Worse things than this.

“Honey, oh my goodness look.” She says as she put her sandals back on, one leg raised and then the other, barely glimpsing her calves as the Alta Velocidad Espanola train pull into the station, her finger pointing, tapping on the windo, red laquered nails, taper off like she knows a piano.

We came in from Madrid, all expansive boulevards and seedy underbelly. Lights and bright. Now we are here, Barcelona,  and my mouth is full of dark foreign accents and smells as we watch the city go by from our window.  It looks much like any city, but you can see age in its bones. Reactive saying Barcelona. Like I have a bit of cheese in my mouth when I say it. That’s how I hear Spaniards say it.

Barsh-say-low-nah

I feel like that’s one thing they should teach Americans. That we say everything wrong and that there is old, and then there is old. So when you walk in Barcelona you can feel that somewhere around the corner is something hundreds of years old. This is not what’s it’s like in America. You can see Americana and some boring pastures where there was a very exciting battle a hundred years ago. Now cows look back at you, chewing there cud. But Barcelona? It is timeless

She holds her phone up to show the slightly sleepy little one who is trying very hard to stay awake,  to say good night to her Mom and pop as we slow to a stop amongst jostled guests and the breath of a city that meets us at the bottom of the stairs. One eyeball dominates the small telephone screen. Little one giggles and says good night as I hold the phone up high to show her how many people are waiting to get off the train. She sees our lopsided smiles as she comes with us through the throngs of people and pictures up our nose, or my double chin. I whisper to her that I love her, like she’s our big secret and she whispers just as loudly the same before she hangs up.

I realize this is a trend but I don’t know a lick of Spanish. I find it more exciting just to go and learn a bit while we are there. So I won’t be having any political talks or deep discourse with passionate Spanish people but I will be able to ask for more water or a beer, so it balances itself out.

Morry wears a red dress, matching hat, and a silk necktie. Large sunglasses, and red lipstick. She powders her nose as we wait and puts her powder into her designer purse.

I wish i could say I wore an impeccable suit and such, with maybe some riding gloves in my urban poncho, but I just have some flip flops, jeans and a black shirt. I clean up good though.

Together we make an insatiable couple.  We will not only suck the marrow from the bone. We eat the bone and lick our fingers.

She drapes her arm around mine as we walk over to the closest bench and sit down.

What I have learned is that there is no real time to be jostled if you can help it.

She kisses me on the cheek, sits down and opens her journal to doodle while we wait for the train station to empty. Squiggles and cross hatching, doodles and whimsies.

Sometimes I watch her trace the shapes, see what they become, she’ll switch colors and pens, to markers, till she’s filled up a whole page, then she does it all over again.  Her beautiful hands that have held me, now scratching paint and colors across a paper. And she watches as closely as I do.

I watch a young lady arguing with her boyfriend. Lots of hand waving and pleading. I don’t need to know the language to know he’s in trouble for something.

I watch an old man eyeing my seat at the bench’s. His small mustache wiggle belies his red nose. I smile at him and he looks away sullenly.

Ahh Barcelona…well actually I know next to nothing about Barcelona. I have the rest of my life to explore the ins and outs of this town. For now I’ll

Walk its streets with my beautiful wife and soak it in against its skin.  I will bathe in its dusky morning and sweat pooled nights.

The train station empties out as quickly as it filled until it is just us and people waiting to board the train.

Estacio Del Nord is as beautiful as you think it is with a name like that. Giant beautiful windows letting in the sun shine, surrounded by beautiful old buildings with classic Spaniard architecture buried in a multitude of scooters everywhere. The streets are clean and well kept here.

We take a taxi down by La Sagrada Familia, to our hotel. Sercotel Rosellon, which is too nice of a place for me, but my wife, with her wide brimmed hat and sunglasses fits the feel of this place. Although I rather like her surrounded by elegance not new age, but for this trip we sleep in new age because it gives us a perfect view of the Cathedral, and a wonderful balcony.

We check in, and lounge around, napping, making out, and generally relaxing till night time. Spaniards eat really late, but we find a nice place on the corner where we have artichoke chips, followed by la Paella with wonderful clams and shrimp all simmered in rice and tomatoes. Paellla seems like what mom would make in Spain. It feels homey.

Morry gets a salad plate with all kinds of local veggies in it all mixed together with a savory sweet salad dressing, topped with pumpkin seeds and pomegranate gems.

You can also get some Iberian Jamos. It’s just fancy ham really, but it’s nice, like the Spanish version of summer sausage. It’s really wonderful. We finish dinner with a wonderful Tiramisu. It is coffee and chocolate delicious.

We devour and when we are done we order a nice bottle of wine and sit back together almost satisfied.

We sit across from each other, relaxed in each others presence.

She is my everything, where she goes, I go, and so regardless of our differences, we are both needed by the other. We take bites from our dessert, look at all the small shops on the tourists maps we can find.

