Madrid-Granada, ALSA, enero de 2014.
Madrid-Granada, ALSA, January 2014.
Un viaje de vuelta se corresponde siempre con la figura de un gráfico. Esta comparación es válida para todo el mundo, sin importar cuál es el punto A, cuál el punto B, las características de ambos, la distancia que media entre ellos. Un gráfico con una línea que comienza su actividad en un momento determinado, un cruce de circunstancias concreto, y después va en ascenso, sin prisa pero sin pausa. A esa evolución sigue, irremediablemente, una altura máxima, un techo intangible pero cierto: es el auge del viaje. Cabría pensar que el auge coincide con su final, pero no es así; el viaje aún continúa, solo que a partir de ahí la línea emprende un descenso que solo acabará al llegar a casa de verdad, al soltar las maletas en el suelo y tu cuerpo, baldado por el viaje, sobre el colchón de tu cama (ya no recordabas cómo era tu propia cama, ¿verdad?).
There is this ideal image to compare a return trip to — a graphic chart line. This comparison remains valid for everyone, regardless of point A and point B, the features each of them could possibly have, the distance between both of these two destinations. A graphic chart line, its activity to be understood in a certain moment, the result of quite a precise intersection of circumstances, and then bound to rise, slow but steady. Such a line is inevitably meant to be followed by a subsequent maximum, a ceiling that might seem intangible but remains positively true — the trip has reached its peak. You would think that such a word in this context would logically imply the end of the trip — and you would be wrong to believe so. The return trip still goes on, and so does our graphic chart line, if only a descending one from now on, the bottom point to be reached only when you really get home, like the actual place where you live, and your baggage hits the floor just like your tired, knackered body will slump the mattress of your own bed. Oh, and since we are talking about your bed, you did not remember what it felt like, did you?
There is this ideal image to compare a return trip to — a graphic chart line. This comparison remains valid for everyone, regardless of point A and point B, the features each of them could possibly have, the distance between both of these two destinations. A graphic chart line, its activity to be understood in a certain moment, the result of quite a precise intersection of circumstances, and then bound to rise, slow but steady. Such a line is inevitably meant to be followed by a subsequent maximum, a ceiling that might seem intangible but remains positively true — the trip has reached its peak. You would think that such a word in this context would logically imply the end of the trip — and you would be wrong to believe so. The return trip still goes on, and so does our graphic chart line, if only a descending one from now on, the bottom point to be reached only when you really get home, like the actual place where you live, and your baggage hits the floor just like your tired, knackered body will slump the mattress of your own bed. Oh, and since we are talking about your bed, you did not remember what it felt like, did you?
Auge y caída del Imperio Romano. Piensa en un libro de texto que contase tu propia historia. Piensa en la cronología que incluiría cada uno de tus viajes.
Rise and Decline of The Roman Empire. Try to think of a textbook that would deal with your very own history. Try and think of the chronology that would include each of your travels.
Para cada uno, no obstante, auge y caída suceden en distintos momentos a lo largo del viaje. Hay quien experimenta esa línea ascendente mientras prepara las maletas de regreso, cuando descubre que no le caben la ropa ni los regalos después de guardar todos los recuerdos intangibles que, una vez en casa, solo conservarán sentido, color y dimensión para uno mismo. El auge llega en el momento de la despedida, o cuando el punto A pasa zumbando, la última imagen que se tiene de él, tras la ventanilla del coche. A partir de ahí, la línea ya solo desciende: en el mostrador de facturación, en la espera tras encontrar la puerta de embarque, en el avión, entre las nubes. Hay quien lo siente todo como una evolución continua hasta el momento justo de entrar por la puerta de casa, el hogar es la cúspide y el descenso solo llega a la mañana siguiente o días más tarde, cuando se produce el regreso definitivo del viajero: no solo su cuerpo ha regresado, también su corazón.
Admittedly, though, these rise and decline will happen at a different time for each of us. There are those who will experience that rising line while packing and getting ready to go home, a stage that comes with the shocking certainty that you will not be able to pack all your clothes and presents because your luggage is already bursting at the seams with intangible memories that only you will be able to decipher once you get home, their colours, sense and measurements only there for yourself. Then there comes the peak — the time to bid your farewells, perhaps, or maybe that moment when your last visual memories of point A zoom past the window of the car taking you to the airport. From then on, our dear line is only meant to go down — at the check-in desk, waiting after finding the right gate for your flight, while in the plane, a tiny moving point inbetween the clouds. And then there are people who would say the whole trip is an endless rise, up until that moment when you enter home, 'home' meaning 'peak', the decline set to happen the morning after or a few days later, when the traveller is now definitely back home, body and heart finally reunited.
Admittedly, though, these rise and decline will happen at a different time for each of us. There are those who will experience that rising line while packing and getting ready to go home, a stage that comes with the shocking certainty that you will not be able to pack all your clothes and presents because your luggage is already bursting at the seams with intangible memories that only you will be able to decipher once you get home, their colours, sense and measurements only there for yourself. Then there comes the peak — the time to bid your farewells, perhaps, or maybe that moment when your last visual memories of point A zoom past the window of the car taking you to the airport. From then on, our dear line is only meant to go down — at the check-in desk, waiting after finding the right gate for your flight, while in the plane, a tiny moving point inbetween the clouds. And then there are people who would say the whole trip is an endless rise, up until that moment when you enter home, 'home' meaning 'peak', the decline set to happen the morning after or a few days later, when the traveller is now definitely back home, body and heart finally reunited.
