The walk back

Holly could almost see the streets when she closed her eyes. Four years on and the small routes leading home were still there, waiting silently in the darkness of her memory. Shades of brown and white, dirty pavements, street vendors, leading to that market where she would challenge herself every time. That market full of life, full of energy, the place that everyone warned her against, the place where she met him. The smell of petrol reminded her of home. Even the sky looked different, it was always full of surprises. She still remembers the first sunset in Bogota. And the 50th. It was always the same dark golden streaks on a pale blue, yet it was always expressing different things.

Now it was time to face the streets once again for she came back to look for herself. To revive the feelings, to look inside and see what else is left, if she was still the same person that roamed these streets 4 years ago and especially if she was still the person in love with him to the point of self-abandonment. She walked down the small, narrow road with the red church on it, that would lead to her previous house. She passed by her favourite panaderia and the laundromat she would use to wash her clothes just because they would feel so much softer than at home and because it was also insanely cheap to have your clothes washed professionally, a luxury she would never have back home. The smell of buñuelos and arepas would hit her with memories of everything that she ever felt back then, when friends were close, and the city would show her kindness. In the air of Bogota, you could always feel like there was something new to discover. Graffiti would adorn the walls and they would always tell a story and invite you to tell yours to strangers that would become friends.

She has been walking down the same path she used to when she was heading to Paul’s house. Passing past the church and through Plaza Bolivar where they have shared their first kiss on a drunken night when the cab was charging the fare triple than it should have. But they didn’t care about that because the energy between them was overwhelming and nothing of this physical Earth could stop them from fulfilling their destiny. Passing past Septima and into Las Aguas where she can still see him in his white shirt, leaning by the station wall before their very last meeting. It’s funny how she couldn’t remember many details about his appearance but the image of his arms with the sleeve half up, the veins on his hand, the texture of their skin and how they were holding her it’s still a vivid image in her brain. There was lot of joy into this walk but there were also glimpses caught in the reflections of windows that would just return the “look”. The look that asked her: where have you left yourself? Can you remember when the poetry faded or when the songs of melancholy stopped playing inside yourself? Where is the adventure and where is the joy? When did need took over your thirst for discovery? For things are not dark, nor hopeless, they are just bleak and unstimulating, like a pond with no grass, with no life. When did this big city took it out of you? The past was holding her caught like a lover, like a chain. No matter how much she’d deny it, it was in a made-up version of her past that she would find herself. A past where he was still there, at the end of this walk, waiting for her.

There was so much connection in between them and the city. You could say that without the magic of it, there would have been no love story between them. Because he hated the city and she loved it. He has been there since he was born, and she only arrived that summer. Still, she saw some beauty in it and through her eyes he saw beauty too. It took one calle at a time to make his love for her grow bigger and bigger and so his love for the city grew in the same way, at the same rhythm. It was the excitement in Holly that made Paul see the city in a different light. For him, Bogota has always been this dirty place, that you were taught to hate because it was unsafe, with neighbourhoods that hid fear and dangers, a place where nothing good can come. Yet there they were, falling in love, at midnight in La Candelaria and suddenly the streets were caught by Marquez’s magical realism. The colonial buildings would shine under the moonlight, telling stories as old as time. Her beauty would translate into the beauty of the city, her sense of adventure would turn the streets into a treasure map. They could both see the past and the future, intertwined in their present, walking alongside them when they were one. Paul was never a dreamer, this state of constant awe and magic he was in when they were together was new for him. But as exciting as it was, the veil was always lifted when she was not around. The streets would lose the colours and the love did not seem to burn quite as strong. Logic and reason would overcome any sense of excitement and fantasy. In a world of logic, them as a pair were not making sense.

By the time Holly was in Transmilenio, halfway on her way, a feeling of regret started to catch up with her. “What will I find there? Why would I go there? Coming back here is hurtful enough, the risk of running into him makes my hurt jump of my chest. What will I find?” - those question would be on her mind over and over and over although she knew very well that she would find nothing there but memories. She would tell herself that the thing she fears most is finding him there yet what was really on her mind was not finding herself anymore.

The beauty of Bogota is that the mountains follow you wherever you’d go. Going down south or up north, they follow you and guide you. Holly would always find comfort in them. She would know exactly when she reached his home, without having to check a map or the surroundings, because this one peak was always welcoming her into the neighbourhood. Still, today was different. The peak was no longer talking to her like it used to. In fact, on her way back to his house she realized nothing else did. The memories were the only ones decorating the streets. Her vision was no longer new, excited and innocent but weary and harmed. The road was ended without any answers in sight, but more with the realization that she was indeed different, that she has found herself but not the one she was expecting to find. There was a new Holly that existed, built on the pain and tears of old Holly.

Somehow that made sense and air could finally fill up her lungs again, in the same place where she has lost it 4 years ago.