it still hurts

this time, hopefully

road moments

travel itinery: 4 days, including, burgos, sanitago de compostela, a coruña, gijón, santander, bilbao, and whatever those other little pueblos were in between.



learning silly little pieces of french in the back seat with a tiny little espagnole-française dictionary.

being sung towards sleep by the sweet lullabye of teeth carefully brushed right by my ear.

the unavoidable intoxication of watching unknown landscapes, all the same in their difference, through the mock death-throes of unkempt hairs from the seat in front.

feeling a fresh new language on my tongue as i drop words in every now and then: 'tout droit' until the lights. staring it down with eagerness saying, you, monsieur française, are next. and knowing that i'll enjoy letting the light whippedness of it fall off my tongue if i ever reach a point of playing with it properly. the same was as a enjoy the thick agility of the spanish tongue - referring to the fleshy thing, not the language - the way you have to keep your tongue real far back in your throat to be ready to strike at the rolled r's and the fat-as d's.

playing games of familiar comfort usually reserved for couples but fuck it, we're gonna play them none the less. for the soft warmth of hands if nothing more.

wandering alone at night when they've gone to bed in the hardly-any-light of a near-full-moon just slightly egged out of shape. bare foot on coastal rocks. flexing and jumping and using the fantastic grip of skin which had gone unused for so long.

falling into holes without language, trying hopelessly and without much real effort to pick up bits of rapid-fire french from the two seats in front. reminders that spanish still isn't a home. it's just a place for thoughts to hang out and wander through.

making people snap back into their mother tongue and musing about important questions like what sound do you make when you hurt yourself. and what sound dogs make.

reading garcía marquéz in spanish and not knowing whether to be happy that i more or less understand it or to be disappointed that i can't here the song of the prose. the closest i've come was liking this: la luna llena estaba llegando al centro del cielo y el mundo se veía como sumergido en aguas verdes [the full moon was arriving at the centre of the sky and the world looked submerged in green waters] (more or less, you know). but really what i was liking was submerged in green waters in english.

wind hammering in so hard that my right ear tremmored for ten minutes afterwards, and that fantastic paradox of being unable to breathe for all the air flying into your mouth.

posted by: joelistix at 15:16 | link | comments |