Friday, June 9, 2006
I am riding the train from Madrid to Avila – home to St. Teresa. The landscape has changed from the wild patchwork quilt of cornsilk yellow, deep green, and ochre browns and oranges to a solid blanket of green formed by tightly woven trees. They are not like the trees of Charlotte but short, round balls of trees – I have no idea what kind. The earth is covered with them, leaving only occasional glimpses of the yellow grasses and collections of boulders that seem to make up this countryside. I am reflective now, as I always am when I finish a book. It is a strange mourning as a good book comes to an end. These people, places, ideas that have filled your life for days you find have suddenly finished their role in your life and moved on. Funny, I realize in this moment as I write this it was the same feeling I struggled with this morning. Two new couch surfers arrived at Max’s last night – Carey and Carrie. One blonde, one brunette, both 23, they took me back to the time when it was Cheri and Sherry all those years ago. Strangely enough both their mothers are named Sherry as well. After finishing college, they decided to sell their few belongings, even their cars, and spend the next few months traveling Europe.
Carrie was full of questions about life and we sat on the porch drinking wine from a 48 cent carton until the not so wee hours of the morn. It took me back to younger days when we search with intensity for the answers to life’s questions – is there a God, a hell, life after this one? What is happiness, love? How do we find it, know it, keep it? How do we survive in relationship - both keeping our own spirit and accommodating the spirit of another? It was a timeless conversation, had millions of times beneath a blanket of stars on patios and mountaintops, in trains and airports, quiet hotel rooms and hidden staircases. I doubt Carrie will remember my name or the place in years to come, but she will, as I do, remember the way time stands still when two strangers share their beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and their stories. Somehow the things I shared will become part of the fabric of her life, of her vision of self and world, as the things she shared will become part of mine – long after the memory of where that particular thread was added to the tapestry of our lives has disappeared into the void of our life’s felt but unrecalled moments.
It was difficult to leave today after touching their lives for that brief moment, but I knew I had long overstayed my time at Max’s and it was, in any case, time to move on. The transitions are always so difficult for me. Perhaps that is one of the things I hope to learn on this trip. I argued with myself all morning as I tried to sleep off the 48 cent wine hangover, not wanting to leave this new connection – I could ask to stay another night, could take them to Toledo, go to the bullfight tomorrow with them. In the end, I knew the still, quiet voice telling me it was time to move on was the one I needed to listen to and so I packed my things, gave them my leftover metro pass and some motherly advice about pickpockets and staying safe, and said good-bye in the train station.
Not wanting to use my computer in the busy, thief-ridden train stations of Madrid, I instead pulled out my book to read. I had not read it in a couple days, knowing it would soon come to an end and not yet wanting to say goodbye to the characters I had come to know. The book is Paulo Coelho’s latest – The Zahir. I had bought it my first day in Ascoli Piceno, excited that I would soon be able to read Italian and wanting my first book to be by my favorite author. Little did I know in my naiveté to languages how difficult it is to learn a language well enough to read with any kind of dexterity. The book was eventually loaned to my dear, sweet Georgio. It wasn’t until I was standing in the bookstore in Madrid that I remembered there was a Coelho book that I had yet to read. By great grace, I found a copy in English.
It never ceases to be strange to me to see yourself again and again in the pages of a book. Books have always come to me in uncanny ways when it seemed I needed a certain answer or insight or simple solace. The book, which I bought in Madrid, begins in, you guessed it, Madrid, and follows what seems to be a somewhat biographical journey of the writer through his search to write, to fill an insatiable hunger for newness and adventure, and to find the meaning of a love that doesn’t merely exist but moves with the ebb and flow of life and time. The book settled in my soul, even more so than his books usually do, as he was writing from the perspective of a writer searching. I was sad to close the book, to say good-bye to the characters, to say good-bye to Carrey and Carrie and Max, to think of the many goodbyes to come – and yet exhilarated at the people, adventures, experience, dare I hope even love, that may lay on the tracks ahead. It is a strange thing this life we live. I guess it is in some way finding out for ourselves how to hold on forever to the sense of being alive – like the feeling that comes in those long conversations under the stars - while still saying goodbye to the places and people that add a little color to the tapestry of our lives, leaving an imprint on our selves our souls, and at the same time and finding for yourself the places and people you want to be forever woven and weaving with…
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