WanderLost

I realized as I sat on the tram last night that I would miss all this– the foreign babble surrounding me (at first scary and intimidating but now comfortable, familiar, like birds or the wind), the passing by of old buildings and famous monuments, the rumble of cobblestone streets. The memories will haunt me and won’t stop until I go back, until I start to travel again. I know this.

8-26-07
My last day in Prague. I don’t really feel compelled to do more sightseeing. I’ve been walking around a lot lately, and it feels like enough. The city is beautiful, I like it. This evening I went to the Letna beer garden (on the hill), looked out over the lights, shining under a full moon– a perfect summer night. It’s strange not knowing when I’ll be back, whether in 5 years or 10 or 50. I wonder if it will change much, and how.

8-27-07
Early morning, and I take a taxi to the airport. As we drive, I think about how different this ride is from my first taxi ride into the city. That was late at night, now it is early in the morning. Then, everything looked strange and new. Now it looks familiar– I recognize places I’ve been, tram routes I’ve ridden. A good transition.

So here I am at the Prague airport for possibly the last time– the last for a while, that is. On my way to Valencia, finally. This past week went by pretty slowly, but I guess I’m suddenly here, so not that slowly.

We rise up into the sky and slowly the landscape fades below me, into white clouds, as though in my memory as well, not forgotten, but far below, part of the past. My new horizon is a stretch of clouds beneath a torquoise sky– blue as only sky can be this high, deep fading to white where it touches the clouds.

I wonder if standing in my new apartment, surrounded by all my things, will feel the same as I’ve been imagining it. Will it look how I remember it? What will Spain do for me this time?

Today I watched Prague fade away below me as I rose among the clouds.
Now I roar through the air towards Valencia, a new city with new possibilities, new experiences awaiting me.
I could not have come to where I am today without Prague, yet I know it is time to move on.
I say farewell with fondness and few regrets. I look forward with excitement and joy.

Layer of pearly clouds above. To the east, dramatic peaks emphasized with snow. The rising sun turning the sky orange-pink behind them, sending streaming fingers of light to thread through the trees and houses below, stretching miniature shadows. The beams reach straight ahead too and touch us. I watch the ribboning river and roads, admire the tiny houses and think, “This is the world from 10,000 feet.”

Wrinkles of tree-rich hills below, a wealth of green marked by brown road necklaces. Ahead, a jagged mountain rises, cloaked in snow. A herd of clouds advances, hides it from view, keeping its secrets safe even from modern passengers of silver metal birds. My prying eyes will discover nothing- the price of a plane ticket not enough to earn it.

The clouds roll below, obscuring earth from view. We are now in-between people, in limbo between earth and sky, left to our own thoughts. False angels, strange birds.

Why would they not want to look out the window? It isn’t every day you become a bird.

Aug. 21, 2007

Prague and I, we know each other now, more than just acquaintances, though we still have secrets from each other. My practiced eye glances casually over the facaded bulidings as I walk down the street, the Czech money feels normal in my hands. Easily I wend my way through my neighborhood, walking the same streets the natives walk, in the same way. The bakery on the corner sells rolls at night, fresh from the oven, for two crowns each and they melt in your mouth, bread-fresh and salty. I run in the park or walk in it, greeting the statues like old friends, happily casually looking out over the splendor of the city– red roofs and dark spires, threaded through with golden sunlight, the sky blue with white puffy clouds, the river a shining ribbon below.

4-23-07

The Dancers exist in a circle near the center of Prague, only a block away from the school where I work teaching English to Czechs in small classrooms with big windows. My building is blue, and down the street from it stands a magnificent synagogue with rising columns, a rose-pink facade and trimmings of blue and gold. Farther down is a charming dark-stone church with tiny windows, an obliging spire and small surrounding park with grass, benches and a blooming cherry tree. The steeple echoes an even taller tower across the street. A brooding stone remnant of medieval times, it stands in somber perplexity as electric trams rumble past its base.

And down the street from this . . . are the Dancers.

Four of them encircle a small fountain, raised on individual stone pedestals. They are also musicians, each with their own instrument, each frozen in the motions of an intricate stone dance. Water casts scintillating reflections on the bases of the pedestals— the visualization of unheard notes in the air.

The Dancers are blindfolded. Cloth entwines their arms and legs, hangs off their shoulders, covers their faces. The Horn-blower’s head is completely covered, yet still raised, the mouthpiece pressed against clothed lips, raised to the sky. The Piper and Mandolin Player, too, have heads closely wrapped. The Violinist, however, tilts her head to the side, cheek lovingly pressed against her instrument. The cloth has fallen away from the bottom part of her face, revealing the tip of a nose, and the merest hint of a musician’s smile.

The fifth Dancer is not around the pool but far away at the other end of the square. This one is the True Dancer. No instrument, for his body is his instrument. Head down, arms up, one leg lifted— the most exquisitely entangled of all, in ropes of shining gold. The sun setting behind me streams through the four clustered Dancers and makes the gold glint. The others are wrapped in gray-green, the color of their own muscled bodies, but the Fifth is tangled in gold. Entrapped, entwined, captive to the gold.

The Dancers enchant me. Though they never move, I can’t stop watching. They seem to be dancing out of their bonds yet at the same time tangling themselves further— the impression of freedom and bondage simultaneously. Their bodies are bound but their minds are not, floating away with the music notes. They are blind, but they don’t need to see. The music is their ears, their sight, their rhythm of life. The Horn-blower raises his head high, chest puffed out with effort. The Piper bends low, leg lifted, fingers poised. Across the water the Violinist stands upright but cocked sideways, arm out with an invisible bow, face resting against her violin. The Mandolin Player’s back is to me- the only one not playing. She holds her instrument by the neck and behind her, gazing up at some point in the sky, arm upraised as though warding off a blow, or blocking out the light. Or perhaps she is beckoning to the Fifth Dancer, beckoning to come join in the Dance. Perhaps to come lead the Dance. The Fifth Dancer seems to be trying to step out of his bonds, yet one feels he’s not free completely, that there’s a danger he might trip on his golden bonds and fall . . . ~

1-18-07

On the tram I take the window seat, then turn to realize that the paper schedule covers most of the window on my side, except for a small corner. I look out anyways, watching the scenery to pass the time. As I sit there, I realize that this is the way I see Prague all the time— one eye open, one eye covered. I can only see what is on the surface, and what little distance I can scratch below the surface by living here for a few months. I will never see the deeper, inner Prague. I will never fully understand the country or its people. What I see is the castle, Wenceslas Square, the Czech Joe-schmoe on the streets. Consequently, they will never see me as anything but one eye and half a face from the corner of a tram window.

***

My tram stop approaches.
The car lurches, and
the homeless man sleeping in the nearby seat
rouses,
shakes his head like an old dog,
and hunkers down again.