We take turns marking stuff, stuff that seems cool, stuff that seems weird or unique. Pencilling in notes or cool ideas next to places on our map. Dirty jokes a sweet old man told us. She is beautiful, red fingernails, matching flats, dazzling smile.

Her eyes smile at me and I love her laugh. Every day I find something, something good, sweet, sexy, fun. More of Morry’s doodles like the edges of the map. Soon her doodles will take up our whole hotel room.

There are worse things than doodles covering the world.

Morry is my heart. She is why this place excites me. You have her here with me, to sit and stare and ogle, unabashedly at all these different things I’ve never seen.

If I was alone, I’d sit in a forest and be still. With her next to me it’s different, I stretch.

We are children of those small twisted curious gods. She laughs at me as we walk through tall cathedrals. Just, just the type of churches that when you see this church you can’t ever go back. Like this is the type of church that will literally break your faith. Make you weak in the knees. Like you want to write lyrics for a christian rock band now. These are churches you could orgasm over.

Our fingers smell of chocolate and wine and some corners are smeared with it. So we seem like frivolous children, drunk on the night and Spanish wine. But we are, I think, unequivocally that.

The Spanish wind smells of exhaust, and cement, mixed with scents I’ve never smelled. Morry makes exaggerated sniffing sounds and we laugh at each other. It does smell different. You think it won’t, because it’s the world, but different parts of the world smell different. I imagine I can smell spice on  the wind. Like cinnamon and peppers. We hold hands and walk back to the hotel. Slightly tipsy and full of good food.

My wife, so delicate and strong. I hold her tighter, because I don’t feel like telling her my thoughts, not now, but later, with touch, and taste, and love. We were built for these romantic get away.  We are in the land of paprika, and peppers and saffron. I can smell her skin on the wind and it matches perfectly. She goes well with Spain.

We walk down narrow streets, past dark unfamiliar alleys. You always know you are in an old part of town as the roads narrow to one lane, and walls press in on you. We walk hand in hand until we get to our hotel. As we enter our room, Morry takes off her shoes and plops them on the floor, her feet slide along the rugs and carpets in our hotel room She looks back at me.

  “You know what I like about traveling with you?” She asks me as I pull off my shoes and start unbuckling my belt.

“What?” I ask.

“The wonder, your wonder. It is one thing to go through life and see and do. It is quite another to see and do, and then have this little man that wants to smell, touch, and taste everything with me. To want my happiness as hard as he wants his own. It’s very humbling sometimes.” She says as she walks to the doors of the balcony and opens them, walks out and rests her elbows on the ornate, cast iron rails. I walk to her and put my arms around her. I nuzzle her neck.

“There you are.” I say as I hold her. She leans her head back brushes her lips against my face. She is intoxicating. Alluring, I walk back Into the hotel room and turn off the lights, grab some wine, and meet her back out at the balcony. I hand her a half filled glass. We smiles, and takes respective sips.

“Thank you, this is lovely. “ She says as she looks at me over her drink.

I’m not sure what she thinks about this, us, here. I’m think it’s wonderful. To be somewhere completely new, with Morry, and just enjoying a wonderful night…well…there are worse things. To sit in a different part of the world and do the same things with her is a complete joy. To see her eyes laughing, or her shoulders shake in quiet happiness on a different piece of dirt, perfect. This is what mars, Jupiter and Europa would all be like. We would explore, laugh, and fuck.

We sip drinks in the low light of the hotel room. The sky is punk and purple turned to black. She is lovely as a a razor, sharp and elegant.

When we are done we make love and it is as perfect as every other time. Morry worries that she is not going to be enough for the future, and I look at her as I often do and think this.

It is a cruel world where the fashion models worries about losing the ugly old fart. It is a horrible place to live where the perfectly wonderful worries and frets, over the imperfect.

I tell her these things, inside her that does that, I feel as though it is a tool someone could easily use against her. To hurt her, to use her. To manipulate. To make her do things. This breaks my heart. I don’t want her to ever be hurt that way. I want to cherish her, love her. Sit beside her. She is safe with me, and her secret so t ever be used against her.

She says she knows, but no matter how scared she is, she knows I never would. I wouldn’t. I want her, not my idea of her, her in all her unbridled passions and love and sweetness. Her in all her passionate lustful replies. Her in her mistakes and goofiness. Because this fashionista is terribly clumsy. She would fall over a centimeter high piece of sidewalk and then trip down the same sidewalk for a good ten minutes.

Think of Charlie Chaplin if I loved to fuck Charlie Chaplin. Think of a silent movie where she is monochrome and silver screen and celluloid and you’ve got it. A highly educated, highly temperamental, highly sexy woman who loves me.

There are worse things. There’s worse things than a woman who is accident prone,  but smart, funny, and sexy. There are worse things than growing older together, there are worse things than laying in bed, in Spain, belly full, and the sweat between us cools, as the night.

It is a cruel world that allow me to have a chance to walk beside her for a little bit.

You are my everything, here, there, anytime, anywhere.