la feria

it´s no wonder people look at me like i'm one of picasso's cubist women sometimes, with one eye on her nose and her arms crossed behind her back. it was 5pm in dublin last thursday, and i hit my stone wall of ´pushing through it´for the sake of the job, so i booked a ticket to the nearest warm place i could think of and left for malaga the next morning. but not before running into the one person i know in dublin after a year of not knowing him. all because i went to the bookstore to buy a guide to malaga to put me ahead of the curve when it comes to planning. he walked by in a pinstripe suite and a pink tie like a commercial for a cell phone network, going slower than everyone else. so i walked behind him for a block to see if i was to be seen, and decided it to be. i came up by his side and he looked at me twice and then swore for three minutes. not at me. just at the state of things. and i said, you look lost. he said, i just lost a woman a half-hour ago.
we drank some wine where we drank wine the one time last year, and then i sent him home, back to his real life, and promised we'd meet up next week.
i watched top gun at the b&b and packed my bag in the cul de sac and left all of my belongings in the hatchback i parked long-term in dublin and got on the plane to malaga with my guidebook and my 'isnt this fun' wild-hair-across-my-face attitude, and met luis who was sitting next to me and afraid to speak. but when he did, i discovered that i had picked the best and worst time to go, as it is the week of 'la feria' when hundreds of thousands bombard each other like atoms on the streets, and then float to the next ring on a river of spillt rebullita. and when he discovered i had no place to stay, he offered the extra room he had because 2 guys out of 12 couldnt make it to the stag party he was hosting in malaga for his best friend. great idea. the hotel, he couldnt remember the name, was swank, in the center of the city, a deal not to be missed. especially because i didnt even realize malaga was a city, i thought it just a commissary for the coast.
so when his uncle and aunt dropped me off in the city center, out of their way to lunch, luis said i'll text you later with the name of the hotel and directions, and i put my backpack on and my hair back across my forehead and parachuted my can-do smile on to my face and said okay, see you later. so i walked dead into the feria and thought i have to get out. i picked the smaller streets and turned left when everyone went right and 10 minutes later i passed the swank hotel in the center of the city. and there i went, and said, hi, i have a strange question...i met a guy on a plane who is coming to stay here tonight with his 10 friends, can i leave my bag while i look for a place. and he did me better. he found me a place, and booked me in with him (and them) for the next two nights at a great price.
i went to the riad and looked at myself like a cubist woman. who are you?
when i met luis and his boys later that night in the plaza, thus began two days of impossibility. of nothing i couldve done or planned or imagined, of luck that is too lucky to be luck. of a kind of kindness that should never be expected, as i had ten brothers all of a sudden who took me in and around and looked out for me without looking at me.
and when they were gone yesterday, i woke up and felt like i was too. i looked at myself in the bathroom of the swanky hotel in the center of the city and thought, who are you now?
today i remember.