Barcaback
21 July 2005. Inspired by memories.
So, to Barcelona again. Just till Monday, don't get yourself worked up - I arrived yesterday and am in town for a few days, mostly to attend a magazine festival.
It's the first time I've been back since I moved away, and it's as strange returning as returning always is. Barcelona. Two years of my life, and a city I got to know rather well. I spent much of yesterday afternoon just strolling around, greeting familiar street corners, exchanging knowing nods with the psychogeographic equivalents of comfy cardigans from winters past.
Small things may have changed (not that anyone else would notice - a new restaurant here, some fairy lights there), but broadly it's the same as it always was. However, the mental picture of my Barcelona I've carried with me in Madrid differs from what I'm seeing now in one crucial respect: I'm no longer in it.
This is a place of memories, a place where I was and I did. But now I am and I'm doing elsewhere, and a trip this short can never be much more than an enjoyable flick back through a 3D photo album - one that I filled to the limit, with long-forgotten images falling out unexpectedly as I walk the streets and turn the pages. Not enough time in this visit to start a new page; no real inclination either.
The sets, the costumes, the smells, the sounds, the people are all the same, more or less - even, pleasingly, some of the graffiti is too. Only one thing is missing from my Barcelona: me.