Zara vest (similar)
Zara shorts (similar)
Celine handbag
Zara sandals (similar)
Celine sunglasses
Agape Studio necklace (c/o) (similar)
Daisy London earrings (c/o)
Location: Plaza del Conde de Barajas – Madrid, Spain
And so, with another holiday season upon us, we come to the last of our photos from Spain. It’s amazing how time flies, even when you’re reminiscing. I’ve said before that I didn’t expect to feel the way I ultimately did about Madrid, that the city surprised me. That’s still true – and evident, at least to me, looking at these snapshots. We took them quickly, on our way for one last round of sangria and patatas bravas before our departure. (Because how else do you end a trip to Spain, really?) The point was to capture the moment, that’s all.
What a moment it was – gloriously ordinary, perfect in its mediocrity. It was Friday night, after work. While we wandered the streets near Plaza Mayor, saying a kind of silent fond farewell to the city, people who’d finished work for the day sat at crowded patios, relaxing into the weekend. We could easily have been among them, in another time and place. Instead, we observed… and remarked that our own after work on Friday reality back in Canada didn’t look particularly appealing by comparison.
This, of course, is no real surprise. We’re ending not just our Madrid series but the year much as we began it – happiest in Europe, where we prefer the lifestyle, but living in Canada, because our quality of life here is vastly better than it would be if we decamped to the continent permanently. We accept this reality, albeit sometimes grudgingly. It is what it is, as they say. Sometimes, I think we appreciate our time overseas more than we would if we lived there because it’s always fleeting. (And because, as travellers, we don’t deal with the mundane aggravations of daily life… apart from an occasional trip to La Poste in Paris, which never gets any less confounding or infuriating.) Maybe I’m wrong. But at this stage, I’ll never know for sure, and my argument sounds plausible enough.
That doesn’t mean leaving Europe ever gets easier. We’re lucky to visit so often – it was three times for me this year, plus a trip to the UK. But while every arrival is a homecoming, every farewell is another heartbreak. A. A. Milne, speaking as Winnie-the-Pooh, would say we are lucky to have something that makes saying good-bye so hard. And I’m inclined to agree, without liking what that means in practical terms. There’s homesickness, which strikes at random and often without any comprehensible provocation, for one thing. I could live without that. But I don’t.
It’s mostly Paris that tugs on my heart, of course. I loved Madrid in a very different way, but I came to love it nonetheless. And I remember why with particular clarity when scrolling through this series of photos. When we understood how things worked, which we did not immediately, it required some effort to get a sense of the culture and unwritten rules that define local life, everything made sense. We fit in. That doesn’t happen everywhere. So this is a fond farewell to Madrid, a place I wanted to see someday and have seen. A city about which I am more curious now than before I’d visited, because although I arrived with no expectations, it still somehow defied them.
It’s also a fond farewell to another year. 2023. I never really imagined I would be this old, or that this year would arrive. The possibly seemed so remote, even a decade ago, as to effectively be unfathomable. But I’m so glad to be here. I’m grateful to be back to a life that almost feels normal again, to be able to tick cities off my travel list and continue to dream of new ones to venture to, knowing that all I need do is book the plane tickets. It hasn’t all been easy, but nothing ever is, and that isn’t the point, anyway. It’s made me more reflective, and more appreciative. I could ask for more than that, I suppose, but I’m not inclined to.
I hope that wherever you’ve been, and whatever experiences you’ve lived this year, you’re ready to say a fond farewell, too. The last days will come, probably too quickly, either way. Time, by nature, keeps moving forward whether we’re ready or not. But this year – I am. Time is moving forward, and I’m moving with it.