Para mí, la línea asciende hasta el mismo momento de subir al avión, y el vuelo es una fase estacionaria: ya he dejado atrás el nerviosismo de los preparativos pero mantengo un agradable nivel de alerta: lo que acabo de dejar atrás, aquello a lo que regreso, las comodidades del avión, el paisaje tras la ventanilla, la persona que viaja a mi lado, la lectura del momento en mi Kindle.
Personally, my line goes up until the very moment I board my flight, which serves as some sort of temporary stage, a straight line. Gone are the nerves from the pack-and-peace-out phase and yet I remain pleasantly alert, focusing on a variety of things — all that I just barely left behind, all that I am coming back to, the many conforts of my flight, the landscape at the other side of my window, my travelling companion, the current read in my Kindle.
Personally, my line goes up until the very moment I board my flight, which serves as some sort of temporary stage, a straight line. Gone are the nerves from the pack-and-peace-out phase and yet I remain pleasantly alert, focusing on a variety of things — all that I just barely left behind, all that I am coming back to, the many conforts of my flight, the landscape at the other side of my window, my travelling companion, the current read in my Kindle.
Mi fase de descenso comienza siempre en Méndez Álvaro y se extiende a lo largo de los kilómetros entre Madrid y Granada. España solo me alcanza cuando subo las escaleras mecánicas y me encuentro en la estación de autobuses, con sus colas en las taquillas, sus pantallas informando de llegadas y salidas que ahora solo son nacionales, la gente derrengada en los asientos metálicos, las máquinas expendedoras, la selección de sándwiches de Rodilla, la cafetería y el quiosco de prensa, la escalera mecánica hacia las dársenas, con sus anuncios de ofertas de viajes con eslóganes tentadores y melosos y los carteles que te recuerdan que has de ser precavido contra los posibles robos y extravíos. Soy consciente por fin de estar en mi propio país cuando busco la postura menos incómoda en el asiento del autobús y, con la cabeza apoyada en el grueso cristal de la ventanilla, reconozco el paisaje y distingo las poblaciones, letras blancas en los carteles azules. Ahora que ya me he despedido de todo cuanto se cierra con un adiós o un esperanzado hasta luego, ahora que mi lengua materna me acoge de nuevo en su seno, solo ahora mi cuerpo acusa por fin el cansancio, solo ahora admito empezar a contar en pasado lo que yo cifro aún en presente. Era, éramos, ha sido, fue. Tiempos verbales y sus crueldades sutiles.
My own personal decline starts always at Mendez Alvaro, extending along the kilometres between Madrid and Granada. Spain only catches me up when I go up in the escalator and into the bus station which could be portrayed through its many details — the queues for the ticket windows, the screens giving information on arrivals and departures that are not international anymore, people aching all over the metallic seats, the vending machines, sandwiches at Rodilla, the cafeteria and the press kiosk, the escalator leading to the bus shelters, bus travel offers popping up here and there with tempting, cheesy eslogans. I am only aware that I am now in my home country when I try and look for the less uncomfortable position to adopt in my bus seat and, resting my head on the thick window glass, I recognise the landscape outside and the name of the towns, white letters on the blue signs. Now that I have said 'goodbye' or a hopeful 'see you later' to everything that could possibly be waved off and closed with such words, now that my mother tongue lovingly takes me in once again — only now will my body acknowledge its weariness. Only now will I finally start using the past tense for all that I still tend to refer using the present. It was, we were, it has been, it had been. Oh, verb tenses and their subtle cruelty.
My own personal decline starts always at Mendez Alvaro, extending along the kilometres between Madrid and Granada. Spain only catches me up when I go up in the escalator and into the bus station which could be portrayed through its many details — the queues for the ticket windows, the screens giving information on arrivals and departures that are not international anymore, people aching all over the metallic seats, the vending machines, sandwiches at Rodilla, the cafeteria and the press kiosk, the escalator leading to the bus shelters, bus travel offers popping up here and there with tempting, cheesy eslogans. I am only aware that I am now in my home country when I try and look for the less uncomfortable position to adopt in my bus seat and, resting my head on the thick window glass, I recognise the landscape outside and the name of the towns, white letters on the blue signs. Now that I have said 'goodbye' or a hopeful 'see you later' to everything that could possibly be waved off and closed with such words, now that my mother tongue lovingly takes me in once again — only now will my body acknowledge its weariness. Only now will I finally start using the past tense for all that I still tend to refer using the present. It was, we were, it has been, it had been. Oh, verb tenses and their subtle cruelty.
Son cinco horas de Madrid a Granada, cinco horas que se alargan y extienden sobre la carretera como aquel chicle kilométrico que todos los niños de los noventa recordamos emocionados cuando alguien lo nombra. Me llega el sueño y me entrego a él para desgracia de mi cuello, mientras pienso en esa frontera extrañamente adecuada de Despeñaperros, una línea más, a juego con el punto de inflexión que llevas siempre dentro en un viaje de regreso.
It takes about five hours to go from Madrid to Granada, five hours that seem to spin out and extend along the road, just like that kilometric bubble gum known and dear to every nineties' child, a cherished memory that everybody will excitedly recall whenever somebody mentions it. I let myself drift off despite of the neck pain that will surely follow the sleep, all the while thinking about that weirdly appropiate frontier marked by Despeñaperros, barely another line and yet seamlessly matching that turning point that you always carry within yourself in every return trip.
It takes about five hours to go from Madrid to Granada, five hours that seem to spin out and extend along the road, just like that kilometric bubble gum known and dear to every nineties' child, a cherished memory that everybody will excitedly recall whenever somebody mentions it. I let myself drift off despite of the neck pain that will surely follow the sleep, all the while thinking about that weirdly appropiate frontier marked by Despeñaperros, barely another line and yet seamlessly matching that turning point that you always carry within yourself in every return trip.
