Afterthoughts...

Sitting on a plane, with just an hour left till I arrive home to Chicago, I wake from a restful sleep and begin to reflect upon the stew of surreal impressions I’m carrying with me… After travel, I often find myself thinking about the Sufi word “Baqa”, which roughly translates to "perfection", but which I've also seen referred to as the “residue” that remains after perfection has been attained... according to my understanding it has to do with the spiritual traces of experience that cling to the soul and refine it through distillation... There are far more refined nuances to its definition, which I’m in no position to really explain, but it comes to mind because every place I’ve ever been has left a stain upon me…an ethereal tattoo in places unseen… and ultimately I spend the rest of my life trying to decipher the subtle hieroglyphs inscribed upon the sheaths that wrap my soul, scrawled by the guardians of every crossroads I’ve ever passed through…

…I’m left tracing over the inscriptions I can’t understand…

What do I take away from my week in Spain?

a savory taste in my mouth

on my lips

in my head

a mandate to beautify the world and to make that impulse spread

El Greco’s transcendent visions scarred into my psyche

A renewed appreciation for Picasso’s displaced politics

a refined sense of the plight of artists operating in exile

an affirmation of the subversive nature of the most potent styles

surrealist inclinations & flamenco feet

a new pair of badass distressed jeans and a stack of fresh beats

a riddle to pore over, in the pagan poetics of animal sacrifice

the paradox of imperialism’s darkest chapters versus its undeniable heights

an appetite to stand before more awe-inducing canvasses to learn

the greatest works of art capture flames of inspiration that eternally burn

picked up the names of a few vineyards worth knowing

basked in the collective creative fires of a company that’s growing

creased my brows concerning the inherent cruelty of the Inquisition

invigorated my focus on cultivating intercontinental aesthetic ambitions

surrendered to an influx of elegant and haunting Catholic images in my mind

& quickly acquired a taste for fine ham, that will most likely be left behind…

…so much beauty, grace, and affirmations all around

It’s getting clearer who I am, what I do, and where it is I’m bound

I take with me an awareness of Madrid as a center of gravity

A place full of possibilities that life might have for me

…Still…

I carry a creeping regret regarding how little time I spent with my friends

But also a pressing need to return to take it all in again…