2023 CADAQUES MINI PRINT INTERNATIONAL

Windows
From the surrounding fields, the vision of the village
is that of a wall of dry stones pierced by hundreds
of windows. Each of them frames the permanent
contradiction of human beings between the calm
of a sheltered existence and the restlessness of an
outdoor life. Inside and outside. Light and shadow.
Calm and anxiety.
That’s why they come in all types. Some long for the
horizon. Others for the shelter of home.
Look closely. Pau’s dog sticks his head out of the window.
His howl accompanies him like a basso continuo.
There is a house facing north. The cierzo flows
through one of the windows and closes the bedroom
shutters. The thud awakens the elders who still tremble
with every crash.
Joana, from the bakery, sunbathes at the window of
the room. Her skin will forever retain the smell of
bread from the house where she was born.
Inside an attic there is a lightbulb that turns on and
off. Pere, the youngest in Quimeta’s house, discovers
the magic of light and imagines how the sun and the
moon illuminate day and night.
Mercè is content, smiles at the passersby and claps.
In Teresa’s house they bathe the little ones. From the
shoes with holes comes a beach full of buttons.
I don’t know who that girl is, that flies out of a window
and pursues a flock of goats.
Neither do I know that man who is enraptured by the
passing clouds nor that sad woman who returns from
a trip and looks disconsolately at the horizon.
With a mirror in her hand and her cheeks well made
up, Pepa shines a light on Josep’s window.
This happens only in the summer. Because in winter,
when the cold makes you grit your teeth and the day
becomes shorter, the streets are empty and the windows
sleep, sheltered from wind and foreigners.
In the city I have also found windows, but I had better
not speak of them. There are also balconies like those
of the street where I was born. Although they are first
cousins, the balconies are more conceited and they
like to dress up with flowery hats on holidays.
I return to Cadaqués after being around Terra Alta
and again I reencounter the feeling that the village
windows offer me. Hundreds of windows gathered in
the hideout of Hort d’en Sanés, each of them hiding
the passions, anxieties and joys of their authors. You
only need a curious eye to discover them. Look carefully.
They are fragments that explain how the return and
the journey, shelter and despair, truth and dream
feed this creative spirit charged with memory.
For a Pau and a Riba
Pitu Gómez Canals
Graphic designer