Day 1. Leaving and staying

Wednesday, October 14

I was ready to leave, I had been at my readiest on Tuesday morning already, mentally at least, but there were still things to be done. When I postponed my leave in the weekend the plan was to get some last important supplies on Monday but I hadn´t counted on a Spanish national day and shops being closed. Tuesday, yesterday, they were open again and just when I was about to go out to arrange the most important thing, mobile internet for my iPad to be able to communicate during the first stretch in Spain, my iPad fell apart. The screen had been damaged already but going on a walk with little means, in a suit I had been wearing for 9 months, planning to try to survive with as little money as possible, it seemed a good idea to just keep it using like this since it seemed to work fine. Maybe it was providence. Otherwise the glass would probably have started falling out during the walk and that would have meant a much bigger delay. In the past these sort of things freaked me out,
I would find it unjust that it happened to me at a very bad timing but these things happen to everybody at the worst moments. It helps to see it from the other side. To just take it as it is and see what you can get out of it. This meant some more time in Barcelona which would give me the opportunity to get some other things sorted out. It meant paying a lot of money, but it also meant I could use this device well somewhat longer instead of wearing it out too soon and then having to buy a completely new one.

The man from the repair shop kindly gave me a €15,- discount without knowing that that is what I count on as the minimum I need for an average day on the road. A nice coincidence. Money spent but also money gained. He opened his shop an hour earlier for me to have it fixed at 12 which was a kind gesture, even though in the end it was only ready at 13.30 and I wandered through Gracia the last hour to wait which was tricky because I have a bad sense of direction and I always use my iPad to navigate. It is my old area though, my first three months in Barcelona I lived at the other side of it and I took this opportunity to drink a coffee at my favorite square, the Placa de la Virreina and start a small embroidered drawing in my jacket. I remember well finding the square on my first full day in the city, on a quest to make myself feel home by finding places that suited me. After that day I spent many hours in this square, at daytime drinking coffee in the sun, on Sundays watching the crowd dancing in the middle of the square and in the evening sitting on a bench in the dark, like many other people, listening to the musicians playing guitar on the church steps and watching passers-by. Sometimes buying a beer from the street vendors. Meeting friends now and then but usually on my own, to take a break from the work in the gallery, from embroidering small stories in the pockets of found clothing items.

My backpack was already packed, among other things a pair of found sneakers and two found shirts, the third one, also found, was on me. I had thought about carrying a fourth one and when I picked up my iPad and walked back to the place where I am staying, I bumped into a container with a nice collection of summer clothes in it. It looked like a good sign. I am a bit afraid to walk into winter but I know I will be back in the warm Spanish days afterwards and there would be no harm in already having some clothes waiting for me here. I took a few things and also found an ultralight, nicely decorated shirt that would take up almost no space at all in my bag. I wondered if there was anything else I needed.

A few minutes away from my door I smelled lavender and for the first time I noticed the big field in the middle of the square I had passed several times. I picked some flowers to put in my inside pockets. The jacket will get smelly on the road. Herbs and flowers, natural perfumes, work wonderfully there.

The goal was to leave at some point during the day and walk to the old industrial part of the city to spend the first night at a friend´s place on the way out of town and continue tomorrow early from there but the closer I get to my slow walk, the more things seem to slow down. I guess it is a good thing. The only deadline, apart from the big march during the Climate Conference, are the deadlines I created for myself and it is nice to blow life in them again and move them a little bit.

Another leaving day turned into a staying day and it makes me think about leaving and staying again, how they relate to each other and how sometimes you leave by staying and other times you stay by leaving. One of the things I know for sure is that the leaving keeps my love for the city alive. Every time when I am leaving, I see it with different eyes, I see things I never saw when I was in my staying mode. I move in circles here often, like so many other people, but I drag myself out of the circle regularly, with some effort because I think I don´t want to be out of it but I always enjoy it, especially the pleasure it gives me when I return, when I get out of the bus at Placa Catalunya and remember how it was all new to me the first time I arrived, just over a year ago. How I had no idea of what and how and where and now I call it mine, even though I still don´t speak the language. I call it mine because every time I am leaving I am staying as well. Where if I would just be staying, I would probably get lost. I would disappear.

Now I will stay present here. And when I start walking time will disappear. I don´t have to say goodbye. I just have to leave. In order to return.

Tomorrow. First thing. No more delays. I will open my door, close it behind me and time will disappear. I won´t. I will be more present than ever.

The first boat is for Chris, who fixed my iPad today. A golden one from the inside of a cigarette box.