ultimo noche

Se acaba. Sies semanas para aprender espanol, se acaba.

I went to school for the last time and after classes had a goodbye drink with my teachers. I went to the beach for the last time and dove into the divine Mediterranean for the last time.

Now I am going home.

I love Spain, but it’s a different love from the one that I have for my home. It’s a love that has saved me.

I looked back on all my pictures from the beginning of this journey, and I looked into the eyes of the visage staring back at me, at a wounded soul who was searching for healing and praying that God would intervene, and He did.

Now, I think I am ok.

When I go home, I can take with me the lessons I have learned here, not just Spanish, but from life:

For one, being ok is a state of mind, it doesn’t matter where you are, it matters how you feel.

Love is love, no matter how you classify it, and it’s beautiful.

Life always grants you opportunities to learn from your mistakes, and realize that when you think you have catastrophically fucked up, it’s really not that deep, because somewhere, across an ocean, on a beach, none of that matters.

Spain has a lot of pork.

The alcohol in Spain is a salve for the stomach.

The beach in Spain is a salve for the soul.

Air conditioning is underrated.

The Yankees aren’t really that important. Except Robinson Cano.

Spanish people like to touch my hair.

Grammar in any language is a bitch.

There are other black people in Spain. They’re just hiding.

Siesta isn’t so bad.

Sunsets are just as beautiful as sunrises.

Al sol le brotan ramas de alegria.

I am really pretty when I am dark as hell.

Meeting new people is a good thing.

Spanish men love shaving parts of their bodies.

For some reason, Spanish people hate bulls. I liken this to the South Park episode where the Japanese kept attacking whales and dolphins.

French people stink.

I love my family. They know who they are.

I am truly blessed. And I thank God for this everyday.

Next year, I am gonna try to learn French. I’ll see what happens….

El Toro

I went to the theater del corrida this evening. It wasn’t too far from the beach, as nothing in Malaga is far from the beach. This is a beach town, water, sand, and sun. I stood in the center of the city, earshot from the waves and watched as Spaniards traversed towards the roofless structure. Sun baked the populous running inside the amphitheater, making the areal view what I imagined look like rice pouring backwards through one side of an hourglass. I wasn’t really paying attention to the areal view, as the amphitheater has no roof. I was looking at skin, naked, satiated, shining. People clamoring for a space and running and grabbing one another in excitement.

There would be a bullfight today. The first in a while, as this is summer, the offseason.

I crossed the street and joined the clamoring filtering frenzy and stood in awe of what reminded me half of a Greek Orpheum, half of Yankee stadium. But this was Spain. The dazzling sun reflected against small gold flecks sewn into the red and yellow that displayed three stripes flourishing in a wind that still smelled of sea spray at this, the sun lit evening.

I looked around (quite literally) the cornerless dimensional icon that I had entered. There was a shadow to my right side, and that side was full, women clutching albanicos, children clutching each other, men clutching opened cruzcampo’s. The right side was full to capacity; people sat in the shade and stared to the center, a perfect sand circle empty-ready for the main event.

To my left as the audience who sat sparsely scattered the sun sat as well. In the old days these would be considered the cheap seats. Of course this is common sense. The heat was oppressive to this side, as beautiful as it was.

I grabbed a seat on the stairs, a couple feet away from the outskirts of the shadow provided by the ingenious architecture.

The show began. Horses donned in Spain’s flag and outrageous and beautiful adornments rode into the sand circle, pulling a chariot-like wagon, carrying trumpeters and clarinetists. I couldn’t see the drummer, but I could hear him. The music sounded like a mix of Ravel and The Godfather (2) and in my moment of American isolation and awkwardness, I pictured Robert Deniro climbing rooftops in little Italy, breaking up a gun…

The music was eclipsed by the sound of the adoring audience, as the matadors took the stage. There were 5 in all, dressed well, sleek; their bodies slight yell well built, their costumes garish and immaculate.

