few summers ago, I experienced my first - and last - bullfight, in a small French town near the Spanish border, where Picasso once lived. When the gate to the ring opened, the beautiful, confused bull burst in like wind, radiating power as he circled amid the shouts of the spectators. The matadors hid behind walls like scared children, studying the bull carefully. The banderillero approached on his horse and pierced the bull's neck with the banderillas - barbed swords. The swords hung from the bull, blood streamed down his shoulders. It was then I learned about querencia.

In Spanish, querencia describes a place where one feels safe, a place from which one's strength of character is drawn, a place where one feels at home. It comes from the verb querer, which means to desire, to want.

The wounded bull retreated to a spot to the left of the gate through which he had entered, to rest, it seemed. He had found his querencia: a place where he felt safe and was therefore at his most dangerous. The matador tries not to let the bull find this place, because it increases the danger to himself. For the bull, it is a place where he believes he can survive this unfair game. Unfortunately and cruelly, he almost never does. It is said that if the same bull were to fight more than once in the ring, every matador would die, for once an animal learns the game and stands in his power, he cannot be defeated.