budding scholar

No buildings, only squares of light on an inky black canvas night out the window just now. Dripping rain, splattering on the already-sleek courtyard. A siren headed up the street towards the hospital a few blocks away. I stand and take the photo through the open window, click. Holding tight so my phone doesn’t fall 7 stories to the ground.

Thinking about how stories begin, and end, like this. Details against a canvas of night, sounds echoing against ears, a patchwork of lighted windows. A remembered, or forgotten, twist in the story of a house, a neighborhood, a year, a life.  Light, dark, lights on dark. And then?

The weekends are a time when I get distance from my project, space from the day-to-day, hour-to-hour intensity of interviewing people and observing in schools. I try and take one day off, not touching the project at all, usually on Saturdays. Then the other day I prepare for the week, usually on Sundays. Yesterday we took the afternoon off, hiked up to Parc Güell, Gaudi’s famous park that is so popular with tourists in Barcelona. We kept going up and up until we could see the whole city spread out below us in all directions.

Looking forward to getting past the nitty-gritty everyday of my project (for now anyhow), and getting some perspective this summer. Until then, three weeks of intensive fieldwork remain. Time to go organize the Sunday to-do list…