Jeune Femme - Musée d'Orsay

Entering into the loft and sifting through sets of people, I could not help but feel bewildered and in complete awe standing within the grandiose yet sophisticatedly simple confines of the Musée d'Orsay. Some say that its appeal comes from the vast impressionist catalogues of art that it houses in its culturally-significant walls, but I believe that it offers much more than impressionist art, much more than just art itself-- it offers to us a glimpse into the magnificently real and uncensored fragility of the human heart.

These artists, painters, sculptors, philosophers; they had a visceral understanding of life, of all its gory and beautifully unabridged stories, depicted by their masterpieces. They held an attention to the intricate details- if not having an outright obsession with them. From the irresistibly overjoyed and luminous faces to the pieces delineating irrevocable emotional strain, they were able to capture history; people absorbed completely in the moment, people caught in the net of time, people that have now become immortalized in their almost absurdly elaborate artwork.

Out of all these pieces though, one really caught my eye- The Jeune Femme. It was so ostentatiously graphic and life-like that it's allure was undeniable. From afar I could already discern her stunning features, but once I took closer examination I realized that she was so attractive to the point of being uncommonly beautiful. I gazed into her eyes, which strangely enough had concave retinas, giving the infallible appearance of lucid vision to this woman, and even to me- the curious observer of a sculpture that once represented a life. I wanted to know this life, the story behind this ambiguous girl, face filled with emotion, trying desperately to clasp onto a reality that was bound to forget her.

There was something about the forlorn look on her face, something deep and significantly poignant, that made me feel completely enchanted, and I soon found myself engulfed in the proximity of her inorganic embrace. She must have been the Aphrodite of her epoch, exuding a kind of subdued and nonchalant elegance unfathomable to most women, with an unmistakable sensuality radiating from what I took to be her unapologetic disposition. Her perfectly shaped eyes were like fleeting comets towards the center of her face, flagella beating ceaselessly against the boundaries of her brow bone. Encased in them were sapphire blue eyes that challenged the splendor of the sky above.

Two spheres of strong cheekbones gave her a feline-like appearance, layered by the taut milky color of her skin as if she had never seen a day of sun. In essence she was as flawless as a polished diamond, and had such vivaciousness in her perfectly symmetrical face, jaw asserting itself with a staunch dominance all while maintaining a feminine vitality that seemed to keep men in a constant state of arousal. Her cheeks functioned as the beginning of a dramatic inward ellipse of bone structure all the way down to the subtle 'v' of her chin. It was like she was made entirely out of paint blotches of natural color hues and unrealistic expectations and mascara as densely black as night.

It must have all happened then. I saw her gallivanting around with a striding confidence, almost to the point of being brazen, completely unabashed about her consuming vanity that made her oblivious to the daily battles faced by less fortunate people of a lower social strata. Despite what was on the surface though, her alarming self-assurance was only there to shroud the bellowing anguish of her suffocating fear of vulnerability, a more-deep seated malady to the chronic dissatisfaction plaguing her life. She knew it too, but still functioned with such prideful precaution in her interactions with people that it heavily outweighed the equilibrium of her absorbing loneliness. Her refusal to change only spiraled her deeper into the abyss of an impending depression, and soon she became overwhelmed in the ravages of inescapable despair and hopelessness.

The fact that she was constantly surrounded by others only caused her to recede even further into herself; she loathed the unreliability and noncommittal nature of people that seemed to only have a self-reliant loyalty to their own agendas. This made her extremely caustic, like that of a caustic Queen, preying on the buoyant insecurities of others just to keep herself afloat. Yet she was petrified of becoming lost in anonymity, a fear that in the process she might even end up losing herself. All she was looking for was an unwavering bond amongst the bountiful heaps of mercurial and self-centered friends that she had. She found this momentary comfort in the form of an artist, a sculptor that decided to deify her, and in doing so sealing her story in the generations of tales to be told to the world. However, even the completion of the art piece failed to provide any kind of transformation, and her reluctance to be constrained soon became her downfall, hurling her directly into the chasm of self-destruction.

