seduisante
“To be noticed is to be loved.”
I skipped through an entire month without logging anything of my experience. My arrival in Barcelona was like the bursting skin of a grape- the flesh dropping away from the decay.
I didn’t expect to feel so displaced.
It was a slow death and an even slower resurrection.
Saudade: a feeling of longing, melancholy, or nostalgia.
The only way to capture how I felt was through the absence of the thing that brings me through to completion. Where the thread pushes through the eye of the needle, the sponge puffs up with the moisture it drinks. There was no filling the need. I didn’t know how vast the void could be. I’ve never felt so despondent about my surroundings.
I miss the intimacy of friendship. I want to lay in bed next to Mallory. To wake up to Karmen’s feet marking the wooden floor. To look across the dark and see Josie wrapped in her white sweater against the cold woods.
These images are my consolation where I recline in my humid bed in Barcelona.
I left to be alone. To write and wander. To excavate. To dig a well.
Digging is exhausting.
I want to dance and drink wine and giggle over boys.
My body wants those simple rituals that once provided ease, consistency, and comfort.
A walk to Kits beach. Coffee from Viva Bakery. Reading on my Moroccan rug, standing in the kitchen dipping slices of bread from Oh Carolina in oil. That was my favourite way to unwind- eating upright while reading emails—one hand snacking, the other swiping.
It’s a terrible habit, I suppose.
My routine of unwinding has changed many times over the last month. From New York to Geneva, now I'm in Barcelona. It took me nearly two weeks to climb down from the water tower where I was collecting my tears.
Who Am I - What Am I - Where Am I?
All I’ve asked appeared in the novel I read last week—the exact phrase expressed by the female protagonist who I’d already accepted as a temporary friend.
I took the repetitive phrase as a sign that it was time to return to the rhythms I set out to refine.
I’ve put away the melancholia and will rise to write each day with a refreshed commitment.
Sometimes, it's nice to be sad. Sometimes, it's nice to step away and know that you will return when the moment arrives.
I heard the call in a character's mouth and knew the story was always mine to write.
I'm writing from the eight-floor terrace in Catalonia as the blackbird hovers over the gold sunrise. I taste the Mediterranean on my skin and this is my home for the time being.
Photo source.
