October 26, 2000

Yesterday I went to pick up some more of the medicine, Dynamogn, that helped Freddie so much. I had ordered ten boxes so we could take some home. It was in this pharmacy that I got the antibiotics for Freddie, the foot pads for my shoes, and advice on pain medicines and cold remedies. Last year I shopped at another pharmacy and the woman was never very friendly so when I asked for other recommendations I was told that this one was no more expensive than the other. And, it is a little closer to the Carboneria, being right next door to Alta Mira. The woman here has always been very nice and friendly to me and I find that other people I know also shop here. She also has the right kind of foot pads for my Flamenco shoes and lots of herbal products. As I was leaving the pharmacy with my heavy bag of Dynamogn, the woman who always waits on me handed me a little wrapped packed and said, “Un regalito ….”, a little present. I opened the paper and found a tiny cloth bag. Inside the bag was a pearl necklace. It came with a certificate of guarantee and authenticity. They are real pearls, from a river, and the clasp is 22 carat gold! How nice people are here. I have never, in my fifty six years, experienced that in the US, and I have made many big orders, spending much more than I spent in this little neighborhood pharmacy. I have commented before on how impressed I am that the Spanish remember us, that they remember people. Clara says that is because the Spanish are so much more people oriented than we are, that people are important to them so they remember them. And it is true that many people here don’t seem to know how to work machines, call telephone information, get insurance, Vthey don’t have the efficiency that you find in the US. Instead, they focus on people and that is something that I like very very much.

I am getting the contra tiempo (counter time) in a new way, a way that seems magic. For the last two days most of my lessons have been on contra tiempo and at last I am feeling as if there is an elastic ball between my hands that will do either the counter or the “basic” while my hands clap the opposite. And when I do it with my feet I feel a little bounce of my knee, of my foot springing up, when my step is in counter time. I am stepping between the beats as a child steps between the cracks on the pavement or over the stones in hopscotch. There is a playful feeling as I begin to play with the music. This, counter time, is an underlying concept in Flamenco but it is hard to convey and hard to get. It is counter time with specific accents that go with the music. It is strong and sure and never tentative or faltering, as I have tended to be. I feel as if I have entered another world, another sphere of reality where I can feel the energy and move the energy more and more easily. I have written of this moving the energy before, over the years, but now I am learning a way to access it and harness it so that I call it in almost every time I dance instead of at rare, wonderful moments that I cannot control. Of course, there will always be rare, wonderful moments, but now they will be at a more advanced level for me. Our plan for when we return to Spain next year, or next spring if Freddie and I can make it, is to work on counter time and my foot work and not learn more choreographies just yet. Then the next time I come after that, we will work on upper body and arms. I am also trying to work on strength and assurance in my dance and the contrast between the strength and the softness that colors Flamenco.

I had a good class today and was able to get the contra time in a swing, learning to switch from one counter time step to another, at will, continuing to feel the feel of it, to keep the communication between the palmero and my feet, the twin bounce of alternating time, the play with the rhythm. I am learning to do the same with the guitar and Freddie is learning not to slow down and carry me when I fall off the beat but to keep the rhythm constant so I can climb back on. The guitarist is supposed to follow the dancer like Freddie is following me, but not when we are just working on it, because I need to learn when I am slowing down the compass. And I am learning and correcting this. The dance is magic and I feel privileged to be able to join it. Yesterday I had an hour and a half class from Concha that was almost all counter time and I struggled and just barely was able to get what she showed me. We also did palmas and I found that I had a harder time doing the basic than the contra, but now I can do the basic too. So all the hard work has paid off because today the contra just happened without my having to struggle and push. It is amazing and I am totally thrilled. We are working on both palmas and feet with the counter time and I am getting it, finally !

October 29, 2000 Sunday night

Freddie is having a lesson with Carlos tonight and we are packing. I had an hour and half class with Concha today. Where did all the time go? We ate breakfast with Paco this morning at Alta Mira/Carmela. He still gets tired but he is doing much better and I am sure he is bored being up in his room all day. So it is good that he got out and could walk the distance without his leg starting to hurt. He ran into a lot of friends who were thrilled to see him out there again.

