September 8, 1999

For my own healing and immense growth I have worked hard on the performance aspect of Flamenco as well as the choreography and the technique. We have the big show tomorrow night here in Sevilla, Spain at La Carboneria. My love Freddie will be playing the guitar and my dance teacher, Concha Vargas, will be singing for me, for all of us. The three of us are totally connected after all this time of intensive work together. Freddie’s guitar teacher, Carlos Heredia, will video the show for us. He did a rehearsal video today and it turned out well. I will wear my new black dress and dance the Siguiriyas, calling in the spirits with my palmas (rhythmical hand clapping) as I rise from my seat and walk to the front of the stage. Then as Concha continues the palmas for me from her seat, I echo the rhythm more with my feet, building the intensity into a rhythmical turn and a dead stop. As I sharply move my foot and my body from angle to diagonal angle without moving from where I am standing, I call in the guitar and it’s music moves me again to another angle, a pose, waiting for the cante (singing) which comes, singing from the depths of gypsy pain, of human suffering. I start to move, my hands again call in the spirits as they pull the energy up from the earth and into my body and through my body and into the sky. In the dance, I feel what Concha sings. At times I fight intensely with my feet, while at other times I am inside myself. The words of the cante also speak about the joy my child’s eyes give me and that starts to release the pain. By the end of the dance I have triumphed and I am excited and happy, like a “bomb exploding” Concha says.

I had to think a lot about doing this sad, heavy dance when I am so happy. But the sadness part I have lived through and understand and now I am at the end of the dance, happy and triumphant and full of hope. And the Siguiriyas is hauntingly beautiful.

Then I do a Buleras, which is a happy, joking kind of dance done a lot at fiestas. I have learned to sing four buleras’ and I now understand the words of almost all of what Concha sings and which pueblo they are from. Freddie plays a short guitar solo to start the Siguiriyas and his guitar is clean and beautiful and very moving.

I just wish I could stay and learn more. We joke about putting Concha, and now Carlos, in our suitcases and taking them home with us. They would both love to visit.

But for now, we leave on the 15th, in time for my father’s 80th birthday. But we do plan to return for a shorter time of this intensive and rewarding work.

September 9, 1999

The show went well and Carlos did a magnificent job of videoing it. The morning of the show Nacha and May sent us a big bouquet of red carnations with a loving note congratulating us on our Debut en la Carboneria and wishing us luck, saying they wished that we would become the most famous couple in the world of Flamenco. After the show, as we were taking our bows, Pili, Carlos’s wife, came up to the stage and presented us with another large and beautiful bouquet of flowers. Our show was packed with people, friends, and friends of friends and we did a good job. The audience loved it. Luis kept commenting how wonderful my buleras was. Salao, the renowned costume maker of the Flamenco elite, came with a friend and commented on how impressed he was that my comps was perfect, that I never once went out of comps, and how hard that was to do in a Siguiriyas. The Siguiriyas rhythm is thought to be the most difficult in Flamenco. Other people were amazed that artists from California could do what we did (because we’re not Spanish!). Freddie played beautifully, as I had expected. Concha sang well and as I danced I listened to both Concha and Freddie and was inspired and supported. At the beginning of the show I dedicated our show to Paco Lira, the amazing owner of the Carboneria and our gracious host and supporter of Flamenco, and also to Concha Vargas, my amazing dance teacher without whose skill and support I would not have been able to achieve this dramatic accomplishment in my dance.

Now we enter the end stage of our trip here and we have to think about packing it up. But we have done what we came to do and it wouldn’t have happened like this without all our consistent hard work and obsession and passion. Of course now we will have to return to Spain for more but we will have an idea of what to expect and how we can again achieve what we want. We have made many wonderful friends here and we feel a part of this warm and supportive community. When my sister and brother-in-law Lainey and Ken were here they commented on how it seemed that we knew everybody. And it does seem like that. So often, no matter where we are in Sevilla, we are walking down the street and see someone we know. It is a great feeling and amazes us too. And these people, these friends, are wonderfully supportive and enthusiastic. We will be sad to leave them. If we win the lottery, “ojal” (god willing), I want to charter a plane to bring everyone to our wedding. But at least we plan to send a video of the wedding back to Spain. So now we have to see what will fit into our suitcases and what we have to mail home. We’ll be deciding what to bring on the plane, what to send through, all the details we have been able to live without for this time period. This stage brings sadness, the transition from one life style back to another. But we know that we have a another beautiful world to enter when we return. Our beautiful house and land are waiting for us, flowers blooming, when we return. Our family and friends in California are also waiting for us and we know that it will feel good to see them and to share more of our experiences with them at home.

And then again, a part of Spain will come to us at home. Paco Lira, our wonderful host at la Carboneria, his best Saturnino who played guitar for La Nia de los Peines with Chris Carnes, and Pepe Romero, a renowned Flamenco piano player will come with our friend Luis Agujeta to visit and to stay at our home at the beginning of October. Their purpose for this trip will be to see Chris Carnes who is very ill, as I have written. That is quite a tribute to Chris, who deserves it. And it will be great for us to have some of our friends from Spain staying at our home. We look forward to returning the hospitality to Paco that he has so graciously given to us here.

