Take me to the docks,
there is a ship there with no name
sailing to the middle of the sea
water there is deeper than anything you've ever seen
Jump right in and swim until you're free
I will remember your face
because I am still in love with that place
when the stars are the only things we share,
I've got a plan
I've got an atlas in my hands
I'm going to turn when I listen to the listens that I've learned.
-Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Atlas Hands
I am not wandering in this city. I belong here. I know these streets. I know the route. I know the tricks. Madrid is an old glove that I am just now sliding over my fingers, because last winter never got quite cold enough. It feels like the cozy blanket you crave when you're watching a movie on the couch. It is filling a space in my heart that I didn't even realize needed filling.
I forgot how in Madrid, you say "vale" at least 100 times per day. (It means "okay" mas o menos). I forgot just how good croquettas really are. I somehow had let the true taste of tinto de verano in the sun fade from my tongue. I return as if I just left last week. I forgot the Madrileño inability to wait on the pedestrian signal to walk, but rather, to intently watch the cars and to dart across the street at the first available second. I watch pairs of people walking along the street throwing their hands up in the air as they speak, talking over each other, laughing and taunting the other like they are stars of a comedy show.
It has indeed been too long.
I am not just still in love with this place.
Oh no, perhaps I am more enchanted and in love than ever before.
I simply cannot grasp how I left. And to think- I only crafted this scheme to come here in February! Perhaps I realized- my wanderlust, the atlas in my hands, was always directing me back here. At least for this taste, for this moment.
I love this city. It's people. It's expressions. It's splendor. The buildings, the concrete squares that line the sidewalks, the little metal tables sitting outside restaurants lining the streets. The trees and how the sun shines through the clouds only on one side of the street. There are so many dear friends here and although we have 2014 technology blessing our friendship, the distance is meaningless and we sit at our old watering holes like we met there yesterday.
I have jumped back in, and oh how free I feel.
I am a happy, happy girl.
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