Today is a strange day for me. It's noon thirty and I still haven’t gotten out of bed besides a sluggish shuffle to the kitchen to switch on the kettle. I’ve been nursing this mug with a cheesy ‘Reach for the Stars' graphic on it for over an hour. Maybe it says ‘It’s the Little Things’, or something equally cliche. I can’t muster the strength to check and verify. In my stupid mug of hot water sits a sachet of chai and a teaspoon full of my coworkers' thick farm-made honey. Steam emits from my tiny cauldron that sits on the shelf above my headboard. Well, when I say headboard I mean my suitcase with a blanket draped over it and a pillow propped along the zipper. The blinds are only drawn to half staff, unusual for this hour where I typically am lapping up the sun. I’m trying not to kick myself for this laziness…I’ll tell myself I am practicing a new method of reflection- to think without movement.
To reminisce while staying completely still. I think the memories you recall in stillness fall more stagnantly than the ones you chase in motion. Often I recall the scenes of a weekend while turning corners, adjusting my laces, crossing streets, or merging lanes. The thoughts and memories pelt you in the face, the way rain does while biking through a summer shower. But in stillness, you sit in this idle pool of feelings, stationary, like a little kid left to his own devices in an empty playground. He finds a little puddle to sit in and ripples the surface as he drags his finger around his own reflection. Using only his own hands and rubber boots to splash and make sense of it, he sits in the puddle quietly. I’m met with no distractions other than my own laboring ache to find the energy to go outside. I make it so intense sometimes for nothing really. Maybe I enjoyed Sylvia Plath too much.
I think the memories you recall in stillness fall gently and then lay stagnantly, while burying you without knowing. It’s as if you were looking up at the sky just catching snow on your tongue and then next thing you know, all your extremities are frosted and covered in by a heaping pile of white.
Stillness is an unsuspecting beast! It corners you with nowhere to hide. It's just you and your cheesy mug, stories bobbing up and down in your brain, and the weight of the covers you lay beneath that crudely won't let you burrow beneath them any further.
Does writing to you now count as stillness?
This weekend I was surrounded by a lot of blue and green. My friends and I ate our carrots and peanut butter in the gorge of the Cantabrian valley, scaled what we could bear of the Picos de Europa, practiced our cartwheels and backbends beside glittering Asturian lakes, and melted our bodies into dewy buttercup filled grass for a midday siesta. I wish I could live in a little rural cabin in the mountains and wake up to the chirping of birds. When it became too windy out, I would latch up my little wooden shutters and draw the olive and cream gingham printed curtains above the sink window. I imagine my bed would be springy and a little lumpy but I would manage. I would have a tiny little wooden nightstand that is filled with an assortment of pens and envelopes awaiting stamps. My retainer will be there too. Maybe some mugs from this week's tea and coffee brews. One mug would inevitably fall off the corner and the handle would break off in a jagged and unfixable way. I think I would repurpose it into a flowerpot for a plant I may accidentally neglect. I would probably have a wood stove to keep warm when the mountain wind feels extra icy and I would call my dad to ask and make sure I am using it right. But then in my little cabin I would get lonely with my other cabin neighbors so far away and I would make plans to move to the city. I would get to the city and complain about how loud my street is and curse that there isn’t enough green. I guess satisfaction has some expiry.
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My sweet little friend Corinne who is studying abroad in Prague jetted over to Spain to hang for a weekend. I picked her up from the airport in Bilbao this friday and we spent the evening in the city. We hugged, subsequently kalimocho’d, stuck some wooden forks into a slice of Basque cheesecake, and slithered through crowds of passionate futbol fans that filled the streets to watch Bilbao faceoff against Pamplona. Our ride was scheduled at 10pm, so we hurried over to meet the driver in the city center. The driver that we paid twenty clams to take us back to Santander, Juan, told us that he decided to watch the soccer game and have a drink with his buddies, so he would be late. I sighed and agreed to wait half an hour, assuming that was a good compromise. “Te lo diré cuando termine,” he responded. Translation: “I’ll tell you when I’m done”.
We waited for two and a half hours.
I guess I could have said “Wtf dude?!??” Or “Qué coño pasa tío!!??”
But I always find arguing to be an arduous task to carry out.
There was truly no other way to get home. When we finally met with him at 12:30am, I bore a smile despite frustration. He was nice. I met his buddies. We talked about Ouija boards on the way home.
Still, I can’t decide whether that is a strength or weakness of mine- feigning agreeability after being bulldozed. I do the same when the man at the film shop interrupts me each time I attempt to explain what's broken with my camera.
Maybe I don't get the words fast enough for him. Without answers and without all my photos properly developed, I leave and smile the same upon entry. I don’t know who I am fooling.
There are times when people suck a lot.
But then I find ones that rock!!!
In my last blog I talked about my search for live jazz in Brussels. I know it is a silly and maybe expensive way to go about it, jumping countries in search of the groove, but I craved some adventurous alone time. Upon entering the hostel at 1am to check in, I could have sworn I actually stumbled into some Berliner rave. Techno blasted in the lobby, cigarette smoke blanketed the lounge area, and some people were getting tattooed on the bench to the left of the vending machine. To my luck, I met my aforementioned English friend Esme in the elevator. She had come to Belgium to work on a local farm and chase her daily dose of dirt. And I came to chase a measly amount of music. Two female solo travelers? Peak alliance.
We ventured out together in search of sounds to make our feet shuffle and our bones wiggle.
Outside the hostel we met two others, a Cuban and a Dutchie. The four of us were quite literally the only ones without a form of tobacco in between our fingers. The rest of the patio looked like Linus from the Peanuts show, covered in smog. It felt right though. The Dutch girl was traveling in Belgium for a table tennis tournament the next day. I commended her courage to go out the night before despite it. We still don’t really know why the Cuban was in Belgium, he was elusive about it, but I have this hunch it was something lame but he avoided disclosure to sound alluring.
It was so refreshing to be able to dance and groove with live music playing, watching strangers twirl each other, some swiftly and others awkwardly. I also found it especially neat to forge this camaraderie between three new friends, curating this nice energy of making sure one another felt comfortable and looked after. The common favors like whisking one another away when the Turkish guy felt a bit too entitled and switching the dutchies beer for a 0%alc when climbing on tables became her character’s sole motivation.
We stayed out until 5. We waltzed back to the hostel together through the windy cobblestone streets while getting sprinkled on by cold Belgian rain.
The next morning the dutchie rapped on my door to tell me that the Cuban had left a card in her room after staying over.
The card was not an ID, not a credit card, not even a room key… It was his bronze level membership player card for a local casino. We nearly peed ourselves laughing so hard. Was it intentionally left there to prompt a call back? Did he really think that this card was a low risk choice? Why is it not silver or gold level? Can he hear us cackling from down the street? So many questions. questions.
All of this to say, if you ever feel embarrassed or low, just remember that you didn’t leave your bronze level gambler casino membership card with your one night stand.
Unless of course you have. In that case, she is definitely having a laugh about it with her friends to this day.
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