Spain

It has been 6 years since I have been in Spain. My memory serves me well, and I recall much of what I see here from 2003. But things are not quite the same. You know how when you run into someone who used to be real important to you you notice every tiny change, every new line, every new scar-- the tiniest pain in her smile; and she notices the exact same in you. To me this is Spain. She is the same person, just a little older; much as I am the same, but also changed. In meeting her again I do not claim to understand the full extent of her change, cause she is so much greater, so much larger, than am I. But I can tell that she, in me, can see all but the smallest change. The same hallways and trains and century old stone breathe in my grown-up self-- they compare me to my childhood.