A Sacred Light in Spain

 

 

When I entered the cathedral, everything that was on my mind quickly slipped away. I forgot that my morning train had been late, and that I had to wait in line for a few hours. I forgot that my hostel’s quality was sadly only worth the ten euros I had spent on it. I forgot the events that had prompted me to start traveling, along with my worry that I would never recover who I had been. I forgot that I was a minor traveling alone for the first time, and I forgot that I was scared.

La Sagrada Familia—certainly striking on the outside, but not so out of the ordinary that it warranted its enormous reputation. When I gazed at it as I waited in line, a large part of me was missing the little town of Cuenca and how I could talk to locals instead of fighting my way through tourists and keeping watch over my backpack. But then I entered the building, and I felt like Alice in Wonderland: tiny and confused and overwhelmed.

It was unlike any other cathedral I’d been in, wildly different and simply staggering. I had been expecting beauty, and awe-inspiring carvings, and the standard Gothic dim and dramatic lighting. But this had pure white columns stretching up and up and up, lit by sunlight streaming through stained-glass windows that tinted the light into every color imaginable.

I forgot my worries and my nervousness. I even forgot to be ashamed that I was a tourist, and snapped pictures left and right. I was grinning like an idiot and even lay down in one of the pews, staring up as the colors changed with the sun’s movement. Simply put, that place was magical to me.

When I finally exited the cathedral, its impact stayed with me. I became emboldened. I felt the sun hitting my face and imagined that it was passing through me, tinted by my thoughts the same way it had been tinted by the windows’ colors. And I knew that I didn’t need to recover who I had been, because I was someone different now.

The little town of Cuenca did not teach me that I could be strong when I was alone. Cooking for myself did not teach me that I didn’t have to depend on anyone. Figuring out the metro of a foreign city did not teach me independence. But one day in a striking cathedral taught me all that and more. I had time to reflect on my past and my future, and that time let me look back at my accomplishments and realize that I didn’t need to be brave—at least, not brave according to my old definition.

I didn’t need to perform great acts of bravery. I didn’t need to complete my travels without crying, making mistakes, or asking for help. That didn’t make me brave. With all I’d been through, what made me brave was standing up in the morning. It was brave for me to decide to travel to Spain, and embark on a wild journey all by myself. I already had the courage to carry on when it would have been so easy to stop.

Bravery no longer meant heroism after I watched the light in that cathedral. Or maybe it did, but I now defined heroism differently. I know that I am brave for pushing through and continuing to maintain myself, and maybe even improve.

The cathedral taught me that I was already brave.

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