Maria Zambrano: this is brilliantly exciting. We move. 08.41

08.45: 185 km/h

It’s still dark outside.

08.46: 185 km/h and the landscape is ghostly, white buildings sitting among the reflected forms of us.

08.48: 213 km/h, we’re in a tunnel now.

What are the things of the world that I value?

This train is fun, an exciting vehicle for my body and my mind. We’re in a tunnel again. We popped out for a moment to see little hills and olive trees. I do like the olive trees. I like their neatness. We’re out again. It’s dusty outside, still not light. Dusty land and dusty skies.

There is a peacefulness of simply seeing, without engagement. This is so much better than flying. I am earthed.

09.10: 269 km/h

09.34: The raindrops race in horizontal lines along the window pane. Suddenly it’s getting brighter – still not enough to fade us in here away – lightness in the sky and the dusty mist receding; even bright patches where the sun might be. Internally I’m reminded more and more that I expected breakfast. Soon I will have to go looking. We are approaching Cordoba. The name has romance, rhythm. My view is low down, concrete walls and graffiti. For some people this is just a train. For me it is that too, also something else. Today the platforms in Cordoba are wet, wide puddles of water lying about. It must often not be so.

09.46: 0 km/h

10.29: Sunshine now, the shadow of my hand on the page, changing landscape – no trees suddenly when a moment ago there was tree on tree on tree. Now trees again. I don’t know what they are – maybe cork oaks? Not olives. Rolling land now, with distant mountains.

11.41: 299 km/h, just past Madrid. Lumpy land

11.46: 300 km/h! WOW!

Passing Guadalajara – wide plains, distant views. I think I want to study Geography! The earth is pale red here, the roads are small, the land is ploughed.

11.58: 301 km/h

12.06 and in a tunnel at 299 km/h – not sure about that. Out again. The houses have a reddish hue, like the land. The speed of the train makes my writing shaky. There are bushy trees and some green land. Some new roads.

Different little trees now, not olives I don’t think; sparse and darker green, maybe recently pruned? More rolling hills and distant mountains. There are some olives, the others maybe almonds – there must be a lot of almond trees somewhere in the world.

I’m thinking about what and how and who I want to be, how I want to travel, where I want to go, how I want to live, what I want to do – it’s not too late but this is a time for clarity – it is time to make the days count.

We are approaching Zaragoza and many people are leaving.

12.40: In Zaragoza station. I’ve looked at the map. The Pyrenees are near, just above, and we will head now towards the coast and approach Barcelona from the south. It is the landscapes that count, more than the cities. The land. How the land is used, this is what I’m interested in. And people. I must learn to communicate with words. Maybe I can start with written words, publishing writing, seeking comments, commenting on the writing of others: engaging with my writing. And speaking to people, though that is much much harder. Much much harder. The problem is the guarding, the shielding of true feelings, and also the conditioning. Talking without seeking to influence, and yet what else is there?

Funny little lumps, like spoil heaps, and a deep valley to the left. Wind turbines, cultivated patches, a crazy castle, Roden, maybe? Dusty white land now, with green tussocks.

I think I saw three vultures landing on a pylon. They were big and had crooked necks the way vultures do. Quite far off though. They reminded me of a strange and dark dream I had last night. There was a dog or wolf, some sort of cur, and there was a person in a tree above the dog and only could be saved, the person could only be rescued by the dog and the person drops a sword and it cuts the dog near its tail but that is enough for the dog to roll over and bleed to death, and now the person must also die because only the dog could rescue (her?) the person. I am observing but unable to have any influence on the events. It is a dark Hades like scene.

We’re in a tunnel at 275 km/h, out now into sunshine and a wide plain. Different crops, and irrigation. Some look like a sort of conifer – I don’t know what they can be. There is a rolling plain. The land is more fertile. We are approaching Lleida.

Ah! It is not how the people live that I’m interested in, but how the land supports them, and I am interested in the people who work the land and I am interested in working the land. I am also interested in people when they attempt to communicate at a heart level, as in Biodanza. Am I beginning to find a way through the maze of being alive?

13.23: Lleida. Monster blocks of flats mirroring a monster concrete works. The pillars that support the covers in the station are painted blue and so are the stanchions that carry the overhead cables.

I am interested in the use of the land.

A river tumbling through. Rubbish. A man sorting through it. Solar panels, some trough shaped. Do they catch water as well as the sun?

Reading (books).

The place where I live is small, not a city or even a town, but a community. It is in that community that it is possible to have influence, to show a way to live.

We dive into tunnels and mountains again. Muntaynes de Prades. Mist and rain.

13.53: 0km/h Camp de Tarragona. And on further. 14.10. The weather as we approach Barcelona is like the weather when we left Malaga – low cloud, mist and greyness.

A swollen muddy river. Greenness. A tunnel. Roads and traffic, other trains, industry – a steelworks. And as the day dulls I see my reflection again, the same but changed.

Market gardens, blocks of flats, low hills. And here we are, nearly. All around people rush to get their bags and get to the doors. Concrete, graffiti, Virginia creeper, a scrap yard, a mass of morning glory on wasteland. A tunnel in, quite long, 14.25. We slow, still underground. Where have I been for five and a half hours? A question with an obvious answer, but also with a hidden answer, an unknown answer, a sought answer. A good place, a place of discovery. We arrive in darkness. 14.28. Beautiful. Barcelona Sants.