I went home last weekend. To Prague that is, the home of my spirit.
Prague is the place where my spirit can roam free …tourists allowing.
I could not believe the masses of tourists on the Charles Bridge…and this in April.
So, I decided to wait until after midnight for my usual walk. No people in sight, just a half moon in the sky and the glorious might of the Prague Castle in the distance.
I began walking on the bridge and… it was like entering a cosmic cathedral. The beauty of the city is so overwhelming that I felt like a visitor from another planet discovering the shapes of a primordial world.
The statues on the Charles Bridge, dark and austere, blended into the night sky. They take my breath away. They look like silent mementos.
When I walk through Prague, the streets speak to me. I tune into the aura of the city. I observe the details on the facades of the Art Deco buildings and empty my mind. After a couple of minutes I have become part of Prague.
I am so good at it that every time I do this …a local comes up to me and asks for directions….
Like on Sunday morning, when I was waiting for the underground at Mustek station. I was a little bored so I did my tune-into-the-spirit-of-Prague exercise.
Less than five minutes later, a guy came up to me and asked in Czech how to get to Cerny Most. I remembered that it was at the end of the B line so I told him. I don’t look Czech and I definitely sound like a foreigner when I speak Czech, but that man was absolutely certain I could help him…
Mysteries of Prague…
Frank Kafka wrote in a letter to a friend in 1902: “Prague doesn’t let go of you. It doesn’t let go of us two. This little mother with claws. You have to adjust to it or else…You would have to set it on fire in two places, Vysehrad and Hradcani and this would set you free….”
I don’t want Prague to let go of me and… it never will.
photo: thanks to angelfire.com
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