Domingo en el Centro

Today the barrio pulses and thrives like a chrysalis exploding with a million copies of the same tiny creature. The ancient streets that wind wrap around one another, creating an organic metropolis that tells the story of its life in its cobbles and walls. People from every corner of the globe come each sunday for El Mercado del Rastro, or simply, El Rastro--the largest and oldest outdoor market in all of Europe and probably the world outside of the grand Bazaars of the Abbasid caliphate. An hour and a half before I had even gotten to the main street of the market, stretching before me for at least a mile. It's like 3 Portabello roads and a Camden market combined. Around midday the population reaches critical mass and the sun pours down from a cloudless sky like floodlights on the stage. In every corner lies something, each square inch occupied. The bars that line the side streets are havens for the travel-stained and discerning madrilenos who gaze with sidelong glances at the performance in the street. A man in front of me leads two children while smoking hash in a cigarillo - a euro blunt I suppose. On either side I hear every language as people try to bargain with the steadfast salesmen. You don't like the price, you don't buy. Personally a leather jacket for 15 sounds fantastic, and so does a tie for 2,50. By 1 the situation is nearly unsustainable and one seeks the exit but finds none. The place is alive and has grown far beyond the imagination. Life everywhere existing just shy of chaotically. I recall theoretical comparisons of cities and think of words like "green space" and "logical". Thoughts of New York are inescapable. It's impossible for me to dislike that place, but I can understand those who view it with disdain. The grid system is so antithetical to what the centuries-old cities are. They have birth and growth and it shows like scars. Children becoming adults with varied senses of humor and airs of importance, those who have made mistakes and learned, those who have been marred or sheltered. All with their closets full. New York is like a stillborn, a robot, a Gattica baby. Sterile in its design, mechanical. The idea is brilliant and dates all the way back to the city along the Indus, but there is no perfect approach. In that way it's like a lifetime itself. One can choose any number of paths but none stand out as the one true way. I suppose that's why I'm here. I prefer a trip down every possible path. However this particular avenue I find most agreeable, and perhaps, if I'm fortunate, the stroll might last...