As for Spain, I'll let the journal do the talking. It might be a little scatterbrained, but I was on a train to Portugal and it was late at night/early in the morning. Hopefully it at least captures some of my feelings:
8/10/10 I figured out the meaning of life today: to love is to live and to be in love with something, animate or not, is to have life. Human love is easy to spot most of the time and the strength of it has become increasingly apparent over the last month or so since I left home. I'll admit that over 20 years I'd become a little complacent in this department and absolutely took my parents' and family's love for granted. This time apart has made me value each and every phone call or skype chat, even the most mundane, and seeing their smiling faces, smiling from being happy to see me too, is really powerful. I miss every little aspect of being home. I miss going out to eat and talking and laughing a bit too loud, playing basketball with my brother, going upstairs to find my mom watching TV on my bed and falling asleep in the corner before she even leaves, waiting for my dad to get home from work before we do anything, him kindling in the chair, the weekends my sister randomly shows up (usually with some guy we all end up liking; I try to tell my parents she's a smart girl), my bed, laying on the couch watching sports, especially now I miss watching hockey every night, planning my Saturdays around college football, and ordering pizza to stay up way too late watching October baseball. I miss going to my brother's baseball games, playing catch with him and my dad in the highway that is the road in front of our house, complaining about whatever my mom has cooked but always liking it anyway, my bed (again), and this time of year going to the pumpkin patch and finding slim pickings, going on hay rides even though I'm allergic, drinking warm apple cider even though I don't like it, the weather turning crisp like the dead leaves that fall from the trees so I can pick out the especially crunchy ones to step on, rain, telling my dad I'll carve my own pumpkin and explaining to him exactly what I want then leaving after we've pulled the guts out and always getting the perfect jack-o-lantern anyway, taking my brother trick-or-treating and "dressing up" as whatever I was wearing that day because I get jealous at his sugary bounty, trading him some of my nastier candy for all of the sweet-tarts, and getting the fall and winter clothes out from the attic crawl space. I love all of that. I miss the daily rain in Beaver Falls, watching Grandma Donna decorate her concrete pig like a ghost and grandpap telling her she's stupid because she decorates for Halloween and autumn until winter, the cute Halloween cards I get from Grandma Pauline, Grandma Donna saying we need to stay up to see the Great Pumpkin, looking forward to Thanksgiving and then the Christmas season, etc. Those are the types of things that make me love and miss my family and because of my love for them I have a love for home I can't quantify and unfortunately am only now coming to realize. They aren't the only people I miss, though, and not the only things either. I've known about both my love for nature and my love for music for quite some time. My love for nature and its perfect beauty, tranquility, and peace are factors in my general dislike for people. Today in Madrid, though, I found a gorgeous place to sit on a perfect Western European fall day.
In the shade of a row of trees and beside a lake with an artificial waterfall I watched people feeding fish, the ducks butting in to steal some of the fish food, some kids playing with their parents (which made me miss and love mine even more, all the memories), and the street musicians. The atmosphere of the natural sounds (including the waterfall), the din of the pathway, and the young man seated on a bench across from me playing guitar and singing his lungs out was so entrancing. The slight breeze and the sound of deadened leaves rustling, falling, and being stepped on combined with the aforementioned to give me goosebumps. Surely no love could be greater than this idyllic setting. One great love, though, I found, always must supplant another (or others, like in this case both nature and music). The second the young man began playing The Beatles (whom I still don't love, it's important to note) my mind instantaneously went to Katie. Almost everything I do my mind goes there and being away from her has already been impossibly hard, but at that moment our love seemed so perfect and wonderful that, despite my devotion and feelings toward the place I sat and the beautiful day I sat there, it all faded away and I was alone in an opaque and empty, formless space, almost weeping. Knowing that my loves are often our loves is, to try to assign a useless word to it, so powerful and wonderful. Knowing that she would have been similarly moved by where I sat, I longed for her to be sitting there with me. Looking up and watching the excited and sometimes overzealous Spaniards holding hands, kissing, and laying at picnics near the water made my entire being sink. I had to go. A few hundred yards away it was quiet and, as silly as it sounds, I could feel her with me. Maybe she was thinking of me at the same time? I saw a stray cat sleeping next to a tree and thought of how it'd make her smile. The cat awoke and stretched then began to preen its fur coat. It felt symbolic. I felt that maybe at that moment miles and miles and an ocean away Katie was waking up and thinking about me as deeply as I was thinking about her and as that cat got up to