Tuesday, November 4, 2003

Voting day I notice as I insert the date. Rayhana is getting her last massage from Toshi. I am taking Freddie’s Toshi appointment tonight because I hurt my ankle again.

Paquito is here giving Freddie a guitar lesson. When Pacquito played the guitar earlier I just had to move my hands and arms and chest – to let the music through. I didn’t dance with my feet, my wounded ankle kept me rooted to the ground, but my upper body let the music carry me and the dancing made me feel whole again. Freddie is really enjoying his classes with Paquito. He likes the falsetas he is learning, of course. And he seems to learn well from Paquito’s style of teaching. He is also having fun. And I always love having the house filled with beautiful music. So I too enjoy Freddie’s classes with Paquito.

I danced for five hours yesterday and felt so good that I then walked to Calle Sierpes to do some last minute shopping. I only had a few errands. On the way there I ran into Freddie and Luisito by the Giralda. We walked to Plaza Salvador and Plaza de Pan together. They had been investigating how to mail the beautiful old Sevilla tiles we had found in the garbage about a month ago. Then they were going to see a friend of Luisito’s who needed money and was selling an old guitar from 1954.

I went to the Clarins store and then to Menkes and then to look at a beautiful little mantoncita (a little shawl) I had seen in a store window. Then I walked to the Elena Bernal store on Calle Sierpes to see if they had that type of mantoncita cheaper than the first store. Elena Bernal’s, who used to carry wonderful mantoncitas, was three times as expensive and not as nice so I returned to the other store to buy theirs. There I tried on a blouse for my new dance skirt that I had bought at Menkes’ about a month ago. I haven’t found the right blouse for it yet. My movil phone rang and Rubina was inviting us to a mole dinner she had made at Rayhana and the Armenians’ house. I called Freddie and told him to meet me there and then slowly headed to their house. I did pass some boot stores and did find some comfortable, wide toed, flat, rubber bottomed, zip up coffee brown suede leather boots. They were just what I have been looking for. I can wear them in the rain. My feet will stay warm and dry and I don’t have to wear my other boots, the beautiful soft leather ones with the small square heel. I bought them in Jerez several years ago and I love them. But this year my ankle rebels at heels that aren’t supported, such as non-Flamenco high heels. I was so sure that my ankle would be healed by now. But it isn’t.

By the time I reached Plaza Alfalfa my ankle was hurting. I limped slowly on, perhaps a mistake. It was only five more minutes to Rayhana’s. In hindsight, I think I should have walked back to a place to sit and I should have just called. But I didn’t. Then I climbed their steep stairs carefully, hanging on to the strong iron rail and using it to pull myself up. I was being careful. It is the first time I have been to visit them, because of the stairs, since I helped them get the apartment when they first got here!

Rayhana and Rubina got some ice and put it in a towel for my ankle. It felt a little better by the time Freddie got there, ate something, and we then visited and then went home. I can’t believe that this is almost over. Rayhana is leaving Friday, early morning. We plan to leave Tuesday unless we extend our trip again. I need to call our landlady to see if we can stay here another month. We are not ready to go home yet. We need time to relax, with no classes. We want to see friends in Granada, and maybe visit Ronda, which I have never seen. We want to relax a little, to vacation, before we return home.

And now my ankle hurts again. I went to group Torombo class today. This week it is the combination of the two classes, ours and the advanced class and it is a two hour class. Yesterday went very well. We reviewed the letras and the Silencio. Freddie said I looked great. Today Torombo started to give us his Bulería which is what ends the Alegrías. It had some very fast footwork, which I could do. But, I couldn’t do it with enough control and I re-injured my ankle the same way I did in his sister Torumbita’s class, by doing footwork too fast for my ability to control something. My foot started hurting and then I tried to just do the walking without the footwork, but there was running and I couldn’t do that. I sat down. I had just broken my palm pilot at the beginning of class when it dropped out of my dance bag and onto the hard floor. The glass broke so I can’t use it. Then I had to stop class because my ankle hurt. Then I thought about our leaving on Tuesday and I could not stop crying. It was a lot about fear of my ankle getting worse, some pain, but also anger at my disability and of course feeling sorry for myself. I called Juana and canceled my studio time for today. Freddie arrived for his cajon lesson and he just hugged me and held me. It was the first time I could really stop crying. It felt so good to hug him. Maybe unconsciously it reminded me of what is really important. Freddie and I have each other, soul mates, friends, lovers, husband and wife. We are here in Sevilla doing what we both love best (other than each other, perhaps), Flamenco. We are delving into the singing, exploring the rhythms with cajon (pronounced cahone) and baston. We are weaving the dancing and the guitar. It has turned into such a rich, textured trip. Again, we have both made improvements after much disappointment and struggle and despair. It seemed as if it weren’t going to happen this time. But low and behold, progress is happening.

