Not So Rear Window

Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here's my version, then theirs, which can now be seen online (in Spanish) as well.


From my window I mark the time as the day goes by. Morning starts with the sun peeping over the mountain. No more foggy grey mornings of February nor orange morning skies of March. Now blues and yellows, punctuated by swifts, mark the brief transition between winter mornings and the burnt brown sunrises of summer. 

Traffic down in the ribera is still surprisingly heavy, though reduced from the first weeks of the lockdown. It’s like a perennial Sunday morning until I realize that I have seen more hearses pass by than I care to remember. Most mornings, the first glimpse of people is down in the huertos, urban farmers watering what could be a living green belt across the city. 

With the meaningless time change, the sun now comes over the crumbling Torre de Caleros after nine, framing the spiky cactus that grows in its broken roof tiles. Minutes later, it shines down into the yawning hole of the slowly collapsing roof. Doves try to nest in the growing crags and crevices of the 12^th century tower but abandon their attempt when a milano cruises though the valley. 

Like James Stewart in Rear Window, I watch people park their cars in the dirt parking lot above the Calle Marte to let their dogs loose to run with each other and wonder just why they choose that spot. 

I can tell it’s noon before the bells from Santa Maria toll by the growing murmur of groups ambling up the adarve towards the soup kitchen around the corner. A headline waiting to happen when you realize that the nun's refuge is really a retirement home.

Early afternoon sees the lesser kestrels hover above, reflecting a city equally on pause. Little, if anything happens until, like green sundials, the shadows of the cypress trees surrounding the mirador de San Marquino lengthen and the storks glide back to their nests. 

It starts from up the ribera valley. Resistaré on repeat echoes off the ramparts of the Almohad wall. Then sounds of the sirens come from behind and from somewhere around Caleros or Tenerias the pulse of reggaeton and the indistinct muffle of the amplified voice of a carny and the clapping begins. Another day has passed and we look to the future. A time to check on our neighbours who also hang like pots from their windows. A time to say thanks, thanks to all who keep us going. Thanks that we’re one day closer. A time to clap as hard as I can, letting the catharsis flow until the sun comes up once again over the statue on top of the mountain.