Spain Chronicles 2000 – October 16-25

Written by Marianna Mejia

Antonio Vargas

Clara & Amalia in tree

Clara smiling

Group by Antonio

Clara & Amalia in tree

Antonio Vargas

Group by Antonio

October 16, 2000

I hear sirens outside. As the palmas class started this evening at seven, Rafael, Concha’s husband, called to tell her that a famous military doctor who had been a great friend to Flamencos, had just been assassinated in his private consulting office by a band of terrorists, probably Basque terrorists. He told Concha to take a taxi from the Carboneria, not from Santa Maria La Blanca where she usually gets one, because he wanted her to avoid crowded places. People are scared. This doctor had had Flamenco parties in his house, he had hired the great Flamenco artists to entertain him and his friends. Concha had danced at his home. A renowned specialist in the throat, he also had operated on many well known Flamenco artists and other famous artists as well. His office was on Calle Jesus de Gran Poder, right near the Corte Ingls, right near the Cafe Americano, Concha told me, where we had eaten the other day. What a waste of a life. This was a skilled man who saved lives and bodies and apparently helped a lot of Flamencos. People say he was a very good person. And now we are told not to go out if we can help it. It is still hard to understand all the details on the news, but I think I understood most of them. We watched the news tonight with Paco. Freddie was having a class with Carlos when I came upstairs and the news shocked Carlos. He had to stop the class and leave, just as Concha had had to cancel her palmas class on hearing the news. So Freddie and I went to hang out with Paco and we all watched the sad and shocking news on Paco’s television. Another well known, but more fortunate doctor paid us a visit this morning after I called him, on Paco’s recommendation. An older man, Dr. Jose Bolaos looked like the typical old fashioned doctor of my childhood. He was a little bit fat; his round stomach and his white hair framing his kindly face felt comforting. He looked like he had lived his years and had acquired a doctorly wisdom. Dr. Bolaos said that Freddie’s lungs and liver are fine and he prescribed some medication for Freddie’s energy which I went out and filled and which Freddie took. Freddie is feeling much better now. The doctor said that if he were not much better by Wednesday to bring him in for tests. But hopefully we won’t have to. Paco said that Dr. Bolaos has a renowned reputation, that he is one of the best in Sevilla.

October 19, 2000

I love the sound of Concha’s dance class below wafting up to our open windows while I rest. The sun is so nice on this cool, crisp day of fall. In my private class we are now working on style and my mind has opened to new levels since yesterday’s class. I am understanding new levels of the dance as Concha continues to polish me. I am acquiring subtle ways to signal a change, new ways to use diagonals, and most of all we are correcting my posture. I am now trying to unlearn some bad habits of posture that make a spectacular difference in my dance. Yes, this is the part I have been waiting for, but I needed to know my choreography well enough for Concha to start wo rking with this part of my dance. Funny, Freddie’s guitar technique is now taking off too, and his playing is so much cleaner and clearer. It goes with the sounds of his new guitar.

I have to get my mind out of my dance now, and let my emotional and intuitive part dance to the music. I need to keep my channels open so I can let in the dance and the connection to the universe. When I was little I received a message from somewhere that this emotional part was not OK or shouldn’t be let out in public, or was dangerous to me. So I compensated with my mental side and developed a strong and protective mind in order to survive in the world. Now it is time to let my mental guard start to relax and share time, when appropriate, with my emotional, creative side. What a concept!

October 20, 2000

I am feeling better. I am excited about my dance again, about the stylistic changes I can make now. And Freddie and I are both feeling better physically too, finally. But we have just over a week left here, and I am not ready to go.
Tomorrow Paco’s two new grandchildren get baptized in the same church we went to for Paco’s granddaughter Alba’s baptism last year. Alba’s new five month old sister is Luna. Adn and his wife’s new daughter is Candela. We might not make it to Granada this time and neither to Cordoba or Ronda or even Puerta Santa Maria. We had also hoped to take a dance class from Miguel Funi too but even Lebrija seems too far now. Shihoo, the Japanese dancer who has been living in the Carboneria for these two last weeks, leaves tomorrow. We will miss her. She is a nice and giving person and a good dancer and palmera. Concha is getting ready to go to the United States and we are getting ready to go home. I had a Spanish lesson from Lola today. She is an excellent teacher and will come back again next week. I am glad I traded her the Spanish lessons for teaching her to do the shamanic journey. It has been pouring rain outside this afternoon and it feels more and more like winter. We now have an old white square electric heater in our room. It makes a big difference.

On our verandah by the neighbor’s old white wall, is a bathtub/planter with green plants trailing out of it. There are large tin cans next to it with more plants in them; two of the cans are bright blue.

Up on our larger verandah, outside our room, sitting on the old scrolled wrought iron chairs on the blue and white square tiles

Statue from our Verandah. The brick church with its bell is pleasantly familiar as is the white wall with the statue of Saint Anthony in its alcove.

Close up of statue

Bobby cooking a magnificent dinner for us in his apartment

David Strangling Freddie

Shihoo & Marianna ole!

