This morning: me planted in a window seat at a café. Gazing at the world outside where tiny, barely visible snowflakes fell from a blue, cloudless sky, drifting down from sunlight into the shadows of the narrow street, disappearing before reaching pavement and sidewalks. Across the street, two flights up, a sad, skeletal-looking Christmas tree had been left out on a small balcón, all ornaments gone, branches half free of needles. A newspaper lay open on the counter in front of me, a thin wisp of vapor rose from a pretty good cup of espresso.
An hour and a half earlier, I'd made the cold hike to the nearest centro comercial hoping to get purchases out of the way before the Saturday morning crowds poured into the place. A reasonable hope, given how quiet the streets were. Didn't matter. Several people already stood in line at the butcher's stall I go to. I'm happy the owner does good business -- he's a personable guy, peddles excellent meats and cheeses. But waits of 15 to 25 minutes have become normal, and it's gotten old.
I'd taken my number, I went and made other purchases before returning to finish the wait for my turn. Finished up, dragged purchases home, retired to café.
Window seat, snowflakes, sad ex-Christmas tree, etc.
Strange things in the newspaper: a political assassination in a turbulent part of the world, a Spanish bishop makes bizarrely stupid comments about gays, mountains of garbage accumulate in the Madrid Metro because of a cleaning crew strike. Year-end top ten lists are out (El País likes Alison Krauss/Robert Plant, Wilco, the White Stripes). I page past disturbing stories, linger over arts and sports pages.
And I ponder my little life a bit. It's the end of the year, which doesn't mean a whole lot to me in a certain way -- that end-of-a-cycle thing fabricated by some pencil-pushers way back when feels so arbitrary to me that I have a hard time drumming up much interest. Just seems like another day to me. But with everyone gearing up to use it as an excuse to party, make resolutions and read all those top ten lists, I do find myself reflecting on what's been happening in my existence. It's a good thing, that kind of process, but going on about it could get deadly boring. So I'll spare you. For now.
España, te quiero.
rws 6:45 PM [+]
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