I sit here writing. Rayhana is still in the bedroom getting a massage from Toshi. Freddie and Paquito are playing a concert (really Freddie’s lesson) and their music is flowing through me as I write. “Mas suave” Paquito says, and Freddie softens his sound even more. Paquito is patient, encouraging and helpful.

I had my massage with Toshi. He says I did not ruin my foot and that I did not greatly injure it this time. I am glad. He said that if my left leg continued to cramp up and wake me in the middle of the night like it does, when we return home, to get it tested for both nerve damage and circulation problems. But he thinks the problem is really muscle exhaustion, tiredness.

Freddie just bought a new guitar, a 1954 Manuel Ortega Flamenco guitar. It belonged to a friend of Luisito’s, a man six months younger than Freddie. The man, Salvador, has given up playing and needs money. He was a great afficionado in his day and was friends with Antonio Mairena, Niña de las Peinas, La Pipa (the grandmother), all the old ones, Freddie says, and that the stories this man told were fantastic. Freddie told him that he had been here in Spain in the late fifties/early sixties and the “old man” said, “Those were the days.” Freddie says he wants to keep in touch with him, that he is a “really neat old man.” There was a nice connection between the two of them. I never got to meet him. Luisito took Freddie to look at the guitar last night and Freddie called me from the man’s house. He fell in love with the guitar. He says it plays really well with very little effort. He is sitting on the couch now playing it. And I should get to bed soon.

Tomorrow I will make myself call our landlady to see if there is a possibility of staying. I just can’t imagine getting us packed in so little time. I am not ready. I don’t feel like performing anymore, because I still am worried about my ankle letting me dance well. But of course, I will be better than I was before I came to Spain. My eyes still remind me that they did a lot of crying today. I have that after-a-long-cry feeling.

Almost every morning that I take a class from Torombo we drink coffee and fresh squeezed orange juice at the little café in Plaza Pelicano near Torombo’s studio. Juanito, the man who works behind the counter, is a friend of Torombo’s. The other day Juanito helped Torombo set up his new móvil phone, a present from Torombo’s mother. Yesterday and today I ate delicious deer meet, cooked with vegetables by the older man, the chef, Paco. I asked them today if they minded my writing about them and putting them on our website and of course they liked the idea. Their bar is called El Balcon Del Pelicano, and is on Calle Santa Lucia No. 16, Sevilla 41003. Telephone: 954-41-07-82. This is near the Trinidad area. They are lovely people. And, as I told them, I think they have the cleanest bathrooms in all of Sevilla. And they always have toilet paper. What a resource! Paco man smiled proudly, obviously very pleased, when I told him that. I think the clean bathrooms are his doing. He is also very proud of his cooking.

The older woman who is often there, I found out, is Juanito’s mother. Freddie says she always has a big grin on her face. We like her.

Friday, November 7, 2003

This has become one of my favorite ways to write, during Freddie’s lesson with Paquito. We have been hanging out with Paquito a lot and every day we like him more and more.

We are staying here another month and we are both so happy about this. We will return home on the tenth of December. It means an extra hour waiting in the Chicago airport, but it is worth it. My cares seem to have dropped off me, now I am feeling so inspired, so excited, so good – so wonderful and happy. I had no idea that I was so upset about leaving. I hadn’t really a clue until we changed our plans and my mood lifted so dramatically.

