Dangermond.org

We’ve been to Spain. Yes, that’s what the tickets say but it seems as if we have been living parallel lives from our regular one. There’s the getting used to each new place, there’s the schlepping baggage filled with god knows what – diapers, incense, books, computer, clothes, make-up, pills and such. There’s been different food, different routines, different people, different modes of being and at the end of it all – there we are.

I keep saying to myself – don’t worry, don’t concern yourself with what is waiting for you on your return. People in Spain are indeed feeling the crisis – they have overbought, overspent, over imagined their material world – they’re like us in that way – but they didn’t change their lifestyle. Ask a Spaniard what they have for breakfast and they will say – one cup of coffee with milk, one piece of toast with olive oil and tomato that has been shuzzed in the blender, a little salt. “I love my breakfast.” “It’s my favorite.” Very simple, very sparse, very Spanish – but they take the time to sit down and savor each sip and each bite.

I am still pushing through my own nervous energy – trying to find a way to relax and to be. I walk by stores filled with all sorts of new shirts, dresses, shoes, and jewelry and I have no desire for any of it. Sure, I don’t have any money to buy any of it, but I wonder who was that person who was getting and spending – I am relieved to see her go.

Again, a cliche, is it the times (crisis), my age (50s), or just the whole impression that I occupied too much of my time in a lifestyle that was not about enjoying but about pursuing – everything – I was always searching, longing, desiring, and spent little time in my own skin, just being.

When I arrived in Morocco with my friend and her friends for a day trip – one had made a list of all she wanted – a hand of Fatima, a scarf, a jilaba … – I walked through the medina, remembering my earlier trip there and thought, “Me,” I said to myself, “I don’t want anything. Everything I have been looking for I’ve found, and now I am.”

I am, I said, to the gods that were already there.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 18th, 2012 at 12:19 pm and is filed under Main. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.