a thousand splendid suns

"A thousand splendid suns" is the title of a book by Khaled Hosseini, which refers to his native city of Kabul. It is a direct reference to a poem by 17th century Persian poet Saib-e-Tabrizi, entitled "Kabul", which talks about the city's beauties. A certain couple of verses -loosely translated into english- talk about:

"One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs
And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls"

Living a few thousand kilometers far from Kabul, I have had enough time to appreciate Barcelona's uncountable moons. On the other hand, I have been somehow missing out on its splendid suns, an accidental negligence I only realized this morning. In a city like Barcelona, the sun is more perceived than actually seen. One simply knows it's there but never manages to directly look at it. Except of course if he tries to do so very early in the morning. Which brings me to my main point.

Wednesdays are always difficult to start with. Stuck right in the middle of the week, too far from the weekend, but with an already accumulating weariness, they become even worse when I remember the lab meetings, scheduled every Wednesday morning at 9.30. To my bad luck, it happened that today, Barcelona's coldest day of the year so far, this time was pushed half an hour earlier, which meant I had to set my alarm for sometime around 7.30. Coming out of bed was as difficult as expected but I finally managed a few minutes before 8. As I was preparing a coffee-to-go and while getting dressed as fast as possible, I realized something of which I was subconsciously unaware until then. The fact that 8am is a quite reasonable wake-up time -for some people.

It was more like discovering an unseen world. As I was trying to be as quiet as possible, I noticed Giuseppe already having breakfast in the living-room, welcoming me with a rather ironic smile. I was in the shower, when glimpsing outside the bathroom window, I saw people already at their desks in the building next door. As I came out, hurrying for the bus, thinking I would find myself in a dark, deserted town, I saw people walking their dogs, reading their newspaper while having coffee, some of them having even finished their morning jog. A new, unknown world, lived and breathed under Barcelona's splendid sun, the same sun I came face-to-face with as soon as I turned right on Carrer Braille. A glorious sun rising out of the Mediterranean horizon, waving good morning to us all.

And a good morning it was. On the bus, the driver let two homeless people ride without a ticket.