Scent of the cities

 I'm not sure I remember the colours of the cities either, but I surely know their scents. 

Bogotá smells like car fumes and that smell that water pulls from the asphalt when it rains, petrichor. It's not nice but it's so particular here. I don't think I've felt that same smell anywhere else. It's the smell of your dreams falling apart, of wanting to wish things but not being able to do so completely, of falling in love with the wrong person and being fully aware of that. That's the smell of rainy days at least. Others will say the rain smells like calm and chilling at home watching Netflix. Not to me. Rain makes me feel tired, gloomy and a bit hopeless. I need blue skies to keep my sanity. In November it rains for days on end here and it makes me want to dig a hole and bury myself in it. I don't hate the rain though, it just feels like my parents telling me I can't have another piece of cake, like life is forbidding me something I want, probably because I love to walk under clear skies. It gives me life. I like the sun so much sometimes I think I'm a reptile. Not everything is bad though, Bogotá also smells like freshly baked bread and I absolutely love that smell. It makes me feel at home, not like in a physical place, but as if I was at home, right then and there, with myself and everything is fine because how can something be wrong when there's someone baking bread?

Madrid smelled like warm air and possibilities, especially in the Summer. I remember seeing a bird hanging onto a wall, defying gravity with all its might and thinking "everything is possible during the summer" and I truly walked around witht the absolute certainty that the wildest of things were 100% possible right then and there. I felt on top of the world. I was a journalist for the biggest news agency in the Hispanic world and every day I got to do one of my favorite things ever, which is to talk to people and I got to ask them about their art, their ideas, their stories and I felt like I could've drowned in those conversations, happily. Then I went to the office and did another of my favorite things which is to write, and i'd sit down and pour words onto a keyboard for hours and I was ecstatic because it was like sewing words together to get the perfect fabric and then I went home and fell asleep on the couch and I'd wake up an hour later and it was still sunny outside and I could hear the children playing on a near court, and I was dizzy in that warm slumber and I felt so lucky, so pleased, so at peace, and then I'd go out with my friends and sip cold tinto de verano at a bar and looked around the city and felt pure and utter joy. I wanted to yell "I fucking love you, Madrid", from every rooftop because I meant it. I was high on life. 

Barcelona smells like water. Like humidity, mostly, but the good one, salty humidity from the Mediterraneo. At first, during Winter it felt like the scent of Unfitness. Like buying a piece of clothing that was lovely, but definitely not my size, and also it felt like the scent was kinda hiding another smell, not so cool. Later on it mixed with other scents, the smell of bread is also big, but it's not the same, the smell of cigarrette smoke coming from a table at every bar on every corner, there's always someone smoking and having a beer, any time of day. During the Summer the smell becomes more like fresh ocean scent. Like summer fun, but on the edge of becoming too much fun, like the smell of excess, like partying too much, eating too much, drinking too much, not knowing when to stop. I could see people doing that and I felt a bit sorry for them; they seemed to be in such a rush to get some of that artificial joy; I think people would buy joy if it came in pills, I probably would too sometimes. I think it's easy to overdo fun, it's easy to think it can't hurt you, that you need to save up on it because you know it's fleeting so you have to put it in your pockets for later. So Barcelona smells like Fun, yes, but it has notes of Excess underneath, and then the city center smells like rotting trash and urine. That's probably how overindulgence smells like the next day.

No types, just this

 Isabella was certain about two things: one, that he absolutely wasn’t the type she’d go for, and two, that she couldn’t remember the last time someone’s eyes had made her stomach flip the way his did. There was also something about the way he spoke—transparent, calm, trustworthy—like he could read her mind but chose not to.

Every word they exchanged that night was a little drug. She wanted more. It felt easy; her mind found words like she had known the answers to these questions her entire life. One hour passed, then another; time became slippery, oily, stretching and folding in on itself. By the time they wandered into the night, she felt drunk without being drunk. A buzzing, a humming, a throbbing.

She stopped. Looked at him.

She reached out like she wasn’t even thinking, fingertips trailing his skin, down his jaw, tracing every bit like she could carve him into memory—slowly, softly but surely. He smelled like he came from the ocean or a dream, like he had nowhere to be except here, and God help her, she wanted to drown in it. When she got to his lips, she trembled. She was burning, burning.

"You’re not my type," she exhaled.

He grinned, slow, playful, knowing. "Then stop having a type."

And she did.

She kissed him, slow at first, then deeper, drinking him in like chardonnay, like something she hadn’t known she was starving for. He kissed her back like he meant it, like he’d been waiting—unhurried, completely in the moment—his hands finding her waist, pulling her in like he was gravity itself. The city roared around them, people speaking in all sorts of accents, ocean waves crashing, cars growling in the distance, but she only felt this—the way his lips moved against hers, the way he tasted like mint, like something faintly sweet, like honey, like trouble.

When they finally pulled apart, Isabella felt something had shifted beneath her. She didn't have the same certainties as before. The only thing she new, with absolute and undeniable clarity, was that she wanted more.

GPS

Mi hermana me dijo que miro mucho el mapa. Mi ex me decía que miro mucho el reloj. A lo mejor lo mío es una obsesión por saber todo el tiempo en dónde y en qué momento estoy. Cuáles son "mis coordenadas", como diría mi madre. Antes, cuando viajaba,  siempre usaba un mapa de papel. Ahora simplemente abro Google maps y un punto azul me dice en qué parte del universo estoy. Saber mi posición respecto al mundo me da paz. Estoy en la calle tal, de la ciudad tal, del país tal y son las X horas del día X del mes X del año X. Todo muy claro. No estoy perdida porque tengo esos datos ¿cierto?

La verdad es que me da pánico perderme. Estar en un punto en el que no conozco nada, ni a nadie, en el que no hay nada familiar, y sobre todo, en el que no sé hacia dónde ir. Pero los mapas tampoco te dicen a dónde ir, simplemente te muestran los caminos para llegar a unos lugares. A lo sumo te dan un abánico de opciones del que es más fácil escoger. A mí me da pánico perderme en un espacio físico y sin embargo, tengo que admitir que he estado perdida muchas veces en la vida. De hecho, ahora mismo, sigo tratando de encontrarme.

Ahora me doy cuenta de que perderse es necesario, casi fundamental, para encontrarse. Parece que perderse fuera algo terrible y definitivo: que si no llegas al lugar que esperabas, o que otros esperaban, eres un fracaso, pero al final, aunque te pierdas, habrás recorrido lugares nuevos y habrás descubierto cosas de ti mismo. Te habrás encontrado con otra versión de ti que jamás hubieras imaginado.

Tal vez solo se trata de escoger un camino, el que sea, sin tanto pensar. Echar a andar, explorar, investigar. Como si fuera un experimento y no el día del juicio final. Si ese camino no era y te pierdes, no pasa nada, escoge otro. 

De eso se trata.