WanderLost

Next day, I wake up early and walk down to Casa Mitla to meet my friend. The sun is just rising, coloring the sky at the end of the street bright gold. The Casta Mitla looks like I remember it, calm and beautiful, like the waves it depicts. We sit and talk on a nearby bench for a while, have breakfast in a café, then take a walk, strolling along a new way to Plaza Catalunya. It’s colder today- windier.  We chat until the bus comes, then part casually, cheerfully.

I return to the metro and take the funicular back up to the Joan Miró Foundation, and spend an hour or two wandering the museum, admiring the exhibits.

In the temporary exhibit (Bodies Without Limits) there is a smallish Rodin sculpture. I  love his work, and like this piece even before I realize it is his. Entitled Man Walking, it’s a bare torso of a man, with strong muscled perfectly formed legs striding along, but there’s no head or arms, and the upper torso is sculpted more roughly than the lower part, so all attention rests on the perfect legs.

One of my favorite rooms has three main exhibits. The first has three blank white canvases, each painted with only a single line, entitled Drawings for the Cell of a Recluse. It brings to mind the life of a recluse– self-imposed exile, and how a recluse couldn’t stand any other portrait, just one line, just one life, unravelled from the tapestry and confusion and color of the others. Solitary and striking. The second is a white canvas with black dripping explosions called Fireworks, no other color, as though too much to represent, so it represents all– seen, known and imagined.
The third is three more paintings entitled The Hope of a Man Condemned to Death, each white with black lines, each portraying a different color: red, blue, yellow. Blue I see as tranquility, hope for heaven. Yellow as hope for heaven as well as hope for release and pardon. Red as anticipation of the event, memory of an evil deed, or the idea or thought of revenge.

The last room is my favorite– huge paintings. One of the most simplistic has the longest title, about a lark’s wing meeting a poppy in a field with diamonds. One is intense orange, but not the kind that offends my eyes– it is the opposite, my eyes wanted to drink it in, literally. It has some black lines, and is titled A Drop of Water on a Pink Shore. Another is green with orange splashes and glows– A Hair Being Chased by Two Planets. Vivid colors striking the eyes, drawing me in rather than repulsing.

Next, mind filled with art, stomach filled with lunch, I wander back over to the Olympic Stadium, snapping some daylight pictures. The wind is strong, whirling leaves, pushing me roughly as I walk.  I make my way toward the Telefonica communications tower– just as futuristic-looking in the daylight as at night, and walk round the odd square with its small banzai-type trees in raised concrete boxes, and tall cylindrical yellow light poles that make odd clapping sounds as the wind roared around them, as though whispering for the ghosts of the Olympic crowd. I cross the street to the Art Museum (sadly closed) and sit on the steps for a bit, looking out over the city, listening to a guy play the guitar, alone and content with my thoughts.

Finally, I retrace our steps from last night, walking all the way back to my hostel (lots of walking– my feet ache!). I gather my backpack, say goodbye to the nice girl at reception, then walk to the metro, and now I’m here in the train station, waiting to go back to Valencia.
As I was walking today, I pondered many things. It was nice, in a way, to be alone, though I definitely missed my friends. It was all right to be walking solo among the streets of Barcelona, especially along the trees and fall leaves lining the road at the top of the hill near the Foundation and the stadium. It’s good to have times alone, to yourself, especially in intriguing places like Barcelona. Then in the future, when I’m settled and comfortable and in good (yet perhaps crowded) company, I can say, “I walked the streets of Barcelona alone. I had my time.”  I will know that I have lived.