the eye that stops the world
Not suggesting that the beauty in the eye of the beholder is anything but subjective, nor that the lenses and optics, rods and cones, and strands of nerve are tuned similarly from one pair of miraculous orbs to the next. We have colorblindness to thank for the physical proof of an old adage.
However, I do believe our amazing sensors and possible extra-sensors comprise a “What’s Out There” kit that takes in the last wavelet of light that rushes in our direction; that warmth doesn’t stop at the surface of the skin (hold your fingers up before a bulb to reveal your beautiful transparency); that the slow tide or mad rush of Things is fully taken in, is physically seen, whether we register them or not. In fact, we are probably engaged in a moment-by-moment triage effort to weed out what is vital – will that creature bite me, or that storm electrocute me? will that truck run me over? – from what is simply the noise of living, a bird in the bush, a little rain over the city, the constancy of human transit.
•
The other day, Catalina and I went to buy a loaf of bread. “Where shall we go,” I asked, “to buy the best loaf?” Whatever country or town you inhabit, there is as much so-so bread as there are so-so bakers, who either lack attention to detail, or have a triage system that works better than the success of their bakery deserves. (There are numbers of uncaring bakery patrons to match the existence of undisciplined bakeries, so that’s all right.)
The two options that came to mind were a place in El Born whose crust and crumb were proven fantastic, and a recommended shop on the pedestrian rambla of Poble Nou that we had tried and found similarly delightful. The shops were equidistant, one north along the ocean, the other south into the old city. There was some possibility of Carnaval events as well, a kind of social weather forecast which, according to your pleasure, might be vitally good or vitally overwhelming or noisy living that neither calls nor repels you.
I spent part of the morning tuning up the apartment owner’s bicycle – she is away for a few weeks, and had generously offered it for our use, so I generously replaced a tube and tweaked this and that in the best kind of barter there is. Then, for the sake of a loaf, we took our first-ever ride together in bike-friendly Barcelona. I find more and more pleasure in smaller and smaller things: subtler voices, well-prepared dishes (yes, well-baked breads), a little sun between clouds, and these small, shared tasks, with their quiet accomplishments.
•
At least, that was the plan. What happened was that, after riding through mostly-quiet streets, we arrived on the Rambla del Poble Nou, that broad walking and bicycling way through the middle of the neighborhood, to find a steady stream of people all moving in a single direction, in a variety of casual or colored clothing and… well, dragon costumes (replete with plastic-bag tails) and chimney-sweep duds, and Pocahontas’ leathers cut from felt, or little cardboard automobiles with flashlight eyes and tissue-paper paint, Legohats and Legosuits, shiny blue capes with the yellow thunderbolt of a superhero outside of my cartoon-experience, a couple of dozen Mary Poppinses, several over-the-topping men (whose heels and six-plus foot height, polka-dot dresses and beehive wigs made them absolute giants) and babies to toddlers, toddlers to preschoolers, preschoolers to grade-schoolers, teens to adults, parents to pets to aging elders to the infirm. This was a non-exclusive party. Everyone was there, including us.
What I understand about Barcelona’s Carnaval, is that there are seven planned celebrations throughout the city, located in different neighborhoods but related to one another, part of a week-long tapestry of family-friendly fun. We had walked into Day One, where a number of schools and businesses (I think?) and family groups assembled official parade entries, or wandered the crowd in their themed costumery. The father with his cotton-ball sheep’s coat, and wife and daughter with theirs, with a near-family member dressed sheepishly as a wolf.
What struck me most about this particular assembly was its unhurried, decaffeinated energy. There was ease and enjoyment in the air and, to my untrained observation at least, a lack of the dizzying competition that grab the streets of Brazil each February, shaking them til everyone happily collapsed from exhaustion.
No, this was meant to include the newest-born and the longest-lived. Truly an amiable amble, carrying the loaf of bread we had bought, not realizing we’d have one less hand free to take pictures of all of this.
The whole community had pushed uphill and upstream and were held up there like water in a reservoir. When the drums started in the lead group we knew we were all going to flow at a languid, hand-waving, confetti-tossing pace toward the beach. I think that’s where it all ended up, probably for some sort of official ceremony and Saturday’s-end Hurrah; we didn’t make it that far, however. Our impromptu visit to the Carnaval of Poble Nou carried us as far as our spontaneity and hunger would carry us, and we rode back home – after being showered by more handfuls of glittered and punchdots and streamers.
•
That taste of festival was light enough to tempt us out on Sunday. We’d found that events were taking place in El Born, so this time we set out walking, unencumbered and easy in the warm sun, to see what we could see. Our path to the south invariably takes us through the Parc de la Ciutadella, one of two large green areas within the city limits (the other being near the castle at the top of Montjuïc), past the fountain and the conservatories and the zoo, out the other side on the verge of the old city.
There’s quite a variety of landscapes in this ancient-new European cities. I’ve spent the last couple of decades in north or south New World, and my childhood home was in the prairies of Minnesota, whose territory was formalized as a state as late as 1851, so that layering often, always, catches me by surprise. How can so much building, bloodshed, commerce, and culture lie in one place without weighing it down?
I suppose it often does. Here, it has not, instead has created a depth of heritage that makes meaning without miring you. An observation worthy of Week Three, which probably will be better informed as time goes on.
In El Born, Carnaval was a little different. The drums thundered from the narrow avenues, around the corner and out of sight. Something was coming… a cavalgada!
With jesters’-colored clowns and groups of banner-bearers, all wearing the colors of the carriage.
The carriages and their drivers, their followers and banners spun up the incline toward the plaza, the horses’ shod hooves striking sparks out of the 15th-century cobbles, followed by the towering walking puppets of a man and a woman (significance thus far undiscovered by me), who Mark the tail end of the parade. The locals, the tourists and the just-arrived emigrants pressed into the open nooks and spaces of the plaza for the grand finale.
I had heard of, but hadn’t yet experienced, an aspect of the lens that more seasoned photographer friends had mentioned in passing. One said: “I actually find I see more of an event when I have my camera with me!”
I couldn’t understand that. Isn’t it like having a smart phone in your hand while your dining with friends – and nodding yes, yes, but not really hearing, not really? Or like pointing a telescope at the heavens, where some little spark of light comes close, so close, while everything else in the known Universe is ignored?
As I looked at the pictures that I captured on my phone, I saw what I hadn’t seen, and what I probably couldn’t have seen, in that swirl of humans and dogs and horses and lights and sounds. Where did that woman puffing confetti come from (Poble Nou), or that boy facing balloon doom? What in heaven’s name was that woman looking at, sentimental opposite of the powder-blue princess sitting on her telephone junction box throne?
The eye that stops the world is the one that winks open, winks closed, and captures a moment as memory forever.