Inevitably, she became insufferably conflicted due to the instinctual desensitization of living in a deceitful world, meticulously crafted from the unkept promises of the many unfulfilled yet still lingering relationships of the past. They had served their purpose, and had their place in time, but she was still left with a kind of persistent distraught that could not be shaken off. In her mind, she felt that she did not deserve to be loved, and had become so conditioned by her current state that it almost felt like she would need some kind of monumental effort to break free of these mental chains. Being a ravishing beauty was her only means of piquing the attention and rapture in the fleeting desires of the overly discerning masses. Unbeknownst to her though, she was silently adored by many- maybe even worshipped- jagged keys to the kind of grotesque and inconceivable truth of her unutterable existence, that- if the right fit- might be able to unlatch her from the limitations of her inanimate captivity.

The red rouge pulsated on her lips, quivering with a kind of impassioned hesitance. There was so much to say. So many unspoken and ruffled feelings. Feelings so raw, feelings so profound, feelings so human. Sometimes I wonder whether this sculpture, whether this titan of art, had lived a more vivid and emotionally vacillating life than most of us.

Long live the Queen. I can only imagine how hard it was to have been that strong all the time.

Till my next cultural awakening. Au Revoir.

Journey to the West - the last leg

for the greater part of my journey, i had been traveling with a group of people that spanned the world, a diaspora of the lost, and the searching. our quest for the intangible had now taken us to the province of Galicia, being blanketed by a deluge of torrential rain wherever we set foot. even so, we kept on with a kind of defiant solidarity, marauding fearlessly into the unremitting precipitation. stepping into puddles deeper than even our own resevoir of experience, we sloshed around in a layer of water incapable of insulating the crunching black gravel beneath it. the pace had quickened now, each step becoming fervent, but calculated.

through the rustling of the canopy above us, we trudged through the water-logged and coagulated mud, ferociously gripping at our boots as if begging us to set them free from their indentured servitude to the amorphous ground. it had now become littered with soggy red autumn leaves and minature branches, that seemed to cushion our every step. with only a few days left to the mark, our faces bore the insignia of a subdued intent. it was so close that we could almost feel its lofty gates opening like the arms of a welcoming hug, and the hustle and bustle of the city natives turning to focus on us in celebration of our victory. but most of all, it represented to us true and unadulterated freedom, by proving anything to be possible if put up against the indomitable will of the human spirit.

still trying to savor every moment and capture each miniscule detail, we had finally stepped foot out of the somber and even melancholic forest. blinding rays of light illuminated the path that we were to take, and shone on two streams of tire tracks sprinkled with little rocks that seemed to redirect the gentle curiosities of the creek back into the nebulous path of its final resting place. the sun was behind us now, our four shadows converging into the monstrosity of an apparition floating seamlessly on the road, giving us a sense of valiant direction to the place which we most longed to be.

we walked on fastidiously with controlled breaths, almost even procession-like, as if this were some kind of rite of passage to something greater. the novelty had worn off, but the pain did not. it felt like there was an inexplicable internal struggle going on in all of our heads- the eternal battle between the mind, and the body. even though we had been traveling together all this while, we walked alone in the bleak and thunderous fields of our awareness. over the course of this journey i could sense a progressive shift in the general attitude and dynamic in which the group communicated: our obnoxiously-boisterous banter had soon turned into a solemn, and unspoken resolve. a collective vision. there was only one thing on our minds now-

Santiago. yet we dared not utter its sacred and arcane name for fear of it´s consummate beauty vanishing under our mortal breaths. only its restless tune could be heard in the whisperings of the wind, drowned out by the pitter-patter of the interminable rain beating down on the insolent concrete. and so we moved faithfully forward.. backs turned to the past, ceremoniously ready to embrace the vulnerability of the unknown future.

