Roads taken

Neither straight nor narrow. A path. A lane. Many of them. Labyrinths, some with laurel trees. Spaces for the body to move through, to know. Perpendicular eyes. Finding all the stones.

We have all this. So.

I said, “Let’s take a walk.” (I meant it with all my heart.) I spoke, and waited. We no longer needed to hurry.

You said, “Great idea. Where shall we go?” You seemed open to suggestions. Your eyes were looking, and seeing. The way was out there, to be determined by one of us, you or me. 

Then I said, “Oh, you should decide.” I meant it, because anything would be fine with me. Fine because we like so many, we do so many, of the same things. We say so little. I never minded waiting, and when I said it didn’t matter to me, I meant it. I was willing to wait for a very long time.

And so you chose. You did not surprise me.

Rianxo en xullo. In July. We walked along the shore of the fishing village in a place with two names. A place where people say the language is dying yet there are countless words for potatoes, minnows, water sprites, and wild women.

A white dog there by the Galician sea appeared lost in all the heat. We wanted to bring him back with us, give him water to drink. Quotes from Manoel-Antonio distracted us. Sailor’s words, unclear to many, but very avant-garde. Who would have thought?

Quotes on the path, set to be read, if not understood. Rianxo, a fishing village. Half of the residents writers, some famous. Perhaps nobody noticed that the day we went for the walk. 

A shift. A summer conference appeared, and one of us had gone. Another event, years ago. Manoel-Antonio had been remembered then, and we remembered as we walked, reading his verses aloud, happy to hear ourselves doing that. 

We had come there to remember. It was clear now. A decade had gone, or maybe two, since the events, but we knew they had taken place because we recalled the way the light filtered in while the speakers spoke of poetry and sailing . Other writers’ words etched on the walkway by the sea were further proof.

We had walked around Rianxo, whose name we weren’t sure of, but preferred the theory that it came from ‘curve in the river’. Its ría or estuary is the mostly serene Arousa. So many words born here - even troubadors knew the shores we walked - and so many words killed by a war. We would never be able to stop walking the shores, even when far away.

We thought about that and put it aside for another warm afternoon.

After that, you insisted that I choose. And I did, after giving it some thought.

I chose Punta Batuda, even though I remember the cat, Faísca. Meaning spark in Galician, which we know has at least two words for everything. Or ten. Only two of us think of her now and know where she was interred for an indeterminate time. Neither of us ever wants to transplant anything like that again and we need not discuss it.

The invaders were there when we went for a walk, at Punta Batuda, in little boxes stacked on top of one another. Probably not walking, just eating and drinking the wine. We prefer silence to Spanish. We are silent but vigilant. We avoided the miserable van-huts edging like sardines toward the beach. We went up steps to a café and kept our eyes horizontal, melting into the sea.

The privatized island was right smack in the middle but hopefully wouldn’t stay that way, owned by one man. After all, that would be against the law. No, we were sure the island would be returned to the people and rich man would depart in the dead of night. That would be fun to watch.

We needed to move on, to keep walking, to keep seeing. We did not need words because they were everywhere we looked. Every few kilometers, something beautifully old to see. We kept long lists in our heads and compared them from time to time. Nodding. Laughing.

You chose again then, as I did. We walked from the cantóns to the Torre de Hércules in Coruña. Rosas negras, black roses, lined the uphill urban path. Only later would I discover that those tall black beauties were the nondescript succulents that fill out flower boxes in New England. Here, we walked with a gleaming black forest slightly tinged with burgundy. Murals then. Calm sea gazing in at the lighthouse of Hercules.

We had to force ourselves to find other stones, newer or older, gray, yellow, white. There were so many places to walk.

Cordes-sur-ciel reappeared, as always does, every summer. Circean, stern, silent, Cordes and its Cathars urge visitors to its summit. From the summit, hands on chest to calm the body, look down. Up to down. The walk, in between, on weightless stone. Quiet weight. Sobering. But then, Languedoc is that way.

Toulouse might be one of the better cities for a walk. The round walkway of Saint-Sernin? The market where our French was useless. Only Arabic. I bought my first textile block there. It would not be the last. Maybe that’s what led me to become an artist. I had forgotten the basilica was begun in the fourth century, but at least we found the column carved with a shell for Saint-Jacques, Santiago. We knew a little about where we were walking, if not everything.

