September in Seville

CALLE ALMANSA. 

Wednesday 27th

I haven`t so much as opened the tin of oil pastels. 

My "modus operandi" was to be fly paper, a blank book, a great floating basking shark, mouth open to the ocean. Deliberately unprepared so as to better swallow, unfiltered, what were to be great mouthfuls of impressions.

On the way to my apartment, being dislocated, I tried to gather handfuls of knowledge: where I was in relation to the cathedral, the river, Triana, the tram stop back to the airport, grocery stores or food markets. Place names, faces, gestures, snatches of percussive conversation: these registered or as likely glanced off me. I was picking up and discarding useful facts and novelties in equal measure. Dropping as much as I was gathering into my arms, onto my tired shoulders. Rather like a castaway; seeking his bearings, as well as dry wood and kindling to burn.

I padded along broad streets where Policía whistled hot smoky traffic into submission. Negotiated labyrinthine lanes, clogged with meandering tourists. At 33°C all sought a sliver of shade. And under each of these precious daubs of cool purple, a cluster of cafe tables (and this is how ill-prepared I willfully was: how to ask for a coffee?) or further on, park benches nestled between the roots of ancient, big -boughed fig trees. My northern eye seeing the hide and musculature of elephants in this southern European scene. 

Everywhere and everything is new: green oranges ripening on trees, like scarlet rowan berries back home during this season. And the colour ... in that powerful sky, the deep, green river, the buildings, shops, cafes, road signs, posters emblazoned with posturing matadors. Ochres, reds and creams. Great squares of turquoise, umber and vermillion in those window jambs and mullions, enveloped by cream facades, dusty pink brickwork. 

And picked out amongst these, girls in striped summer frocks, young men in brilliant hues, and all a shifting kaleidoscope as I walk the hot pavement. Escooters, cars and warm yellow vespas sliding in and out of my frame of vision

And while aspiring to be a flaneur, I`m so obviously a tourist; shirt tucked in to belted trousers. Mouth and eyes agape. Ludicrously saying "danke" not once but twice (Germany having been my most recent trip abroad). And always under the hot beating late September sun. Fascinated, drawn, but not ready to sit and open sketch book and those oil pastels; too unsettled.

And so I settle for photographs, lay down quick layers of images for later. Remembrances.