My happy place

There's this exercise that they have us do at work that's supposed to be helpful relieving stress which abounds in the medical field because even at the lowest level (like appointment scheduling) you still encounter life and death situations on a fairly regular basis. They tell you to close your eyes and picture you're on tropical beach. It's a variation on the "go to your happy place" trick.

I've never really had a good imagination...not in that way. I mean I can picture a smokey blues club in the French Quarter in New Orleans, filled with people, some in elaborate costumes, some in regular clothes, with a band playing bluesy zydeco music. It's a scene in a story that delivered itself fully formed into my head. But I can't "see" it when I close my eyes.

Also, a tropical beach is not my happy place. This is my happy place:



My happy place is the gardens at the Alhambra. I have a thing about architecture, not that I know anything about it, but I love looking at interesting buildings. Alhambra is certainly interesting architecture, but what I really loved was the gardens. I don't know why, but I felt really happy and at peace there. While I can't close my eyes and call to mind a picture of my happy place I can, with my eyes wide open, recall the feeling of sitting in those gardens on a beautiful day (sunny but not too hot).

Granada is an amazing city, with a somewhat violent history resulting in a sort of odd truce of a kind and there is a lot of beauty there. It seems like there's a light in things there (both actual and metaphorical) that you don't see other places, or that I didn't see other places. There were a lot of places I loved there...the cathedral, the Plaza Nueva, the tea shops...but the gardens at the Alhambra were special.