August 14, 1999

Again so much has happened that I have not been able to write about. Here is a slightly edited quote from Rubina’s e-mail to us around August 7. She was able, with the information I gave her and many repeated phone calls, to finally locate Chris Carnes and to talk to his brother. “Chris is dying. He is very very weak and does not remember a lot of people. He remembers Paco Lira. He said he wished he was able to take him places and show him California. I called and told Luis. His (Chris’) brother does not think he will make by September. His comment was that he may or may not make it by September. They think his depression has set him back a lot and that he may have dementia. … I spoke again to his brother and he gave me the hospital # …. St. Joseph’s Hospital. 707-445-8121 room 1403. Kent the brother is looking for a rest home till Chris dies. ”

I helped Paco Lira call Chris the evening of August 9. We had tried once before but the pay phone in the Carboneria wasn’t working and it took all our money and cut us off from the hospital. The next day the phone wasn’t working at all so Paco had it fixed. That evening we tried again after getting a huge stack of hundred and five hundred peseta coins. I have to go up the stairs to the level the stage is on and hang over the phone in order to dial because the phone is too high for me to reach to put in money or to read the screen which tells me what to do next. So perched on top, I dialed and fed the money in. This time Chris answered the phone in his room. His voice was very faint but I told him that we were calling from Spain and that Paco Lira wanted to speak to him. Then I gave Paco the phone. It was hard to register from Paco’s face what he was feeling. I don’t even know if he could hear Chris but it was a good and important phone call and I believe that an emotional connection was made and that Chris knew to whom he was talking. I spoke to Chris too, afterwards, but I could barely hear his whisper. I told him we loved him and wished him well and he said “Thank You.” After the phone call Paco was very quiet and seemed to want to be alone. Chris, an extremely talented guitar player, had played Flamenco and lived in the Carboneria when it had been in the building before this one. He and Paco were quite close. Here in Spain almost every old time Flamenco knew or knows of Cristobal Carnes, the protg of the famous Diego del Gastor. Chris studied with Diego in Moron in the sixties and was like an adopted son of his. But during the time he lived here in Spain, while having dental work done, Chris experienced major heart problems and since has had a pace maker, artificial heart valves, and numerous open heart surgeries. It always seemed as if Chris had at least nine lives. He certainly had a strong will to live, at least until recently. He used to talk about a thread of light linking him to the future and at that time believed that if he just kept that line hooked into the future, that he would continue to live. One time at Sweet’s Mill we waited anxiously to hear news of Chris’ heart operation, dancing and playing music for him. That time it was another success. I mentioned that in my writings about Sweet’s Mill’s generations, The Dance of Mortality. But this time things are different. Here is another excerpt from an e-mail just received from Marianne and Brian Steeger.

“Ernie and Deb are with Chris in Eureka. They just called and they thought it would be good for Chris to know that his friends are thinking and caring about him. He has turned inward and is not responding well to family and friends. Ernie says it looks like he is fighting mental demons. His heart is doing fine but he has lost the will to live. So … if you could help get the word out for any folks who know and love Chris to send him a note/card letting him know he is loved and not alone. Ernie thought something like this might bring him back or at least touch him on some level. … Here is his address:

Chris Carnes
Room 1403
Saint Joseph’s Hospital
2700 Dolbeer
Eureka, Ca 95501 ”

So our friend Chris is dying and we don’t know if Paco will make it out to California to see him again. Perhaps if all Chris’ friends wrote it would help, or perhaps it is just his time to go. It is hard to write of other things here after a start like that. Death takes such precedence. But death is a part of life and life continues. We went to Granada last week and to Madrid this week and I haven’t yet written of any of it. So here is the beginning of this part of our Spain experience.