They waved and shucked, the crowds gave and they took. Their flare for the theatrical would have been considered effeminate at home. But here, amidst the salt air and red and yellow banderas, these men were rock stars, movie icons, machismo at its most brazen and desirable, I gathered from the sighs and coos drawled from young supple females in a slightly audible Andalucía tongue.

3 of the matadors had pink frocks-they held them and tossed them about in the light, even before the bull came thundering in, to applause and screams.

2 of the men had red frocks, I laughed to myself thinking that they sure were in trouble.

The bull was released into the circle; a kind of bounding confusion in his step-he jumped and bucked and ran all at the same time, and then stopped for a moment as if to get his bearings. He looked around-there were the 3 men with pink frocks at different parts on the outer fringes of the circle standing behind podiums strategically placed in the circle- chose one, and ran at him in a non-chalant teasing kind of way, and then, realizing that the shade was on the other side of the circle, trotted over to the crowded seats, but not before taking another half shot at another pink frock twirling directly across from me. The bull looked to be enjoying himself for about 4 minutes. From the beginning it was obvious to any onlooker that the animal was startled by the environment, but it seemed like the matadors who taunted the animals were doing so lovingly, playfully, and the animal was just following suit. When you watch something like this at first, you are more than aware of the obvious and immense danger that can erupt at any possible moment.

This is no house pet, or trained circus animal. This is El Toro, the bull. At least 900lbs of confused muscular fury crowned with 2 sharp elephantine horns that lead with every charge of the animal’s movement. This is a creature to be reckoned with, deserving of all allure and respect and fear that it garners.

This animal appears on the waving Bandera atop the amphitheater, it sits in the center of the 3 stripes.

There were some turns like this. The animal allowed itself to be toyed with, and toyed with the matadors with effeminate frocks. The audience shouted and the matadors put on a show. During the initial time, they ran around relentlessly, and there was palpable fear in their movements; there were times when a hesitation by a matador was accompanied with a slightly audible yelp, or a grunt that followed a jerked, dodgy gesture. The bull was dangerous, after all.

The sun moved slowly but deliberately in the sky, providing a bigger shadow and more comfortable seating so the crowd spread itself toward the sunny side of the theater. The bull followed suit. The animal was a bit closer to me now, and I could see from its labored panting and limp tongue that slapped the side of its face that it was quite fatigued.

The crowd applauded. The animal took a breather.

The men in pink gave way to the matadors in red.

The two men with the red frocks rushed in, jiggling their bright smocks in the tired animal’s face. His tongue swayed, snot flew from his pierced nose, but still he played along. As close as the matadors were, not once did the animal go after them, just the frock. The jeering was a team effort, like watching horse and trainer. In my naivety I read some affection between the two, as if the matadors weren’t really going to do what everyone in that amphitheater except me knew they were going to do when the dance was over.

The men in red had swords. I watched their dance; filled bravado became more balletic-hands held in por de bras, toes pointed on the end of an outstretched leg. In the left hand remained the frock. From it was pulled a long sharp nevaja, a sword long enough for killing, but not an animal of this size. The matadors waved their frocks in the face of the creature again; lunging and pleyaying, giving some kind of artistry to the macabre dance that would signify the end of the animal’s play time. As animal and matadors fell into a routine, the men in pink came out of nowhere, holding 2 giant party favors. As the men in red distracted the beast again, the men in pink stabbed the animal in the back with the party favors.

Now the bull lashed and bucked, tossed, trying to dislodge the sharp party favors that hung from the muscular skin right above its vertebrae, and would stay for the rest of its short life.

The crowd is impressed. Shouts of “Ole!!” resonate around the circle, like an audible “wave” that would appear at any sporting event with dignity.

I learned recently that the shout, “Ole” originated from the ancestors of these Andalucía’s- the Arabs that enjoyed the bullfights of old would shout, “Allah!” when they saw something unbelievable. The progress of years and differences of location and dialects have turned Allah into Ole.

All of the party favors (two for each of the men in pink frocks) have found their way into the bull’s massive spine.

