Sunday Scribblings - Time Travel

The first time I heard jazz was in Lawrence's tiny attic apartment, white-washed, two-stories high, that overlooked the city of Barcelona.

I had just come back from Greece. It was a sunny September day, the sky was blue, I was happy to see my friends after three days of traveling. I rang the big doorbell, and his landlady opened the window, her gray hair caught back in a black comb, and yelled 'let me go see if he's home". In two minutes I see her face again, "ahora viene" she says, "he's coming'.

Lawrence bounds down the wooden stairs, opens the doors and says "hey chica" with a big smile as he gives me a hug.
"Felix is upstairs, we're making calamares. You're just in time for lunch"
I follow him up the four flights of stairs and on to the big open rooftop where you can see down to the ocean. He opens the little white door to his flat.
I hear a sound.
It is magic.
It fills the room with glitter.
I walk inside, drop my dusty backpack on the floor, stare open-mouthed at the wall.
The sound from the stereo swirls around the room and enters my nostrils, my ears, my head.
There are rainbows.

Felix yells "hola!" from the kitchen, where he stands at the stove, and comes over to greet me.
"Who is this?" I ask him.
"It's John Coltrane" he says, "you've never heard him before?"

Now the music has entered my body, is spiraling down my neck and chest and into my heart out my arms down my fingertips.
I feel like twirling and spinning and flying - but I am too shy.
So I plop onto the old green armchair, close my eyes, lean my head back and breathe.

When the song is over, Lawrence comes into the front room with a bottle of red wine and three glasses. We go outside to the round wooden table on the rooftop. He pours the wine, and we make a toast.
"To traveling!" he says.
"To travel is to live!" Felix chimes in.
But my toast is not for traveling.
It is for John Coltrane.
John Coltrane and 'My Favorite Things'.