Minitrip

Lo que un día construimos se ha esfumado

Pareciera que es más fácil dejarnos

--- Natalia Lafourcade

Wandering around the perimeter of a long underground passage, waiting for the light to clear and for the music to start.

It was near the block where I worked a year ago, and every day on the metro to and from work, I passed through this underground passage. I used to see many different views from here, various in the morning and evening.

In the morning, a squad of take-away workers in yellow uniforms met in formation to prepare for their day in the megacity. In the evenings, there were guitarists, saxophonists, flute players and once an old couple playing an instrument I was not familiar with at all. The genres ranged from pop to pure music, and the most memorable one was a guy in a duck cap singing Five Hundred Miles with a southern Chinese accent, next to them were the peddlers selling flowers. Walking through the music and flowers was the best moment of my day, seems it could slow down my socialization process.

I love this underground passage, but I never come here deliberately. It’s always in one of those unintended strolls that a familiar scene reappears before my eyes and the walk becomes a kind of muscle memory that takes me back to the old days. This is not quite an accidental occurrence, or rather, it happens all the time. The invariant has a high percentage of my life, eating the same food, wearing the same style of clothes and taking the same route home every day. Sometimes trying new things only reinforces the idea that I set in my ways.

I often tell people that I love strolling, how beautiful it is! In Chinese, the word “stroll” means spreading my steps out, intoning, and rhyming in harmony. But also, as I said earlier, I don’t seem to be committed to developing unexplored landscapes, but rather to keep walking in familiar routes, etching the neighborhood into my body, becoming my invisible tattoo. But is it really the same? I don’t think so. The scenery, for example, is inherently various throughout the year, with flowers blossoming and falling, branches flourishing, and leaves decaying, all beautiful in their own way. Not to mention the people: like the woman who can’t stop laughing in the street and nearly faints, the man with empty eyes as if he were outside the Atlantic Ocean. They are all different, their sounds, moods, and faces, are the richest interlude in my short walk.

Enjoy your walk, bon voyage.