Editor’s Note: We want to thank our writers for contributing unique, moving, and personal stories related to the new reality of a world besieged by the virulent coronavirus. We will be sharing those stories with you, along with our usual articles. We hope they bring you comfort, camaraderie, and company during difficult times.

By Elyn Aviva

Sometimes you don’t have to travel far to travel far. Desperate to accomplish something useful during this pandemic, I decided the time had come to cull my computer-based address book. It had grown unwieldly, an out-of-control, never-pruned bush that took up space and memory on my computer. I had read (many times) that clearing things out is a way to make space for new things to happen. There’s the often-retold story of the Zen teacher pouring tea into his student’s overflowing teacup. Why? To teach his student that you must be empty before you can be filled.

The time had come, I decided, to “empty out.” Besides, every time I tried to enter a new contact, I was treated to a spinning colored disk as (perhaps) my computer pondered whether I hadn’t already surpassed my contact limit. I hoped that pruning the list would improve its functioning. Besides, we (my husband, Gary White, and I) had just moved back to the US after living 11 years in Spain. It was time to clear out some of the contacts I had accumulated during those years.

Blithe and ignorant, I began with the “A’s,” thinking that the most methodical way to attack the problem was to start at the beginning and work through to the end. A linear process of undoing, discarding, destroying. Sounds simple, straightforward, right?

At first it went smoothly. I recognized a number of “A” entry names and let them be. Then I came to “African Safari.” I had forgotten, but at some time I had been in contact with a safari planner. My interest in an African shooting safari—albeit a photographic one—had never been great and was now nonexistent. I clicked “Delete Card” and the multi-color “in process” disk began to spin. And spin. Perhaps it was offering me an opportunity to rethink my decision.

Soon I came to “Alison.” Alison? Who was he or she, I wondered? I opened the file card. Oh yes! Suddenly memories surged up and I saw her standing before me, a colorful, handwoven shawl draped over her shoulders. We had met in Girona, Catalonia, six years ago, and she had told me how, at great personal risk, she had rescued a wounded bird that had landed on a busy highway. 

Deleting her entry felt like deleting a kind and caring soul, someone whom I had met only briefly but whose way of being in the world lay dormant in the contact card, waiting for me to resuscitate the memory. I couldn’t delete her, could I? It would be heartless and cruel. And besides, then I would have nothing to remind me of our brief but meaningful encounter.

I progressed to another entry. A duplicate. Easy. Deleted. A little further down the list, an empty file. Easy. Deleted.

Next I encountered “Andrew.” I had no recollection of Andrew, but I had left a cryptic note at the bottom of the contact card: “Bright-orange-shirted pilgrim, met in front of cathedral.” Although I had no memory of our encounter, the “bright-orange-shirted pilgrim” note evoked a smile, a faint curiosity. Undoubtedly, he was a pilgrim on the Camino de Santiago—the only kind of pilgrim I met in Spain—but where had we met? And why did we exchange addresses?

“Arcosanta Peluquería,” Girona. Nine years ago, after moving to Girona, a magical medieval town north of Barcelona, I had finally found a really good hairstylist, the owner of this beauty shop. One memorable day, we got into an argument (in Spanish). There had been a mass shooting in the US, and she railed at me, an American by birth and nationality, chastising me for coming from a country where “everyone has a gun.” As she snipped angrily at my hair, I kept telling her that not everyone has a gun in the US. I never did. My friends didn’t. But she didn’t believe me. She had calculated the number of guns and divided that number into the population of the US, and she knew. Everyone had a gun. She waved the scissors close to my ears in a threatening manner. Needless to say, as soon as she had blown dry my hair, I went in search of another hairstylist.

Without hesitation, I deleted the beauty shop entry. The multicolor disk spun a long time. I waited impatiently, eager for the unpleasant memory to be gone.

I looked at the clock. Half an hour had passed. Instead of breezing through my extensive list of contacts and rapidly deleting them, I was getting sucked into memories of other times, other places. Clearly, I needed a different strategy. In the 11 years we lived in Spain, I had accumulated numerous entries of favorite local shops, restaurants, and taxi drivers. A search by city would certainly be a more efficient way to cull my contacts than going “A to Z.”

I searched for “Girona” and copious entries appeared. “Bio” (organic) grocery stores. Easy to delete en masse. Our favorite local heating/electrical/plumbing technician. Obviously, I no longer needed his name in my address book. Cul de Mon Restaurante. My favorite restaurant in Girona. The walls were lined with edgy photographs and piles of wine corks laid side by side; a delicious 4 course meal cost only $25; and the waiter knew not only my name but my proclivities—no sugar, no gluten. Nostalgia surged through me as I ruminated on leisurely meals, pleasant companions…

“La Noucentista,” the deli/cheese shop where we bought exquisite aged French Comte, its buttery-gold interior glistening with crunchy, salt-like crystals of milk protein. It was only available in December, and the owner would keep back a chunk for us, knowing how much we loved its tangy taste….

I shook myself hard, coming out of a protracted revelry. The thing is, we no longer live in Girona. We left Girona in 2018 when we moved to Oviedo, in the northern Spanish province of Asturias. But we don’t live there anymore either. In March 2020 we moved back to the USA, serendipitously just before the pandemic hit. We no longer live in Spain. We live here, in Cottonwood, Arizona. 

And with the new restrictions on international travel, I wonder whether we will ever go back to Spain. And if we do, will I really need the contact information for my favorite restaurant in Girona—a restaurant that might well have closed permanently because of the horrific economic toll of the pandemic? I was salivating when I remembered the many delightful meals we had shared with friends—but in Spain, people have been restricted to their apartments, only permitted out to walk the dog or buy groceries. All restaurants have been closed.

Maybe instead of “emptying my cup” I should treasure its contents. Instead of pruning my contact list, I should treat it like a precious reservoir of memories of never-to-be-repeated experiences in my life—memories of a time that once was and may never come again.

Elyn Aviva is a transformational traveler, writer, and fiber artist who lived in Spain for 11 years but now lives near Sedona, Az. She has written numerous books on pilgrimage and powerful places. To learn more about her publications, go to www.pilgrimsprocess.com and “Elyn Aviva Writes” on Facebook. To learn about Elyn’s fiber art, go to www.fiberalchemy.com. Elyn’s latest novel is The Question – A Magical Fable.