“Bright and warm this morning under the awning of the café in the little plaza, the one with the playground and palm trees. No lindens here, or willows, but coffee smells as heavenly in this old Mediterranean port as it does at home. My gray city. Its name Spaniards find impossible to pronounce.
“Summer still feeling close this afternoon. It was fun posing without my dress for the painter from America. October. The first rain of Autumn. It’s cold without my sweater.
“It must be colder at home. I’ll be back in time for the first snow. November. Too soon.
“Tomorrow I’ll put on the long-sleeved blouse, the white one, and walk to the café again for coffee. The American? In the afternoon I’ll paint my toenails blue, blue like the sky above the sea.”
Sensational detail. Once again you set yourself a difficult task, then rise to the occasion and execute all that detail with aplomb. Such attention to the particulars: lots of signals that we are in Valencia (the señeras, the coat of arms of the Comunidad Valenciana – complete with bat at the peak). But what attracts the eye most, perhaps, is the remarkable attention to geometry: the supports of the awnings, the vertical lines of the wrought iron railings, the horizontal lines of the roll-down shutters of the shops, the curvature of the street and building. Sure, the geometry catches the eye, but the pink dress of the young woman, her face hidden by the umbrella, the mystery of a walk in the rain, all that too catches the eye.