That time I visited a kindred someone

Weeks ago I promised to tell the story of that time I visited St. Teresa's tomb in march 2025, so here goes nothing:

I had to speak in an international congress in Salamanca this march, so I tried to plan the trip; where to go, what to visit, etc, and I found out that Alba de Tormes (the town where St. Teresa died) was doable. I paid for an extra day at the hotel and waited excited for the day to come, as the routine of greenhouse-office-repeat was kinda getting me down at the moment. A mystical breath of fresh air would do.

The day arrived and I woke up at 2 am for a 2ish hour long car trip to Granada. I had to pick the train at 6, but I wanted to drive slow and have everything prepared, so I woke up naturally, and with 1.5 hours of sleep, I departed. 

Just as a curious fact, when I was arriving to Granada I saw something that looked like a dismembered torso of a person. It was 4 am. I pushed the accelerator. 

I arrived to Granada, and the 3 hour (more like 4 hour) long train trip started. I managed to sleep a little, I remember waking up in Córdoba and being mesmerized by all the vegetation, the beauty and the green that was surrounding us. Then I started to think about Almería, the desert and the boomerwaffen having no sense of beauty making my fatherland something like Mad Max but with greenhouses.

Then I arrived to Madrid; the gargantuanness of that place mesmerized me in a bad way. It's like a city whose identity has been stolen; the monuments and the sculptures are there, but the high percentage of immigrants and the homogeneity of the  new buildings make it empty, like it has no personality besides being a place to honor the new god that arised after the dictatorship: money.

I then went to see a friend of mine, a dear one until that point if you ask me; we met in 2020 during the lock down through a telegram group and became friends. He's a 40 something married man with a little daughter I first met as a baby through pictures. And that baby sure grew a lot in these 6 years. I felt so old. Still, the encounter was bittersweet as I was like the second option; this man went to spend a couple days in Madrid and the dates of the both of us matched so I tell the family to meet in person. I bought them some small presents like a magnet for the fridge an all and some typical food from the land (a special flour called "harina de migas" which is used to prepare one of our poverty inspired typical dishes, the "migas"). Still this person wanted to meet with someone else, and it was like I was the third wheel. They didn't pick me up from the bus station, and the firs thing this person said when I went to the cafe they were having breakfast was something along the lines of "wow you sure look fatter in person than in pictures".

I had enough, but I thought it would be nice to have a guide to Madrid so I ideated a plan B; a good friend of mine, one of the best actually was there too by coincidence, so I told him to pick me up and go eat. I said y farewells to this online friend and an inner resolution jaded me, sculpted me out of that relationship. From now on he would also be a divertimento.

So, I went for a walk with this friend of mine; he's as brilliant as me if not a little less. We share the same interests regarding politics and humor (the 4chan-esque essence of cruelty mixed with acid jokes) and as we have the same age and are both phd students, we sure share a lof of things, speaking daily, having long calls frequently and sharing troubles and experiences. The best part is that we come from very different backgrounds as he's the son of a renowned lawyer and I am a son of farmers. When I saw him this time I could feel the difference in our economical positions at first sight; he was wearing high quality clothes, and while I improved since my Quechua garments I used to wear at college, I was ages below him in this regard. He was born into this beauty mixed with physical effort as a funny thing to do (for example building a pool with his father for their condo) and I into scarcity and physical labor that could get you (literally) crippled. I, for the first time in a long time, felt not ashamed, but aware of my background and myself into the bigger picture. Probably nowadays my family as a whole could bury him in money, but we are developing the sense of beauty, of taking care of ourselves, of decorating beyond necessary stuff. My fiancée has done a ton to help me in that regard. She sure has got patience, but at least I now comb my hair and wash my teeth.

