These last couple of months here have been characterized by the growing feeling of a certain kind of diminishing return. Not that there haven't been things to appreciate: I'm getting plenty of work done. A couple of connections have been made with good people. Many of the background aspects that make life here rich remain reasons for pleasure, gratitude. But the number of items forming the counterweight to all that has grown in number, size and messiness, and the prospects have come to feel less and less promising. And behind it all, the ever-present construction around the neighborhood has steadily drawn closer*, finally materializing in this building, this floor, and is now, it seems, about to invade this flat -- crystallizing a swelling feeling of pressure, disruption.
*...the vacant lot across this narrow street giving way to 2+ years of construction (producing a structure still not open to tenants, apart from a wine bar in the first floor), its neighboring buildings undergoing months of rehab, one still not finished....
During all this, I've been slaving away on turning this journal's first year into something that might stand up to being published, a year whose last few months included a long crisis in which I thought I'd reached the end of my time in Madrid, retreating to the States to scratch my head and figure out what the hell came next. I thought about that on Friday before giving notice and came across something I wrote back in the weeks leading up to the retreat stateside:
Sometimes you have to know when to move on, trusting that better things await.
I wrote that. If I didn't know better, I'd swear I experience the occasional nanosecond of lucidity.
My landlord accepted my notice, generously offered to (a) let me leave stuff here in the flat, boxed up and locked away, until I can get back and clear it out, and (b) let me move back in once the work is finished and the place has become liveable again. They seem to think las obras might finish up quickly. They live a half-hour away, though, in one of Madrid's 'burbs. Me -- having watched construction/rehab spread through this barrio, seen buildings engulfed in scaffolding for months and months on end, having lived with the work in this building for the last two months, seen it steadily expand, grow more complicated, showing no sign of drawing to a close any time soon -- I'm not quite so optimistic. (Regardless, they might turn out to be right. As I've said many times, what do I know?)
The upshot: could be that when I head back to the States on the 19th, dragging far more stuff with me than I'd expected to be dragging, my time here will be at its end.
In the meantime, life continues, the days slip past. This week features two holidays, many folks will be taking some version of a long, long weekend. The initial wave of vacationers fled the city on Friday, many of those who remained in the city have been out shopping and/or partying. The last two mornings my eyes opened around 5, 6 a.m., the sounds of life carrying on down in the street continued much the same as when my eyes had closed a few hours earlier. I got up to empty the ballast, on the way back to bed and warm covers I saw that the 20-something woman who lives in a studio apartment across from here had returned from a long night of revelry and now sat at her computer, the shades up, lights blazing. (Yes, she was dressed decently, filthy minds.) When I roused myself for real around 9, her shades were down and remained down until late afternoon. A whole different cycle of living.
I met a friend yesterday afternoon down in La Latina for a leisurely lunch of Indian food, the first Indian joint I've experienced here that I would recommend. La Latina: an interesting, funky, genuinely multi-cultural neighborhood, a place I haven't spent time in a long time. It was nice to be there sharing a nice meal, walking narrow streets afterward.
I love this city. The thought of my time in it coming to an end does not leave me feeling content or tranquil.
La Latina sidestreet, Madrid:
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Facts -- and nothing but facts -- about Dick Cheney.
They sing. (For love.)
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 1:48 PM [+]
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