Memories
Loving Me Gently,
It was, for the most part, an unusual journey. I call it a journey because a trip is going to a place. A journey makes time for letting places and people take you into their experience. Like loving gently and letting oneself live again.
For us, it was more than Paris, Spain, and the Azores Islands. We discovered, uncovered, and recovered our passion while traveling in and around Paris. The wonder, the romance in the old and exotic taking us to be part of memories and experiences in a land that grew as if from an artist's palette brushed with dreams.
In the wonderment of it all, just the two of us driving from Madrid to Lalin, Spain, finding so much more than we ever expected. And, in a historical place, that came to me in my daughter's name. And later materialized as I wrote VIRGINS, a novel.
All the while feeling an angel tell me, in a church of the ancient times, and in the dark of our room, the true sense of being as just the two of us passed time feeling the the passing of time. The birth of tomorrow as we drove from Pontevedra to Santiago de Compostela.
Across green valleys, rolling hills, and sky-scraping mountains. Amid cities, villages, castles, and rivers meandering, and then to the unexpected liveliness and elegance of Burgos and impeccable highways landscaped in history into the tumultuous fullness of Barcelona.
In the newness and wonderment, the simple majesty of time. Lived in and like children holding hands. We grew in awe of the great grand time they we had never met but gave our ancestors birth. The new from the old, the simple from the ornate, a culture, a people so different and yet, as if we knew each other as forever best friends.
Then, boarding a ship with many strangers, our dreams mingled with all dreams in a dream of eternity; let it never end, not in the ports of Valencia, Malaga, or the Azores. Let us never forget that although with many strangers we traveled just the two of us, amid friendly faces and hearts that touched just for a moment in the eternity of moments.
And one night of our return amid all that glitters in the water around us, amid a violinist concerto of magical melody and the rocking sounds of blues and rock and roll. The music from our pasts had us all holding hands in pairs, crossing arms with each other as we dined. Sharing how it is where we came from and the lives and loves that wait for our return.
Yet it all that mattered was just the two of us, amid petals and smiling faces. Our hearts were full of passionate memories. Years left behind and those for whom we praised here and there looking forward to the return.
But just then it was just the two of us into the fold.
Marta Weeks wrote this article after she and John, her husband, went to Europe, in February 2015
File: 215-Weeks-M-LovingMeGently-11-pdf
