tourist tuesday and the monestir de montserrat

If you popped in here expecting more shots of an Italian town at sea~level, well, I am sorry.

Stay tuned. I do have more of that up my sleeve. Just not now.

Today I am more in the mood for a Spanish Monastery on a mountain~top.

I feel the need to be tall and on top of things.

In the same way an ocean is difficult to photograph, so is a mountain top.

It is all about scale, about contrast and comparison.

If I were to place the world's largest elephant on top of the mountain you see in the photo above, he would be one wee pixel big.

I did not have  the world's largest elephant with me when I went to the top of this Montserrat last year.

I just had me and one of these and one of these.

If you are ever in Barcelona and have the time, you should hop on the bus, then the train that will take you to this monastery.

Do start early in the day because it can take the best part of the morning to get there.

Very seldom does it rain on me when I am out and about in the world so when it does I take it as a sign.

I am to appreciate the washed clean colors and the wet slickness of things.

I am to look up and notice the clouds when I can not see the sun.

Slowly I am learning how to take the wet with the dry, the rain with the sun.

I am learning that I cannot control Every Little Thing even though I do find planning ahead means I arrive when museums are open and not closed. Which can be useful during a once-in-a-life time visitation.

Some days I feel like the gnat on the back of a flea on the back of a sheep perched on my garden wall in my backyard in a small town in northeast Florida which is in the lower south-east corner of the United States on the planet Earth.

Which is to say I feel insignificant.

Other days I do feel on Top of the World. Everything at my feet stretched out waiting for me to explore at my leisure.

Do you ever have times like that? The insignificant times and then the Top of the World times?

When I am feeling insignificant I usually find food helps put me in balance. If you make the effort to work you way to the top of Montserrat, do take the time to lunch in the cafe there.

I highly recommend the canelons d'espinacs and the escalivada.

I know about such things as I am a connoisseur of finely cooked veggies.

When feeling smallish in the world I find taking a self~photo puts me right with my place in the scheme of things.

See! I am here! Doing fine! With yummy food in my tummy! Click, click, click...

On a the sunny beach near my home I bask and know all the secrets in the universe. Answers are right there floating in on each wave.

On a misty mountain~top the fog seeps into my brain and I do wonder, "somepinkflowers, what ever is the purpose of life? "

Last week my cell phone plum died on me. I had not dropped it or anything. 

It just stopped working out of the blue.

I had to go to the Cell Phone Store and buy a new one. Truthfully the same day I went to the dentist and that was more fun.

There are just to many choices these days.

"Just give me that red one with the rebate," I said hurriedly pointing.

If  I lived on a mountain top things would be so much easier.

No cell phones decisions. No television show choices. No dental implants opportunities.

Time would be spent kneeing in prayer and waiting in line to touch the Black Madonna's Holy Orb.

I am not catholic but even my Methodist heart and Presbyterian brain felt her powerful draw.

Standing by the sea speaks to the spiritualism inside me. I am baptized by the ions from the crashing waves. Washed anew and lifted up to all things being possible.

After a morning spent sea~side I know I can go home and clean the attic. That kind of thing.

I very seldom do go home and clean the attic, of course, but I feel I could. If I were so inclinded.

Standing on a mountain~top puts me in a different holy place. As the fog lifts I expect to see the likeness of a Charlton Heston comforting and encouraging me.

"Go forth, somepinkflowers, and do great things! Save the trees and do not let your HOA place satellite dishes in the commons area."

On this mountain pilgrims come to be made whole again.

Many arrive in wheel~chairs and my heart does melt to see them carrying their hope on their blanket~covered laps, wearing their faith like a shawl around their shoulders.

Able tourist come to hike the steep trails and to wait in the long line to touch the Madonna's Holy Orb.

Some come to eat the canelons d'espinacs and the escalivada, then to listen to the choir boys sing.

I am here because I do not want to miss a thing. I want to look up and out and down and out at the world.

More than anything when I was on this mountain I wanted to see a pile of wheel~chairs rusting in the damp air. No longer needed wheel~chairs. Rusting.

I looked around and around but could not find one single wheel~chair rusting.

I ponder a life time spent here.

I wonder would I be happy without my white~sandy beach and my blue-green ocean and my old~white jeep, without my aging computer and my new cell phone and my too expensive cable TV.

I can be so shallow sometimes.  I have my ways and my things and I like to sleep with lots of downy soft pillows. I like my Earl Grey tea. Would my things  make it to this mountain top?

Would I get into the rhythm of  polishing the silver in the chapel, of changing out the spent candles. What would be my job?

Maybe I would be the cook in the restaurant making the canelons d'espinacs and the escalivada.

I just can not see it. Not for me.

After one week I would be wondering about going here or going there. I would want to ride my beach bike across the hot sand on my way for one of these at Jim's Bar-b-Que on A1A.

Montserrat is one of my favorite places in the whole wide world.

I am overwhelmed in the best sort of way by the centuries-old Benedictine monastery perched there in the unusual-looking mountains, by my being a speck of nothing on this huge, rocky place.

My neck hurt so at the end of the day from looking up.

After a while I realized I was not watching fog lift. Those were cloud passing by.

Clouds on their way to water the grapes in the vineyards down in the valley where they make the wine to serve at Holy Communion.

I love how things interconnect like that. I felt all glowy thinking about how the sameness of this place has gone on and on and on.

Ladies from near-by farms make a little spending money. I wonder about their happiness.

I wonder what they know of large elephants and Johnny Depp and cell phones and beach bike and so on.

Maybe I would be surprised to know what they know.

Do you ever feel the conflict of wanting a simpler life but at the same time you do not want to give up all the helpful things that seem to make life easier?

I do not want to be so busy looking down at my cell phone that it to keeps me from looking up and out at the world. I want to see everything.

Don't you?

 

I want a life with a changing view. But, also, I want a nest with my stuff tucked neatly about. A nest I can safely leave and then fly home when I need to touch base, to hunker down and to recharge.

Then I want to fly out again. I want a changing view.

In the sun. Or in a cloud. At sea~level. Or above.

Changing.

Comments

[Sue Krekorian]

Thanks for taking me magic armchair travelling with you. It is sad that there was no pile of rusting wheelchairs but sometimes healing comes in unexpected ways, rather than being a sudden miracle cure. Healing can be in the heart, an acceptance of new circumstances and a mind open to letting go of the past and who we once were, and to new opportunities that come with change. Even for feelings of insignificance, which you, dear somepinkflowers, could never really be xxx

[Stephanie]

I loved this place, it was not rainy or cloudy when I visited but the clouds make it all the more surreal.

I can imagine walking down the mountain in these clouds...I rode the train but thought in cooler weather it may have been quite an adventure to walk all the way up...

and I took home a little black Madonna souvenir

x..x
steph
p.s.
you know we have mighty fine scenery and bike trails here....just saying

[shibori girl]

Well, Missy... if there is food with anchovies on it, I'm coming with you as you search for your place in the universe. Any search is worthwhile as long as there are salty fish to be had! :)

I think your place is wherever you are at any given moment.

xoxo,

Kate

[grrl+dog]

there is so much I want to comment on. The top of the world photo says it all. Life is humbling, isn't it. Montserrat looks like the place the invites thoughts like this...

[3rdEyeMuse]

at times like these, I seriously want to be you (the traveling, A1000 packin philosopher) ... love the thoughtfulness & the views. ... as for the conflict ... I struggle with them on a daily (at least weekly) basis ... but, I do not carry a cell phone. :)

[michelle of bleeding espresso]

Hey there, just stopped in to catch up a bit...things are so lovely around here as always. I especially love the little lambs all dolled up for the tea party....