Today was my last class with Torombo, at least until Nov. 26 when he returns from Japan. In class we all danced the Alegrías letras we had learned. The people who knew it best danced it in pairs, facing each other and locking in one another’s eyes. It was beautiful. Then Torombo looked at me and asked me to do it alone. We had three guitarists and Torombo sang his heart out to each of us and played the cajon. I got inspired and danced it. I blew one little break and put it in too early in the cante and didn’t do it well because I knew I should have waited another compás to come in… but it didn’t matter, really, because I kept on and danced the rest well. I felt good afterwards. After I danced, Torombo announced that I was sixty years old. I corrected him and said fifty-nine! But old is old and I always say that I’m almost sixty. It just sounds so old when I think about it.

Then everyone else who hadn’t danced yet was called to dance, one by one. It was beautiful. Torombo encouraged people to dance from their heart, to just dance. For those who didn’t know the choreography he said to just dance anything from their heart and they did. Torombo even had each guitarist get up and dance and then he also got the spectators watching his class to dance, including Freddie. It was a very high class and a great way to end the week. Now I will start my vacation. I canceled today’s practice at the studio because I needed to finish writing the e-mail home about our change of plans. We had a lot of plans and we are still in the midst of resolving how to do things now that we are staying! But at least now everybody is informed. I spent over two hours each day just writing e-mail about our change of plans. Now I will start calling people to say hello and to visit! Better late than never!

After my great class today Freddie had his last baston lesson from Torombo. But of course he will continue studying guitar with Pacquito. He is learning some beautiful things that he can already play well. He is certainly getting in more music now than last year. He seems to be just really getting into it. It would have been a shame for him to leave at this stage. And I am experimenting with the idea of vacation and relaxation and shopping. I think I need a time to take all of this in that I have been learning, to take it deeper and to start to assimilate it. I will continue practicing though, so I don’t forget what I have learned. When I lie down my left thigh is still cramping up and waking me up at night so I am wondering if this rest will help the muscle. I am looking for a cause and a solution. I know I need to stretch more. I assume that my left leg is compensating for my weak right ankle. At least I feel that I don’t need to wear the air brace right now to stabilize myself. My boots help that. So do the extremely comfortable sensible rubber soled shoes I bought. But the edge of one just rubbed my ankle raw today. I have added a bandaid. As I was walking the crooked cobblestone bricks on the way from Torombo’s studio today, walking to the clean bathroom at El Balcon, I marveled at the comfort of the shoes and how my foot didn’t twist like it did in my thin-soled thongs and even my other shoes that I have been wearing. I was amazed at the difference. Rubina has been trying to get me out of the thongs, but they were the only shoes that I could wear the air cast with. Freddie also wanted me to stop the thongs, but I had nothing more comfortable. Now that I have my new comfortable and supportive boots and my comfortable and somewhat supportive shoes I am aware of the difference. Maybe this will help to heal my ankle more. What a process.

And my ankle definitely played a role in our decision to stay. I want it to heal more before I travel. And we were supposed to do a performance right after we returned. I started to worry about traveling and my ankle and wondering if I would even be able to dance shortly after my return. If I did, I knew that I would bring some of Spain back in my dance. That seemed good. But staying seemed more sensible so we found someone else to replace us and we are working out details of how to do things. But it feels like the right decision. And when I did two Shamanic journeys about staying longer they both were very strongly in favor of staying. So we plunged and we have changed out tickets. And Freddie just learned more important things on the guitar tonight from Paquito.

Last night we took Rubina to see and hear Macanita sing and Juan de Juan dance. We bought our tickets when it was first possible so we would get good seats and be sure to get in. Actually FlamencArte stood in line and bought our tickets. Delia got up early and spent the time. That is another advantage of being in FlamencArte.