Shihoo holding our card

This is the center of the second floor. To the left is the small bed (where Olivia and Shihoo stayed) to the left of the trap door.
To the front left is Alexi and Elisabet’s room. You can see a corner of their striped curtain in this photo. To the right (out of view) is Paco’s room.
Behind the back wall with the chairs is Manuel’s room. This is the room that was Juan Camas’ room last year.
To the front right, out of view, is the bathroom and then our stairs.

The bed by the trap door to the stairs going down to the front door and the small room of the downstairs Carboneria.
This is the bed where both Olivia and Shihoo stayed while here. Ryan also stayed there before he moved to the guest bed in Paco’s room.

Einstein playing Freddie

October 22, 2000 Sunday

We are going to the country again with Clara and David and Jill, to another venta to eat. We were also invited to Paco’s doctor’s, Jesus’, home, but we can’t do both at once.

The baptism last night was in the same church as last year, Iglesia San Martn. Paco decided to go at the last minute and took a taxi there with Concha, Rafael, and me. Freddie stayed home to rest, as he is not too big on churches. Afterwards we came back to the Carboneria to eat at the many tables set up in the upper patio room where we have dance classes. I remembered Alba’s baptism a year and a half ago, with its similar celebration, just days after Freddie and I had landed in Spain. That night there was lots of music and dancing and Luis sang and sang and turned forty nine that midnight. Last night Luis and Rubina were in Jerez where Luis had a singing job so they were not able to attend this baptism. Rubina has been taking dance and palmas lessons consistently from Concha and is doing well. Freddie and I are proud of her for following her path and doing what she came to Spain to do. She will be here for six months.

And Freddie and I have just one more week here. It does seem too short. I will be fifty six tomorrow but we never got around to planning anything and then I scheduled a Spanish class for myself, forgetting all about my birthday.

In my mind I am preparing to leave. I still need a cardboard box, in reality, so we can ship a few things home this week. I have no idea how we are going to carry two guitars, two video cameras, my laptop computer, and our suitcases with Freddie’s bad arm and aching back. But I assume we will manage.

Last year we arrived at the Sevilla airport at least two hours in advance and the airport was closed. It opened up shortly before our seven thirty flight was scheduled to leave. So this year I have to call to find out exactly when it opens, because I have forgotten. Luckily, last year Susa drove us to the airport with Luis so we had people to wait with. We haven’t asked about a ride this year yet. I would like some strong man to help us because we have to drag our suitcases down the many stairs and we can’t do it the night before because the Carboneria is open until four AM and so there would be no place to store them. And actually, Freddie can’t drag them at all because of his arm and back. Ah logistics. Ah, the end of this Spain trip. It is Sunday and I want to put some clothes in the washer so I can hang them to dry before we leave. The old washing machine from last year is still in the bathroom and takes over an hour to go through its wash cycle, so I have to start soon.

I shouldn’t cry about leaving in nine days. Many people only spend one, two or three days in Sevilla. We have been lucky to have planned two months. The time here just moves quickly, perhaps because the Spanish never seem to be in a hurry. I haven’t adopted that habit because I am always eating with just enough time to get back to a dance class, and if the cuenta (bill) doesn’t come right away I have to rush. In that way I am very un-Spanish.

Today we went to a venta (restaurant in the country) in the tiny out of the way pueblo El Arco de Colina with Clara, David, Jill, Pepa de Benito and her husband Antonio Vargas and their three year old granddaughter Amalia. There are several restaurants here on the wide dirt street, each out of sight of the other. We ate outside, on the opposite side of the street, at one of the white tables shaded by yellow umbrellas on the red, packed dirt. This meant that the waiter had to leave the restaurant and walk across the dirt to the outdoor tables. But there was hardly any traffic so it seemed like the street was part of the restaurant. The meal took forever to get served, but luckily we started out with beer, then this year’s young white wine “mosto”, and next this year’s green olives, cabrillas (Spanish snails), delicious little pork chops, tomatoes in olive oil and grated garlic, and salad with the traditional tuna on top. Hours later our rice with duck finally arrived but it was very rich and had a lot of small bones in it and we liked the hors d’oeuvres better. This time we were not in a hurry and the long meal was enjoyable because the company was so good. Pepa is the wonderful singer from Utrera who sang in the Bienal show at Hotel Triana where Concha danced and Miguel Funi danced and sang. While we were eating, Clara interviewed Pepa for her project on Flamenco which is funded by her Fulbright grant. Pepa talked about Flamenco, her family history and how she met Antonio and their wedding. I found that I understood most of what was said, which amazed me. Pepa and Antonio are both warm, intelligent, and nice people. Pepa’s family is the famous gypsy artist Pinini clan. I was able to understand this in Spanish. I checked my accuracy with Jill on the way home. So it turned out to be a wonderful day. The sun was warm today. We walked to another restaurant for dessert and coffee. This restaurant’s garden opened to the dirt road and its front opened to the paved road we had driven on to get there. Freddie says that the red dirt of this street is like the earth in the bull rings. We ate in the garden where Amalia played. When we had gotten up after lunch, we were all stiff from sitting so long. Pepa mentioned that her knees hurt so I asked her if she wanted me to put oils on them when we sat down in the garden for our coffee and dessert. Clara encouraged her and she said yes. Luckily the oils worked again and the pain left her swollen knees. Next I oiled her shoulder and then her fingers. She was ecstatic. I had brought four emergency oils with me. After working on Pepa, I oiled David’s wrist (the one he smashed on the bicycle). He has started to play guitar again and is working up his stamina. After that I worked on Jill’s shoulder. I had worked on both Jill and David before and those applications had helped so they were eager for more. Then I worked on Antonio’s head ache and that helped too. Then Freddie, with his universal humor, showed Antonio another way of head relief by cracking his own head with his hands. This is a trick that always amazes and horrifies both children and adults. After that I put oils on Clara’s sore throat. For me, the oils work best on body aches such as strained muscles and tendons and ligaments. And they also work like magic on migraine head aches. I just love it when the oils help people. Pepa asked if I would come to her home to put more oils on her and I said yes if it were this week because we are leaving next week! I told her to call Clara to arrange it because I still have a great reluctance to speak Spanish on the telephone, although I do it quite often now. Clara had invited Concha and Rafael on this outing too but they already had other plans and couldn’t make it. I wish they could have come because we had such a nice and relaxing day.

