Vigo

This spring, I returned to Spain to venture to Vigo. Following five years on the Mediterranean coast, I was ready to throw in the towel on a country in which I’ve never felt comfortable until a friend recommended I give it a go.

Since its founding, the small village of Vigo has transformed into a small city, though it has yet to lose its tight-knit vibes. The longer I was there, I began to recognize familiar faces, particularly in the center, yet was never overcome by the smothering sensation small cities often impart on us. For in Vigo, the estuary that blends river and ocean leaves one with a sense of boundless possibility.

The frequent rain always gave way to brilliant rays of sun, showering the land and leaving it sparkling. Whereas in most European cities buildings are constructed one on top of another, in Vigo there are still vast expanses of green, leaving room to breathe and reflect. Each “empty” lot leaves a link to a land that has yet to be littered with lodges designed for the most destructive beast known to man, man itself. Housing generations of other species instead, these “empty” lots are brimming with life in a way that the “developed” ones never can.

Perhaps this proximity to nature and the frequent rain leave the people of the region with a feeling of continual rebirth, contributing to a profound culture of kindness and redemption. Not since childhood had I felt so enveloped by a culture of care, astounding still given that it came from complete strangers. Seen in a sense I had perhaps never been, I connected with communities that, like the river and the ocean, blended alongside the estuary that marks the flow of time.

Over the course of my quest here, I regained some of the sense of mystery and excitement I had lost with my youth. Far from the Garden of Eden surrounded by arid cliffs and inhabited by dinosaurs in the dreams that come to me by day, I briefly felt alive again. I would have liked to stay longer, but worldly concerns drew me away at the turn of the season. Riding out the wave that began at the start of this journey, I now find myself reaching its end. I don’t know if I will be able to return in the fall, or if the fall will lead me somewhere else altogether. When you don’t have a place to call home to return, you are at the mercy of the wind.