Cruz de Ferro

sometimes we are so used to being judged that we inadvertently and blindly reflect these same discordant and unwarranted criticisms onto others, by no fault of their own.

i met an aged man of about sixty years, his face hardened and weary from a life forged with the numbing bricks of repression. what was left of his faded grey hair grew neatly around the circumference of his skull in a crow´s nest, a vestige of the crown of scorn that he once wore. the crown of a tyrant. a man of consequence, the self-absorption and arrogance of his younger years later evolved into paranoia and self-destruction- as it almost always does. it almost seemed to me as if the ignominious failures of the past pervaded his life now, and ruled as the governing body of justified cynicism to the hauntingly never-ending series of crises his life had become.

he carried himself with an air of hyper-masculinity that brinked on chauvanism; i could tell that he derived his self-worth from his imposing stature representing the moral highground from which he regarded himself. his powerful frame had now atrophied due to physical inactivity and the rigors of free radicals, and his once sanguine and radiantly handsome face had withered into a gaunt look of constant worry that could only feel disdain for the unrecognizable figure that he now saw in the mirror. he rolled up his sleeves, exposing his thick and still muscular forearms ridden with varicose veins, pumping the lifeblood away from his heart and into his extremities, as if in preparation for rigor mortis.

as he spoke to me, i could see real pain in his limpid, and uninhibited eyes. between intermittent puffs, wasps of evaporated tar would emanate from the relic of a pipe that his father had given him- this was completely foreign to me, being such an archaic way of smoking tobacco- but in a way it was completely fitting with the quaint and antiquated rural towns of northern Spain. he told me of how his wife had left him for another man, and that even his children refused to acknowledge his existence, moving to different countries to escape his iron grasp. evidently his family had had enough of his volatile nature and abrasive manipulation, and the constant acquiescing to his requests under his unforgiving gaze. after his parents had died, his siblings fought over what little inheritance there was- making me question whether there was any justice left in the world.

his eyes darted around listlessly, semi-suspicious of all the other people crowding around the Cross of Iron and mound of stones at its base. while peering into a crowd, he happened to make eye contact with a group of people, and broke a contrived smile which made the crow´s feet at the corner of his eyes become very apparent, but i knew that it was just to keep a congenial aura about himself. his smile soon faded, which stimulated the cascade of a ripple effect of striations from the top to the bottom of his face, like the dropping of a pebble in still waters.

after they left, his eyes began to well up, overflowing with every inkling of sentiment that had been painstakingly hidden in the deep recesses of his mind. tears began to fall in a stream down his face, directed off-course by the rivulets of innumerable wrinkles on his cheeks. i stood there, speechless. it was almost as if for the first time he had cried in years, and this was his moment of unrestrained glory. he had laid seige to the lifetime of grief and sorrow that had burdened him, and finally found solace in bearing his soul and letting go. he had found his moment of freedom. he had been made whole.

he left me- still slightly in shock- and i did not ask for his name or where he was from, inconsequential details irrelevant and unnecessary when making a connection or when feeling the pain of another. as he walked off into the distance, i could see the straps of his bone-crushing rucksack oscillate from side to side like three synchronous pendulums, strangely complimentary to the story he just told me, and seemingly redolent to the ticking of the grandfather clock of time, till our very last breath.

morning glory

plump and ripe grapes picked from right off the vines for breakfast, the evenly aligned and perfectly parallel vineyards on the terraced hillside like aisles of a grocery store, existing only for my eating pleasure. permeating the picturesque and Monet-like sky, the sun casts a shadow over the plaid-patterened and docile countryside, almost as if giving a disapproving glare.

suddenly, a strong gust of wind blows, eliciting a gargantuan dust cloud that topples the weaker blades of wheat, causing them to lie adjacent in submission to their condescendingly towering peers, who ostracize them in alienation. a lot of abandoned land, platitude and rendered obsolete from years of neglect, projecting its inadequacies on the terminal yet fortitudinous evergreen trees rooted in its barren soil. branches of cautious orbs laced with poisonous spikes, the evolution of phenotypically protective traits of a crude exterior, as a coping mechanism and only defense against an indiscriminatingly inhospitable environment.

