The following is a collage of sensory experiences from my time away in Catalonia. Like any good trip, it has a soundtrack at it's heart. This was woven with the help of The Book's Lemon of Pink album. 07.19.18 The Lemon of Pink “Take time. Take time.Take time.” Watching spots of sun behind my eyelids. Feeling the breeze shift the satin of my skirt against my legs. Cooling the back of my neck with water from the roadside stream. Getting mud on my shoes. Watching a bee alight o

Being away from home on the Fourth of July is a little like walking around with no one knowing that it was your birthday. You kept waiting for someone to remember and finally say it, but the release never came. 1984’s Band Aid “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” came a bit to mind. But independence was still at the forefront of my morning walk to the village. The Catalonians, with the referendum’s unfavorable outcome behind them, could still be seen proudly draping the orange-and-

It was a six hour time difference from New York to Barcelona, which made walking around in daytime oftentimes feel like a waking dream. Residents from South America or Australia had a harder time, wandering around the house somewhat dazed, nursing coffees. They would be back to normal, they said, in about a day. Even though I still hadn’t gotten used to how sleep worked yet, I woke at seven to beat the morning shower rush. I stood, brushing my teeth at the sink and stared int

Sunsets here are long and lusty, and the air becomes balmy and slow. The light makes beautiful work of the cliffsides, barren save for the occasional spray of gigantic aloe fronds–a cool, powdered green against red clay. Cypress trees, full of clusters of young pine cones stand erect over the tops of of bent crabapples. Here, the air is fresh, full of the smell of tall, dried grass, trodden down to hay. The farmhouse sits situated beneath the hilltop village of El Bruc. It is