Granada is not a beautiful city, like Sevilla, but it has the Alhambra which is incredible and feels to me like the heart of Granada. Our friend, Cristina Carmona, has been a guide at the Alhambra for six years and her father, Angel, has been a guide there for over thirty years. Christina and her brother lived in San Francisco for a while (her brother still does) where Freddie met them and brought them to Sweet’s Mill one year where I met them. Both Cristina and her father Angel generously showed us Granada. Cristina gave us a private tour of the Alhambra which of course was wonderful. Thanks to mobile phones, we met up with another friend, Josh, in Granada and he came with us on almost all of our Granada adventures. Josh is a young guitarist from Santa Fe, New Mexico, whom Freddie met at Alta Mira shortly after we arrived in Spain and who knows some of the same people we know. Josh now lives in Los Angeles where he is studying acting. One evening we all went to visit Cristina’s friend Regina in a little white washed town in the mountains. We liked it so much that Angel, Cristina’s father who had come on this visit with his wife of over thirty years, Maribel, asked if we would like him to show us more. He is a born guide. So, the next day he drove us through the mountains to the quiet seaside resort town of Almuecar. We ate in his friend’s wonderful restaurant and then went to the beach and swam in the Mediterranean, which was colder than I thought it should be. Later we strolled around the town and then went back to Granada and arrived about one in the morning. It was a wonderful trip. On our last day, Freddie and I walked around the Albacyn, the old Moorish city of Granada situated across from and below the Alhambra. It reminded us of Tangiers with its narrow, cool streets and old whitewashed buildings. It still has a Moorish flavor and the Alhambra looks beautiful from there too, sitting regally and timelessly on the next hill. Later we met up with Josh and went to Angel and Maribel’s home for a spectacular meal prepared for us by Maribel. In the early evening Angel drove Freddie and me to the bus station and we began the three and a half hour bus ride back to Sevilla. We arrived late Friday night so I couldn’t practice before my twelve o’clock class with Concha the next day. But I certainly had fun in Granada and we hadn’t wanted to leave so soon. We are hoping to return to Granada on this trip

But before repeat trips, we are trying to go to the places we had wanted to see. This week, after my fitting with Salao on Monday night, we prepared ourselves to go to Madrid early Tuesday morning on the Ave (pronounced Avey), the fast train to Madrid. It took us only two and a half hours in a very comfortable travel mode. We spent a lot of time there visiting with David Jones (whose name in Spain is David Serva) and his companion/partner, dancer Clara Mora. David, an American, has lived in Spain for over thirty years studying and playing guitar professionally. He, like Chris, is another well known and respected American guitarist who came to the little pueblo of Moron in the sixties and studied with Diego del Gastor. Before that, in the early sixties, Freddie and David had played guitar together at the Old Spaghetti Factory in North Beach, San Francisco. They have been good friends ever since (for over thirty years) and by now have many memories to laugh and talk about together.

David had found us a hotel near his home, Hostel Residencia Matute, the same hotel that my former husband Marc and I had stayed in when we came to Spain in 1980.

After we were settled we walked the five minutes to David and Clara’s home. The four double flights of stairs were a little hard on my knees. They live on the fourth floor, but in Spain the first floor is the floor above the ground floor so we would call their level the fifth floor; a long walk to the uninitiated. The small apartment is light and airy with beautiful tiles placed in the walls in key places by David. There are beautiful things hanging on the white walls. David’s nineteen year old musician son Pablo lives with them. Clara, also an American, is currently painting a downstairs room which will soon be her office.

David, his graying hair parted in the middle, brings his guitar to El Horno almost every evening around eight o’clock. El Horno, which means oven, is a thriving dance studio with a little bar/cafe where David spends time playing guitar and visiting with friends. The building was once a bakery and that is why it is called El Horno. The bar/cafe, situated in a patio on the second floor between three of the dance rooms and a gym, is actually called “El Rincon de los Maestros Bar” (the teacher’s corner bar). One evening, as we were walking to David’s, we ran into La Tania coming from El Horno where she had been rehearsing for her upcoming show in September in the United States. I guess it is a small world.

