October 31, 2001

Tonight is Halloween and a full moon. I am sleepy and my body is tired but I will soon dance Sevillanas with Rubina downstairs. After I danced Sevillanas tonight with the new male dancer in the group, Alonso, Alfonso the singer thanked me for dancing and said that every day I get better and better. I didn’t think that my Sevillanas had changed that much, but I guess the improvement in my dancing is rippling out to all of it, including the Sevillanas. I am happy.

Halloween is no big deal here although a few of the kids wear masks. But November 1, the day of the dead, is a day of fiesta here and everything closes but the restaurants. Spain is full of fiesta days and I like the relaxed feel it gives to life. Fiesta and siesta both slow life down. Every day, as I have written in other years, the stores close and the restaurants open between 1:30 or 2:00 until about 5 or 5:30 in the afternoon when many restaurants close again until dinner (around 8:00-ish) and the stores reopen until 7:30 or 8:30 at night. Now that daylight savings time has ended, it is dark before the stores close, but the people still walk all through Sevilla shopping and talking. We are starting fall/winter in Spain. There are roasted chestnuts for sale from little carts in the streets. People wear sweaters and boots and carry umbrellas. I don’t see that many raincoats. People ask us if we will be here for Christmas, but we tell them that we want to spend Christmas at home with our families. Maybe next year we will stay. It is tempting. Although, sometimes we remember the feeling we had when we returned home last year and the year before. We remember coming back to this beautiful luxurious palace that is our home in Soquel and just marveling at it. If we have to be away from Spain, then our home is the place to do it in!

November 4, 2001

On the ferry from Algeciras to Tangiers. We speak Spanish with Moroccan women, Freddie, Rubina and I. They are very friendly and you would never guess the tensions of the world right now. I have a feeling that it would be fine to visit Tangiers, but we are leaning toward caution and safety, and so will turn around and return to Spain immediately after we reach Morocco. We will now have the stamp on our passports that we left Spain before the three month limit. We can re-enter Spain again and be legal.

It is rainy outside and foggy but the boat is hot and humid. The sea is a choppy blue green in the middle of nothing but white rain.

November 5, 2001 Monday

This is the day we were to leave for home. How strange. I am so glad that we are still here, there is still so much to do. I am not at all ready to leave yet. We have one more month here.

November 6, 2001

I sit alone at Carmela Cafe (Alta Mira), outside, watching the sun and the people at the early hour of eleven AM. I am drinking my coffee and my fresh squeezed orange juice and eating my morning toast with jamon serrano (thin Spanish cured ham) and garlic olive oil. When we eat our breakfast at El Cordobes I add a cup of gazpacho (the summer cold vegetable soup that Freddie and I are still addicted to) to this breakfast. I have class at twelve noon and two o’clock today because Concha is going to Lebrija this afternoon to a Mass for her brother Rafael who died last month. After the pouring rain yesterday and last night, Sevilla feels washed and clean, water still drying in the streets. Rubina and Freddie have both said they will meet me here, but I’ll probably be leaving by the time either arrives. But no, they came at almost the same time and joined me before I left to meet Concha back at La Carboneria for my technique class. Her nephew Quintin, who is twenty and is the son the brother who died, has been staying with Concha and her family. Quintin has been coming to class lately and wants to learn to sing. Thin and dark, with a sensitive and fine bone structure, his face is soft and his eyes sad and deep. He used to work with an uncle in Lebrija who is a butcher. This uncle sang while he worked and Quintin learned by hearing him. Quintin only sings some Siguiriyas and a Nanas but his voice is the perfect Flamenco voice. His song brought tears to my eyes today in class. He sings with feeling and with a voice quality that is the essence of the Gypsy flamenco. In Spanish they say that he has “a Voice”. This is a person whose talent could someday make him one of the top Flamenco artists in Spain. My heart goes out to his sadness.

