Walking, Solo Travel, Solitude

Maybe someday I'll miss this: midnight walks alone, a stranger in a strange land.

July 26th, 2015, 1am

It’s my forty-fifth day in Spain, one week after the end of an intense film shoot up in the north. Now I’m in Madrid, without a plan, holed up in an apartment on my own for the next few days.

I took a midnight walk because it’s Saturday night and I didn’t want to be stay in, on the prowl for something I knew I wouldn’t find.

And soon it hit me. All these hours on my own, guiltily wishing I weren’t (“You’re a ‘solo traveler,’ dammit, this is your element!”)… But I don’t feel any more alone here than I do in my own hometown.

And here, something I can no longer find at home: the promise that, if I stick around long enough, and endure all the doubt, I will find what I’m looking for.

After a good deal of aimless wandering, I settled on this spot, where a harpist on the street was playing a quiet rendition of “Hallelujah.”

Here, at the very least, on clear summer nights like this, I can walk alone, far and fearless, and stumble onto something beautiful.