In summer, Barcelona is always hot — so hot that you get used to that heavy air and to always feeling a little sticky. That afternoon I walked to the immigration office to run an errand, about forty blocks from my place in Barceloneta. I took the prettiest route, though maybe not the shortest — through Parc de la Ciutadella, past the Arc de Triomf, and straight down Passeig de Sant Joan, a street so long I never once got bored. In fact, I got distracted in a huge comic book s

I like to play a game that involves traveling through time, paying no attention to the chronological line, as if it didn't matter whether something happened yesterday or 20 years ago, jumping from one place to another with my eyes open, looking inward. Now, here in a small town where it's cold and the fire in the stove tints everything orange, I think about how I'm wandering through a garden in Adelaide, watering seedlings that in a few months will be flowers that bring joy t

I met Carmen at the shop of an Argentine girl I used to help out with the counter twice a week, in her little business in a town about 30 km from Barcelona. A town that seemed stuck in time, where it was hard to believe that, so close to one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, there still lived that small-neighborhood feel, where everyone knew everyone. That afternoon, I said goodbye to her like always. I hugged her and gave her lots of kisses on her wrinkled cheek