Maia's Into The Moonlight

EARLY MORNING RITUAL


I start my days with a walk with the dog. We always go to the park next to the house, a huge green area in the heart of Madrid.

We go early to have the park to ourselves. Sometimes in the winter months the trees are just beginning to shake off the darkness. It is a beautiful park with tall trees, flowers, fountains, and statues of purposeful men on horses. There is also a huge pond with boats, straight out of a Seurat painting

According to the law, dogs don’t have to be on the leash before 10 a.m. So Maxi is happy, running circles around me, and I am happy walking “unleashed”. We pass our favorite nymph, carried on water by mythological fish. As I stop to admire her flowing hair, my daydreaming is interrupted by a gaggle of emerging children on their way to school.

We proceed toward the “Crystal Palace,” a lovely 19th century glass building where sculpture shows, or installations, are sometimes held. It is a magical building, an apparition, an enchanted palace made of air and light. When I go inside and it is completely empty, I just want to dance madly, dervish like, twirling like a Sufi dancer.

We continue on towards the rose garden. On the way I get startled again, this time by birds loving in a flurry of feathers. We pass a group of people making sketches of a fountain. I am greeted with “buenos dias” and happy smiles. As they resume their sketching I ask if I can photograph them.

On to the Chinese garden with ducks happily grooming themselves. Maxi wants to chase them but I stop him. Here is where I used to practice tai-chi. I vow to do it again when I return from Portugal in September.

And then I smell the roses as we approach the “rosaleda”, or rose garden. There are hundreds of roses, blooming from May until July or so. Roses of every name and origin. Some with a lovely tea scent, others just gorgeous to looks at, spread neatly around water spouting cherubs.

Time to turn around and start my new day.