Round Trip (aka City in-visible) No port is such a departure, and without a return.
may be short but the level of alienation that counts.
better if the return trip is troubled, nervous, unexpectedly exhausting.
November. Belgium. A friend who lives there as an opportunity to explore a country I had forgotten in my mental geography. A Gent
the buildings in the center seem pastry and cinnamon. Perfetti, aligned, you would almost want to put the language. As the windows of sweet, colorful, attractive design food.
weeping willow in the river, and large yellow leaves laugh in the middle of the road.
Gent, ecology, the 100% organic, the vegetarian. More than seventy places bio describes a map eco, green, which takes you to breakfast, lunch, dinner, shopping, social life.
Markets with beautiful merchandise on display as they were painted colors, harmonious shapes, combined with skill.
Perfect
impeccable.
drive.
It's cold in Gent. complete with a cold wind, rain, cold hands. That cold that breaks the ribs of umbrellas and ill night. Rare that it is not enough sun to dry the rain that fills shoes, coat, bones, but at least comforted.
without Flemish Gent where you can not even read the signs of work in progress,
and for me the words that draw the layout of the premises is a small drama.
Gent, you can not smell, that does not give evidence himself. Gent
that at eight in the evening the streets are empty and find the life inside the pub filled with smoke and sweat.
Gent impregnable behind the lace curtains of the houses on the ground floor.
"Three hypotheses are given on the people of Bauchi: that they hate the earth, that they respect so as to avoid any contact, that they love it as it was before them and with telescopes and telescopes pointing down not tire of browse, leaf by leaf, stone by stone, ant by ant, contemplating fascinated by their absence. " And then insert a small tube in Brussels where the soul goes to the sides perfection, where you can find yourself looking at Magritte or poking at the close of the second hand market in the square, looking for trinkets to save from the broom street sweepers, among bancarellai Romanians, or perhaps Turkish or North African, elderly people with shopping carts loads, a black man sitting on a pile of clothes that dough for pulping placid encyclopedia.
And where the wind ruffling of plastic bags is almost poetic.
Brussels where the pastis is cheap, a bit Brussels' French.
Brussels between skateboard ramp, subways filled with murals and design studios.
Brussels with the uphill, crossed by different people, with the smells that come from homes.
"Even the cities believe they are the work of the mind or of chance, but neither the one nor the other enough to take on their walls.
In a city you do not enjoy the seven or seventy wonders, but the answer it gives to your question. "
And when you can only stammer questions with no time to search for answers, it comes back.
The leave assumed the contours of a required flight took office riapprodare stubborn desire of some to the south.
But between me and the south of mind appeared with a speed disarmingly unpredictable obstacles, "identity" Lost, lost planes, Italy baleful train, a woman who decides to become invisible right under my train, half back. Surreal. This pipe is not a pipe.
The cards are mixed: I was thinking of flying and landing in a few hours and instead forced me to slow to a passage at ground level, which has lengthened the time, upset the plans.
are the last train, the final one, a few hours and we will make re-port.
The soul is still restless, aching, in fibrillation, to search links, senses, responses to stutter in front of the tangle of why.
I look outside, I see the spectacle of the olive trees at sunset, the wind bow down and pay homage to the red earth as the demands of the southern mind. Logs majestic parade before me, human.
I try to watch them one by one, but away, I remained in the hands of a desire to embrace them, imagine the stories in the folds of wood and crossing branches.
finally arrives.
Breath.
The road at this time still giving the heat of the day.
delays the arrival home, I go by my friends, I do accept, I need it.
For the first time me take me in their terrace.
From here I see the whole city, the old doors that protect it in the distance the modern windmills, under around and within the design of broken roofs, stairs that lead nowhere. Terraces hanging on walls porous, moist, blackened.
I go, I want to stand out, take off my coat and a bit 'even dancing. I get sick
then, but we know each re-port without injury.
From left, calmly, dry in the sun.
"Of course, even in Hypatia is the only day that my wish will come from. I know that I will not go down to the harbor, but get on the highest pinnacle of the rock and wait for a ship passes overhead. Will never go away? There is no language, no deception. "
Books read since I
south ..." My home is where you are "Igiaba Scego
