My shoulder leans against the wall of the commuter car, my head rests on the window; below my seat as we pass I see the brown rushes of the salt marsh blur by, and lazy fingers of the coastal rivers reaching inland and taking what they find seaward. A hawk on a pin-oak branch, both bird and bough wearing winter dress, and equally impassive and we clatter past. Salt marsh, wood lot, salt marsh, wood lot. These are my favorite scenes.

Here’s the re-issue of a photo that looks like magazine copy, but is in fact an iPhone image I myself took in Poble Nou, residential neighborhood of Barcelona, which is soon to be home-away-from-home (or home-a-short-hop-from away-home Boston, or from away-away-home Minnesota, where my heart still resides): a landing pad for my kids and family whenever possible; a vital new life for Cata and me; and fertile soil for many new friendships and projects.

Lisboa, Portugal

I should think that at some point writers (insert: travelers, artists, readers, wanderers) would have taken in enough sights and scenes, they might permanently retire to their rooms like Sri Aurobindo, spending the rest of their days quietly reciting the poem of what had been seen. Wouldn’t a mariner look one day upon yet another new bay, or new port, and say: There is one ocean: I have sailed it again and again. A breeze is a breeze, and a wave is a wave; a shore is a shore, and a landing a landing.

… includes a castle, of course. Girona is one bullet-train ride north of Barcelona, on a line that continues on to Paris. The train reaches more than 250 km/hr (some 160 mi/hr) in stretches, and whisks you far out of town and into the hills in under 40 minutes. So superimpressed was I by the fell and flow of Barcelona, the quieter nature and proximity to land provided by Girona was probably overshadowed: when I stopped by tourist information for help getting “quiet”, the only option I was offered was the public garden space (and a local outdoor market that day). Somehow, it felt less welcoming than more, certainly a reflection of my interior than a representation of the town’s character.

Barcelona, España

On this whirlwind tour, Barcelona suffered misconception similar to Brussels. How could it be otherwise, when the city is built on a few snippets of internet, a few personal experiences of people who are not at all like you, and a travel resume that includes nothing approximating Flanders or the Iberian peninsula? I watched an excellent video called Bye-Bye Barcelona, reflecting on a huge influx of tourists that annually outnumbers the local population by a factor of 3 to 1 (is it more? less?); I enjoyed a more positive take on the place, as reported by expat Brazilians, O mundo segundo os brasileiros - Barcelona, which I have to admit was colored pretty heavily by the culture doing the reporting.

Bruxelles, Belgique

Brussels is the first stop for me on a four-city tour of potential jobs for my partner Catalina. Potential job means potential home, and while she interviews and is interviewed, I have a similar but much more free-form conversation with the people and structures and cultures that we pass through. There are dramatic in their differences, and perhaps equally dramatic in their sameness: oil has made car owners (or at least desirers) of us all, and these European spaces, designed and built hundreds of years ago, simply do not translate well. They seem to hiss one thing with their modern tongue, but sigh about something else with their next breath.

Because the wind lifts from the south, these clouds rush by, matted together like felt here, and pulling apart like cotton there, until the deep opens before your eyes; and there, racing toward that pool of sky, or rolled into it like a white china ball (muddied as it is, here and there, by tar or pitch, God’s fingerprint) the bright white moon.

A moment like this; a place like this. I say tonight with certainty that, in a few short weeks, this particular ridge and its careening satellite will no longer be available to my eyes: this moon’s been sold; as well, these skies. With equal certainty I (sadly?) say that in a few short years – they pass as quickly as these clouds, wherever they’re blown – the skies that once were mine are mine no more.

That was many years ago.

One of my last meals on the island of Java was on a side-street of Yogyakarta. It was near the warung where stayed the first two months of our journey, before being sponsored by the owner of the research center and his wife; before borrowing their bicycle for trips into the surrounding desa; before climbing the volcano in the night; before the relationship had ended.

Between the hills and the channel, the crows flew into cornfields as they had two hundred years before; the crows were chased from the nests of sparrows and starlings as they had been a thousand years before; the crows made their raucous calls as they had as long as earth could remember.

"Crows" by chrissymllr @ DeviantArt.com

On the shore, the channel waves pushed and pulled grains of sand as they had under the same sun, time forgotten. The salty water, warmed by the same rays, made little lives from its brine, time undefined. The breeze rose from one direction and flew to another, mixing sun and sea, making fog and rain, until no one and nothing remembered when it began, until the habit of creation was no longer noticed.

A number of years ago I prepared to leave the country for the first time. Later, I prepared again… and again. Each time I departed the shell was thinner; and each time I returned, the distance between those I loved at home and those I loved abroad was shorter. I held and was held by wonderful people of all races and all religions and all economic levels – those who were easiest to love often possessed (or were possessed by) the least material wealth.