The night we got back from Morocco, Sunday, we were all exhausted. Rubina didn’t know if she had to work that night and I figured that she would be too tired. It had been an exhausting trip. Freddie and I were upstairs relaxing and practicing and suddenly Rubina appeared in her costume. She said, Concha is downstairs with her family and wants to see you dance Sevillanas. So I went down our stairs to the bathroom and washed my face and combed my hair, came back upstairs and changed my clothes and went down to the stage and danced Sevillanas in both shows. Concha had been worried about us. She had called us the day before, on Saturday, when Freddie and I were in Granada for the day and asked us to call her from Morocco. Our phone wouldn’t work from Morocco but when the ferry was back in to the Spanish phone range I called her to tell her that we were safe. She still was worried, so Rafael suggested that they go to La Carboneria to see us. And they did. They came with Frackie, the widow of Concha’s brother. It was the first time I had seen Frackie actually laugh. That was nice.

Freddie and I had visited Granada again last Friday night and Saturday before continuing on to Algeciras Saturday night so we could leave on an early ferry to Morocco the next day. We had stayed at our friend Angel-the-father’s luxurious office apartment because Granada hostels and hotels had no vacancy because of the Fiesta weekend. We had come to Granada to see an old house that was for sale in the Albaycin. Angel went with us to see it. The realtor, Angel’s daughter Cristina’s husband Carlos’ uncle Pablo, was an old friend of Angel’s. This three story house had many views of the Alhambra. The views were beautiful but the house didn’t say, “Buy me” to us. But it was fun looking.

This week I am reviewing and polishing the Siguiriya that I learned in 1999. I watched it on the television in Paco’s room on the tape we made for Paco of the show we did at our home with Concha in June when she first came to California. We watched the whole show with Paco and Ryan and Christine. My Siguiriyas was better than I thought it would be. But, I know that my footwork now is much stronger, as are my palmas. My upper body is now better too. But I liked what I did. After we had watched the whole show, Paco let me watch my Siguiriyas again and practice to it in his room as much as I wanted. That helped me remember the choreography. Then Paco suggested that we borrow the TV and VCR, but not because he was sick of my practicing, but because he likes to support practicing. He has another TV that he watches the news on and says he doesn’t use this one much. I didn’t want to bother him and so I said no, but today we have it in our room. Paco spends a lot of time in bed these days, resting his legs and recovering from the bad cold he had. He watches the news on his other television and listens to the news on his tiny little radio with ear phones. His friends come to visit him, sitting in the chairs by his bed where he humbly holds court. When we come upstairs and he is there, we always stop in to see how he is and to chat with him. I realized that I haven’t written anything about how our Spanish is this year because that is not an issue any more. I can understand a lot, although not everything, especially if people talk quickly or have a different accent. But in general, we do very well. I remember when I could hardly understand anything Paco said. Now I can understand most of it. Freddie is also doing much better with his Spanish. We both love living in Spain. Sometimes we walk down the street and just marvel at our wonderful lives. We still hold hands and walk arm in arm, two little aging people, our gray hair shining, loving each other like wise teenagers. How thankful I am that we are still Flamenco Romntico, loving each other and doing together what we love best, Flamenco. As I write tonight, Freddie is practicing his guitar on the couch. It is a sound that I never tire of. I love his music. I feel so good when I hear him play. It is comforting. And he is very proud of my dancing.

