Posting in real time from Granada - some actual day-of material!

Today at La Alhambra I was moved to tears. This has happened numerous times - first, while viewing Sorolla en el Museo del Prado, then while standing in El Catedral de Segovia, at other times I cannot currently recall, and now while walking the walls of La Alhambra.

I woke at 6.15 this morning and began my trek up the cardiovascular-challenging hill to La Alhambra, then I waited in line with a friendly Australian couple for over an hour before finally getting a day-of ticket (this is by far the most sought-after destination I have visited in Spain so obtaining a ticket was a Big Deal - the Nasrid Palaces sold out about 20 minutes before I got in but I regret nothing). The sleep-deprivation, sore legs, and panicking heart were worth it.

As someone predicted before I left, life is larger now. As with all learning, these experiences are etched in my soul like fine Islamic ornamentation, painted like an infinitely-receding Christian fresco, retreating into the depths of history like a Roman inscription. The revelations are written upon me forever.

I don't believe that I can allow life to be mundane ever again. In moments, certainly: it is not as if I will stop eating peanut butter (had some today!), playing video games or watching clever American sitcoms. However, my perspective has been seized at both ends and stretched tight like a canvas (to hop metaphors), painted upon, one scene overlapping another, over and over until my mind is inches deep in sweat and oil and latex, textured, resonant, redolent with historic and cultural scents.

I feel rest returning to my soul in these places where little is familiar, disappointing, or repellent. The world reveals its mysterious riches, its surprises, threats, and gifts. It shows so much more than I have grown accustomed to assuming it has to offer.

When I return, will it be along a vector contrary to my outbound trajectory? WIll my new course be tangential to the circumference of my old, tired circuit? Will I have leaped onto a skew line on an altogether different plane?

The volume of my soul has dilated. Expectations have simultaneously shrunk (what “must” be) and grown (what “can” be, or where I could be, who I could be with, what constitutes lived life).

Life cannot be the ground, sanded surface that crass, modern commerce makes of it. Its wrinkles, dimples, undulations, echoes transcend currency and must be nurtured. I must walk in the gardens, mount the walls, pass through the gates, kiss warm cheeks, hold gesturing hands. I have escaped from a pristine mausoleum into a place of birth.

Give me running water, broken monuments, hallmarks and wandering, wild trails beyond the halls. Share with me your past, present, and future, and I will offer mine as well. Let us weave cloth from veins and hair and muscle, let us paint with wet air, tears of pleasure, and tongues swollen with imagery. Shall we? Shall we?