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Thursday, April 12, 2007 What I wrote earlier about enjoying the city in its more tranquil state? When a lot of the local world flees for long weekends and life in the center settles into something much quieter? After several days like that, with most businesses closed -- most stores, most local food and coffee slingers, most newspaper stands closed (and no newspapers publishing on the day before Easter) -- I was so ready for a return to regular life. And when people flooded back in the city during the course of Sunday afternoon/evening and local streets suddenly swelled with folks out walking, looking for places to sit, eat, drink a beer, talk, it came as a relief -- even though it meant a return to the normal late night/early morning noise level in this barrio given to partying. A lot of news time got devoted to the number of traffic deaths during this year's Easter season, a number high enough that the word fracaso (failure) was applied to measures taken by governmental agencies aiming for lower mortality rates -- within the last year or two, a points system has been inaugurated, an attempt to address the Spanish tendency to drive like raving maniacs. That, combined with an advertising campaign specifically aimed at raising consciousness for the many millions doing long-distance driving during the country's week and a half long holiday period, had some hoping for changes in the national attitude while on the highway. Ah well. And after several weeks of lovely early spring conditions, the weather turned ugly for Easter week -- gray, chilly, abundant rain causing flooding in many parts of a country used to much more user-friendly weather at this time of the year -- and has remained strangely unseasonal, rain falling around the peninsula day after day. Feels like being back in Vermont, where this kind of thing can be routine. One of the nicest parts of the long Easter weekend: the workers usually out working on the front of this building, creating lots of noise from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., vanished for six lovely days. Got me remembering what life was like nineteen or so months ago, before scaffolding got tossed into place and work crews began systematically tearing everything apart. Two mornings ago -- Tuesday, 7:55 a.m. -- they reappeared, talking at the top of their lungs as they trudged up the many flights of this elevator-free structure to the top floor, leaving cigarette butts and bits of junk food wrappers in their wake. At some point in the future they will run out of excuses to hang around, the scaffolding will disappear, quiet will return. Or if not quiet exactly, the normal soundtrack of life in the barrier will reassert itself. Every time I think of that, a happy smile appears on my silly face. Two mornings ago, the swifts returned. I heard them suddenly as I sat here in front of my laptop, their high, keening cries swelling and fading with their flight. Like swallows on the other side of the Atlantic, they're one more sign of the warm season's advance, along with trees greening up, temperatures slowly warming, and tourists flooding the city center. They're a major element of the warm weather soundtrack for me here, their presence bringing pleasure and comfort, and when they're gone for the winter months, I adjust, forgetting that there's a gap in the sounds of the barrio. And then they reappear, and it is no exaggeration to say that something in my heart swells on hearing them. Easter come and gone, warm weather critters returning. Cooler days giving way to warmer ones. It's good. España, te quiero. rws 9:26 AM [+]
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