walk into the bushes I thought that she was telling me not to worry and to enjoy my day. I tried to, but all the while I was being torn apart inside. It made me think that the moment I see her again in person will be one of the most special moments of my life. I'm more than looking forward to it and wish that instead of sitting and waiting to board a train to Portugal I was waiting for my flight back to her arms and into the warmth of her smile (this is where the train came, by the way). As a change of pace and to get my mind off of things I stopped to watch some other street performers and that's when this whole notion hit me. I know some people have jobs that they might not enjoy, but typically they're doing it to support the ones they love (and this makes me think how much I want a family to work for and support, but that'd probably take up another one of these journals). Looking at artwork today at Museo del Prado I was awestruck by the amount of passion that had gone into each work, and there was a museum full of them, there are museums full of them, and many are as or more in love with creating art but are undiscovered. Watching the musicians play at the side of the road, in the metro stations, and in the plazas their passion is obvious. They play beautiful music and are so talented and are relegated to the fringes hoping to scrape together a few bucks, but they still play. Why? In many cases they are the undiscovered and I know countless more are too afraid to get out there and do it. Sitting in airports and train stations, on planes, buses, and trains, and going on tours the passion people have to go out and explore their world is fantastic and so many more explore the same sights I'm visiting everyday in books or on the internet, but can't afford to go themselves or haven't been blessed enough to go yet. Having played sports and knowing the passion involved it makes me happy to watch people be able to play a game, the one they love, for a living and I know so many more kick a ball around the park, throw the ball with their dad and brother, and play endlessly just for fun. People all around me are doing what they love, are where they love, or are with the ones they love and it's starting to renew my faith in people. Even being around Geneva kids and hearing about their intense blind love and faith has started to make me happy. Now that I've been a few places and can somewhat comment on "people around the world" I've begun to believe that people are generally very good and, despite either minor or very massive differences of opinion, they'll always follow or strive for what they love. I can relate to that and respect it. It's been said that to love is to know pain (or something like that) and I've found that to unfortunately be too true. At that moment you miss someone or something you think the world has crumbled around you and nothing can replace it, but it must be said that to love is to live and have something to live for. It's true that nothing can replace the ones or the things you love, but that's because to love is to join the human race, to step down off the pedestal and join in. To love is to know true happiness and that happiness is far greater than the pain of loss. And I'm starting to think no loss is permanent. If you believe hard enough (whether you're a "believer" or not) you'll be eternally happy, because your passion or your love will always be right there with you where it (the object), he, or she belongs. Everything my family is doing at home and going through, everything I miss with them or with playing guitar or games or sports, Katie...it's all right here. It's what makes me who I am and no matter where I go, near or far, my passions are blowing in the wind, strumming in the park, on the computer screen on my desk, and in nothingness or its opposite, always on my mind. I'm a human and I'm amongst so many others living out their dreams or passions, being alive.
In there I described a bit of the scenery, which was gorgeous I must say, but the lot of my time there was consumed by those thoughts. It was a frenetic day.
Then I went on to Portugal. The train ride to get there was forever and the rain was apocalyptic, but once I arrived it all died down and faded away. I went on a tour around the city with a group of five others (the majority of whom were English, which made it all the better). The sights were fantastic and the guide treated it more as a friendly-show-you-around sort of thing than a tour. Combining my love of nature and music again, the tour guide asked if anyone had an iPod to hook up. I got to cruise the vistas and enjoy the locality like a local while listening to Led Zeppelin, Guthrie Govan, Pink Floyd, The Clash and Manic Street Preachers! Everyone else on the tour loved my taste in music and to have the soundtrack of my life playing whilst touring such a beautiful place, incredible. The food was beyond words and so was the beach. I've only seen waves so big once before and there was a hurricane involved that time. Cabo da Roca had some of the best and most dramatic seaside views I've ever seen and it was neat going to the most western point of Europe.
The hostel was impeccable and all in all I had a wonderful time. I felt strangely at home in Portugal as its pace of life was slower, the people were friendlier, and it had all of the castles, hills and mountains, good food, seaside, and rural countryside I could want. And that was just around Lisbon! I didn't write in my journal in Portugal, but I did take plenty of pictures both places:
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