Sitting on a Bench in Barcelona

It's been a month since I came to Barcelona, and two weeks since we started living here. I'm sitting on a bench near home, gazing absently at the people passing by the shops, all shut tight for Sunday, and simply soaking up the sun. From before I left Japan until today, there was always a pile of things to do. Even after arriving in Barcelona, I wore myself out with house hunting and all the procedures that come with living here, and there were times I felt that what I was doing to move my life forward was actually pushing it backward. Come to think of it, why did we decide to come to a place so far from Japan? Now that I have a little breathing room, the question drifts into my mind.

This week, a friend of my wife's is visiting Barcelona. Japan's Golden Week holidays and a few other things lined up, and she managed to get about ten days off. Why do fewer Japanese people come to Barcelona than to other parts of Europe or to America? When I asked her, she said it's probably because a lot of people have money but not time. It's true: even with five days off, coming to Barcelona, a 24-hour trip each way, means losing two of them to travel. It's natural to think, then, that you might as well go somewhere a bit closer. So why did I come somewhere so far away?

When I was in elementary school, my mother bought me a world map, and I stuck it on the wall beside my bed and looked at it every night before sleep. On that map, with Japan in the middle, Europe was on the left, the Americas on the right, and the flags of the world were lined up around the edges. Every night I set out from Japan and traced my way through each country as if walking, letting my thoughts wander to faraway lands. I don't know why, but the farther a place was from Japan, the more I longed for it. Anywhere would do. I just wanted to go somewhere far from here, where nobody knew me and I knew nobody, where people who looked different and lived by a different culture, different in every way, made their lives.

Back then, my way of getting around was a bicycle. I would ride past the boundaries the school had set for us, go as far as a bike could possibly take me, and head home when it got dark. That was my own secret pleasure. If only I could drive a car, if only I could ride the bullet train, if only I could get on a plane. Thinking that, I pedaled with everything I had, went as far as I could, and came home when it got dark. About twenty years have passed since those days of gazing at the world map, and maybe I'm still trying to live the days I pictured back then.

I crossed the sea for the first time to go to Los Angeles, and from there I visited Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Laos, the Philippines, Australia, Canada, Mexico, Turkey, Croatia, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, France, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, and now I'm in Barcelona, Spain. I've lived in Canada and Australia, too. But there, I always had to go home eventually. Every time I returned to Japan, I rebuilt my life from scratch. My savings ran dry, I looked for part-time work, held down several jobs at once, and somehow got through each day. Maybe, at its root, that hasn't changed even now.

In Barcelona, one pleasant day follows another, the Mediterranean climate at its best. This climate is hard to explain in words; you have to feel it with your own body to understand. It's very chill and very powerful. Two things that shouldn't mix are mixed together here. That's how it feels to me. At the same moment I want to do nothing, I want to do so much more. At the same moment I want to sit on a bench in the sun forever, I want to run along the sea for as far as it goes. Mulling things over in a climate like this, Japan began to feel very far away. I can't remember what kind of person I was just thirty days ago. What did the me of thirty days ago think about, take joy in, hold dear? The more I think, the more the pouring sunlight melts those thoughts away. It feels as if the trillions of cells in my body are being replaced with new ones, one after another, starting with whichever begin to move first.

On the three-seat bench, one seat over to my left, a fresh-faced, handsome man sat down and said, Hola! I answered Hola! too, in my usual Barcelona mood. Earlier, watching the street, I had also seen two men walking hand in hand. It's an everyday sight in this city. From my left, I sense a kind of distinct energy, gentle and sharp at once. At moments like this, I always end up choosing one of two things.

Answer that gaze and say something like, nice weather, isn't it.

Or pretend not to notice at all, and leave within five minutes, eight at the latest.

Today, somehow, I wanted to talk with myself more than with anyone else. So after about five minutes I got up from the bench and started walking. Everyone I pass is smiling. Family, friends, coworkers. I can't tell who they're with, but the one thing they share is that they all look happy. Come to think of it, where I was in Japan, I didn't see many smiles. I don't know if that's really how it was, or if the sights of Barcelona are conveniently rewriting my memories. But I remember the streets having few smiles. If anything, my impression is a gloomy one. Maybe out of sight there were as many smiles as in Barcelona. Even so, it seems to me people's faces were dark. Someone clicking their tongue at you if you bumped into them in a crowd; someone crowding right up behind you as you went slowly down an escalator, their face saying you're too slow, hurry up. I feel I saw scenes like that often. What kind of country is Japan, really?

Barcelona is bright, above all. The people are truly kind and bright. The tourists mixed in among the locals are all in high spirits, and bright. In a city made by people like that, I find myself wondering how anyone could be gloomy. Come to think of it, in these thirty days there hasn't been a single day I felt like staying shut up at home. According to the Health app on my iPhone, my average this month is 18,380 steps a day. On the biggest days I walked over 30,000 steps, and some nights my feet ached. But when I wake the next morning the sun is pouring down, and the pain has strangely gone. As of 11:30 in the morning, I'm already past 11,000 steps today. What will happen after this? What will I see? And what will I think about today?

Another calm, busy day in Barcelona has begun.