House painted mural in 600 year old cave, 10’ x 30’ in the round Granada Spain. 2023
To whom it may concern,
I’ve been climbing a mountain my entire life (physical, metaphorical, between this-that-andthus). I’m ready to greet it with the warmth of my Grandmother’s quilt, just like she taught me to.
In the Andalucía of Southern Spain, I fell off my bicycle and rolled down the rock face alone. On this, my self-supported bicycle tour across Europe I held my knee together while waiting for the ambulance that would show up, 40km from everything on a dirt olive road, and pop three staples in me before sending me on my way.
The paramedics took me to a hotel – and I stayed a night with my leg propped up before cycling the 30km to granada the next day (the kind of hurt you feel like a lump in your throat- open flesh stuck together with metal wire techtonic plate shifting under a pair of sports leggings for 30 km). But there I had a free place to stay with warm lentils and good company.
When my host shared holy kindness with me – I traded a mural for 6 days of healing.
I got those staples removed in a parking lot in the Italian Alps.
I keep them in an ornate glass bottle and pray to them like a personal relic that I would be so lucky to be anything at all (falling off the altitude of Spain, capable in this like all things).
I’m frequently riding bikes up the façade of a tectonic mass, toting all my things in this life led as a transient. Oh to be intrinsically homeless.
Kellyann Marie 