Tag: Madrid

• Field Notes: On the Train from Madrid to Barcelona

  

  I’m not one, typically, for narratives. Sequences matter, and causes can do much to explain effects. But on principle, I place more trust in the randomness of events, and I prefer to see my life (as I once told G. C.) as a series of happy accidents. To stay within the realm of the literary just a little bit longer: this is what drew me to the realm of lyric, that way of understanding and expressing a state (an idea, an emotion, a memory) in a given moment.

  These days, however, the coincidences and correspondences I see around me feel too interrelated—too convenient—for me to dismiss as mere random events. Traveling and living in three different regions of the world over the past year, it seems, has a way of compressing time and space so pointedly that metaphor (this reminds me of that one time…) is the only way to process some of the stranger familiarities I’ve encountered.

  All of which, I guess, is a long way of saying that there was something uncanny—and ultimately moving—about the train ride my family and I took from Madrid to Barcelona yesterday morning.

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  May 17, 2024

  America, Barcelona, China, landscape, Madrid, memory, metaphor, space, train, travel

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• Mercado de San Miguel

  

  there was a time when you were younger when the pressing of bodies against yours terrified you and honestly speaking it still does to an extent since every body brings with it heat and force and sound and of course you’d prefer to eat sardines than be one of them simmering in the masses

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  May 16, 2024

  food, Madrid, market, memory, Mercado de San Miguel

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• At the Family Table

  

  I’ve had a lot on my mind over these past few days in Madrid (and back in Europe). My family and I have truly enjoyed spending time together walking the city and marveling at its urban landscape. In particular, we’ve been especially impressed by its wealth of art and food, and by the striking contrast between its fast-paced traffic and slower-paced rhythms of life. For my part, I’ve been inspired to learn Spanish again—not just because I’d given it up after high school, but also because there’s a wealth of poetry and fiction I’m desperately trying to catch up on.

  There’s much that I want to write about these aspects, however rough my ideas and language about them may still be. But over the course of the past few evenings and mornings, I’ve been drawn to something far closer to home: our family meals, and the colorful conversations—in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin—that animate them. Beyond filling my life with laughter, wisdom, and excellent food, our meals have helped me understand the pleasures and challenges of navigating the richness of the world: one whose vibrancy seems to demand even more color from my ever-expanding palette (or, if you prefer, pallet).

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  May 15, 2024

  art, China, community, conversation, family, food, gratitude, immigration, Madrid, Spain, travel

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• Grand Central

  

  city breathing
       grates venting
              steam rising
                    stocks
              falling
              (no, not yet)

  echoes of schoolchildren ringing through the halls

  hooooonnnnkkk at park
  
                        meets beeeeeeeep at 41st
  
         crumpledcr
        inkledball
         ofalumi
        numfoilfro
          mahotdo
            gcart

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  May 14, 2024

  abstract expressionism, art, Grand Central, Madrid, Max Weber, museum, New York, nostalgia, Painting, Poetry

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• A Vision at the Prado

  

  About suffering they were never wrong,

  the Old Masters…

  —W. H. Auden, “Musée des Beaux Arts”

  
  
  What language there is to express the ful-
  ness of color and light and stroke is lost
  on my lips. All I can do is circle
  the cavernous halls where schoolchildren coast
  past paintings we can’t fully understand,
  past masses of tourists looking wayward
  as microphoned interpreters expound
  on the merits of a treasured work.

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  May 14, 2024

  art, Brueghel the Elder, death, Madrid, Painting, Poetry, Prado, vision

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• The Imperial City

  

  The imperial city, believing itself to be the center of a flat world, has no need for compasses or regular street grids.

  Born at the crossroads of national myth and natural earth, it lurches in all directions like a lethargic lion, answering only to the orders of the sun (from which it derives its sense of time) and the promise of fresh prey from afar (from which it derives its sense of space).

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  May 13, 2024

  city, empire, Hong Kong, imperialism, Madrid, memory, names, New York, Paris, urban landscape, Vienna

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• Field Notes: Madrid (II)

  

  White for the Madridistas cheering in unison for another Liga title.

  Pink for the T-shirts of the women walking for a Mother’s Day charity walk.

  White and pink for slices of Iberico ham layered on top of sourdough bread.

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  May 12, 2024

  family, Madrid, pink, urban landscape, white

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• Field Notes: Madrid (I)

  

  Maybe it’s the jet lag, or the dry heat (82 degrees Fahrenheit, 28 degrees Celsius), or the fact that we’re aimlessly wandering the city, but my sister Flo and I are finding it hard to figure out what other city Madrid—or more precisely, the cozy and quirky neighborhood of Malesaña—most resembles. Maybe it’s Bilbao, the first and closest Spanish city I visited back in December, and one of my most beloved places to tour. Or maybe it’s Saint-Gilles in Brussels, in the way the leafy, narrow streets snake up and down unpredictable slopes at sharp angles. Or maybe it’s La Brera in Milan, with every aging building concealing a fashionable boutique, a humble alimentación, or a chic cafe deep behind its facade. Or maybe it’s Jackson Heights in Queens, the bustling micropolis in the larger New York ecosystem where every Hispanophone and Latin American country plants its flag in the form of a restaurant or bodega.

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  May 11, 2024

  culture, Europe, Madrid, re-entry, Spain, travel, urban landscape

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