Winter. Part II

otherwise known as:

My Grand Return to Spain


Barcelona was my last visit when I left Europe two and a half years ago, and so it was perfectly appropriate that it be my first holiday from France. Something kind of poetic and perfect.

I sort of figured that when I saw my spanish friends for the first time after almost three years of separation that, for a moment at least, the world would stop turning, birds would fall from the sky, that the lights lining the streets would buzz as they flickered brighter and brighter and that finely-tuned meteorological instruments would be thrown off their charts.
I expected something huge; an explosive moment, or a burst of energy and light in some swirling, truly cinematic way.
But that's never really what happens, is it?
I watch too many movies.

There were however, yells of joy, running, hugging, kisses on faces, and amazing smiles. And I got something better than some high-impact moment that would burst through train stations and town squares and then dissipate. I got so much more.

After the greetings and the hugs came conversations and walks and dreams, and among all of this, I found a part of myself. A part that maybe I lost three years ago when I left Spain that was just waiting for me to come back and reclaim it. A part that maybe I had just drowned out with grey moods, hip attitudes and lost causes. But here, in the land of palm trees and torros is life and wine and love. Here in Spain, surrounded by people who are so alive – people with plans – people who aren't just sitting and talking about doing something, but actually going out and doing it, jumping feet-first and seeing where they land – I remembered that I have ambitions. I used to DO. I used to create.

It's taking some time to re-integrate this part of me, but slowly I'm moving towards creative productivity, and it feels like finally, I am home again.

And of course, it wasn't just seeing my Spanish friends, but also seeing friends from Montana that I hadn't seen for at least a year as well that made the holiday more magical than any sort of sweeping movie moment.


Sitting in cafes in one of the world's great tourist destinations, I felt so terribly at home, so wonderfully back in Bozeman. Sam, Ben and I had all been living with and around each other for four years, and Katie Kosaya had so quickly become one of the group in Bozeman that she might as well have been with us from the very beginning. Reuniting in Barcelona was amazing. We wandered through the streets, planned new adventures and caught up on a year's worth of stories and dreams.

Between Barcelona, Valencia and Bozeman... I could not have asked for a better christmas holiday, for a better gift.
For my friends.




















So, now that it has taken me a whole month and a half to actually finish this post, I am publishing it from my friend's home in Latvia... my latest adventure!

With any luck, it will only take me a month to write about this one... haha