I have been dancing Buleras again with Carlos group, but I still feel in between stages and steps and ways of thinking so I am not that happy with what I am doing. Enrique’s singing is different from Concha’s. So is Inma’s. And the music goes much faster than I am used to, with a modern, pushing beat. So it feels very different from dancing to Concha’s laid back but strong and energetic heavily accented bulerias from Lebrija. Freddie says I am much better in class! But my form at least looks better and the video Freddie took last night and the night before looks better than it felt to me. In class today we did contra tiempo for an hour and a half. I love it. I am going to miss Concha so much. We have so much fun together and I am learning so much, things I have always wanted to learn and didn’t know how to learn. Concha has a true gift for teaching and this gift is developing like the most beautiful fireworks, which just when you think they are perfect, they burst into something even better. Concha’s teaching is like this. She says that now I am ready to understand more, than I can understand. It is so exciting. I know that I will take all this in while we are in California, that I will integrate what I have learned in these two months into my dance, that I will learn it and deepen it and practice it to make it stronger and perhaps faster. I will work on my posture and my style. I will work on my contra tiempo and my accents. I will work on practicing and mastering the steps and footwork I have been given as well as retaining and polishing the beautiful Alegras, Siguiriyas, Buleras and Tango I have learned in the last year and a half from Concha.

October 30, 2000

We leave tomorrow at six AM from the Carboneria. We have said good bye. We ate a marvelous paella lunch here at the Carboneria today cooked by Paco’s friend Carlos, an artist. Although Carlos cooked, and Manuel (who also lives upstairs on the second floor in the room previously inhabited by Juan Camas,), Elizabet, and Alexi all helped with everything, the meal was instigated and paid for by Paco. Manuel, Alexi and Elizabet, Paco, Rubina, Concha, Paco’s acupuncturist Jesus, and Pacos son Sergio all ate with us. It was a nice “despedida”/going away lunch. Then I took an hour and a half class from Concha and said good bye. I have had classes every day this week, including Saturday and Sunday and my thighs barely take me up the stairs. But I am happy and satisfied although I sure will miss Concha. We spent most of the time on contra tiempo steps and palmas and it is coming easier and easier. We also ran through the entire Alegras. I have a lot to work on but I am glad.

November 5, 2000 Sunday

We are home now and I am sleeping a lot. I didnt realize how tired I had gotten myself in Spain until we returned to California. Thursday Freddie and I went to Palo Alto to the Soar clinic to consult with Dr. Fanton about Freddies rotator cuff. He will have surgery this coming Wednesday, November 8. Friday we spent at our doctors here getting most of the pre-surgery tests. Freddie had more on Saturday. I guess his shoulder looked pretty bad to the doctor to schedule it so quickly, but we are happy that the surgery will be done soon. Freddie is practicing guitar everyday because he knows that he will not be able to play for a while after the surgery. He has had more breakthroughs in how he holds his hand, which affects the cleanliness of his playing. Each day, it seems, his playing becomes cleaner and cleaner, the sound more and more beautiful as it comes through his new guitar. We are home and our beautiful house is littered with our unpacking. Scattered on the floor and on chairs are cards, tapes, electrical cords, photos, presents and of course two months of mail. In our room the clean laundry which I managed to wash since our return still needs to get put away. It feels a bit overwhelming to me but Freddie is helping to sort it out. We are such a good balance for each other. I have been way too tired to dance but when I wake up early I go over my choreographies in my head. The only thing to distract me from reorganizing here is Freddies upcoming operation. Not even the elections are getting much attention from me, but of course we will both vote. We have absentee ballots so we just have to drop them off on Tuesday.

I miss Concha a lot, but I cant call her because she is in New York. When you work with someone that intimately every day you either love them or you cant stand them. I love Concha and could easily work with her two more months at that pace, if my thighs would hold out. So Freddie and I plunge into our American lives again, here in our Paradiso on top of this hill in Soquel. We have tapes and photos to send to Spain, when we copy them. We have letters to write. And we have memories living inside us, in our hearts, in our souls, in our bodies. And the pulse of Flamenco continues inside us, carrying us on through this next stage of our lives.

Flamenco Romántico
Marianna & Federico Mejia
http://www.flamencoromantico.com/
E-mail: LaMarianna@aol.com