The Stairs

Welcome to an otherwise unremarkable Monday morning in February. I say this having just completed a few hours of recording and conversation with one of the incredible people I am allowed to work with. Pouring over 332 pictures captured over the last two days, I find the usual amount of discards and blurry shots indicative of my failure to slow down and contemplate correctly. That being said, there are many decent ones amongst the bunch, so onward!

It’s cool here in Barcelona and not at all rising to the levels of the typical summer blast of 33+ degrees Celsius. On the eastern side of Spain, you get beautiful Mediterranean air and a gentle breeze tossing your hair about. It’s delightful for someone like me who dislikes oppressive heat and humidity and would rather walk around than be constrained to the air-conditioned environment you can find. It’s also delightful for being an “off-season” so that the press of tourists is a dull roar versus a global flood.

Emma and I have walked 34km (21 miles) across the last two days, and more will be done today. Shoes are getting worn out, and blisters are forming, but everything is smiling from the efforts and energy being expended. After work obligations, we’ll spend this afternoon in some last-minute wonderment and then off to Ireland tomorrow morning to finish the week before I head back to Boston.

Beyond the exercise, we’ve both been able to dig into the body of a few sections of Barcelona, from the Gothic Quarter to Gràcia and many of the intervening blocks between. Being fundamentally organized around squares and logical blocks makes navigation more accessible, as you can figure out your approximate distances and routing without much effort. Though hundreds of years in the making, the organization and layouts are centered around a social fabric that exists in many places around the globe but is uniquely divergent from the North American experience. Here is a society built around community first and foremost, not the rugged individualism pantomimed in American culture.

We’ve enjoyed the richness of its history, woven in brick and tile, with tattoos of more modern humanity etched on doorways and stucco walls. We love how the city comes alive after the sun winds its way below the horizon line, the crowds gathering to enjoy food and merriment in the small bodegas and restaurants lining the various alleyways. There’s a mystical quality to the tree-lined streets at the junction of several buildings, each leading to a different part of the city’s heart. All said and told, you could lose yourself in the in-between places as quickly as you could on the broad avenues cutting through.

However, there’s an actual cut to the heart whenever we see Burger King, Starbucks, Popeyes, KFC, and other American stores. It feels like an invasion of all the sanctimonious assholery of capitalism, an insult to the baseline distinction of Catalan culture. In their windows and menus, we see the suggestion of an alternative lifestyle that diverges from what makes this place so unique and a promise of a somehow different future if they only imbibe in its offerings. It feels wrong, like somehow we’re imposing our will on the unwillingness to force-feed them our version of success.

Commentary aside, it’s been a blessing to be here and wander, to embrace what the city offers, from art to architecture, the sacred to the mundane. In the days ahead, I’ll take you up and down these steps to hopefully show you some of what makes Barcelona unique enough to visit while at the same time reminding you of your obligations and duties as fellow human beings to marvel at and respect the differences between us.

I hope this week finds you motivated for change and new perspectives of the mundane and ordinary. That within your story, you recognize that these stairways we climb go up and down, and each direction has its place, and different riches to provide. May you find your own Barcelona, your enclave, your story and hope within.

May it ever be so.