Constant

I've been thinking about Spain a lot lately. And that's saying something because I already think about that country at least once a day. Spanish wine, food, architecture, etc. Thoughts have been constantly with me. Memories of my beautiful summer in Barcelona are resurfacing at a feverish pace. But they are starting to become fuzzy. I need to return to plug back in to my heritage and culture. I need to walk the streets and alleys of Sevilla, drink the cheapest (and best tasting!) carafe of red wine in the tiny little tapas bars in Barcelona, gorge myself on the fresh baby octopus and chorizo piled on plates on the bartop at those tapas bars.......*sigh*.

That country is calling to me.

I want my mother to take me to the places she loved so much as a child. I want to take my father to places I fell in love with while I was there. I want to walk through my aunt's apartment again and gaze out the windows at the street below.

Sometimes when I taste something in a wine or a flavor in a dish, flashes of memories return to me. Sometimes it is the interior of a cathedral in Galicia or the courtyard in the back of Tia Raquel's apartment. Sometimes it's the smell of the dust rising up from the bullring, or the scent of the trees in the hills above Barcelona.

I'll get back there again. For now, I must satisfy that pulling feeling with good Spanish wine, paella and dreams.