The half-life of awe

Our family went to Zion National Park in Southern Utah this summer, and as we approached those stunning, red striped mountains and then drove through what felt like another planet, our mouths were literally gaping open and I could hardly breathe. Two days later, after having seen those mountains continuously and hiking down the river bed of the equally gasp-inducing Zion Narrows, we were waiting for a bus with those same mountains as our backdrop, and I realized that we scarcely noticed them anymore. I guess this is the downside of our essential human ability to adapt to new surroundings - we can't walk around feeling every beautiful ray of sunshine on our arms or writing poetry about every leaf or screeching to a halt at the miracle of each bird - a LIVING THING!! Look, a perfect, flying LIVING THING!! But isn't it a shame that when you see something enough you just don't notice it anymore? I decided to call that phenomenon "the half-life of awe" - the time it takes for that spirit-sparkling "I am ecstatic to be alive and experiencing this" feeling to decay. Unfortunately, like the half-life of radioactive materials, our awe seems to drop exponentially. Each time we experience it again we just get used to it. 

One of my favorite quotes comes from Thornton Wilder's play, Our Town:

“EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"

STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.” 

So because I would like to be both more Saint and more Poet, I am fighting the decay of awe and slowing down its half-life by reminding myself to be awake and aware of more minutes of my day. Especially my husband's and children's faces and voices, but also the buildings I see as I walk around, which yes, I am sad to say, I am just getting accustomed to. 

Here's to living life in a perpetual state of wonder! And here are some things I saw as I walked around the city yesterday.

Notice the Christian tower on top of the Islamic arch. There's a blog post simmering in my head about that. Also note the woman in the lower right corner reaching out to me with a sprig of Rosemary in her hand. They are Roma (Gypsy) fortune tellers, and they're everywhere around here! They hand you the sprig, then if you take it they tell your fortune, and then want money.

At Lindsay's Flamenco class last night, her teacher (in the front) cornered me and told me Lindsay has a real gift for Flamenco - she was heartbroken to hear that we are leaving at Christmas and that Lindsay can't continue in the States.

And when we woke up this morning, it was pouring rain!! Like Northern California pouring. It felt like home and was such an adventure to walk to school! We took pictures of all of us in our rain ponchos which I bought for a Euro apiece at a Dollar Store (they call them "Chino Stores" here because they're always run by Chinese families), but they're on Erik's camera. I'll add them when he gets home. 

Part of that white building is our house - ours is the part that has those four rounded windows at the top (we have all three floors, plus the roof-top terrace!) It's huge inside, but Spain's economy is struggling right now (and we are used to Bay Area prices) so our rent is the same as it was for our little house in California.  Oh, and look at the middle level to the left of our rectangular window - you can see the word "Campamento' written in black on the building. They don't use street signs here - they stick lettered tiles directly onto the buildings.

I'm taking Lindsay and Lucy to meet the Clarkes in Paris tomorrow!! We'll be there through Monday - I hope to be able to upload and write as I go but we'll see how much time we have.