Majorca (draft)

somewhere in the south of spain was an island forged in the heat of the summer. you could follow the roads north from the city to a small town which sat high above the rocky coastline with dry streets and a towering church. it was called Sóller, the golden city where the afternoons were warm and you felt dizzy in the heat under the white umbrellas that lined the square. you could drink apéritifs in cafes as the night fellvand the tram passed through every few minutes carrying tourists from the old town to the main gates where the city walls fell away and the orange groves began.

if you followed the road east you could find the winding dirt road that led down to Cala Deià with the restaurant on the water and big rock ledge that cut out from the beach where you could climb up and bathe in the sun. they would serve plates of fresh fish and grilled octopus in red sauce with dark sangria made from lemons that were picked from the gardens beneath the city.

in the summer it was busy and you couldn't dine without a reservation unless you knew the hostess by name and she knew you too. the best seat was at the edge of the cliff where the water was deep and the swimmers would pass by towards the boats that anchored just offshore. the sun would hang tall above the rocky cove where you could barely pitch umbrellas and were never comfortable laying down. people would swim up to the house opposite the restaurant to see which celebrities had made their way down from the riviera with their private pool and sunglasses and bottles of cool champagne.

it would take no more than a few nights in the city before you began to feel restless in the heat and clearer blue water from the south began to call. white buildings and narrow streets twisted across the town towards Santanyí where the steep bluffs rose above the blue azur below. on still mornings you could swim in the cove with the hidden stairs at the end of the street, where the silver ladder blurred into the deep blue water and you felt a little uneasy. a private beach with a salty horizon in the mornings and warm bathing water.

in the haze of the noon the people sprawled across the beaches with the sand hot beneath their feet and the yellow buoys dotted in the water across the horizon. there was a small ledge at Cala Llombards where the children dived into the water and the ladder was slippery with the green moss of summer. you could hear the call of the fruit men long before you saw the water as they cut through the solace with knifes that had blue handles and curved tightly towards the tip of the blade.

Notes:

blues of lake bled

reading by the river in ljublijana with the statues that looked like dragons heads

mallorca looking in 2-3 bookshops a day for english copies of hemingway

laundry on the balcony

ladder into the deep blue

sparkling water

a private beach

morning dark

horizon foggy

water warm and salty

beaches hot and blue

fruit man yelling

sanria at night

sweat

octopus and prawns

lemon sorbet in the piazza

coke in the town of Soller

Deia by day with the restaurant and the celebrities

running in the mornings

2 beaches every day

hitting balls into the sky

your biggest problem was where to swim

beach club at night

austria

Lea

kissing on the street under the balcony

a dream

life after death, after barcelona

tell your story while you tell mallorca's too

walking around rocks to take photos

driving on the wrong side of the road at night

... ......