Šibenik

Triumphant approach after accidental highway through the hinterlands. Behold the quiet town, shimmering mirrored in the harbor.

Should we have come at daybreak? No: Šibenik’s stone streets are mute orange magic by lamplight.

Doors stand wide open. Ventilation trumps lock and key in the tiny town. Childishly tempted, we “break in” to an apartment building.

Plants in odd architectural corners of the stairwell. Our feet and mouths try to whisper. We reach an apex beyond which there are only locked storage spaces. Disappointed by the lack of roof access, our investigation yields no light bulbs, no reason to pick locks. The nudged rat poison lingers on his fingers as he touches my hair. He apologizes but I’m unconcerned.

We climb over fence and crumbled wall to make shadow puppets in a wrecked fortress. He’d like to steal the flag, but it is padlocked to the pole. Red lights blink in a triangular cemetery below. We contemplate death dates on temporary tombstones bearing the same surname.

Shall we? We nod to each other, sleepy, but a pontoon juts into the harbor: an invitation. I disrobe first, rapidly. The girls follow, orbs of pale flesh softly orange before slipping into the glittering black.

Adriatic silk on nymphean skin. We shout and laugh, calling into the dark. We hush, silent to meet the exigent still of perfectly doubled boats on water. We splash and swim and finally shiver, waiting selfishly for towels.

On losing things

I am shedding objects. Moving in, moving out, alone, with friends, with family. Everywhere things get left behind.  My passport in Madrid, sunglasses on the cruise, shorts, earrings, and flip flops in Ibiza, makeup in Brussels. Several lighters, a pack of cigarettes in Barcelona, a pipe, nice marijuana, some hash, a nail clipper. Many pairs of underwear stolen from off my bed in Amsterdam, along with my primary bag of toiletries. Two leather purses, an expensive digital camera, a notebook with a week’s worth of drunken and drug-addled notes regarding the meaning of life written in Brussels and Amsterdam. Late for my train to London and in a sleep-deprived fog I left a bag behind.

I am saddest now about the notes. The camera is insured, I only lost a day’s worth of pictures, money comes and goes like the tide.

This is a moment to reflect, to get my shit together and see more thoroughly: through my pen, rather than so obsessively through the lens. I will remain open to magic and adventure and I will write more dedicatedly, I will strive with more passion to sort out my dream and make it real. I will get more of it up, out, and on the net in case another notebook or this laptop are lost next.

I don’t need these objects, I don’t need these records any more than I need any thing. All I need is experience and language. To sharpen my pen, to forge forth with more gusto, to be stronger.

I will enjoy being lighter, being less fixated upon holding on. I will get square with the stream of the universe, with the fact that all fades and eventually no one will know I was ever here. Images are not superior to reality, they only offer us the illusion of immortality by preserving precisely the moments that slip past us in real time. We cling to photographs to fill our flawed memories, to give us narrative jumping off points when the mind fails.

We are in those images, our vision and our presence. It is not unreasonable to mourn the loss of that evidence.

Still, reality trumps its lens-snatched facsimile. I am getting closer to that in prose, close as can be; I am shuffling up to it, snuggling my skin against it like an antsy, coiling cat.

I must keep looking as if I have the camera; perhaps I’ll buy a new one when I head east. I musn’t be afraid of losing cameras over and over again because it’s just money, just hassle. Hassle moves and motivates like any part of the journey, I can’t be afraid or impatient with it. This is the worst that can happen, remember? I know my silly self.

“Ridiculous absentminded girl, how can she do this again? How does she exist this silly way?” I ask from the outside, feeling my purse like a phantom limb. But I know, I do know my silly self, I expect nothing less at this point. In spite of my disappointment, silver linings sink in like the gray relief of Dutch sky after so much scorching Spain. Luckily luckily I did not lose my passport again, luckily luckily I still have my ticket to London. I will get there, things are not so bad, nothing will stop my forward momentum.

Last week in Amsterdam, a mushroom trip dissolved into panic at the end of the night. The pleasant thing about drugs is that generally if you take too much, you wake up in the morning and everything is right with the world again. This is different; the consequences here are real. Canceled credit cards, lost equipment, another bump up in my mother’s anxiety. I wish I could turn it all back. I wish I was less like me and a bit more like someone else, someone responsible, someone fastidious and vigilant.

The roller coaster will take me up again, I’m sure. For now I dial these numbers again, where lost objects are meant to be found. I hope that someone kind will read my notebook, find my address, and drop it in the mail.

I find a nail clipper on the bench, waiting outside the station. I have no money and no heart, but a friend is on the way to rescue me. The sneaky universe has not forsaken me yet.

More on Barcelona

I arrive here by magic. Barcelona: the name jangles heavy in my throat, laden with expectation.

Awash in the sensual possibility of Gaudi, I scribble: don’t take convention for an answer. Write stories like Gaudi and poems like Gaga; disrupt and redefine and have boundless confidence. Hang chain from the ceiling to locate architectural stress points: stop hammering away at physics formulas.

Why shouldn’t every door handle be crafted lovingly for the human hand? Why shouldn’t every courtyard creep to the roof in a mosaic of undulating underwater blues? Seats contoured to the spine, rooms with adjustable folding partitions and stained glass different from every angle, windows of different sizes and orientations to best distribute the light of day: the Gaudi houses are truly made for human beings. They appeal to our senses, to our bodies and imaginations. They note our caprices and oblige them, rather than demanding that we sink subhuman to adjust to a shapeless, characterless box of concrete.

Why is this such a unique idea? Most people live and work in buildings. People, then, should be our primary concern when constructing buildings, no? All we do is slap up more concrete boxes, to minimize materials and maximize building profits. Why have we forgotten the wisdom in the hanok, the wigwam, the Spanish courtyard? There are too many of us, and comfort is expensive. Better a concrete box than a cardboard one, right?

It takes thought to design, effort to produce, and conscientious concern to maintain comfort. I understand that Gaudi’s details are expensive, but I don’t grasp why we all go so quietly along with the idea that everyday dignity and humanity are only promised to the wealthy.

Average people should be comfortable and happy in the spaces where they work and live. Artistic detail thrills us, color delights us, design inspires us. This is not frivolity chipping away at the bottom line: this is the difference between living like chattel and living like people.

The only limitations that exist are the ones we recognize. We are lulled into mediocrity by the conventions and habits we submit to. We can do better than concrete boxes - there must be an efficient way to deliver Gaudi-style concern for the physical and spiritual needs of humans outside the circumstance of extreme personal wealth.

And even if it isn’t efficient, we should do it!

(The pipe dreams of fruitcake.)