November in my soul

Day 35

I’m beginning to think that in the Costa del Sol a day doesn’t really qualify as a day if there isn’t sunshine for 12 hours. When I woke up to puffy, sleepy grey clouds lounging in the sky I knew the city would call it quits and stay home. It’s eerie to wander the streets on days like this. It feels like a ghost town…a city abandoned after the war, but preserved by some magical nostalgia in its glory days. Waiters chat across the tight streets, guarding empty tables under large awnings, joking between the drops of rain, each wondering when they’ll close so they can go home. Strolling toward La Malagueta (the local beach) I begin to think back to UVA and all those silly rain boots that were pulled out of closets on days like this. None of those here, people just don't go out. At the beach the horizon stops short, like a troublesome boy in time out, his big grey back facing La Malagueta blocking the sun with his sour mood. It’s me and the occasional dog walker out. Otherwise is miraculously quiet. The mix of the sound of falling rain with the whoosh of the waves is soothing. I’d like to sit on a bench and just listen to the subtle concert of water in motion, but it’s too cold for that.

As the day drags on slower than the clouds move overhead I am certain that Melville best understood these times when he penned the line, “it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul.”

Love you and miss you more with each drop of rain.