Wandering

A lyrical something between here and there

As I write this, I imagine I’m somewhere over bits of what we call Canada on my way back from a weekend trip to Barcelona.

Everything about this is normal.

I have gratefully received the gift of travel from a dear friend, and did my best not to sit and stew with my head in a computer, but to get lost over and over again in the winding, ancient streets of the Gothic Quarter whose shops open and close on a whim rather than a schedule, adding to my general sense of disorientation.

It was once a Roman city, walled in and up, with degrees well above or below 90, but little squareness. While it wasn’t and isn’t a labyrinth, it feels burley and ominous, skeletal and substantial with more surface wear from decades of leaning shoulders than broken stones, and the vague pervasive smell of ancient urine.

I’d been warned to keep my cell phone and my hands on my pockets, so clad in two layers of black turtleneck and a camel colored rain-proof trench, I walked. Paced in and out of shops, under date palms, between misplaced cars randomly parked in the arterial byways. The gentle pitch aimed me towards the pier, and I emerged from the permanent cool shadows of stone walls into the shifting, shimmering reflections of cruise ships sparkling at the edge of the Mediterranean. In moments such as these, I often wonder whose life I’ve stepped into. Who normally meanders this route on a Monday, free of explicit obligations and alone in the necessary pacing that makes meaning of idle time.