“Not all those who wander are lost.”
I am a wanderer.
In four Madrid months, I wandered far beyond what I knew. I have been lost (sun-drenched Madrid streets blending into one another, winding and circling in the dizzying heat, cream colored building after cream colored building); I have found (ruins from the time of the Moorish Emirs, squares sparkling with light refracted from the water leaping from fountains, peacocks scrambling through the mazes of a monastery-palace in a glimmer of sapphire and emerald).
My favorite ballroom dance is Quickstep. When one learns to dance quickstep, the instructor yells, “Slow, Slow, Quick-Quick” until nothing but those words can resound in the dancer’s mind. Those Madrid days were a dance – Quickstep in particular.
Slow, Slow: lazy days meandering through the capital of Madrid, captivated by walls of art, stumbling upon festivals and rifling through stores and sitting for hours with a single cup of coffee in an overstuffed chair.
Quick-Quick: rushes of weekends, countryside blurring from car and airplane and train windows, exam proctors yelling “time” as dozens of pens scratch out final responses, standing on the edge of Moncloa watching the cars race into the distance.
Somehow, the days melted away in that dance and I came to the end of my Madrid wanderings.
So if I can offer one piece of advice for my fellow dreamers and nomads, it is to never cease to wander and never cease to see wonder.
Read the original blog here: http://pooleglobal.blogspot.com/2016/12/not-all-those-who-wander-are-lost.html