Allow me to paint the scene surrounding the breakfast buffet in our hotel in Barcelona. A woman licks her fingers, then reaches for the serrated knife to slice a baguette. Two couples at a nearby table speak and laugh at a volume that is beyond unacceptable—as if they’re performing and vying for all of our attention. A man near me returns to his table with a plate stacked eight inches high with cubes of cheese. Another group abandons their table leaving enough wasted food with which you could feed every unhoused person within three blocks. Several hungry patrons are pushing—actually pushing—to get to the cast-iron pan of sizzling bacon that’s been delivered.

It was two weeks ago in Spain. We don't typically take breakfast at the hotel, but it was comped, so why not? The fellow diners clearly hail from all over the world and represent a lovely variety of race, language, religion, and homeland, which is, of course, the magic of visiting a big city.

We coach Riggs on how we’d like to see variety on his plate: a rainbow of colors, fruit and eggs and greens. No more cereal and pastries! Then I collect my standards: tortilla Español, boquerones en vinagre, frijoles, lechuga. Not having eaten meat in more than fifteen years, I eye the paper-thin slices of Jamón ibérico like a former smoker watching someone slide a Camel out of a pack.

And I breathe through the many buffet crimes committed before my eyes. A sniffling person wipes their nose, then seizes the tongs. A bearded guy wearing super short shorts, a Megadeth tank-top, and slippers, who looks like he hasn’t bathed or groomed in weeks, has decided that he doesn’t need serving utensils at all. I squirm as I watch his filthy fingers clamor for a slice of papaya.

Then we’re all at the table, enjoying our meal, knocking back coffee, prepping for another 20k steps as we wander around this city that has absolutely captured our heart…and I’m working through the buffet sins I’ve witnessed.

I have a strong tolerance, but something about today, maybe the jet lag or one too many cafe con leches, I’m a bit on edge. As I sit back to take a few more sips, I can barely hear myself think due to that loud table over there, and then a man about my age several feet away lets out an epic belch while he’s in the midst of stuffing his face with sausage. It sends me over the edge.

Where is the decency? The respect for others? What happened to self-awareness? What swine!!! I nearly surge to my feet in protest, when I catch myself.

I take a deep breath and totally reframe the situation. It was such a powerful moment that I, while in the elevator returning to my room, scribbled down the experience in the notes on my phone to share it with you later.

The two loud couples: they’d been forcibly separated and hadn’t seen each other in thirty years. The woman licking her fingers, maybe that’s totally acceptable in her country. The Megadeth guy, well, perhaps he didn’t have parents like mine. The guy with the mound of cheese cubes, what if he never gets the pleasure of good cheese and was in full-blown dairy ecstasy? The people wasting food, what if they spent their entire life fighting for every morsel? The folks warring over bacon, well, I remember what bacon can do to people. And that guy next to me who burped without shame. What if it was a sign of respect to the chef in his country?

Who knows? In the end, we’re all just star matter and bacteria anyway, right? And we were all there in Barcelona, travelers seeking new experiences and horizons, perhaps reconnecting with old friends or making new ones.

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After I whispered, “Boo, get over yourself and lighten up,” I put my attention on my heart—not the organ but my energetic heart, the glowing center in my chest—and I imagined shooting love out into the room, filling the space with patient, understanding, open-minded love. A smile lifted my lips, and then I saw all of them, even Megadeth Man, with pure love. My brothers and sisters, all of us fighting our own wars, all of us trying to bring a little light to life.

That’s why I travel, friends. That’s why we drag our son around the world. We can’t know what others are going through, or what they believe, or what is acceptable in their culture. What we must do is open our minds and hearts and let them in—every one of them—because they are just like us, humans playing the hand we’re dealt.

Not an hour later, we visited MOCO, a modern art museum in the El Born neighborhood, and there was an astounding Banksy exhibit. Don’t even get me started on the rabbit holes we went down later trying to figure out who Banksy is. I’d love it to be Robert Del Naja from the trip-hop group Massive Attack. He was first a street artist in Bristol, but Banksy is likely another street artist from Bristol called Robin Gunningham. Or maybe he’s actually a collective of several artists. Oh, how I’d like to write a novel exploring the possibilities.

Anyway, they had some of his quotes printed on the walls, and this one seized me, as if it had been waiting for me long before the experience at breakfast.

More than anything, I hope our son one day departs our nest with an open mind and open heart that are constant fountains spewing love. I hope he’s able to leave judgement behind, to hunt for beauty even when it’s hard, to find commonality even when it seems impossible. And I hope that when he looks at another person, thinking that they are wrong, that he can take a step back and realize that maybe he’s the one who is wrong one. Or, maybe they’re both right. The latter is what I’ve mulled over so much lately. The multiverse is wonderfully complex. What if there is room for all our beliefs? What if we’re all right? Or wrong?

Thanks for reading. I’ll leave you with a shot of me in my happy place, totally jet-lagged and having just finished one of the best meals of my life at a place called Fat Veggies.

Ciao!

boo

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