I feel like erasing myself,
to start over again

Sunday lunch at Anna's home in El Masnou: 

After allowing me to gawp at the sea view (despite the majestic dancing storm clouds and competitive wind), Anna leads us up towards her place while telling me the history of her town. 

It strikes me that I would not have been able to do the same for her if she had just arrived in Singapore.

The town is quieter and smells more homely. Being a Sunday and also lunch time, the streets are resting, children playing, families at the beach. The buildings and roads are a mix of shapes and styles. We walk uphill towards where the fishermen of Masnou used to stay. Her parents and grandma were waiting for us.

And this - a meal that will remain deep in my memories...it's hard to put into words the warmth, the magic of connections exchanging between languages and culture, the hospitality I receive despite not being a direct contact. A meal that ended at 6pm. Even if I end up having less than five 'Spanish' meals out in my time here, this is more than enough the lunch experience I seek.

The food. Starters: tomato and herb toast, salad, bacon wrapped dates, chips, and pate squares with a hazelnut each. Bread bowl of walnut and pumpkin, and white bread. And the paella...full of flavor and seafood and chicken and rabbit. Second servings. A ball. Couldn't even finish the dessert of fresh fruit and chantilly cream. Without the espresso, I'd have definitely missed Pl Catalunya on the train back.

That's her family with one of their five turtles. 

On Sundays, shops are closed, families spend the day together. During the meal, conversation between them felt open, honest, sincere. No phones. No rush. No need to be somewhere else, no need to leave when the moment is here, now.

Their basement was full of DIY furniture and artefacts; her father constructs furniture, her mother breathes new life into abandoned chairs, cloth, lamps, etc with her own art.

We walked towards Mongat, past yachts (many for sale) and between the beach and the train tracks. Barcelona can be seen along the whole path, with Sagrada Familia and her soldiers of construction crane always, still, recognisable. Unfortunately, the phallic symbol dome from Glories is as well.

The Spanish Sunday.

Barcelona

I am in Barcelona for at least a month, enrolled in the OxfordTESOL course, armed with an open heart, a willing soul, and a hunger to learn and live.

The past weekend, I have walked like a traveller and a local, done my share of exploring, shopping for necessities, cleaning the apartment and unpacking. The sun here warms every bit within and outside me, in the morning with a coffee and quiet(er) heart (the apartment here is strangely colder than outside all the time, cold enough for me to wake with cramping muscles), and sets around 9pm according to the summer schedule. Although the summer this year is uncommonly late, the sun here is far more reliable than the places traveled to in the past two weeks - Italy, Switzerland, France - and I am very thankful for it. Like how it was in Seattle; I wax and wane with the amount of sunshine pouring on me, following where it falls without shadows and soaking it in every chance possible into an irresistible smile playing on my lips. 

My grocery shopping trip quadrupled in scheduled time when I walked into a Saturday market that sold fresh grilled food with sangria, cheeses and tapas along with wine, bakes, various crafts, services, clothes, motorbike helmets, even random toiletries. The market closed about five streets of traffic, and had free puppet shows ala Punch and Judy, activities for children, a train track with trains sturdy enough for kids to ride on, a vintage car show, a vintage photo booth, even a live 'piano' show that worked on mechanical scrolls and a fake professional pianist in a suit and bow tie. I was never happier to get 'lost', keeping in mind the general direction of my journey and knowing my destination will be reached in the end.

a curious kid climbing onto the backstage of the puppet show.

stay curious, my boy.

I also tripped into a fresh market selling meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, flowers, fresh bakes and drinks, housed in a huge glass building. It also had a open library with books free for anyone to borrow and/or donate. I bought a variety of nuts from a family-run store whose owners had such crinkly kind eyes and big smiles.

Environmentalism is growing here, so besides the large recycling bins along the roadside, grocery shopping is usually done with a bag or trolley brought by the shopper. Plastic bags are available for an additional charge (about a few cents). Unlike in Seattle (we pushed the trolley up three streets to our apartment and back after emptying it) and in Singapore (car), I only had Jon's trusty backpack that could fill so much, and emerged thankful for the fresh fruit and vegetable shop right opposite my apartment that was priced affordably. The particular supermarket I visited - Mercadona - was a 20-30 minute walk away.

Another jaunt to find the shop for a calling card brought me to the main shopping street of high-end brands and accents ranging from American to Singaporean. Along the way I revisit the memory of Casa Batallo, as vivid in my mind as two years ago, passed by the troupe of fans awaiting Rihanna's arrival, and witnessed a motorbike accident. I returned with no calling card, a pair of cheap shoes for the exhausted feet, a full heart, and more knowledge of the neighbourhood's treasures and turns.

And now, I am ready to be immersed in the rather crazy syllabus (teaching starts tomorrow. already!!!) with the other participants from Belgium, NZ, Aussie, America. 

Ready to taste fresh figs and anchovies and the varying blocks of different cheeses my Italian roommate is introducing me to. 

Ready to savour the 20 minute walk to school every day, which includes playgrounds and the distant frame of Sagrada Familia in the horizon. 

It's gonna be a fast and intensive month, and I don't want to lose any moment.

a step towards honesty

It is the darkness that makes light brighter, weight that makes dawn lighter...

The last week has been drawing near to the shrouded hollow of previous times. It's quite ironic; I had been reflecting upon those months, even years, which is much clearer in retrospect and in comparison the present. The difference, or rather, the lack of what had been before, becomes so organically stark now. Yet quietly and suddenly, a whirlwind was sinking me back, and I found myself floundering and fighting against the current, struggling to understand what was happening. Sour rolling behind my eyes that I could only swallow in acrid burps in silent screams. Huge monsoon waves crashing in ceaseless motion in my chest. An exhaustion the weight of exhumed skeletons and pickled hearts. The hopeless knowledge that it is a battle to be dealt with alone.

The rained seemed to wash away some of the grime during the night. This morning offered no epiphany; no birds awoke chirping outside the winder, no eggs cracked in hatching, no younglings opened their eyes to the world for the first time. But I awoke with a quieter heart. 

Taking courage, plodding on...

some mornings you awake to birds chirping, repetitive announcements of nothing but their presence, their aliveness, crisp through a blanketed world, still and careful, as if the night had sharpened our eyes while softening the edges of our grass, our roads, our buildings
and some mornings, there is a strange urgency to fit ourselves to the body beside us, to imprint the heavy warmth into our own curves, these mornings, the decade-old patience in the hands of our parents as they pass us the eggs is clear, and we know it will be a memory that will return in quiet hours,
these mornings, we tread softer, speak slower, look up more, and we hear the wisdom of the birds as they wake, they are perched on branches, they are feeding their young, they are washing their feathers in the drizzle, they are looking at the world washed anew, without wanting, without needing,