Before I left Spain –before Act II quietly folded into memory– I traveled its length as if retracing footsteps left centuries ago.
From the south: Marbella’s heat and shine. Málaga’s pulse. Granada’s gravity, where history sits heavy in the air and refuses to be rushed. Barcelona’s contradictions. Nerja’s cliffs and caves. Caminito del Rey, where danger sharpens your senses and reminds you that fear can coexist with awe. Ronda, split clean in two by time and stone. Seville, lyrical and proud.
I even crossed borders Tangier, Morocco; Gibraltar, UK –hopping continents as casually as one crosses streets, reminded again how arbitrary lines can be when history ignores them entirely.
Everywhere, I stood among remnants of lives long gone. Civilizations reduced to ruins, caves etched by hands that never imagined me. It was humbling not in a small way, but in a geological one. Empires rise. Empires fall. We pass through.
And then, at the very end, I went somewhere personal. Sad Hill Cemetery.
The final scene of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
My favorite western. My favorite ending.
I walked into that vast circular arena and felt the years collapse. I ran –actually ran– just like Tuco, weaving through the graves as Ennio Morricone’s score played loudly in my head. I recreated the movements. The urgency. The madness. The joy.
For two days, I stayed. Not sightseeing –inhabiting. Sitting where the camera once sat. Standing where the myth was made. Letting myself be part of the film instead of just a lifelong viewer of it.
It felt like the right way to say goodbye.
Spain had given me labor and language. Heat and history. A return to creativity. Permission to call myself an artist. And finally, a place where fiction and memory could meet me exactly where I was.
Those last two days weren’t about travel anymore.
They were about gratitude.
And with that,
Act II ended not with an answer, but with alignment.
Fade out.
