Seville is a yellow city.

Seville is a Yellow City. I don’t know what that means exactly, but it keep popping into my head, exactly that way, “Seville is a Yellow City. Seville Amarilla.” Of course the exterior meaning is obvious, and that’s why I had the thought in the first place. The buildings are yellow. Not all, of course, but the majority. If they’re not actually yellow, then they have yellow trim, or yellow tile. Even the whites here are slightly yellow. And it’s not a dirty yellow. It’s not a city that’s gone yellow. This city is intentionally yellow. Even the sunsets are yellow. The pinks and reds are confined to a very small part of the sky, way off on the horizon. But above the city, as the sun is going down, the sky turns yellow, bright and yellow. This is reflected in the river, and on everyone’s faces. There is a happy glow at sun down, relief as the sun disappears and the heat can slowly dissipate.

Seville has a special light that has inspired artists of all kinds for centuries. Hemingway, Wells, and Rillke all vacation here annually. This special light is both literal and figurative, and it touches people in different ways. For me, it has carried me out of my United States reality into a land of golden things like sunshine and olive oil. This light has turned my days here into an odd thing, strings of moments like a golden necklace. I sit on my bed in the apartment I have rented for just one month, and the late afternoon sun flickers off an on against the wall – the setting sun is being covered and uncovered by sheets hanging up to dry on the building across the narrow street.

After dark, the lampposts glow yellow. This is common, as cities try to reduce light pollution and allow people and telescopes to see the stars above. But in some cities the light is a harsh yellow, almost orange. Take San Diego for example. It’s a dangerous yellow that turns on at sun down. The yellow is the same yellow as the stoplight yellow. I’ve always wondered how this doesn’t cause more accidents. But in Seville, it’s a soft and warm yellow, reflecting (or reminding one of) the summer night air.

After dark, the city comes alive. I can’t speak for the winter. I haven’t lived a whole cycle here. But it’s September, and while it should be fall by now, global warming has allowed summer to linger a bit longer than normal, and I’ve been able to know the Seville summer nights. During the day, the streets are quiet. Even during the morning rush, the siesta rushes, and the evening rush, it’s a quiet and slow rush. The heat drains us all, and while we are happy, we exert no energy beyond the basics. This all changes when the sun starts to bring the yellow sparkle into the sky. As the lampposts flicker on across the city, people begin to emerge form their homes, refreshed, breathing a sigh of relief from the days heat. And as the night spreads open, the city and it’s streets wake up. All hours of the night are safe, as people of all ages, young and old surprisingly included for my American mind. Soccer games in plazas and people helping their abuelos down he curbs surround bars and restaurants as families and friends enjoy their greatest meal of the day.

Seville reminds me of Austin, also. It’s about the same size, a little under a million in the city proper, a little over a million with the surrounds (the suburbs, in American). The river flows through the middle of town. The trees drop yellow flower petals and leaves that have dried up into yellow crisps from the heat and drought. People like to exercise here. Its possible, in fact unavoidable, to sweat, and one feels cleansed from it. They take strolls along the riverbank, they are out in the river in kayaks and canoes and crews. Unlike much of Europe, people go running in Spain and Seville. They exercise for their health and for fun. They exercise in the yellow days and the yellow nights.

On my way to and from Spanish class each day I pass by a milliner’s shop that I have never once seen open and a post office that still maintains records in large logbooks that are stacked three deep and to the ceiling along a wall.

Of course not everything is a happy yellow. On my daily walk I also pass a woman who lives, during the day, next to the door to the social security building, and at night she lives on the doorstep, under the eave of the door to the social security building. She has two very large suitcases wrapped in cardboard, and two very, very large black umbrellas. She sits on more cardboard between the boxes, and hides behind the black umbrellas. She must stay this way all night. During the day, when the social security building is open to the public, to serve the people, this woman left behind moves her huge boxes and umbrellas about 15 feet to the north, just out of the way of the door. During the day, she alternates between sitting behind and between her belongings and standing next to them fanning herself in the heat. She wears the same sky blue dress with Seville yellow flowers printed on it, and a simple gold wedding band.

My dreams are yellow here as well, when I can dream. The nights are a bit hot, especially without a fan, but I am a passer through, and they don’t have cheap things in Spain like we do in the USA. The cheapest fan I’ve come across is thirty Euros (about forty US Dollars). For really just a few hours of use, I have decided I would rather sweat it out. I have a threesome every night – I snuggle up with two gallon-sized bottles of frozen water. Even then I can’t sleep the night through. I wake up from the heat nearly every hour, preventing me from dreaming. But sometimes I’ll sleep a dream length stretch, and my dreams are yellow when I have them. Soft and warm and slow, where normal things unfold like feathers falling from the sky and I feel clean and I forget the ghosts of the city, or perhaps join them. I catch up on sleep in the afternoons. I’m not sure why I can sleep for three hours straight in the heat of the afternoon, but not in the night. It is a strange thing about hot nights.

Eventually I have gotten used to the heat, and I am able to dream again. And the yellow light permeates my other world, seeping through the open window, shining on me like a sunray, brighter than the moon, which appears white compared to the yellow nights.

And even, finally, summer seems to be relenting, letting go a month later than usual, and while the days are still bright hot yellow, the nights are transforming into a cool yellow. Lightening can be seen on the horizon, yellow, of course, and the slight breezes sometimes make it through the winding streets and up into my window at night, and my dreams of ghosts and home and yellow flowers are kissed with the relief of fall, and I imagine the leaves of the trees turning a lovely shade of yellow as the city moves into it’s next phase and I dream of returning to my own co