Mindscape #16

After some rainy days and a disheartening cold that was keeping me frequently in bed, I went to the window and the purple and orange sunset sky and the chilly air got me by surprise, and that first well-known mindscape could only mean one thing. I had just received the best present of the year: the first day of autumn.

I had just avoided one event the same day, but now I wanted to go out at all costs, even if I wasn’t fully recovered yet. All the world was so beautiful. The first golden streetlights were rushing to illuminate a twilight city. The trees seemed higher and eager to reach the sky. The distant outline of mountain and cityscape also seemed to be rejoicing this autumnal air.

As I wandered through the streets to find the house I was looking for, I was in a place that was new to me, at the same time it was all very familiar, like a refreshing expanded identity. When I had then found the street I needed, I saw at that corner one of the most beautiful images I can remember.

The sky, still starless, was something between a deep blue and violet, and a little shining, white crescent moon from far up above was watching everything. Down below the hills there was the sea and twinkling lights from the shore on the other side. As a Saturday night it was, some of these buildings must have been of bars opening for the night.

At the foot of the hill, closer to me, below the street there was the main avenue and the house of the governor, with lots of fine trees, including cypresses and pine trees (just my two favorite) and a beautiful lawn. Following the avenue, a large sidewalk and a formal and short stone wall with timid art nouveau decorations.

In the street I was in there were more pine trees pointing to the infinite sky. And one of the finest elements of this scenario was, at the corner of the street, this very strange-looking house also made of stones and an exquisite, almost fantasy-looking architecture.

I don’t know how much time I spent appreciating it, and maybe I could have almost missed the party, but two girls were coming and they looked stray, so I asked if they were going to the same place as me and so I made them company. It was a rather alternative party, in a small and tight place, the kind I usually have dioramas in my head, but, curiously, I don’t remember ever actually been to one that felt just like I had always imagined.