When you have three hours, sometimes less, to see a place, can you get a true sense of it? Can you leave feeling like any bit of it got under your skin, into your blood? It depends maybe on many factors - the location itself, the circumstances surrounding the trip, the expectations of the traveler, the details gathered, many by some sort of osmosis, along the way.
When I was 16, I left the United States for the first time to go on a class trip to Spain. It blew my mind in a way that I could have never predicted and that still feels fresh and exotic and exciting to me. I was a kid from central Pennsylvania. Until that trip, I had no idea that the world was so big, so old, so colorful and rich. I had no idea that whole families ate dinner together at 11 pm. On a weeknight. I had no idea that oranges and olives and almonds grew terraced throughout silver-grey hills. I had no idea that fountains and hand-painted tiles from North Africa could coexist with scooters and discos and beautiful, beautiful people.
I have many memories of that trip, but two of my most vivid, occurred in places where I spent only hours. Somewhere outside Granada, we stopped for lunch in a town with only a handful of buildings, and everything was sand-colored, the buildings, the roads, the hills, there was nothing green, nothing vibrant. It was a dusty place. I had a sandwich there of jambon and manchego on baguette. I was young and I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich because I didn't know what else to order. And I learned in that moment that ham and cheese is not always ham and cheese and that simple pleasures, not to mention, memorable food, could be and would be found in the most unlikely places.
In Malaga, I was walking through a playground with a few friends. We were silly 16-year olds on a school trip. I remember seeing some graffiti that said "Yanquis Go Home" and then, a group of young kids throwing rocks at us, calling us Yanquis and other things I could only guess at. We were nice kids from nice families. It had never occurred to me in any recess of my mind, that I would not be liked or welcomed anywhere that I went, and I became profoundly curious about why that was and what it meant.
After that trip, I would lay awake in bed sometimes and think about what time it was in other time zones. And I would create this dialogue in my head that would go something like this....in Rome, somebody is waking up right now and drinking espresso, in Morocco, someone is hanging out their laundry. I was filled with the sense that everyone in the world was connected somehow and fascinated by what they were doing at any given moment in time.
Some years ago, I spent just a few hours in Nantucket, the only time I had been there, and for whatever reason, a vaguely remembered fight with my (now ex) husband, a hot sticky still day, hordes of people, mediocre food, I didn't get it. I couldn't tell you anything about what makes Nantucket special or interesting. I see this as a failure on my part, a failure to be in the right mindset, to be a seeker, to let a place leave it's mark on me.
Last week I had a few hours to spend in Miami. I had not been there before. I had heard about the beaches, the architecture, the nightlife, the restaurants. The beach was pretty, but not my type of beach. The architecture was very cool, in a nostalgic way, if it's possible to be nostalgic for something you've never known. The nightlife was non-existent, as I was there during the day, though I did hear plenty of music spinning behind the gates of hotels and restaurants. My perception of South Beach was baking hot. Hot-hot. Peels of music here and there. And everything seemed white, a bleached-out white, the buildings and the sand, under the blazing sun.
And then I found Books & Books, an independently-owned book store on Lincoln Road. Books & Books could only exist in a warm climate I think, an oasis. From that blazing hot sun, I walked into an open-air vestibule, lined with magazine racks, beautiful, glossy, foreign, esoteric, magazines. The sudden lack of sun, lack of heat was a drastic departure, reminiscent of entering the public library as a kid for summer reading programs. Cool, dark, quiet, surrounded by things to read, hours of pleasure stretched out in front of me. The bookstore itself is lovely, an experience so different from the modern, mammoth bookstore experience, where anything can be found, and most things are lost, among the thousands and thousands of books. This store is more like a gallery, curated, a personal vision of someone else's "you have to read this" list. It felt as if I was walking into a tactile version of the conversation that goes like this...."Read anything good lately? God, yes, I have a wonderful or thought-provoking or challenging or heart-wrenching book for you." I love that conversation, one of my favorite conversations, understanding another person through the books that they read, the books that they recommend, and I loved that experience at Books & Books. I bought three books, all by authors unknown to me, though clearly known and loved by someone else.
I took my books and I thought about treating myself to lunch at one of the restaurants that had come so highly recommended to me, in one of those nostalgia-producing buildings, behind the gates, with a dj, for sure. Instead I found a cafe called A La Folie on Espanola Way. I sat under an umbrella, that was underneath a tree, on a street that had real soul. The cafe was small and non-descript and filled with neighbors greeting each other and dogs wandering from table to table. The staff was French and not overly attentive but warm and sweet, which for me, maybe surprisingly as a former restaurant owner, trumps professional service almost any day of the week. I had a glass of rosé, a baguette filled with roasted tomatoes, prosciutto, pesto and fresh mozzarella, a sandwich I have ordered on a hundred different days in a hundred different places. On this day, in this place, it was perfection.
I pulled out my books by unknown authors, and felt the anticipation of digging into a new book, digging into a good sandwich, digging into my own simple pleasures. I listened as two middle-aged men next to me greeted each other, talked about March Madness, talked about the newest iPhone, talked about their daughters who were both leaving for college in the fall. One said "She brings so much energy into our house. I'm really going to miss her." The second man nodded in reply, a serious, thoughtful nod, the kind of nod I would give if I were trying not to cry. I don't assume that he was trying not to cry, but it seemed to me anyway, a moment of true connection, emotion. I drank my rosé and a line from a poem ran through my head in fragments, something I couldn't quite remember, something about days and daughters outgrowing harboring arms.
(The line is "Days I have held, days I have lost, days that outgrow, like daughters, my harboring arms." A beautiful poem by Derek Walcott). I ordered an espresso, delicious and dark. I closed my book, paid my bill, smiled at the men, left Miami. After just three hours.