Geometry, Olite
From It Happened. Make of It What You Will.
On the way north I stopped at the castle in Olite.
I left the main road and went looking for it.
The place turned out to be a stone labyrinth – towers, terraces, staircases twisting up and down, narrow windows opening in odd places.
As I walked, I started to draw the plan of the building in my head, level by level, and with it came a feeling I hadn’t had in a long time – one I was afraid might never come back.
I wanted to draw again.
Patterns began to arrange themselves on their own. Interlocking volumes, overlapping floors, the search for harmony and for cracks in the structure. Every new courtyard, every spiral staircase added another layer.
A quiet joy was growing inside me, as if I were discovering a new kind of order for the first time.
More than anything I wanted to sit down in front of a blank sheet of paper, pick up a ruler and a compass and let them lead. Images were lining up, ready: my language of geometry and symbols, of mathematical order and the chaos of dots filling the space in between.
The Spanish sun had warmed the stones; the stones, in return, warmed me, and for the first time in a long time I didn’t feel cold inside anymore.
It didn’t matter when I would start.
I knew that once again I could – and I wanted to.
This is one selected scene from the book.