la ciudad de nunca jamás

LA CIUDAD DE NUNCA JAMÁS

Mi escuela se llamaba Roure Mallorca. No era una escuela al uso, aunque eso lo descubrí años más tarde. Mi casa, en Valencia con Aribau, un gran piso de Ensanche con techos altos y galería al patio interior. Así que empecé a caminar Barcelona mientras iba de casa al cole, a ballet, a comprar en el mercado o a la panadería...
Tras casi 10 años fuera de la ciudad, este curso he vuelto a pasear por esas calles de la niñez. Ya no me llamaban la atención el escaparate de la esquina, ni el semáforo de Aragón que había que cruzar para ir a la escuela, ni el bote de chupachups del puesto de verduras del mercado...
Y descubrí que hay muchas ciudades. Porque la tienda de juguetes, el semáforo y el mercado siguen donde estaban, pero mis ojos ya no se mueven a sesenta centímetros del suelo...
He intentado plasmar esa otra ciudad (hecha de recuerdos) en mi itinerario. Porque no eran las calles las que me guiaban, ni los planos, ni la circulación. Eran un cartel, una maceta en el balcón, una tienda donde habíamos comprado...
Y me ha gustado mucho darme cuenta de que la ciudad en la que crecí sigue aquí, aunque yo ahora ya no pueda verla.

THE NEVER AGAIN CITY

My primary school was called Roure Mallorca. It was not a usual school at all, but I became aware of it some years later. My house, a typical apartment in the Ensanche with high ceilings and covered balcony facing the inner patio de manzana, was on the corner of Valencia and Aribau. So I started to walk down Barcelona while going to school, shopping or going to take lessons of ballet…
After almost ten years away the town, I have come back and I have returned to walk along the streets of my childhood. Neither the shop window on the corner, nor Aragon St. with its traffic lights which I had to cross when going to school, or even the can for lollipop in the vegetables stall in which we used to buy, have attracted my attention any more.
And I have realised that there are many cities. Because the toys shop, the traffic lights and the market are still where they were, but my eyes are not moving 60 cm. over the road any more.
I have tried to show that city -the one made of my memories- in my itinerary. Because have not been the streets, nor the map, nor the traffic what have guided me. I have been guided by a poster or by a flowerpot on a balcony or even by a shop in which once we had bought...
I have enjoyed it when realising that the town in which I grew up still stands, despite the fact that I am not able to see it now...