At last!

Before leaving for Spain my friend Lael drew a sketch for me of a statue she saw when she was last in Barcelona. She presented my handmade gift with a little note on the side instructing me to scout out this particular statue.

I have loved her drawing and carried it across Africa and then finally into Europe with me, tied up, with other beloved objects, in my favorite vintage scarf. It then sat on my desk in Barcelona, giving me a beautiful piece of relief when my studies felt overwhelming. But as hard and as often as I looked for the statue in Spain, I never could find it. I soon learned that there are a multitude of statues in Barcelona, each one teasing me upon realization that it was not the particular one I was searching for.

I left Barcelona, a little disheartened to have never found the statue in Lael's sketch.

Fast forward two and a half months to the Sunday afternoon when my dad and I decided to take field trip to our favorite Denton local: Recycled Books and Records. We needed to buy a present for mom and planned to look for a glass cake plate at the nearby antique store. But as always the aroma of used books and the knowledge that we would find all sorts of treasures inside Recycled's purple walls soon lured us in.

While my dad thumbed through 19050s sheet music, I wandered around the three-story maze, and that's when I saw it. Pulled off the shelf, lying on the ground like it was just waiting for me to peruse, there was a photo book about modernism in Spanish art. Having recently discovered a love for Antonio Gaudi, I initially grabbed the book in hopes of finding photos of Sagrada Familia or Pablo Picasso's acclaimed hangout, Cautro Gatos.

But instead, I opened the pages and saw a photo of the sketch I had carried around for so long. Here she is.