Summer arrived in Madrid late last Friday afternoon. The morning: cool and lovely. Midday brought mild conditions, nicely comfortable. A few hours later, someone turned up the heat.
Summertime. Just like that.
All windows in the flat are now open, a mixed blessing in a neighborhood with the kind of daytime soundtrack this one has: noise from various nearby constructions sights (hammers whanging away, the keening of a stone/tile saw, the occasional teeth-rattling burst of a hammerdrill, workers yelling "HEY!" with as much Latino lungpower as they can muster). Punctuated by car horns, by a burst of laughter down in the street, by passerbys calling out to each another. And in the moments when all goes quiet, the hum of the city floats in the air. A quiet reminder of many thousands upon thousands of lives being lived, a sound I enjoy.
Now and then in the plaza down the street, a musician makes some noise -- the foreplay to the ritual wringing of coins from folks seated at tables. A song or two later, the music lapses, a hat gets passed, the accordion player/clarinet player/violinist moves on.
Elections for the European parliament got underway within the last few days, bringing campaign noise, something the city has been blessedly free from since mid-March. Not that there hasn't been plenty of political racket in the intervening weeks -- el Partido Popular, the losing party in March's national elections, has made a sustained effort to save us from the horrors of peaceful co-existence with a nearly constant flow of aggressive, purposely-unpleasant blabber and political maneuvering. Logical, I suppose, given that it is the direct political descendant of Franco and the dictatorship, not given to behavior that doesn't include name-calling and repeated attempts to make life difficult for everyone else. But not much fun. A good reason to turn one's attention away from the ongoing political hooha.
And at some point during all the various rackets, June slipped in, pushed May down the back stairs, made itself at home (last I saw it was sitting in front of the TV with the remote, calling for a cold beer). I found myself standing in the kitchen yesterday, staring at the calendar in disbelief (the clattering whine of a hammerdrill drifting in the open window on the breeze).
Six and a half short months ago (where, I ask my answerless self, did they go?) I hopped a plane in Boston and settled in here. Two weeks from now I head back to the States for a while. This is my life: bolting back and forth across the Atlantic, pausing between bolts to inflict page after boring cyber-page about it all on any who happen through here.
Not a bad life, actually, now that I stop and ponder it.
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T-shirt seen down the street two days ago: I'M SOLD.
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Madrid Bus stop, everyone keeping a careful distance from advertisement featuring bizarrely happy mobile phone user:
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 11:39 AM [+]
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