here and there

The last time we went to Paris, at the beginning of Semana Santa a couple of years ago, I had been checking the Paris weather for about a week: freezing, with gray rain. When we were in the cab on the way to the airport, the rain began in Barcelona. Thick spring drops falling through the plane trees, the city steeped in amber light like an old photograph. April in Paris was luminous: chestnuts in blossom, picnics in parks.

My Barcelona is about the size of a postage stamp, bounded “at the bottom” by Plaça Virreina, “on the right” (looking downhill) by Gran de Gràcia, “on the left” by the edge of the Plaça, and “at the bottom” by Puigmartí (the street below the market). I wander outside this rectangle to teach classes, to see other parts of the city, and to visit friends, but this speck on the map is my Barcelona now.

Last year, when we lived on Torrent d’Olla, our Barcelona was Plaça del Sol, Plaça de la Vila de Gràcia, c/ Verdi. A very different Barcelona, though only a few blocks away, with drunks and beer trucks, and 24 hour noise as opposed to the silence here, the tree outside the window.

When we arrive in Paris next Sunday afternoon, Paris will be the Marais, the islands, a few streets on the Rive Gauche. I remember that things can change: in “Zone” Apollinaire describes the Marais as a slum. And that wasn’t so long ago.