collapsing memory

I think a good direction for this blog-ish thing is to sketch out my interjected traces of memory: those random points amidst an activity that suddenly remind one of a memory, and the reason for it can't quite be pinpointed. Whether or not it's a procrastination device for my unconscious, it still seems like a valid thing to record.

I say this because I'm in the middle of Part Three to Thus Spoke Zarathustra, reading about the great city that the "foolish ape" of Zarathustra is trying to dissuade him from entering:

"Here all the blood flows putrid and lukewarm and spumy through all the veins; spit on the great city which is the great swill room where all the swill spumes together. Spit on the city of compressed souls and narrow chests, of popeyes and sticky fingers--on the city of the obtrusive, the impudent, the scribble- and scream-throats, the overheated ambitious-conceited--where everything infirm, infamous, lustful, dusky, overmusty, pussy, and plotting putrefies together: spit on the great city and turn back!"

I've yet to witness Zarathustra's response, but that isn't the point. The memory that popped into my head somehow emerged out of the thick haze of that passage, combined with the Sufjan Stevens wafting through the room, I suppose.

The memory:

I just emerged from my Spanish Theatre final on a weekday in mid-December. It's a Thursday, so all I have left in terms of obligations for the semester is my Spanish final the next day, and I've already studied plenty. Because I don't have an unlimited Metro pass this month, I'm trying to conserve my tickets and walk as much as possible, and today is one of those now-rare days of Spanish-style Indian summer; the juxtaposition of the singing birds and green grass with the lavish Christmas street decorations is a strange one, tempered by the soothing, crisp freshness of the winter air. Since I've finished the exam early, in less than an hour, I think I'll walk home. I'm on a(n odd) mission: to find THE chuches store. ("Chuches" = spanish gummy candies.) It's the store by Lorena's house, that we went to back in the days before I was able to put all my observations and experiences down into returnable memory, so I have this vague feeling of the neighborhood and the street and the storefront. I just want those chocolate-filled bear cookies. And maybe some chuches for my family.

I emerge into the bright sunlight, assess my corner-torn map briefly, and set off down the Calle Princesa and the Avenida de Reyes Catolicos. I decide to take the most direct, yet the most weaving, route across the northwest corner of the city from campus toward the Quevedo area. What music am I listening to? I don't remember. It doesn't matter. I walk down tree-lined streets I've never seen before, occasionally checking my map to see that I'm going the right way. My stride is at its most confident; after all, I've been working up to this all semester long. Roasted chestnuts magazine stands cafe con leche, all whirring by as I take each step. Finally I get to "the neighborhood," but there are six streets branching off the Plaza! Which one is it?! I decide to try each one, going a block down and doubling back up the other side. TONS of "tiendas de alimentacion" and even "frutas secas" but no chucherias and certainly not the one I'm looking for. Should I just get on the Metro and go home? What have I got to do today, anyway?

Walking is better. Cheaper. My one-euro walk, it has value. I turn down the Calle de la Castellana, the historic artery of the west side, covered with holiday dazzle and sculpted parks. Down there on the left, there's my internship, that I'll never see again. Swanky boutiques, hole-in-the-wall cafeterias, streetside benches deep in conversation, I weave through them all to get to Juan Bravo, which will lead me straight home. Little do I know that I have to go under the Castellana bridge, through an open-air sculpture garden that I've never seen, in order to emerge on the other side, familiar territory. Stores of every kind whiz by, I'm wearing my conspicuous large white-framed sunglasses that are by now broken, and of course my flats. My legs are happily burning and buzzing in activity, and I want to stop on every corner to buy that dress, that coat, those boots...but I'm out of money, and I don't have chuches, what do I do? (I stop at the Alonso Martinez metro chucheria later that night, that's what I do! What a relief.)

I walk through my apartment door: Keats is just waking up. Complaining about her work, her internship assignment, her slothness. Well, after a two-hour tour of the city, I eat clementines. Three. And then? I leave again. I'll be gone in three days, who knows when I'll be back, I can't just leave the city there unexplored. A more than slightly mundane story, but vivid and fresh-smelling. That memory will probably never be as fresh as the first time it re-enters my being.

Was that really my life? How do these segments of time, these moments, create a continous line of existence?