Take a breath.
A really deep breath.
Can you relax? Slow down a little. Just let it go?
Good. Now you’re ready.
Welcome to Barcelona.
Ok, so I know I left you hanging at Bolivia. Sorry about that. Small detour (across the Atlantic). I promise, someday I will post about Bolivia. It’ll be like a bonus, blast from the past post. But not today. Today is about moving on. And moving on means Barcelona.
I’ve seen pictures of Barcelona. Colorful mosaics, curved forms. But on paper it all looked a bit surreal. Possibly over the top. Possibly a tourist trap. But possibly exactly where I needed to be. Deciding to put my Spanish skills to work (turns out they help a little but that Catalon thing was a new twist) I was Barcelona bound.
Barcelona feels like the nicest Spring day of the year. The day when you can’t feel the weather. You can’t feel the cold. You can’t feel the heat. The wind is so calm you can’t feel it either. Just a feeling of aliveness and weightlessness and peace. Barcelona feels just like that. There’s no scurried rush, no need to prove anything, no next big thing (except maybe for the tourists running from site to site). There’s just being. Even now sitting and writing this I can’t find the stress in the air. It’s just not here. Or at least not at the now infamous US level. But funny, I can still feel a distant stress in my body…like a dull ache or sore muscles. I kind of wonder if America hasn’t given us all a special form of rat race PTSD. I’m sure Barcelona has its 99 problems, but stress doesn’t seem to be one of them.
Since I’m back in Europe, I took the opportunity to get reacquainted with my dear friend Rick for a quick stroll through the old part of the city. Now Rick (who many of you know as Rick Steves) couldn’t join me in person but he set up this really cool free audio tour – today’s modern day guide book without the book. Hands free touring lol. There’s nothing quite like Europe with a dose of Rick Steves. From La Rombla to La Boqueria, a dash of Dali, (of course) a Cathedral, and a LOT of H&M’s, I could feel the spirit of the city.
But Barcelona is not captive to its past. The colorful charm that beckons and captivate so many started in the late 1800’s with Antoni Gaudi. (The ‘That’s so Gawdy’ Gaudi). I was underprepared to say the least. His major works in the city are Templo Expiatorio de la Sagrada Familia (La Sagrada Familia) and Park Guell (a fabulous, but failed, real estate development).
Gaudi had two famous philosophies guided by his unwavering faith in God and his love of nature:
God is not in a hurry.
There are no straight lines in nature.
There is so much I could say about his work but some things are better felt with the heart. And with that I leave you with Gaudi and a quote that somehow oddly, yet exactly, captured the La Sagrada Familia experience for me:
And what happened, then? Well, in Whoville they say – that the Grinch’s small heart grew three sizes that day. And then – the true meaning of Christmas came through, and the Grinch found the strength of*ten Grinches, plus two!
La Sagrada Familia
Park Guell
I’ll end with a quote I stumbled upon this week (kudos Neim):
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold. Faith alone defends. – Helen Keller
And so I’m off to do some serious walking for the next few weeks. In respect of the walk I will be online a whole lot less. I’ll post something small once a week so you know I’m still with you, but will be taking the time to really disconnect and look inside.
until then…
love,
rk
Buddha & Boots 