Paquito gave Freddie a guitar lesson before the show and then drove us there, to the El Monte theatre near Corte Ingles. The show was sold out and Paquito didn’t have a ticket so he just went in through the back door. They are all his good friends. After the show we went to “the” place, a bar near the theatre where we had tapas. All of the performers showed up and hugged Paquito. We were introduced to them too. Juan de Juan’s singer, Joselito de Lebrija, is the same singer who came on tour with the Juana Amaya and Farruquito group and was at our home afterwards that evening in Santa Cruz, California. Due to a request from Raul “El Perla” last year for a home cooked meal when they came to Santa Cruz, the whole group came over to our house for dinner after their show there. Pacquito was there too.

And now this year we are hanging out with Paquito more than ever and having a lot of fun. At the Bar last night he made me a beautiful white flower out of napkins. I am wearing it in my hair even today and it is holding up. He singed the petals to give it some color. It is really incredible. He went with us last night to Rayhana’s, to say goodbye to her. Rayhana left this morning. I will really miss her. I love having positive, fun, and loving people in my life.

Today, at the beginning of the lesson, Paquito and Freddie were talking again about Freddie’s new Ortega guitar. Paquito’s father-in-law was a guitar making student of Manuel Ortega, now dead, the maker of Freddie’s new guitar. Tomorrow Paquito will pick us up at noon with his wife Pilar and almost-five-year-old daughter Solea and we will go to Triana to meet his wife’s father and see his guitar shop. Then we will have tapas. It should be fun. This will be the first outing type of thing we have done with him and his immediate family together, outside of things directly involving Concha.

Paquito and I talk about computers and music programs. He wants a Mac, which I have and love. He is also into vitamins and organic foods and he and I talk about that sometimes too. He is fascinated by the old Bohemian, hippy part of us and what we did in that time before he was born or when he was very young. Our nineteen sixties and seventies were both filled with art and counterculture. Paquito says he has a lot to learn from us. And we have a lot to learn from him, too. And we like each other.

And then there is the thread of Flamenco, not to be underestimated. Last night Rubina, Rayhana and I were doing Flamenco steps up in Rayhana’s apartment. Paquito likes that we are always doing Flamenco, thinking Flamenco, dreaming Flamenco, just like him. And beautiful Rayhana turns the Flamenco steps into belly dance steps.

Paquito has given Freddie an exercise to do with his fingers for five minutes every day, combining two different exercises. He thinks this should really help straighten out Freddie’s arthritic fingers. He asked me to make sure Freddie practiced this. He doesn’t know Freddie yet in this way. Freddie is a fanatic. Freddie’s only fault will be if he practices it too much and tires his fingers. Freddie loves to practice and that is mainly what he does when he is not sick. He is practicing right now and Pacquito just left. No one has to get Freddie to practice, just maybe to do other things!

So Freddie and I are both having our breakthroughs. I think this month will be very fruitful as well as fun.

I took our landlady the rent for the extra month we are staying, this evening at eight. We still haven’t been to Los Gallos this year, which she owns. Los Gallos is the Flamenco club in our square, Plaza de Santa Cruz. It is the best Flamenco club in Sevilla and we haven’t been once this year. It is expensive so it is not an every night thing, but they have wonderful dancers and it is right next door. Torombo danced there for years until, he said, that his heart went out of it and he wasn’t really dancing any more, he had become mechanical. So he quit Los Gallos and held on to his integrity. Now his goal is to teach people to dance from their hearts.

As Freddie listens to the tape of his tonight’s guitar class with Paquito, I hear Paquito saying, “Eso e’, Freddie, Eso e’. (That’s it, Freddie, that’s it). And Freddie is doing it.

Sunday, November 9, 2003

We spent the whole day yesterday with Paquito, Pilar and Solea. I canceled my practice.

SPAIN CHRONICLES 2003

Sept 14 – 15 Writings
Sept 17 – Oct 4 Writings
Oct 5 -12 Writings
Oct 17 – 20 Writings
Oct 25 – Nov 2 Writings
Nov 4 – 9 Writings
Nov 11 – 17 Writings
Nov 23 – 24 Writings
Nov 25 – Dec 2 Writings
Dec 5 – 8 Writings
Dec 10 – 14 Writings