September 10, 1999

Here in the Barrio Santa Cruz, Sevilla, Spain where I am currently living, is the ancient Jewish Barrio (neighborhood) and I often think of my ancestors who lived here, as I walk the cool, narrow streets where so many years ago their feet also trod. I also visited the synagogue in Toledo, another center for the Jews who lived here long ago, and there too I paid homage to my ancestors.

September 14, 1999

I have been dancing/performing for the last four nights at the Carboneria. First I started with Carlos, Inma La Carbonera, and Enrique, Carlos nephew. Every night, as arranged, Enrique calls me up to do my Buleras, Marianna, Marianna…. Then Luis asked me to dance with Maribel and Kalina while he sang and Carlos played guitar. He wanted me to dance the Siguiriyas but the stage is way too small for my choreography and I would also want to rehearse it once with him before performing the Siguiriyas to his cante (singing). So I dance the Bulera and it gets better each night. Everyone is very supportive and it is so nice to be asked and wanted to dance. My debut at the Carboneria with Concha and Freddie was Wednesday; I rested Thursday and didn’t feel like dancing at all. Then on Friday I started again. It is so different to dance for a public. And it is great experience. Tonight I finally liked what I did. I did it very well. Last night Freddie videoed but it was a very off night for me, I couldn’t do anything and I blanked out in the middle of both Buleras. But it looked good on tape. Tonight Freddie just videoed the last show, with the short Buleras but it looked really good, as good or better than it felt. Yes, I am happy. And Freddie says, and I agree, that when we go home we will work on really dancing/playing what we have learned so that when we return we will be ready to take in more of this intensive learning.

September 21, 1999

I’m back but not really here yet. Yesterday Rubina and Freddie and I started to practice with Rubina singing and it sounded very very good. She has a show for us next Saturday so we are motivated to get to work again. It is different without Concha but my studio dance floor is so great and tonight Freddie and I had a wonderful time in the studio just with ourselves. I still have a million things to do here to get settled in again. Freddie is taping his lessons that were on my camera right now and then I will start to use it to transfer my tapes. I have already made a master video tape of the show, my debut at the Carboneria and a few Buleras I performed during the next few nights, but I want to add some excellent practices to it. My performance for the show was not as “danced” as my rehearsals. If Rubina has her way, then I will be a lot more used to dancing the Siguiriya for audiences by First Night (our New Years Eve performance). She is helping me polish my style in certain parts. My comps is good, thanks to Concha, and that is a major achievement, especially as it now feels easy and solid. Now to work the dance more.

My life right now feels so full and wonderful and people here are saying that I look two years younger than when I left. I am still ecstatically happy and we are beginning to plan the wedding. I love being treated so lovingly caringly and returning that too.

Freddie and I had a great practice tonight. I finally have gotten back to the facility of movement in my feet and legs that I had before our show and I got there and beyond tonight. I am starting to really dance it and make it come alive. I am thinking very hard about how to structure my life here and what I want. It is interesting and I feel full of hope. Freddie and I went and booked a possible wedding photographer today and talked to Joe of India Joz about catering along with our friends. Paco Lira and Saturnino and Luis are coming on the 11th of October. I am feeling better and better about my dance and I know that soon or even now I will be much better than the tape of the Carboneria show I have been making for people. It feels good.

September 22, 1999

Luis told Rubina that he and Paco and Saturnino would be arriving on the 12th of October. We look forward to the visit. It is so different here and Freddie and I both still miss Spain. But we are dancing and making music in our beautiful dance studio here, under the loft where Rubina lives. Tonight Freddie and I sat outside on the bench on the hill by the tree we planted in memory of my mother at her memorial when we first moved here. We sat on the bench and looked down two wild canyons and to the ocean in the distance. The moon was almost full so we could see quite clearly. The owls were hooting a lot and the night was still soft. Yet in the distance, over Monterey bay we could see the bright flash of the lightening brought by the hurricane Hillary. But we heard no thunder in the stillness of this quiet night. We didn’t see the deer tonight, only the flowerless plants that they had eaten. They seem to be eating more than usual this year, perhaps because of the unseasonably cold summer this year, full of fog, dampness and even rain. September is usually beautiful here, but the sun has hardly shown for more than a day or two since we’ve returned. I reminded Saturnino by e-mail to bring warm clothing, although, the air tonight outside felt comfortable to us wearing long pants and sweatshirts. The night sure was beautiful and the stillness holding it like a bubble in the distant fog, a jewel. And this jewel adorned by the owls long hooting and the distant flashes of lightening, blended with the moonlight. Its hard to describe the sense of quiet and stillness and peace in the night here, overlooking the ocean. Even the backs of the neighbors houses dotting the lower slope below us did not intrude tonight.

Mainly Freddie and I prepare for our wedding. We booked a photographer today and made a deposit. They will do a pre session before the wedding to get to know our tastes and us too. Our photographer, Lloyd Van Zante, seems nice. His wife, whom we haven’t met, will take some black and white and sepia toned photos. If we take photos soon we can use them for our Christmas cards too.