Day Eighteen

Today I wrote about four sentences. I am desperately hoping that leaving Madrid will improve my writing habits. If it doesn't, then I might be screwed, or if anything I will have to start holing myself up in a dark, sad room until words start coming out. I am a firm believer in negative self-conditioning. In any case, I am still on track to write 20,000 words before the halfway point of my trip. That is my current (modest) quota.

I went out for lunch with the Brazilian psychiatrist girl. I still don't know if she and the other Brazilian are seeing each other, but in any case I think she has a crush on me, to no significance, of course, since as I write this I am on my way out of Madrid and out of her life forever. But it was a pleasure talking to her. She and her friend both have a remarkable knowledge of the American arts. She has seen all of the good movies that I've seen; she listens to all the music that I listen to, and more beyond that. I told her that she is a better American than most Americans are. I can't remember her name. I never had a chance to say good-bye to her. Good-bye, good-bye, good-bye.

In the evening I went back to El Parque de el Retiro, as it is my favorite place i have seen in Madrid. On a Sunday evening the place becomes like a circus. Street performers and pickpockets come out in droves. I saw an old man in a velvet wizard costume blowing an orange whistle. He was inexplicable. Again I went very deep into the park, but then darkness began to fall, and I didn't know how to get out from where I came in, and I quickly got lost and utterly panicked. Bats flew in and out of the trees. At one point I think I began to run. I felt as though I was in great danger, although there were still many people and families in the park with me. It was an odd sensation.

Before this panic happened, I walked behind a little boy and an older man, the boy's grandfather, presumably, as they kicked a soccer ball back and forth to each other. The little boy was chattering away, but the old man didn't say anything. Instead he concentrated on the ball. Sometimes the little boy would put too much juice behind his kick, and the ball would go flying toward one of the other walkers, a man pushing a baby carriage, say, who would stop whatever he was doing and gently kick it back to the boy. I stayed behind them for a very long time