There are journeys measured in kilometres and journeys measured in age. Palma’s seafront promenade at rush hour belongs to the second category. You enter at one end with the intact hopefulness of youth and emerge at the other, weeks later, with the weary wisdom of someone who has seen things.
The light turns green. You advance three metres. It turns red. You contemplate the sea, which is beautiful, yes, but which by the fortieth time you have memorised wave by wave. Beside you, a cruise ship the size of a neighbourhood unloads three thousand passengers who have, very sensibly, decided not to take the car.
And then there are the roundabouts, that Mediterranean institution where traffic rules become a suggestion and each driver interprets right of way according to their mood. You enter the roundabout commending yourself to whatever each believes in, and you exit, if you exit, giving thanks.
They say patience is a virtue. Whoever said it surely drove the promenade daily. Because here one learns to wait, to breathe deeply, to put on a long, very long podcast. And when you finally reach your destination, ten minutes from home in a straight line, you don’t feel you’ve driven: you feel you’ve made a pilgrimage. And tomorrow, faithful ones, we shall do it again.