Then we grew weary of France with all its grandeur and rush. We turned west and arrived in Ponte de Lima and stood on the bridge for hours. We weren’t in a hurry at all. We walked through the town many times, many years. We never remember if it changes, although we reread every sign, advertisement, store or restaurant name as if they were all new while savoring their vintage. We make no sense during these hours. We speak little, deciding not to rupture the integrity of the blue, gray, green. We see one thing we think is new, but it could be that we don’t remember: a garden. A garden with people, walking.

When I got home, I looked up the garden and it was the Parque do Arnado and is part of a global project. Visitors learn about the history of people’s influence on landscape. A lot to think about. I was thinking about how we’d missed it all the other times, since it started in 1987.

All travelers need to return to places they’ve previously visited. Keep walking. Going to the Port wine caves on a tour is not at all like walking past the caves of Porto at dawn and looking up in order to avoid the temptation to leap into the Douro and swim alongside the rabelos floating with their casks. Not at all like being the only person in the rough streets of Vila Nova de Gaia and sobbing for joy. 

The air in Portugal sounds different than any other place in the world.

We were not done walking, but had to turn in the other direction. We decided on one last walk for the time being. Neither of us expected to find what we found. 

There was a little church, nothing special, but the horizon was spectacular and calm. Compostela seemed hours away. No cathedral spires visible, but they would be in fifteen minutes, were we to abandon our walk and head to the old city.

We had decided to find the Pedra do Home, which untranslatable unless you can live with ‘the Man’s Stone’ or some other inane rendering of local historical memory. Pedra or stone referring to a dug-out rock or rock construction. Located in Portomouro, the stone is also called the Mouros’ Stone. The route we’d have to take to sort out all the mouros and mouras in Galicia would be exhausting. Another time, maybe.

The pedra in question wasn’t hidden, but it wasn’t visible, either. It felt like the time we were walking in Cyprus, also en xullo, in July, and at some point the little signs for our destination disappeared. Only people knew the way, and some refused to tell.

The home stone, then, was a challenge and sad. Yes, the ‘stone’ was actually three sarcophagi from as early as the fifth century, but they were a remnant of the original grouping. Sharply-hewn, they had a pulse and a throaty sound you could only hear when you looked over at the trees. At least that’s what I experienced. You didn’t say much, but we knew or silent rage was caused by the idiot who, centuries upon centuries later, thought he could blast the tombs open and find a treasure.

Oh, the mouros and mouras are still out there if you know how and where to look, to walk.

I am learning. You helped.

Now the potential walks were over (temporarily) for us. Bad weather or lack of time, maybe.

I did recall one from long ago: that shortcut through an unlit alley of Madrid where I literally froze. I could not move, so turned and ran. No, not a panic attack; just a sense of self-preservation. You understood. However, I wonder if today, in the same place, I would react the same way. Interesting experiment. You groaned when I suggested it.

Old Town in Warsaw might be a walk to repeat some time, but how to understand anything at all without years of preparation? How to talk to the trees and hills and peeling paint if you don’t know how to speak? 

[pause] [stopping to sit a minute]

What did I mean when I suggested we take a walk? Did I have some place to go or somebody to see? Did I need you - or anybody! - to accompany me?

I say:

I see no need to wander in that direction, the one of advancing in a planned manner, with a goal in mind. That leaves no room for breath and other important things. This all started out as a poem of sorts, but as I’ve grown weary I’ve also grown prosaic and locked. The pain threatens to return as well. If I do not care (or dare) to stop, the thing to do is to grip the poem again, like Galician farmers used to grip the handles of the plow. Grip it and speak to the cow, ox, or woman strapped in, following their lead.

Do not be alarmed. When a couple had no cow or ox, one of the two would power the plow and the other would guide it. Necessity.

Poetry or whatever language you take on a walk can be a way of moving it all forward, of bringing the parts of life you choose to remember with you. When we walk we seem to look back as much as ahead. Sometimes everything comes along with us every single time we go for a walk. That is when I can only gasp at what my head holds - no, cherishes. 

Every walk, once you know how to do it, adds at least half a century to your mind. To mine as well. (This is getting too complicated. I need to stop and think a minute.)

[a minute or two passes]

Now that I’ve gotten my breath back, I have to know:

“Would you like to go for a walk?”

And you say yes - you always do - but you want to know:

“Where shall we go?”

Because we can and should walk alone sometimes, but not always.