Soul in suspension

The only pleasure comparable to having time on your side is living without time. The moments of greatest joy in summer happen when your watch doesn't just stop - it evaporates. A languid after-lunch under pine trees, a siesta in a boat, a midnight entry into a nightspot in the company of friends.

Summer vacations give you these flashes when a gust of felicity blows you over, a blast of lucidity about the meaning of life. In these instants you understand that the treasures of this existence are nuggets, moments when the soul is in suspension. Temporal coordinates disappear, and we float in an ocean of immensity with no points of reference. For a tiny fraction of time we volatilize routine, memory and expectation. The present rules with absolute authority - motionless, stopped, paralyzed, the fantasy of remaining eternally crystallized in the amber of summer.

Madrileños seem to be in constant flight. Escaping from the city all year round on long weekends, and now, in high summer, losing our grip on the rituals of winter, altering our habits drastically - and our wardrobe pathetically. It is not just about leaving the city behind, its burning asphalt, its empty skyscrapers. It is about actually forgetting who we were, who we are. Madrileños flee as far as possible from the metropolis which we hate and love, detest though we are unable to live without it. It is not here, in Madrid, where we can find "non-time." Free parking spaces, unreserved restaurant tables, four green lights in a row on the avenue - but if you haven't left the city, you are still trapped in yourself. It really doesn't matter if you walk around in Bermuda shorts, or enjoy using the changing booths in Zara without waiting in line. Life only offers its miracle, the sudden supernova of felicity, when your own life vanishes - your own existence, with its familiar landmarks and beacons.

We had been living in Madrid in July, that oasis of heat, rejoicing in our own search for atemporal ecstasy. And with the relaxing advantage of having time on our side. Summer had only begun. Vacations were on the way, waiting like clean pajamas in a drawer. We had all the summer before us. We sauntered though our last days on the job with the delight of knowing there was a great cushion of future summertime for us to flop onto. Time was on our side. The passage of days could only bring a nicer scenario. We progressed into the heart of the dog days, that cocoon in the center of the year which, like a pressure chamber, reconstitutes and regenerates us, purifies and reinvents us, to return recharged to the anteroom of winter.

Today is the 16th. Let the days not go by. Time is running out. There are Madrileños who have only now started their vacations, but the daily hours of light are already undeniably dwindling; September already looms in the use-by dates of the yoghurts; we are already stepping onto the gangway over the shark-filled waters of autumn. There are moments in life when we actually want the calendar leaves to fall, perhaps because we are going through a time of difficulty. But it is always important to look time in the face. The succession of days must be good news to us, the passage of weeks or months a friend and ally. As we know, the struggle against the passage of time is a lost battle. So now we face a clear and imminent defeat. We are at a great moment now, probably on vacations, perhaps far from Madrid, savoring other places, other foods, other people. Or, in the worst of cases, we are still prisoners in the capital - pretending that Madrid is not Madrid, that we are not its selfsame winter denizens. In any case, the 16th of August is a nice date. Let's use it well, though the march of time is slowly regathering its invincible army of desolation and tedium. Today time is against us but, for a few days more we have, playing on our team, the best version of ourselves.