November 7, 2001 Wednesday

Rubina and I were just thinking about Rayhana and our eye make up yesterday when we passed a make up store. We still have to get our specially shaped brushes that Rayhana. recommended. And we don’t want to forgot the make up techniques that Rayhana showed us when she was here. We had walked to Corte Ingles to buy more video tapes for our cameras and then I had to pick up a skirt I had had altered that still wasn’t right. After leaving that store, I had shown Rubina another route home from Calle Sierpes to the Giralda and then up Mateos Gagos and a few more streets to get home to La Carboneria. On the way, we passed a Flamenco accessory store and we were both drawn in at the same time, as if drawn to a slow but strong magnet. I got some red plastic earrings with a beautiful “carved” rose on the top. They will go with my red dress from Salao as well as with my current Sevillanas outfit: the black skirt and the black lace blouse, and the red mantoncita with the tiny white lunares (polka dots) and my black lace up suede shoes. Ru bina got two pairs of the plastic earrings, one in purple and the other in fuchsia, to go with her new purple ruffley dance dress. I saw her dress on stage a few days ago and it was beautiful. We had fun walking and kind of shopping and trying not to, but not too hard! I woke up this morning thinking about Rayhana. I then checked my e-mail and there was an e-mail from her! How nice to pick up her energy like that. As I awoke, I had been wondering if her 5:30 AM departure time from Sevilla worked or had she gotten there too early? (Or did I dream that question?) I always forget important details like these from year to year and this year I want to make notes on it while I am still here, if possible. I have other notes of important things having to do with Spain too, all in my laptop computer, like almost all my movi numbers, lists of things to add to my Spain packing list, serial numbers and passport numbers, an in-Spain packing list for short weekend trips here, and this year I started a list of resources and information by cities. I have Jerez, Granada, and of course Sevilla. For Jerez I have a good shoe store, some good and bad hostels, and the name of a dance teacher who is supposed to be very good. In Granada I also have a hotel and names of friends and a good store for beautiful wooden inlay furniture so typical of Granada. For Sevilla I have a dentist and an acupuncturist (Paco’s friend Jesus) as well as airport information. I like to make lists. They keep me organized and functioning. I can refer to them instead of having to re-think everything each time I do it. That way I am free to concentrate my real energy on my dancing.

My dancing is going very well. It has been raining but today is sunny. Someone gave Paco a canary the other day and it is finally chirping. Its cage is hanging by our stairs and the poor little yellow bird appears lonely and sad. In Spain, apparently people give pets as gifts and of course that leads to a lot of animal neglect and abuse. We are hoping that Rubina can take it and at least care for it. The rumor is that Paco doesn’t even like birds. This bird has a very special presence, although I am not sure how I know that. Christine and Becca are checking to make sure the bird has food and water. It was out of food last night but Rubina brought some over today and I assume gave it to the bird. None of us knows much about caring for a bird and so far the bird hasn’t been covered at night. Freddie and Christine moved it to a larger bird cage that had been stored in a corner for some now unknown reason, and Freddie and Christine both made perches for it. The bird especially seems to like the one Freddie created with a wooden spoon. Christine’s perch is a swing. I say hi and talk to the bird every time I pass it. But I feel its sadness too.

