alone

 After a week in France, a mixture of stress and joy... the stress of giving a presentation juxtaposed with the joy of walking beside the sea at night, drinking delicious wine and eating amazing food, it was time to take a week off in Spain. People move, change, get married, have kids, go silent, disappear, but Madrid still goes on as it always has. People leave and disappear because Madrid is a party city… it is a city for the single, for the traveller, for the adventurer. It is also no longer a cheap city. It leaves an emptiness to visit a city in which one has lived and experienced so much love and adventure only to discover that all of that is deeply in the past. People hide… or simply don’t bother to reply… until after one has departed. 

                  Suddenly the silence sinks into a peaceful solace. I am grateful to be free to explore freely and spend the day as I please, without interference. I walk past the Royal Palace with my headphones on and I am listening to Car Jamming by The Clash. The Clash accompany me to all cities in all countries that I travel to around the world. They have been a part of my life since the 80s and will forever be a part of my life. They are a part of me. It is March 2026 and this is Joe Strummer time. It’s time for resistance. It’s time for awareness. It’s time for education. It’s time for survival. There are utter morons that think someone is doing a good job because they are killing people they don’t like, even if it is illegal and every single thing has or is falling apart. Prices are up, the stock market is down, everyone has lost or is losing their job, everyone hates everyone else… and the rich are getting richer. 

                  I walk into Cervezeria el Diario and order a beer as well as ‘boquerones con vinagre’ (anchovis in vinegar). It's midday, a beautiful day in Madrid, the beer is ice cold and the boquerones are beautiful. The people passing by are beautiful. After a second beer, I pay and walk across the street to Taberna Maceira, a Galician restaurant that my ex-girlfriend introduced me to when I lived in Madrid. She was from Galicia and took me to several, but this was my favourite. I ordered a glass of wine and Navajas (razor clams). They were not as good as I recalled but I ordered Pulpo (Octopus) and it was delicious… even though I always feel terribly guilty eating Octopus. As I ate, the restaurant remained empty, which surprised me. In all of my previous visits, it filled up almost immediately after opening. I enjoyed the peace, but felt a bit bad for the restaurant. 

                  The days passed by with blissful walks, glasses of white wine with seafood, and introspection that led me through a spectrum of emotions. Ultimately, the truth is something that we cannot hide from and this truth is that most of the people I had loved and whom I wanted to see simply didn’t want to see me. I was a faded ember of their history, a flicker in time that had now passed on. And, for some reason, I still feel connected to every person that I shared something unique, emotional, passionate with. We can reflect and we can write… we can reminisce, but we must let go and move on into the silence. The Galician ex I mentioned had agreed to meet me, but she made several excuses to cancel and, finally, on my last day in the city, told me that she was out with a guy she has been seeing for a few months and didn’t have time to see me. It seems I am the only person on the planet who has chosen to be alone. 

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