Sunday afternoon. From a window

Sunday afternoon.  

After visiting the amazing Roman Museum (more on that later ).  We stumbled by chance on Valencia’s oldest square   Music.  Dancing.  Families visiting one of several churches next door.  A fountain of Neptune, god of water, surrounded by 7 nudes pouring water from their pots.  A homage to the life giving waters.   

For a while I was not just a foreign observer.  I was a participant in a way of life. Watching a toddler kick his ball, the ball gets away from him and rolls to me.   We smile as I hand it back to him.    

Random wandering leads us to the bar we were at last night.

  We head to our flat as Cate needs to pack and head to bus station.     But first lunch.  We look in our neighborhood, which is a Chinatown of shops and restaurants.  Cate finds one and it is an amazing place.  Small Chinese place with some very good food.  Yet the cheapest meal of the trip so far.   

Back the flat, it’s 2 pm.  I make myself an Americana and break off a chunk of chocolate to nibble on.  I open the windows and sit and watch the world outside.     

I think this is one of the

Moments I came here for.  As Rick Baker would say, a moment of being rather than doing.    

I thought of my father at this age.    One of the ironies of my life is that I was born when my dad was 41.  Same year I was when Ricky was born.  

I will leave it to my kids to draw conclusions on the pluses and minuses of an older dad.   

My dad as an older dad was sedentary.   Ate the American diet of the 50s and 60s and never thought of exercise.   

When mom and dad were the age I am now, they both had chronic disease which would take their lives in less than a decade.    

Sitting here in Spain I guess I’ve found one part of the answer to the question: can we escape the patterns we grew up with.