Last night, up in our room Ryan and Freddie played beautiful guitar duets. Then Rubina sang, accompanied by both Freddie and Ryan, and Christine and I did palmas. Becca, who is now living downstairs on Paco’s level in a room with Marta who is back here again, was there too, enjoying it all. Last night during the Sevillanas segment of Rubina’s show they had me dance two sets of Sevillanas instead of just one. I had missed the first show because Freddie and I went out to eat late. Alfonso, Rubina’s singer, had said, when he saw me, “Where were you?” It was nice to feel missed. Then, when he saw me sitting there beside the stage like I always do when they are going to call me up, he asked me to do palmas with them during the show, which I did. I usually do palmas when Rubina dances, because she asks me to and I know her dance. Before, I hadn’t done palmas for anyone else because they had not asked. So I did palmas for the whole show this time. My palmas are getting much stronger thanks to my work with Concha. When it comes time in the show to do the Sevillanas, Alfonso always introduces me beautifully before he calls me up. There has been a new male dancer working with Rubina in the past two weeks and so I did a set of Sevillanas with him and then Alfonso called me back unexpectedly to do another set with Rubina. Of course it was fun to do double. I always love to dance as well as to perform. I am going to do a show dancing the Solea that I have been working so hard on, here at La Carboneria, in early December, but we haven’t finalized the date yet. Of course Freddie will play and either Concha or Pola will sing. Perhaps Curro will play guitar with Freddie. We had wanted Ryan to play with Freddie too but he and Christine will be in San Francisco, having had Thanksgiving there with relatives by then. We will miss the “kids”. Tonight we had dinner with Luisito, (Luis Pea) a gentle and polite twenty five year old Gypsy singer, dancer, palmero. He is an ardent admirerer of the old Gypsy style of dance and music typified by Juan del Gastor who gives guitar classes at La Carboneria, his uncle the great Diego del Gastor and other family (including Agustine Rios who lives in California), Miguel Funi, and the famous sister singers Bernarda and Fernanda de Utrera. Miguel Funi is Luisito’s idol and he has often been the palmero (does palmas for) for him and other great artists. He said that he has learned a lot from watching these artists while doing palmas in their shows. He now dances and sings, as well as continuing to do palmas, at private fiestas, the ones that the rich Flamenco aficionados put on, a very important function in the Flamenco Gypsy culture. Luisito, like Concha, has studied dance with the late Pepe Rios, the older brother of singer/guitarist Agustin Rios, who has been a good friend of Freddie’s in California and whom Freddie played guitar with for many years. Freddie thinks Agustin in the best Flamenco in the United States. Agustin’s brother, Pepe Rios, whose impeccable comps is still famous, has sure turned out some wonderful dancers. The style Luisito is committed to carrying on, this very traditional style, was the style of Flamenco I was first introduced to almost thirty years ago. It is a style that Freddie and I both love. Luisito wishes he had been lucky enough to meet Anzonini, the wonderful and legendary Gypsy singer/dancer butcher from Puerta de Santa Maria, whom Freddie and I both knew when he was living in Berkeley, California in the late seventies and early 80’s. Anzonini was part of the Diego, Bernarda, Fernanda crowd that Luisito worships. Anzonini died in the early eighties, but he is still known for his wonderful warm heart as well as for his very Gypsy, subtle way of dancing and singing and playing with the comps. He would also rap out rhythms, with his knuckles and fingers, on a round wooden tray he called his “tabla”. In Berkeley, Anzonini made and sold delicious fatty Spanish chorizo sausage and he would often serve it to us with bread and wine when we came to take class or to visit him in the old brown shingled Berkeley house where he lived with Pat and taught Flamenco and made sausage. Freddie and I were both very fortunate to have known him. That is one advantage of our age! We have known historic figures. Luisito is certainly the next generation. I am glad that someone his age loves the “old stuff” and will carry it on. It will not be lost because of people like him. Luisito has watched part of several of my classes with Concha and loves my Solea. Tonight, as the three of us sat at a table by the window eating in El Corbobes, a face passed us and looked in through the glass. Luisito signaled for him to come in. It was Jaero (Hy-ro), the thin, long haired dancer son of Carmen who cleans here at La Carboneria and sings the Tangos. We had seen him dance in one of the best clubs in Sevilla, Los Gallos, in 1999 when we went with Carmen, his mother. He had just started then. He still dances there when he is not touring and was on his way there tonight. He must be about 18 by now. Jaero, Luisito told us after he had left, is one of the two best young dancers in Sevilla and in all of Spain right now. The other, he said, is Farruquito, the grandson of the late great dancer Farruco. Farruco descendants, the large Farruco family, have a very important dance academy here in Sevilla. I think there are two generations teaching and dancing in it right now. They have a reputation for teaching a lot of fancy and strong foot technique and have a large following. My dance —this week I have been working on the Siguiriya and Concha has changed parts of the Martinete I start it with (it is danced without guitar) and also parts of the first letra (verse). I tried to rebel, but especially when I study the video, I do like what she has changed better than the original. I hadn’t wanted to learn anything new because I am still working on the Solea, but I seem to be handling these changes in my Siguiriya. Concha says she will not change the second letra. There are small changes at the end which are really corrections. We have been cleaning up the footwork and we both expect to be at a stopping place by Friday. The footwork is sounding much stronger and cleaner and more accented and exciting. The following week we will go back to the Solea and then in the next week we will polish my old Alegras. After that it will probably be all Solea, unless we squeeze in a little more Buleras. I have a nice Romance Buleras that I am still working on at the end of my Solea. I am still liking what I see in my videos. And I am feeling aware of the time limit of only one more month here this trip. I want to use my month well and not wish I had done things I didn’t get around to. I am very thankful for this extra month.