After that I took another train and arrived to Salamanca around 7 pm. It was nothing from the other world; a plain city that reminded me to the working-class neighborhoods from Málaga I lived in during my master's degree years. I checked the site I was going to sleep in and I got terrified (it was horrible and I was scammed by the local business where I contracted the trip). I called my fiancée and she told me to not worry. I entered the site and I panicked. After a really long trip I was at 8 pm in an old-ass smoke-smelling bed-broken site. I called the agency and told them to find a solution. They told me to sort this shit on my own; they wouldn't provide a solution unless I paid more.

So I went out to seek a solution.  I went to a carmelite convent. I was sure that I could sleep in a cell if I paid for it. There was one close to where I was. I went in, bought a couple scapulars and asked the question, only to be answered with a sound "no" from a friar who couldn't care less about a fellow spiritual brother in trouble.

I was about to sleep on the street when I decided to pay for an hotel, the first I saw. It was somewhat cheap for my situation, so I went in, and as I was able to pick up the bed and left my belongings on the floor, I cried. I cried soundly. I cried from the deepest part of my being. I had been humiliated, expelled like a dog and scammed. I called my fiancée. I called my phd friend, I called my business partner and friend. I was devastated.

After crying for a while I decided to get up and text a friend who was also going as a spokesperson to this congress. We met at the Plaza Mayor, he invited me for dinner (I ate roasted pig face with a lemon flavored fanta) and we had a good time. Then I went bed and prepared my belongings to find a cheaper place to stay. I texted my priest friend, who prayed for me and called me next morning to check on me.

The next day I went to a student's residency and to the congress, everything went well there. At dinner I had a great time with other lawyer-musician college teachers. Nothing much. I had to do a job, and I did it flawlessly. I texted my phd director and friend reporting the news and he congratulated me. The dinner was exquisite. I felt victorious.

After the dinner, some people invited me to go for some drinks and all that. I do not drink except for really special events (and then it's just like cider), but as I had to do the networking shit, I was down for everything. But it didn't happen that way.

An old man who was also in the congress asked me for help to get to his hotel, and I couldn't say no. I ended up losing the track of the youngsters only for this man to tell me about his life. He probably won't remember that, I won't get anything out of it, and still, I do not regret it.

 After that, I was going back home when I saw someone in the street pleading for money. I can't remember his name, but I remember his story; his wife kicked him out of his house and was in the middle of a court procedure. It could be a lie, but he seemed so sincere I decided to trust. 

At first I spoke with him, and he asked for money. I had nothing with me, so we kept speaking. I told him about myself, my faith, my job, and he told me about his. I tried to councel him, to talk back to his parents and try to fix his life. He toured me through the salmantine night  and the monuments as we spoke. Out of piety I decided to give him money, so we went for a cashier. The app didn't work, the money wouldn't come out, and I was even willing to give him 20 euro (which for me, taking into account the double housing expenses and all, was a lot), but then I found out a 5 euro bill on my walled, and I handled it to him. Then he told me that he was going to spend the rest of the night at the bus station sleeping there to take a buss to somewhere in order to arrive to a local site for homeless. He hugged me. He smelled, he was wearing sunglasses. I didn't care. I hugged him back after blessing him.

Finally I was about to arrive to the student residence after 2 hours of walking non-stop in total and having the recoil of yesterday's prior traveling experience, when a group of students decided to adopt the wearing a suit-tired me. As they were drunk I cracked some "based" jokes and later on I found my way out the french way: escaping with an excuse.

At last, some rest.

The next day I went visiting Salamanca. My intervention in the congress was done and the assistance certificate approved so I said a sound fuck you to the institutions and the phd persona and wandered through the city. I went to the masonic archives, to mass at the old cathedral... many places. And spent the rest of the day walking. I remember warmly the visit to the Tormes river at sunset/early night. I went there and took a picture of myself with the river and the cathedral. I like that picture. I really do.

So, finally the big day arrived. I was all in. I picked up my scapulars, my "The inner castle book" and all, and  I picked up the bus. The day was rainy, cloudy. It was perfect. 

Then I arrived. Alba de Tormes is a small town from Castilla-León with nothing relevant in particular, except that Teresa D'Ávila lived there her last years.