In the mornings Clara comes here, to the Horno, to practice dance for two or three hours with her friends. After class and practicing, many people grab a drink or a snack in this lovely patio. The floors are terra-cotta with white tile squares. Small round white marble tables with beautiful cast iron black stands give the bar a cafe look. Plants in pots are hung from the walls with black iron hangers and more plants in large pots sit on the floor and line the bottom of the tiled walls. As people gather around our table David passes his guitar to the other guitarists. We met an old friend of Freddie’s there, Dwight, who had watched him years ago at the Old Spaghetti Factory and who has lived in Spain now for many years. Before he left for Spain in the sixties, he got addresses and advice from Freddie who had been there for six monthes in 1959 and 1960.

Each of the three nights we spent in Madrid we ate at David and Clara’s house. It was a wonderful time to visit and we loved having some home cooked meals. Freddie and I went to El Prado and spent the day of the eclipse there. We came outside briefly to watch the eclipse through a film negative someone gave us. The art was beautiful, but at this stage of our lives we both have decided that we don’t like most of the subject matter. Christianity is such a brutal religion. There is such glorification of torture and death. And moreover, in most if not all of the time periods represented there, the attitude toward women was awful. I looked at a beautiful painting, but as I looked closer I saw that dogs were biting and eating a naked women at a banquet with the guests watching. Rape too was glorified and there are some incredibly good paintings of this horrible subject. I can understand better why our television these days focuses on violence. Violence has been glorified for years in our western history. My mother loved the Prado so much and she loved art so much. I now feel somehow disloyal with these thoughts. I love art too, but the subject matter is also important to me. I do not want to subject myself to watching much violence, whether it be television, movies, or museums. However I am very glad to have visited El Prado and our trip to Spain would not have felt complete without it. The next day we took the bus to Toledo, a beautiful and fascnating old Moorish city and El Greco’s home, built high on a hill. Freddie was exhausted and slept for hours on a park bench in the large plaza de Zocodover, the souk and ancient site of the horse fairs while I, following my mother’s example, pushed myself to visit the sights. The Alczar was already closed, but I saw the Cathedral which had more of the religious torture subject matter in its beautiful collection of paintings. It was then that I decided that I had had enough of Christianity. Next I went to the two old Jewish synagogues, one of which is only a monument. My son, Elun, always finds the old synagogues when he travels to Europe and he and I visited synagogues in both Florence and Venice, Italy together. So of course I thought of him and bought some postcards for him. Next to the actual old synagogue I found a little store run by a Jewish man from Toledo and his English wife. They had met here thirty years ago, immediately got into a fight about prices, went to dinner that night and six months later were married! Freddie telephoned me while I was at that store. (I had taken the phone while he slept and told him to call me when he woke up.) He called and then came to meet me at the store. Of course we bought some beautiful things, including presents. We are so aware now that we are at the end of our trip. At this point we are focusing on our return home. Time has indeed moved quickly. We wished we had spent the night in Toledo. Maybe next time we will. I didn’t get through all the sights but we had arranged to spend our last night in Madrid and to have dinner again with David and Clara. We also wouldn’t have had time to catch our train the next morning from Madrid if we had spent the night in Toledo. So after a late lunch in a Jewish restaurant, we caught the nine o’clock bus back to Madrid to visit, pack, and prepare for our departure. The next morning as we walked, having packed very lightly again, to the train to leave Madrid we passed a jewelry store. A beautiful emerald and diamond ring was in the window and we quickly walked in and looked at it. It was the first possible wedding ring we had seen in Spain. We had time to quickly photograph it and two others and to get the jeweler’s card and then run to the train station. We haven’t called him yet, but these are certainly possibilities. Concha has a friend, her compadre, who is a jeweler in Chiclana and might be able to make us similar rings for less money. If not, we might run out of time and not be able to get the rings, which would have to be re-made for us and almost everything is closed here in August. But at least we have an idea. So, perhaps we’ll go back to Madrid for a day, or perhaps we’ll run out of time for that too. Back in Sevilla there is so much happening. But with these mini vacations I have had time to rest my knees a little, except for all the walking and climbing stairs which is just a normal part of Spanish life. But the knees and thighs are definitely better than they were.

