SPAIN. WK 1-

I am sitting in the airport trying to comprehend how surreal this feels. I am about to do something I never thought i’d have the guts to do- travel Spain solo for 30 days. My stomach feels hot and fizzy. A hard knotted tangle of feelings has made a home there since this Morning.

I really have no idea what to expect from myself in this experience. As afraid as I am, I must resist the temptation to wish it all away (I know there will be many times in which I want to).

I will never get this opportunity again- to slow and hear my thoughts fully. I will walk away from this changed, certainly. I will find joy in hard moments, I hope so.

SAN SEBASIAN-

If you cut to the core of what I experienced- this is what you would find.

Day 01-

I have stepped out for the first time, in a city that couldn’t be more foreign. I am surely in some sort of shock. How little i considered the full reality of this experience meets me for breakfast as i sit to eat.

I want to erupt into laughter at how ill prepared I am. Knowing with full certainty, that if I had given it any thought at all i would never have got on that plane. My chest feels like it’s closing, i am forcing it open with bare hands.

Is it possible how to breathe?

Day 02-

Eye contact has this disarming undressing quality, it says it all without saying a single word. I realise i can no longer meet peoples gaze- its too intimate too vulnerable. Too dangerous to let them see me in full.

Day 04-

Can an Experience in Solitude be felt the same as one shared- having a witness often intensifies the thing itself.

What does it do to us when we become the sole keeper of a memory?

We are not terribly good at knowing how we feel without watching someone else feel it too. We mirror the world and it in turn mirrors us back- finding it Impossible to see ourselves if not through the eyes of another.

BILBAO/ PORTUGALETE-