October 24, 2000

had a great birthday and many wonderful people remembered it and sent me beautiful e-mails from afar, called me, or if they were here in Spain kissed me on both cheeks and wished me “felicidades”. Concha gave me a big bouquet of red roses. Carmen mayor, the older Carmen who works here cleaning the Carboneria each morning (she must be in her seventies or eighties) gave me a little porcelain figurine of a ballet dancer with a bow on her head. She said it looks like me with my flower on my hair. There is a younger Carmen who works here too, also cleaning so the older Carmen is called Carmen mayor to distinguish her. I like both Carmens very much. Olivia sent me a framed photo from Belgium which she had taken here from our larger verandah. Clara gave me a beautiful comb for my hair. Freddie took me to Los Gallos for a Flamenco show and a take out dinner at Modesto’s because we ran out of time. I took my two dance classes, my palmas class, and then a Spanish class first. Then Freddie and I went out and spent a romantic evening walking, grabbing a bite at Modesto restaurant, and then seeing the show at Los Gallos which really wasn’t that good. But it was fun. And I loved having my birthday here. In the morning of my birthday Freddie and I had gone out early for breakfast, running into Clara again (as we had the day before) and eating with her at the fancy Modesto’s. Then Freddie and I went shopping at Los Arcos, Sevilla’s big shopping mall —all before my two o’clock dance class. After that class, Freddie and I went with Curro, Concha’s thirteen year old son, to Casa Diego for lunch. When we arrived back in time for the five o’clock class, there were the roses waiting for me. Carmen, Concha’s nine year old daughter, called to me. “Marianna, come up here to the stage”. And there were the flowers. They had gone to get them while we were at lunch. Carmen has been taking the bulera class this week and has learned the whole choreography, blossoming before our very eyes. This is the first time she has attended her mother’s classes. We are seeing history being made. And Curro has just started to play for his mother’s classes and in the last few weeks has also improved phenomenally. This is how Flamenco dance and music will survive here. Last night in the palmas class Carmen and I had fun doing palmas together, connecting musically. Concha’s children love the music and dance and much as she does.

My son Elun called from California to wish me a happy birthday and we had a nice long conversation. I might not have given him enough dance and music, but I gave him support for his intellectual capacity and he is now finishing his Ph.D. in history at UC Davis. Not only that, he is a wonderful person and I am very proud of him. Our friends Johnny and Celeste called me too from California for my birthday but I was in my Spanish class so missed talking to them. Birthdays can be such a nice ritual to receive expressions of the love of friends and family. And e-mail sure makes the world closer. My dance is coming along and the changes are showing. I am happy about it now. I have come through the depression and despair and questioning that being here in Spain seems to stimulate for me. I just don’t feel ready to leave here yet. And, I guess that is good.

October 25, 2000

David Gutierrez and Joanna left today. Last night we had a farewell dinner with them and David Serva (Jones) and Clara and Stephen at El Corbobes restaurant. Freddie has been enjoying playing guitar with David G. in the five o’clock buleras classes and will miss him. It has been fun taking that class with Joanna too. We have learned some wonderful buleras steps

The delicious smell of jasmine wafts up to me as I step onto our small verandah to check the weather. I have been smelling jasmine also as I walk along Cespedes street. In the spring of 1980 the smell of orange blossoms colored my memory of Sevilla. Now, in the fall of 2000 I will remember the scent of jasmine. Freddie says that the jasmine vines in the patio are shedding their flowers now and are leaving a white cover of petals on the tables.

I received an incredible, large bouquet of beautiful flowers today, Wednesday, during my five o’clock bulerias class from my son Elun and his wife Donna. They are for my birthday and are beautiful. I took a photo of them and will eventually put it on our web page. I had no idea that they would send me flowers here!!!! The class was very impressed too.