Saturday, 9 May 2009

Return trips to Madrid

A return to Madrid usually falls on a Sunday evening, when our soul and body, clothes included puts up resistance against what inevitably repeats after every Sunday (it´s Friday night, so I won´t bring it on). Therefore we`re not returning to a beautiful city that our families have visited, not to the capital city that we visited ourselves one travelling summer, not to a metropolis, considered a source of possibilities, but to a concrete colossus, spreading in every direction, upwards and downwards, but most of all to the sides, where a bald and dry nothingness does not put up any resistance against its ever-growing tentacles. If you fancy, I recommend a trip to the edge – the cost is low (1 euro and an hour of free time). You need to take with you a supply of things to think over and let yourself be swallowed by the underground world. The city will spit you out right at the edge – where the parking for IKEA, MediaMarkt and Carrefour end, and wind and dust begin.

Madrid is the centre of a country, where the only reasonable place to be is the seashore.

So, we´re returning. In our ears there is still the hum of the ocean, in our shoes some sand, our hair, not washed on purpose, smells of salt. And we turn into people from here – living a bit too fast, sleeping always a bit too short, and spending much too much time in buildings without windows. At the weekend we buy fish condemned to being sent to the middle of nowhere, we look at pictures of cliffs and beaches, we organise picnics as close to the ponds in parks as possible.

There is some method to this insanity though. After all, you have to look after your dreams and beliefs. And what can make them stronger, if not the longing for them to come true?

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