We picked up my wedding dress from Salao’s this evening and it is very beautiful. The body is a smooth, fitted white satin crepe covered in lace with five organdy ruffles on the lower part. The underskirt is also ruffled. The slim three quarter sleeves are lace ending in small ruffles of organdy. Salao gave me, as a gift, a beautiful white mantoncita to wear with my white lace and organdy dance dress, my wedding dress. We also picked up my elegant black Siguiriyas dress. They are both beautiful and fit perfectly. It is easy to stretch my arms up, nothing is so tight that it pulls. Salao is truly a master and deserves his excellent reputation. And Freddie and I both love my exquisite new dresses.

August 18, 1999 Tuesday

I am finally happy with my dancing. The last two day’s video’s have been good. I am taking class and practicing in my costume, although it’s like a sauna lately on the stage. Concha stayed an extra day and a half this week end and will come back tomorrow to teach some new students. She can’t resist! I took two classes a day on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, which was a holiday celebrating the virgin of Sevilla. Today I took one class before Concha had to leave for the bus back to Isla Cristina. But, I will rest tomorrow and go shopping for some things for our show and return to classes on Thursday. My knee is much much better now but is still a little touchy and it will be good to rest it a little. Our show date was set today. It will happen on September 8 at 10:30 PM because Concha doesn’t want a lot of noise to distract me and it gets noisier later in the evening. But someone just told me that there are a lot more people here in September than there are now so it might be crowded even that early (yes, early) in the evening. People have been coming to watch my classes. When I finish a dance there is now clapping from whomever is around. The classes are fun and rich with Freddie playing guitar and Concha singing. It is inspiring for my dance. The rhythm of Concha’s hand clapping the wooden bench where she sits on the stage is driving. It adds excitement and dynamism. But I am satisfied with myself as well. My dance is starting to look smooth and I don’t cringe when I see it, I like it instead. I never thought that I would get to this stage. I almost feel guilty liking it and saying it, but not quite. I am thoroughly enjoying being so happy with myself, although I’m still having a little trouble believing it. But I can look at the video tape again to see that it is true.

Carmen who cleans here had a birthday yesterday and she and her friends came with Concha for my five o’clock class. They were watching my class as part of the birthday celebration. Everyone loved both my two minute Buleras and my ten minute Siguiriyas. And they both looked very good on the video tape to me too when I watched them later. After a while the class turned into a small fiesta and Carmen sang and her friend Juani sang, and Concha sang some more. Carlos Heredia (Freddie’s teacher) came and played for a little while and Concha’s eight year old daughter Carmen danced and sang as well. The relaxed and festive atmosphere reminded me a little of the classes that Anzonini used to teach in Berkeley in the early eighties. There we would all sit in chairs in a semicircle which on one end had a large round wooden table. It was the dining room of Pat’s house. The old hardwood floors were OK to dance on but mainly we marked the comps with our palmas while one person at a time would get up and do the simple but tricky gypsy marking steps that Anzonini used to teach. We would all drink the wine he ritually offered us and we got loose and relaxed enough to learn this dance in a different way. When someone would get nervous or tight, Anzonini would tell us to “leave your shame at the door”. So I leave my shame at some distant door and I just dance, accepting who I am, how I am, and where I am. What a lesson. Freddie too is having breakthroughs. How convenient that we are synchronized in our artistic development as well. Tonight, here in our room, Freddie figured out how not to support his fingers, something that David Jones also is working on, and tonight Freddie’s fingers flew lightly but with strength through the challenging tremolos and arpeggios that he can now play. I was dancing to his music, working on upper body, arms, hands, and head while Freddie was playing. I also did palmas for him, helping him to figure out a falseta he was learning. He got it really well and quickly. Then I began to write while Freddie kept playing these beautiful sounds. His music is back after his descent into the despair of hell about his playing. He can play again, and even more beautifully than before. I am so glad.