I went out and walking for a bit while listening to "Amado K" from José Carra, one of my favorite songs which I've listened to countless times, and I found a gigantic iron statue of Theresa. I went into the museum, saw everything, and then I arrived to the tomb place.

It is said that she had her heart pierced with an arrow by angels, and the tomb, who is actually in a masonic-esque floored room, had the silver coffin with said angels sculpted. I got the chance to be alone. And I spoke to her. I pleaded for strength, for faith, for support to my loved ones. I cried. A silent, single tear. And I made a promise that haunts me until today: that I would become better, holier, closer to God. It still bugs me.

Afterwards I went downwards to her chapel and took pictures of her heart and arm which are publicly exposed and of the cell where she died. I was so excited. But the moment I went out of there something changed; I felt like I was insulting and disrespecting her, like I had learnt nothing from her. I felt like the rest of the tourists who went there after me with the cameras. I was being part of a fiction, a fiction that sell pieces of cloth that touched her mortal remains as miraculous. I was feeling sick, and it didn't got any better when I spoke to a cloistered nun and she had an smart phone.

As I had to spend a little more time until the next bus arrived for me to go back to Salamanca, I went to a museum/convent of St. John of the Cross. I went into the garden and an orange cat came to greet me. I like cats, I fostered 3 in my college years, but they don't seem to like me back, so I was estranged about this one purring on my legs. I went to a stone wall and I pet him, sat alongside him and the stood still. And he/her hugged me. Like it went towards me and put its head on my neck and started purring. I made eye contact, and I will never forget those green eyes. We were millimeters away, face to face, and I felt like time stopped, like I was being hugged from within, that my whole self was being held. And, abruptly, it ended. Someone else came, and I had to put away the cat, who was clinging onto me. Then I entered the museum and saw St. John's prior coffin and his finger. I like to think that the cat was a Grace, that those eyes were so similar to the ones of the Teresa's reconstruction that it couldn't be just a coincidence. Or maybe I'm just plain mad at this point. Who knows.

Afterwards I sought for a place to eat. I saw a place nearby Teresa's chapel so I decided to ask. The site had the quote of God being amongst the pots and pans, so I decided to go in only to find out that the site was a uber elite place of daily menu at 180 euros. That place was actively making money out of the greatest mystic of Christendom, shitting on her memoir and beliefs at a couple meters away from her mortal remains. I ran away with another frenchie.

I then went to a supermarket and ate something for a couple of euros. I wondered through Alba de Tormes, it started raining gently. I called my phd friend again.

The bus arrived, I went back to Salamanca, went to another supermarket for dinner and went to bed.  

The next day I picked the train to Madrid and a friend of mine (whose nickname is Blau) made it to see me. We met last year when I was injuried (again) and unable to walk for 6 weeks. I decided to play a mage-based mmo from my childhood now that I had the money to pay with a one month subscription and we met there and befriended through discord.

This person who at simple sight would be a polar opposite (severely left-winged, homosexual, etc) is actually a really good friend of mine. We speak to each other on a monthly basis now because we are both submerged in adulthood, but when we do its always like 3-4 hour calls.

So Blau did actually come for me at the train station, and spend quality time walking through Madrid. We went to "El Retiro" and spent the little time I had left there (around an hour and a half) sitting in a wooden bank talking about nothing and everything; the boomers, rent prices, relationships, work, you know stuff that people of the same age in their mid-twenties talk about.

Afterwards he came  with me to the train station. We hugged again and I went back to Granada.

I arrived there and I went for the car. The day was nice and sunny. I had to yeet myself back to my hometown as I had a big choir concert in my town (holy week's one). I made it just 3 minutes before it to start. I sung the miserere mei deus, the pange lingua, the lacrimosa, all of it. It was masterful. It was incredible. I got shivers.

And finally, I went back home and got to rest in bed.

 If souls are able to read, if my prayers can reach. I want to thank you for everything you've taught me. I admire you deeply, and I consider you like family. 

Someday I will get into the inner castle, dear one. I promise.