If you´re interested...

I am currently taking a class called Travel Writing and Modern Literature. I signed up for this class because it would further motivate me to write about my stay here... basically if I don´t, my grades plummet. I will truely appreciate it when I am old. My first assignment was to write about something that I have seen, done or experienced since my arrival in Europe. I wrote it over the weekend and it is a little blip about a jazz club I went to Friday night. It is under peer review now, so this is the first rough copy. Read on if you are interested...

“Her”

They told us never to go to Plaza del Sol while in Madrid. They said, “You’ve heard about the Bermuda Triangle, right? Well Sol is part of the Madrid Triangle; all of your possessions just seem to disappear.” They even went so far as to map the no-go area out for us. Sometimes I can be a punk-ass kid and ignore authority figures. It’s true; I always want what I can’t have. It is said that curiosity killed the cat. I thank God that I am a human. Scoffing at their comparison, that night I hopped on my high horse and headed to Sol to check out the night life. Honestly, the Bermuda Triangle, not to say that I have actually seen it, could not possibly have this much culture. Sol is the Times Square, La Rambla, Champs Elysee, of Madrid; the drinks are pricier, the people are louder, it is a place you just have to see. A ‘necessity.’ With my wallet in my front pocket and a clear head, I step out of the metro and into life. To my left a band plays loudly. It is a tune indigenous to South America, which there is quite a bit of in Madrid. The song attracts a melee of locals and tourists alike. Looking into the street, cars whiz by, weaving between pedestrians and each other, carrying the patrons of the night to their own personal destinations. As a fellow night patron, I too have a destination, more exact than the whole of Sol.
Entering the smoky bar, jazz floods my senses. I can hear it; I can see it; I can smell it in the air; I can taste it; breathe it in. The walls are covered with pictures of the greats, retired instruments, and flyers for both the past and the upcoming events. This place is clutch and I am in gear. I am one Cuba Libre down and I see Her. Had I listened to them earlier, I never would have gone to Sol. More precisely, I never would have seen Her. At first glance, she is nothing special. She is no more than a middle aged woman who has let the years affect her no more than a normal human. She does not interest me by any means. But, as with anything and everyone worth noting, there is a clear-cut, defining moment that elevates a mundane existence to that of a superior status. Out of no where, this woman had it. She made that leap to superiority. I watch her rise from halfway across the smoke filled bar. I watch her through the haze as she begins to dance. I watch her dance and I want to be in her head, walk a mile in her shoes. At this point I only have my imagination. With no more than my imagination I venture inside my head, attempting to get inside her head. Dancing like no one is watching, she moves to the beat, lives the groove and allows the flow to penetrate her every nerve. She knows she is aging, but why let that stop her. Those hips can still carve curves into the smoke filled air. She sees herself in a red Spanish dress, the type with the ruffles that flood to the ground and the bells that clink with every minute movement. She’s wearing her favorite dancing shoes; their broken in from countless nights on this same floor. Young again and without a care she is in her head, she sees herself as perfect as ever. Provoking these feelings, these emotions, the music continues to play on. Instantaneously, she catches the beat of the bass. The musician’s fingers meander over the strings and she sways, dips, stomps her feet to his tune. She remembers a club that is not much like this one, way back from her youth. Only the music is the same. She is in her head with no more than her imagination and she has returned to that club without a physical sense. Familiar as ever, the faces smile as she takes center stage. The dance floor clears and the light strikes her every movement, accentuating her youthful beauty. Continue to move, graceful, yet forceful she is strong with a sense of empowerment. She has the power, the power of attraction. She knows everyone is watching, but continues to dance as if no one is. The night is growing late, and the jazz musicians puff their last cigarettes and finish their final cocktails onstage. I can feel their music coming to an end, and I believe She can, as well. She shakes those hips, cuts them sharp in one final twist and her night of dancing is over. Sitting with an overwhelming sense of enjoyment, her eyes are beautiful and beaming. As she takes her pack of Ducados out of her little Spanish purse, she waits a moment to light one up and glances around the room. With a little smile, I wink and she knows I’ve been watching her dance. She turns back towards the stage and I can see the flicker of her lighter. Inhaling deeply, she smokes her cigarette with great satisfaction. She has earned this moment. The cloud of smoke crosses the threshold of her lips into the air and it lingers a moment before mixing into the haze, just as this She and this night will mix into the whole experience of my stay in Madrid.