Not So Rear Window
Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs, which can now be seen online (in Spanish) as well.
From
my window I mark the time as the day goes by. Morning starts with the sun peeping
over the mountain. No more foggy grey mornings of February nor orange morning
skies of March. Now blues and yellows, punctuated by swifts, mark the brief transition
between winter mornings and the burnt brown sunrises of summer.
Traffic down in
the ribera is still surprisingly heavy, though reduced from the first weeks of the lockdown.
It’s like a perennial Sunday morning until I realize that I have seen more
hearses pass by than I care to remember. Most mornings, the first glimpse of people
is down in the huertos, urban farmers watering what could be a living green
belt across the city.
With the meaningless time change, the sun now comes over
the crumbling Torre de Caleros after nine, framing the spiky cactus that grows
in its broken roof tiles. Minutes later, it shines down into the yawning hole
of the slowly collapsing roof. Doves try to nest in the growing crags and crevices
of the 12th century tower but abandon their attempt when a milano
cruises though the valley.
Like James Stewart in Rear Window, I watch people
park their cars in the dirt parking lot above the Calle Marte to let their dogs
loose to run with each other and wonder just why they choose that spot.
I can
tell it’s noon before the bells from Santa Maria toll by the growing murmur of
groups ambling up the adarve towards the soup kitchen around the corner. A headline waiting to happen when you realize that the nun’s refuge is really a retirement home.
Early afternoon sees
the lesser kestrels hover above, reflecting a city equally on pause. Little, if
anything happens until, like green sundials, the shadows of the cypress trees
surrounding the mirador de San Marquino lengthen and the storks glide back to
their nests.
It starts from up the ribera valley. Resistaré on repeat echoes off the ramparts of the Almohad wall. Then sounds of the sirens come from behind and from somewhere around
Caleros or Tenerias the pulse of reggaeton and the indistinct muffle of the amplified voice of a carny and the clapping begins. Another day
has passed and we look to the future. A time to check on our neighbours who also hang like pots from their windows. A time to say thanks, thanks to all who keep us going. Thanks
that we’re one day closer. A time to clap as hard as I can, letting the
catharsis flow until the sun comes up once again over the statue on top of the
mountain.
