ain't many pieces of floor available. Some fancy footwork helped things to sort out. 

 

Early on there was a walk through a beautiful pine forest and the trees were flowering as well.

 

 

Hey Don, it seems that they have whale watching here. I've seen signs a couple of time. Go figure...I'd have thought those whales would be giving Japan a wide miss. Hope your cold is getting better.

 

Huge Herron like, stork like birds here.

 

The tunnel. Huge!

 

 

Then out.

 

Last bridge today. Crossing from my kombini lunch.

 

Could have stayed here if there'd been room. 

 

Staying here instead. Clean and very basic. 

 

But a treat from the market! An import:)