Noche Suenos

It is almost midnight by the time we arrive in Granada.  We nervously navigate our way through narrow one way streets, I suck in air through my teeth each time we round a bend, silently praying, as I sit in the passenger's front seat, that we do not scrape this black BMW - our rental car for the week, the one we've dubbed El Toro - as we make our way to the nearest parking garage.  The three of us were all up very late the night before, celebrating and imbibing with a group of new found Italian friends.  And the day has gone like those days that usually follow late nights do; particularly if you find yourself in a foreign country with a travel agenda to keep. Despite the lack of sleep, we were up early, making our way out of Madrid, down to Toledo for the afternoon, and then onward for a four hour drive to Granada, where we'd planned to lay our heads for the next two nights.

Our hotel is located in a pedestrian only zone, which is charming and quaint, but it means that El Toro must be parked blocks away, and our suitcases and purses must be unloaded and carried with us - never mind that none of us know exactly where we are going.  My friends and I take an elevator up from the parking lot, quiet on the quick ride up, all of us tired, weary, and ready for bed.  When the elevator doors open up to the plaza we've parked under, I catch my breath.  It's the lighting I suppose. The ornate, wrought iron street lamps have me immediately thinking of Paris ironically enough, and the lights themselves cast the city in a wonderfully muted, peaceful, dream like glow.  I think immediately of my friend Beth, who had told me before my trip that the night she arrived in Granada years before as a student, felt like one of the most romantic nights of her life.  I am charmed. 

We are lost.  Both our hand-held paper map and my friend's phone map are telling us what we believe to be true, that we are in fact, only feet away from the hotel.  And yet, we cannot find the place.  It is pushing 12:30, the three of us are growing frustrated over the fact that we're so close and yet so far from what surely will be the most deep, wonderful night of sleep.  We are doing our best not to snap at one another, as we realize we are all frustrated by a situation completely out of our control.  We send Moira, the most fluent of the three of us, into a nearby restaurant to ask for directions.  Jess volunteers to wander down to the next block to double-check the road sign.  And just like that, I am alone in the heart of Granada, keeping watch over three suitcases and handbags.

That's when I hear it.  It is quiet at first, a sound so faint that I begin to wonder if I'm actually tired enough to be hearing things.  But then the sound grows and swells and I realize that no, I'm not hearing things at all, that there is piano music coming from around the bend. It is beautiful, one of the most wonderful sounds I've ever heard.  The music washes over me as I stand there, alone in a small plaza, waiting for my friends to return, watching the glow of those street lamps.  I close my eyes for the briefest of moments, breathing a silent prayer of gratitude.  I think about the beauty of traveling, I think about how large the world truly is, about what a small, tiny, role I have in it.  In that moment, I find these thoughts so very comforting, knowing that there are so many things greater and larger than myself.

Jess returns, confirming our address just as Moira makes her way out of the restaurant, directing us toward the next block, telling us that she hopes she understood what the waitress had explained.  We walk closer to the music, all of us quiet, listening.  As we round the 'bend, we discover that the music is accompanying a silent film that's being projected on an old stone wall.  There are people crowded together sitting on nearby church steps, all of them watching, listening.  I immediately regret the noisy wheels on our suitcases, grimacing as we roll through the block as quietly and as quickly as possible.

At long last we have located our hotel and once inside at the check-in desk, we all exchange frantic, exhausted grins of glee.  The hotel clerk directs us to our room, helping the three of us cram our luggage and ourselves into the tiny elevator.  Once we are in our room, Moira realizes she left her maps at the front desk.  I volunteer to go downstairs and get them.  She is already in her pajamas and I - I am feeling more awake than I have in months.  Too energized to sleep, too giddy to fuss with face wash and teeth brushing and all the rest of the standard bedtime routines.  I leap down the stairs to the ground floor and after talking briefly with the clerk, make my way back up to our room taking the stairs two at a time.  This is why we do it, I remind myself as I walk back to room 313, the clock pushing 1am.  This feeling, this moment, catching that mythical piano piece, that's what it's all about.  This is why I want to just keep going; to see every corner of this wild, crazy, wonderfully complex and interesting world.  I am wearing a gray cardigan with a khaki colored scarf wrapped around my neck, a fedora on my head.  I catch a glimpse of myself in the hall mirror just before entering our room.  And I grin. 

I fear, like most things that with time, my memory of the night may fade.  But I hope that it won't.  I hope that I've tucked that moment deep enough into my heart, that I breathed in that Granada night air and listened to those magical Granada night sounds long enough to have them forever etched into my mind; that I'll carry that moment, that euphoric feeling with me for the rest of my days.  I have no photos of that night in Granada, I had no idea when we arrived and started searching for our hotel that I'd want to dig my camera out, that I'd stumble upon something I'd want to record.  But perhaps it's better that way.  For I carry that night in my heart, in my mind's eye always.  And someday, when I find myself sitting quietly, reflecting on all the places I've gone and the people I've known and the things that I've done,  I believe I will think of this moment; of one brief, enchanting moment found on the streets of Granada, one evening in May.