November 8, 2001

We are not too good at getting things done here because the pace is so nice and slow and we walk almost everywhere, and of course that takes time too.

In the Post Office you take a number when you enter and then you wait until your number flashes. There are a few places to sit and you can also fill out your forms while you wait. I guess it is no worse than waiting in a long line in the US, and perhaps it is better. At least there are places to sit while you wait here. You just have to remember to take your number right away when you get there.

November 8, 2001 Night time

We now have the canary in our room next to a window. Freddie moved it there today so it could have some sunlight and some company. It also had the music of Freddie’s guitar. He/She has started to chirp. It’s not actually singing but it seems to be moving in that direction. Paco wants to paint the cage blue. He says he can’t give the bird away because it was a gift to him. This morning as we talked about the bird, he said that he doesn’t know much about birds either, but he does seem to be interested in it. He asked where it was after Freddie had moved it. Later he showed me the food for it, but I don’t think he knows that Rubina brought that over yesterday because the bird didn’t have any left from the little bit of food that came with it. I think Paco might come to enjoy this bird. Things are always changing here in some ways.

I don’t know if I mentioned that Paco got an electric clothes dryer. They are still rare in Spain, at least in Sevilla. Here people always hang their laundry out to dry. I have come to enjoy that. But I have two terraces on which to do that. Those on the lower level hang their laundry on lines in that main room and Paco has become concerned about the dampness being bad for us all. He is worried that the humidity will make us more susceptible to the flu. So now people use the new dryer. I have used it on occasion too, when I needed something dried faster than it would dry outside, for example, when it was raining! It is interesting to see the changes Paco makes here. Concha and I are almost done with our week of working on remembering, revising and polishing my Siguiriyas. It is looking and feeling better and even in my off days, like today, I don’t look bad in the video. We have set a date for our show, our “actuacion” here at La Carboneria. It will be on Sunday December 2 at 10 PM. I wanted to have the whole week before to work on it again, after the week I will work on the Alegras. And I didn’t want it to be too close to the time when we are packing to leave. Concha didn’t want it to be on a Friday or Saturday because there would be too many people making way too much noise. So it is Sunday December 2 at 10 PM at La Carboneria. Our time here is winding down and this month will be a month of finishing for now, of getting ready to leave. That means visiting places we have wanted to visit (or deciding not to), finishing projects and intentions here, finding boxes to mail things home in and planning a loose packing schedule. Giving our show is a part of our preparing to leave. Living and enjoying every minute is also a part of our preparing to leave. Taking into our memories the sounds, the smells, the people, the taste of the food, the designs in the streets, on the many tiles and in all the iron work, all this taking into our senses is also our preparation to leave. Sevilla is a city of beauty in many ways. I pass the Giralda on the way to Calle Sierpes and marvel at the beauty of that majestic, intricate and historic cathedral. I look at the complicated mosaic of colored tile that is commonly put even on the bottom underneath the many balconies that line each floor of the tall houses in Sevilla. As you walk between them you look up and see beautiful tile. And if you are lucky enough to pass an open door, you may see flowers and green plants in a colorful tiled patio with scrolled and curvy wrought iron gates and sunlight making patterns in the breathtaking beauty of the art of another age.