all this while, two butterflies- one turqoise and one tangerine- engaged in the delicate dance of a vivid mating display, the batting eyes on their wings like leaves fluttering in the wind. so, even with the harsh vicissitudes of the world, life still managed to go on- unscathed.

the desolate earth, forgotten and cast aside

day 8. about 200 kilometers in.

the 1400 meter ascent up the magestic and unyielding mountains only served to exacerbate the unbearable throbbing in my knees. steps and slopes of all kinds became my worst adversaries. but i was slowly becoming acclimated to the pain. i was not about to just give up yet. i didn´t come this far to go home now.

i reached the summit, surveying the hazy skyline, still translucent from the fluffy and fragmented clouds. there was no one for miles. the silence was surreal; ineffable in its complete tranquility. it almost seemed as if the world had stood still, even if just for a split-second. i took one more cursory glance, before taking a declivitous step into the abyss of the cavernous trough.

trampling through the thick foliage of untamed and dried-up brush, i could feel the scattered stones eroded by the heavy footsteps of pensive pilgrims over the past two millenia pierce through the fibrous soles of my shoes. every thrust of my trusty staff etching into the cracked and desolate earth the memory of the path i once walked; the methodical pounding echoing off the dense shrubbery overpopulating the hills. in the distance, one florid orchid stood out from the rest, under scrutiny by a sea of vapid and forgotten grassland. of the forgotten, i thought to myself, 'all you ever wanted was to be loved'.

the faint scent of cow dung, fresh and still warm from the night before, always invigorating to the senses and able to penetrate the hypnosis that came with walking extended distances. my face sullen, flies orbiting me like they had some kind of primal obsession with the living, their incessant buzzing fading in and out like a sonorous symphony. but there was nothing else on my mind but the road. nothing else mattered.

only 600 more kilometers to go. one day, one city, one kilometer, one step, closer to Santiago.

the path of most resistance - a depiction

a single bead of sweat forms on my sun-kissed forehead, trickling down the labyrinthine crevices of my eyebrows. it pauses momentarily on the tip of my nose, almost as if suspended in animation, bidding farewell to the cruel glands that excreted it before disposing of it like a vestigial organ no longer of use. falling to the floor, it feels disenchanted by the ephemeral moment in time that it tasted free air, before becoming acquainted with the dirt and then dissipating into the nothingness of mother nature.

the ethereal elegance of the sun spans over the horizon, its rays contouring every undulation of the landscape, taunting me to move on. arms out like the anticipation of a hug, the chilly wind bosoms me as if I am its own. and in this moment, i feel safe. there is nowhere else that i can feel the sanctuary in the forceful yet subdued embrace of the wind. i yearned to stay. but the road, laboriously-long and serpentine, was meant to be roamed. the horizon was dawning upon me, and the next refugio had summoned. reluctantly, i took the next step.

it soon became aware to me that my body had just about reached the limits of its capacity. my joints trembled with the fearful anticipation of every step, my symbiotic rucksack straining every myosin fiber in my shoulders; every murmur of my heart ritualistically coursing blood through my arteries like the pounding of a percussion bass. the sweltering heat had a way of making the road seem insurmountable and endless. nature was mocking me. it made me feel so powerless in the infinite beauty of its path.

but i was almost there. my body begged me to stop the excruciating pain. but i could not listen. i had to go on; i must go on. it was just the same kind of pernicious mental torment that thousands of tedious travelers seeking God before me had felt walking this gloomy trail. in spite of a deteriorating body, my mind was indefatigable. with the home stretch in close view, i proclaimed the willful determination to conclude my days' journey. the refugio was already in sight. 'just a couple more steps,' i told myself, pushing the threshold of my tolerance.

i was finally here. roncesvalles. the promised land.

my first day was finally over. time to get some rest.