you must walk like a camel

i am reading thoreau and listening to "always be my baby" and for some reason nothing has seemed more perfect or more real. and as mariah sings "and we'll linger on" i'm reading thoreau, who says this about walking: "sauntering: which word is beautifully derived 'from idle people who roved about the country and asked charity, under pretence of going a la Sainte Terre,' to the Holy Land"--there goes a saunterer! and i am thinking about sauntering, what a swaggered, jaunty word, full of robust energy. thoreau goes on (mariah: "no way you're never gonna shake me"):

Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering.

and i think that we know and bear this secret. we have to, to spread ourselves so distantly from each other, from our families, our physical homes, our dear friends, our pasts. for me, this being "equally at home everywhere" is the beauty of living. and it is a scary, anxiety-filled thing (our nomadism) but how necessary!

"We are but faint-hearted crusaders," he continues.

so we "must walk like a camel," which is to say, "to be the only beast which ruminates when walking."

i think this blog is like our community camel. and i love that.