August 22, 1999

At this stage it is harder and harder to find the time to write. I did go shopping and bought a purple mantoncita (little fringed Spanish shawl) to match my only pair of dance shoes, round, purple, filigreed plastic Spanish earrings and a pin for my manton. I bought some purple flowers for my hair and two rhinestone barrettes. I also found a beautiful lace mantilla and a white comb for it to wear for the wedding. And then I found some rhinestone sandal heels to also go with the wedding costume. I now wear my full Siguiriyas costume (Freddie says “get-up”) to practice in and am experimenting with ways to wear my hair. This way I will be used to dancing and working with my new dress. I modeled my white wedding costume for Concha and her daughter Carmen, and for Nacha and May, and then went downstairs to show it to Paco. They all loved it, of course And that leads me to another story.

Last Saturday we all went, in two cars, to Moron for the Gazpacho, another famous Flamenco singing festival. Paco went in a car with Jose Luis, Nacha and Concha, and Freddie, Josh, and I went a little later with Barbara, a German expatriate aficionada who has lived in Sevilla for ten years. After Jose Luis had parked his car, everyone of course got out. Paco was not paying attention and a car full of teenagers, whose motor (and perhaps its lights too) had been turned off, was rolling down the street. It hit Paco and knocked him down. Nacha said that Concha’s face turned white and she started stomping her feet and screaming. Concha said that Nacha’s face also turned white. Paco got up, to everyone’s great relief, but the car had rolled over his foot. The next day they took him to the doctor because his foot was hurting and discovered that he had a fracture. The doctor wrapped his foot and his lower leg. Later, when his doctor friends and daughter Miriam got a hold of the x-rays they discovered that the doctor had wrapped the wrong part of his foot and shouldn’t have wrapped his leg at all, especially with the circulation problems that Paco already has. The fracture was in the big toe which was hurting but had not been previously wrapped. I put oils on him and then a friend from Malaga came and did acupuncture on his foot for two days. Miriam, who runs the food concession at the Carboneria and used to work in an herbal pharmaceutical store, put aloe leaves on him and homeopathic creams. Paco had to stay in bed for days, which was hard on him. Finally the acupuncturist moved him downstairs to the patio for the day for Paco’s emotional health. We gave him our radio/CD player that we had bought from Miguel Ochoa. We all bring Paco food and newspapers. And so that is why I modeled my wedding dress for Paco while he was in bed! He was not allowed to get up at that point. He is getting better and can go downstairs now for short amounts of time, probably longer than he should. But it was a close call and everyone was frightened. Paco is loved by so many people. Concha has said in the past that he is like a father to her. And speaking of weddings, now people have stopped referring to Freddie as my husband. Now they say, smiling, your future husband, your novio. Concha has had her fill of the beach and is staying in Sevilla. Rafael, her husband, went down to the beach today, Sunday, to pack up their things and to pick up the two boys who are still there with Concha’s sister Pepa. Concha taught classes today. I am now taking two classes a day but took a day of rest today so as not to over-do it. My knee is much much better but I don’t want to stress my body. I have ended up not missing much class in August as it has turned out. Concha is busy polishing me for our show. She is excited about it. She told me the other day that if I do it as well as I did it that day, she would be happy. We are practicing running it through without stopping, so I can learn to cover my mistakes, which I am good at anyway. She says I will probably make mistakes because I will be nervous with the public, but that no one should know but us. We also are still spending time polishing some of the moves, especially in the Buleras. It is so nice to be with a teacher who believes in me. She went with me to Salao the other day to get my black dress shortened. I am still losing the weight I gained by mistake and so the fit of the dress is changing and I was stepping on the hem in some steps. Now it is perfect. Concha and I stayed in the little work room with Salao while he sewed my dress, his white dog Panchito perched on the window behind him looking out at the street. Concha has known Salao since she was a little girl. I still could not understand them when they spoke to each other normally, which is quickly, but when each one speaks to me, slowly and clearly, I do well. They were nice and kept me included in the conversation. As I later complained about my lack of comprehension, Concha said that next time I have to chat more with people. I guess I spend a lot of time just dancing. But that is what I am really here for. I just thought my comprehension would be better than it is by now. But it is improving. I am also starting to hang out more with Concha now. Concha and I went looking for dance shoes for me the other day but the Coral shoe store, like Menkes and Gallardo, is closed through the end of August. She had said, even if I get new shoes, that she wants me to do this performance in my old shoes, because I know them and they are broken in. I still need to get some mesh stockings and a girdle, a “fahita”. How weird. Concha says that all the professionals wear small girdles when they dance. So I will do as the Spaniards do. I feel so lucky to be taken under Concha’s wing. Last Friday night we went with Carmen and her friend Juani, and our friend Josh to see Carmen’s sixteen year old son Jairro dance at Los Gallos. The show was great and Jairro has a lot a talent. I had heard that these tablaos, even the good ones like Los Gallos, were just for tourists but the quality of all the dancers we saw was excellent. One of the dancers there was Pastora Galvan, the daughter of Jose Galvan. I had met her in California when I took classes with Jose. She is probably about seventeen or eighteen now and is a marvelous dancer. Jairro has only been dancing there two months and this was the first time that Carmen had gone to see him. She got in free because she was his mother and we thought we would have to pay, but afterwards when we asked about paying we were told that we all were invited guests of Jairro’s and so were there for free, drinks and all. We keep getting these lovely little surprises. Spain has really treated us royally and we are thankful.

