MIDDAY IN PASSEIG DE GRÀCIA Barcelona
Strolling through the city in the direction to Portal de l´Angel along one of its widest and best known avenues. In its day it was called the way of Jesus, when passing right in front of a convent founded in 1427 by the Franciscan friars. That rural road between towns is now a great walk. During the day there is a great crowd of people among beautiful modernist buildings, large shop windows of luxury shops, jewelers, hotels, coffee shops, different gardens with fountains, wide streets that cross and lead to narrower ones. And also shadows, many shadows like those drawn by each one of the huge plane trees lined up one behind the other in their tiny square spaces. To all this, a frenetic activity that never seems to end, cars, people, noise,... etc.
The traffic light of passers-by changes from green to red and for a few moments the legs stop at that small step that delimits the sidewalk and the road. There are some horizontal white lines painted on the shoulder that make you look at all those people on the opposite sidewalk. In between we are separated by a river of fleeting forms of what appear to be cars, motorcycles, buses, taxis. All these objects go so fast that they become flashes of light but somehow they do not prevent seeing what is happening on the other side of the road. At this intersection of the street, every object or body changes shape according to the speed it takes in this space...
A young boy takes the opportunity to check his wallet and the girl next door, looks at one of those large luxury showcases. Meanwhile, behind them there is a couple holding hands tightly. On his right side, a well-dressed man puts on his elegant gray jacket to quickly look at his silver watch. He raises the look that seems to go to that of a destitute young man with a puppy. I think he looks at that little animal prostrate on that little piece of cardboard in the street, so full of life despite being so thin. I do not know if he would say that he has his eyes fixed on him or lost in infinity, maybe he is thinking if he arrives on time, or maybe in his dog, if he has it or ever had it, or maybe thinking about something what has made him remember, or maybe nothing, who knows...
In the meantime, these three-dimensional buildings rise above us like giant, sweeping models. There, above the façade, there is a slender dome with a huge sculpture of a child raising his hand on top of a phoenix. Here everything is the same, all together, facing one another in this zebra crossing. For a moment, any kind of thought about this disappears and that image appears as frozen, the universe contained there. A great scene in movement surrounded by space. There is nothing more than that ...
...And green! Suddenly all those quiet figures move, pass and come towards here, just as fast as all those white painted lines of the street. Those faces, objects, trees, are being seen closer until they are they move away and disappear ... All this incessant movement is directed towards all possible directions but it begins and ends here, where there is no trace of individual center, but a clear glimpse of what all this is. A sensitive and attentive space that is known through each appearance.
If all this responds to something, it is a growing curiosity to know more about everything that happens here. Suddenly, you start to see things you've never seen before, sounds you did not hear, sensations you did not live in ... It's not that they were not there, it's rather something that opens majestically to feel it from here, and in what way...
In the middle of this city everything appears and disappears, these sensations of the body and the other banks, landscapes, sounds, people, emotions, pigeons, streets, traffic lights, thoughts ... but there is something that remains from the very core of the experience.
