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.

October 7, 1999

You can read this writing about our magical voyage in Sevilla, Spain into the heart of Flamenco, on our web site in the Spain pages. We have our beautiful digital photos there which visually illustrate many of the exquisite and colorful places and the wonderful people described in over sixty pages of writings by Marianna. It’s the best way we can share our incredible and intense four and a half month experience living and studying Flamenco dance, guitar and cante in Sevilla, sleeping upstairs in the attic room on the third floor of La Carboneria, the major Flamenco gathering spot bar and club in Sevilla. We counted and are still counting our blessings as they were abundant; and we want to thank the warm hearted and loving people who generously opened so many doors for us and made this quality of experience possible.

Marianna and Federico, Flamenco Romantico

Freddie and I are still re-entering our lives here. Culture shock to say the least.

Epilogue

November 19, 1999

Our guests from Spain, Paco, Luis, and Saturnino, have come and gone. It was an intense and full two weeks of Spain coming to us. The Saturday after their arrival Rubina, Freddie and I did a childrens show in Palo Alto with Luis and Saturnino in honor of Paco and satisfying Rubinas obligation as a dance instructor for the city of Palo Alto. I made beautiful and elaborate programs on the computer and finally got to dance the Siguiriyas to Luis singing and Freddies guitar. Saturnino played a solo. On the next two weekends we arranged and hosted two consecutive fiestas. The first was for friends of Pacos. Paco has befriended many of the Flamencos who have visited his famous Flamenco institution, La Carboneria, and so has friends all over the world. Luis sister Angelita, Remedios Flores (a Spanish Flamenco singer and old friend of Freddies), and their friend Marisol Lopez came and stayed in our yurt for a week (Mongolian tent which I use for shamanic work). Nina Menendez (another long tilme friend and Flamenco singer) joined them here for most of that time. Chris Carnes, the inspiration for Pacos visit, had another miraculous recovery due to the intervention (visits, letters, phone calls) of his many friends when he was dying (according to the doctors and his social service case workers), lying in a fetal position, over-medicated, and deeply depressed in the hospital. Chris now was able to drive himself from Eureka via Comptche to Santa Cruz in two days, although he was greatly exhausted when he arrived at Bobbie Markowitzs house where he stayed in Santa Cruz. However he was able to visit a number of times with Paco here at our house. Ironically, Chris father had knee surgery and so Chris had to continue south to San Luis Obisbo later that week to help his mother care for his father. But he did have some good visits with Paco and the rest of us and he appeared much more clear and present than he had been in years. Fortunately he was able to attend the first fiesta before he had to head down south.

The following week-end we organized a paid fiesta for Luis and Saturnino in which they both performed. At the end of the show Luis called me up and asked Freddie to play and again I danced the Siguiriyas to Luis singing, this time in my festive street clothes. It was fun and the fiesta was a success. Paco said later that his favorite part was after the official performance watching and listening to us local Flamencos dancing, singing, and playing music at the party. At seventy three years old Pacos mind is still totally sharp and inquisitive and his photographic memory never misses a thing. I still see him in my mind seated near the open door in my dance studio and later by the fire outside, intently watching the Flamenco partying that went on for hours into the night.

When we weren’t busy organizing events, Freddie and I took them sightseeing. We visited Capitola and Santa Cruz and one evening attended a local Flamenco show. We took Paco and Saturnino to meet my father at his Santa Cruz ocean side home. This visit, which they very much enjoyed, was more important to them than we originally realized, as family is so important in Spain. Concha even mentioned it to us when we talked to her later on the phone. We also drove them to Monterey and went to its wonderful aquarium. We visited Point Lobos, Big Sur, Sausalito, and San Francisco. We wandered through Chinatown, Golden Gate park and the Japanese tea garden. We drove down Lombard street, Mission street and we went to the wharf. We even went to Berkeley and heard Pacos old friend Kenny Parker play guitar at the Albatross. Many of Pacos friends met him there at the Albatross which gave those in the Bay area who would miss the fiestas a chance to visit with Paco. The morning of the day that Paco, Luis and Saturnino left, our friend Basilio flew up from San Diego to see Paco and went to the San Francisco airport with us and then stayed at our home another day. So our time with our guests was full and pleasurable as well as exhausting. However it was our great pleasure and honor to be able to repay the kindness that Paco showed us in Sevilla as well as to host Pacos first vacation!

