Fifteen months in Barcelona.
Fifteen months are not enough.
Perhaps no amount of time can quench the thirst the city of Gaudí inspires.
Insatiable lust for a city with a million lovers.
My plane soars ‘cross the vast North American continent, each mile blazed brings me closer to home… to the salty shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Closer to family.
To friends.
Closer to the comfort and confidence that only home can bring.
California.
As a Spaniard told me, no es mal destino.
Yet my heart yearns for Catalunya, my elusive mistress.
I close my eyes and I am there.
My toes dig deep into cool sand as I look east over the sea. The Mediterranean blends into cerulean skies as the sun sinks below the horizon. Delicate wisps of low lying clouds take on pink hues as I sigh.
The saddest, softest blue twilight.
My skin feels the warm summer air as it crawls through winding allies.
Stifling humidity.
The city smiles as she sweats.
Happy perspiration.
I smell her dusty squares filled with laughter and cigarette smoke. The locals, with their oval faces and light brows, gather in camaraderie. Un-rushed yet always moving.
Sin prisa pero sin pausa.
A street vendor offers respite from the heat, “cerveza, beer?”
No gracias, amigo.
I see the bronzed beauties glistening in the moon light, sun-kissed from long days at la playa.
I smile as they walk past.
They wave, teasing, wild and free. Untamable.
Fuck.
How I will miss my time in Barcelona.
Words cannot describe the emotions that stir within me as I reflect, strapped into this fucking plane. Taken against my will, gagged and bound in a low-budget flying prison.
It took me 15 months and two days to read Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia. Whilst in Barcelona the book served as a sleeping pill. Two paragraphs and I was out. Effective medicine. But once removed from the shores of my favorite city, I clawed and scratched to feel her warm waters again. The book took on new life as I read with heavy heart and twinkling eyes.
The sparse Englishman captured my angst with prophetic precision.
“I suppose I have have failed to convey more than a little what those months in Spain mean to me. I have recorded some of the outward events, but I cannot record the feeling they have left me with. It is all mixed up with sights, smells, and sounds that cannot be conveyed in writing…”
You said it George.
Adéu Barna… te echo de menos.
The Gap 