Of course today is not the only day I haven't written about. I haven't had time, for good and bad reasons. I hope to catch up soon!
Meanwhile, here are some pictures of Segovia that I will soon discuss in more detail.
“Arriba, arriba!” the mustached train station clerk urged me. For the second time, I was attempting to travel from Madrid to Segovia, and for the second time it was not going smoothly. With just minutes to spare, I ran up the escalator, beat tracks down the length of the terminal (of course my train was leaving from platform 18, not 1 or even 6), and hustled out the door to the line of people (thank goodness) waiting to board.
The morning still wanted to give my heart one more chance to stop: I presented my pdf ticket using my phone, but the woman checking passes stared, then called over a supervisor. She spoke to me in a combination of Spanish and English. “I need to have a paper ticket?” I asked as my stomach fell out and flopped off the platform onto the tracks, where I was sure it would momentarily be flattened by a me-less train. “No, no, you are okay. Just bring the ticket back when you return.” I didn’t understand where they wanted me to bring the ticket, but I sure did understand okay, so I continued forward, bathed in a cool breeze of relief, and climbed aboard.
The lightspeed trip took a mere 30 minutes, north of Madrid and beyond a low mountain range, straight into the heart of history.
The past is a current that pulses through Spain, swelling the river, cresting the banks, overflowing the land within which its inhabitants swim. Or it is a well from which the present endlessly draws, a rich, musty taste on the lip of every cup.
Having switched from train to bus, and as we descended upon an ancient Roman acueducto, bursting, arch upon arch, from Segovia’s back like a petrified spine, I considered how deprived Americans are of deep time, inasmuch as the past only asserts itself in our lives as a manufactured act of will. The twin god and goddess of America are Space and Mobility: the power to consume and command measurable area, to possess and reconfigure it, as well as to move in and out of it in order to demonstrate our freedom from space (as well as time?), or even to actually relocate space (and again, time), as in the case of a sphere of influence.
View of Acueducto Romano from the east
Spain reveals in itself a sort of taller life. First, I observe that in many areas physical space is at a premium. Second, within this space history stands on its own shoulders, again and again, resulting in a towering, swaying balance. Space becomes a thing to accommodate and coexist with and in, rather than to dominate and transcend.
Standing at the foot of the towering Acueducto, I touched 2000 year-old stones, and imagined I could feel the fingertips of 2000 year-old men and women pressing back. What once delivered water now delivers a steady stream of historical memory, through this small chapter of human history located on a hilltop in Spain.
The foot of the aqueducto, facing west
Closer view of Acueducto
Of course, as in other parts of Spain, the Acueducto is only one way in which the past rises up out of the earth. At the far end of town, it reveals the Alcázar, a castle erected on a narrow spit of rock high above the hills below. The castle supplanted a Moorish fort, which in turn had replaced a Roman fortification, demonstrating that space is not always precisely shared, while proving that the echoes of time have not been silenced. Gardens hop down the cliff face from terrace to terrace to meet a winding, modern road and a stretch of river. The low land swells slowly back upward, away from town, a gradual climb protested at points by minor cliffs and plaintive, old walls.
Near El Alcázar, view of the top level of the gardens/park
Simply turn around to uncover a third perspective: El Catedral de Segovia, raised to the heavens by Roman Catholics in the 16th century. I fear that I may become overly reliant on phrases like ”breath-taking” and ”awe-inspiring,” but grandeur has a way of stilling my inner thesaurus. Is it the sheer vertical space that mutes my tongue? The quiet? Is the reverent music drifting between the pillars the source of my stupor? The multitude of chapels dedicated to Jesus and other historic religious figures? The richness of materials (marble, gold, silver, mother-of-pearl)? The massive, illuminated books? It could be any or all of these: I am just grateful for that tearful stupor.
El Catedral de Segovia, viewed from before El Alcázar
El Catedral de Segovia
El Catedral de Segovia, interior
I may have been most inspired by the tower, in which a bell-keeper once lived with his family. This man would ring calls to prayer, raise alarms for fires and other emergencies, keep a clock for the town and care for the bells. He and his family would almost never descend from the tower (once or twice a year at most). Anyone on the ground who needed him would strike a rock on a depression at the tower’s base, sending echoes straight to the top. Food and necessities were winched up to the bell-keeper’s landing high above the ground. On the tall, tall shoulders of the church, this family lived their lives.
El Catedral de Segovia, view from bell tower
Some of us witness manifest reminders of the foundations beneath the foundations beneath the foundations. Perhaps the rest of us could learn from these examples to remember the profound, precarious position from which we live our lives.
fascinating read! all the sensations well described :)
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