And now the house is quiet and we have finally finished unpacking. The furniture we bought in Morocco and in Granada arrived just before our Spanish guests and it is now integrated in our living room. The box we mailed from Spain with things we couldn’t fit in our suitcases also arrived and now is finally put away.

In the new silence of just us in our house we are continuing to copy our Spain video tapes and to rest. We see/visit with Concha and Carlos (as well as with our other friends) as we watch those tapes and it feels as if we are with them again. So they, especially our wonderful and patient teachers Concha and Carlos, have stayed very present with us. I went through a week of sleeping ten hours and taking naps during the day, a sign of my utter exhaustion, but now I seem to be recovering, although I am still too tired to begin the practice schedule that was interrupted during the visit.

Freddie, on the other hand, has learned more of the falsetas that Carlos was teaching him in Spain. He practices every day, often with his tapes and he is mastering much of both the technique and the difficult new falsetas he only struggled with in Spain.

Every night we sit on the couch in our theater and watch a video tape or two of the Rito y Geografia de Baile (dance) series, programs about Flamenco dance made a while ago by Spanish TV. We ordered this twelve tape series shortly upon our return to California. One has Concha dancing with Mario Maya in 1980! We actually watched this tape with Paco who was present when many of the interviews on these programs were recorded, some of which actually happened at La Carboneria. Paco knows/knew everyone of course and filled us in on their names and history. Pacos knowledge makes him a living treasure of Flamenco history. It was fun to watch the videos with him in the evenings when we were all to tired to go out. And now alone for a while, Freddie and I are reclaiming our home and finding our lives here again in Soquel.

Two days after our guests left, the ocean, hidden by clouds even on the sunny days during their stay here, finally became clear again in the distance! The plants are growing inches in their last burst before winter (or is it in honor of our home coming?) and the Bowers vine with its white flowers still blooming is now past the top of the arch by our front door. The new roses planted before we left for Spain, which we carefully protected from deer on our return, are now growing higher on their arbors and blooming in yellows, reds, pinks, purples and whites. We have booked most of our wedding venders and have posed for and received copies of our incredible engagement photos. And we have bought/ordered our wedding rings.

We stroll arm in arm or hand in hand around the land looking at plants and sitting by my mothers memorial tree, its small purple flowers greeting our visit. We plan new projects, talk about everything, snuggle together, and listen to and play music. We arrange and rearrange the house, plant plants and are just now starting to call our friends. We are still mostly hibernating and enjoy spending our time together and supporting each others art.

Freddie is encouraging me to return to Sevilla for one month in February to learn my Alegras. He plans to stay here at the house and to work on his music. We have talked to Concha by phone who says she will pick me up at the airport. She and Rafael (her husband who tends bar at La Carboneria) have said that there is a big hole in Sevilla without us. Our friend Susa, a beautiful, long haired Gypsy dancer living in Sevilla for whom I did a soul retrieval while still in Spain, and I have been exchanging long distance shamanic/spiritual work and faxing each other regularly.

Freddie and I have also spoken to Carlos several times and he too misses us.

So the thread of Spain continues in our lives, even as we rest and settle back into our beautiful home here on the mountain, our Paradiso. And how do I write an epilogue when life continues like this? It is really just the end of this chapter of our first wondrous journey to Sevilla together, an extraordinary chapter in the extraordinary and blessed love and lives of Flamenco Romntico. We continue to be thankful for all of this.

Flamenco Romntico
Marianna Gabriel & Federico Mejia