Concha told us that Paco told her that we always have a place to stay here at the Carboneria when we come back. Paco hopes that we will return for his homenaje on September 30 but we told him that probably we will not be able to, having just come home two weeks earlier. Concha, as I have said before, really wants to come to our wedding and perhaps bring Paco. If she comes, she said that we would do a show at the wedding. That would be fun. She wants me, after the wedding of course, to do the Siguiriya in my white wedding dress.

I have told her my thoughts about my dancing Siguiriyas. I am no longer sad and Siguiriyas is about the depths of sadness, the dark painful and despairing places in the emotional psyche. But, the end is full of hope and happiness. It is the other side of the sadness and I am there now. But, I have been in the sadness too and come through it and so that is how I can dance it now, having known it and survived it. Concha thinks in similar ways about dance. The spirits told me once in a journey that we would be friends. We are starting to be more friends. Once as she , Freddie, and I were walking in the street, I was dancing, as we both had been earlier at the Carboneria in our chairs and with our hands doing rhythmical patterns on the wooden table. As we walked, Concha said, that I was loca with dance. We agreed. I am so glad to be accepted by her for who I really am. The other day she said that one of the things she loved about me was that I cry when I am mad or frustrated and I smile and get excited when I get it right finally. I am so glad that she likes that part of me instead of feeling embarrassed by it. I have been feeling really seen by her for who I am, and accepted too. She and I are both excited by my dancing. I love it. I absolutely love it. The other day Freddie lost his change purse with a key to our room attached to it. So yesterday he put a new lock on the door. Afterwards, he and I were hungry so we invited Concha and her daughter, the eight year old dancing, singing, live wire Carmen, to come with us and eat at Casa Diego. Later we came up to the room and I showed her pictures of her party on the computer. We also talked about dance and how impressed she was when she first met me at my dedication and consistency. She had known, she said, that she could teach me. She says, and I believe her, that she uses a lot of psychology when she teaches dance. The more I get to know her, the more I love her. In many ways, although our backgrounds are very different, we are similar in our thinking and our love of Flamenco. I saw that about her when I first met her. Now we see that about each other. She has watched some of my class videos both here in the room and also after my classes, and it is helpful to both of us.

Who would have ever thought that someone my age would be doing what I am doing. I am so happy. And Freddie and I have such an easy wonderful time together too. As I have said before, I never thought this much happiness was possible.

Flamenco Romantico
Marianna Gabriel & Federico Mejia
http://www.flamencoromantico.com/
c/o La Carboneria
c/ Levies, 18
41004, Sevilla, Spain
(34) 616-005-837