Valencia.
If you only knew the kind of music that word entails. Music like the most sublime themes and strains of the Ainulindalë. My heart beats as it does for almost nothing else when I just hear the music of the word alone, not to mention the state of being it describes.
It is Valencia I must leave in twelve hours. The “working” reason for coming here – getting Georgia Tech course credit – was scuttled by Ma Tech herself. I intended to get twelve credits on-site with three more to come from taking a test for a Spanish course I would have over-reached, and thanks to her own policies I am walking away with six. Unless they have more surprises up their sleeve. Now I also have to worry even more about my graduation date, which seems to stride farther and farther away like a renewed house arrest in Burma.
This town is nuts, my kind of place – I don’t wanna leave. I don’t ever, ever wanna leave.
Amidst these beatings on my nerves, I cannot help but melt into this paradise. The weather is unbeatable. The people are unbeatable. The food is ambrosia. The interplay between truly ancient edifices, well-thought out vibrant open spaces and greenery, and era-defining new architecture and programs take Valencia and make it a blameless youth that Atlanta will never be – Abel rewarded over Cain.
My life for the last five and a half months is now packed into a hiking backpack, a purpose-bought suitcase, and a laptop bag. I will go now with my roommates to have my final cena in Spain. That act of ingestion, like many since time before writing have ingested for the shamans, for their god or goddess, reminds me that I have left here a new human being. And at the base, I can feel that wind in my soul – Lord, I was born a ramblin’ man. I love this place – but I gots to keep on moving.
One reply on “It Tolls for Thee”
And so the semi-masochistic tendencies of the nomad continues, on to the next destination.