The primary matador takes his place in the ring, sword shining, in a stance reflecting conquest-very Spanish, very conquistador.

He comes closer to the animal, which looks tired, and completely defeated, and it seems as if they make a deal-one more go around. The matador holds his red frock out, and Toro, badly bruised, bleeding and exhausted, charges one last time, never touching the matador, and never once looking like we wanted to. I think that is what saddened me the most that the beast was so docile, even in the last seconds of his life. Never once did he appear to want to harm any of the men that taunted and stabbed him.

Towards the end, he collapsed out of exhaustion. All the matadors gathered around him, as he sat, as if in a meadow, staring out, waiting.

The head matador took out a knife, closed in on the animal and plunged it into the beast’s neck, right where the spinal chord attaches itself to the brain stem. The first try was unsuccessful. The beast bucked as the knife was extracted for the second try. The second try was as well unsuccessful, now the audience grew impatient and began to boo, began to encourage the matador to end the beast’s life.

I don’t know if it was out of sympathy or brutality, but I too, wanted it to be over.

The third stab was successful I am sure, as Toro made a curdling sound and a bleat, and then collapse into a death rattle.

The crowd cheered. The matador bowed. The horses came back into the ring and the other matadors attached the bull to the chariot and dragged his dead body around in a circle before leading it outside to the slaughterhouse.

Ole.

perdido

Someone fell into the water tonight. I was at dinner, and afterwards took a walk on the boardwalk with my roommates. All of the sudden I heard a fretful familiar sound-a helicopter, close to the water. I laughed out loud and said “Very American.” I hadn’t heard a helicopter or a plane overhead in over a month.

We walked further down the boardwalk and heard an ambulance siren just behind us gathering momentum. As commonplace as these sounds are to me when I am home, here in Spain, especially in Malaga, where the town exists around the water, and where crime is something that you watch on noticias, the sounds scared me. They were unnerving. I wasn’t the only one. Around this time the beach is crawling with children, families eating, selling their wares, young people falling in love. Old ladies started to look around, counting family members. Mothers began collecting children into strollers. Men rolled up their sleeves as if there was work to do.

We walked on a little further and saw the men from the ambulance prepped to set up triage on the sand. The helicopter came closer to the water, shining a giant strobe light onto the water. People began to talk- a student, someone young-was missing.

A crowd started to gather at the ocean’s edge. People settled around the site in groups. Women crossed themselves. For the first time in over a month, I was afraid. The air even changed, it was colder, and it was less forgiving. The warmth that had beckoned me to walk to the night this evening was now intolerant, unindulgent. There was no benevolence behind the sound of spray that once seemed like melodious wedding song, now the trembling of ocean reaching sand and crashing against rocks resonated a funeral march, or at the very least, a pentatonic processional on the verge of a direful denouement, a bleak tragedy whose cacophonous soundtrack is also the culprit.

My love, the sea, had killed someone.

Here in Malaga, a life was gone.

The unsettling electricity of the boardwalk concentrated its efforts on prayer for the lost child. This gave me hope, although my feelings were not shared by the experienced rescue workers, or by the shrewd fisherman, who stood by their boats docked on the sand with knowing somber faces, as they remarked to one another and shook their heads-not a callous gesture, but as recognition. They knew whom this lost child was up against. They had known this sea all their life. And they knew what the outcome would be, regardless of the tears shed or the prayers shouted.

With every fiber in my soul I wanted to shout something. My insides were screaming-“THERE MUST BE SOMETHING! ANYTHING!” common sense and fear of being arrested prevailed, and I stood there silent, with a look of utter disbelief on my face.

How could the sea do this? Here, in Malaga, where everything is beautiful?

I looked around in part to psychically bolster some kind of support from the other onlookers. All the youth seemed just as touched as I, but they dared not say a word. The older people looked on towards the sea, stoic and stern, some holding their loved ones, some holding crucifixes. They had a look of knowing of their faces, much like the fisherman, but less homage and more placid. They, too, know this sea. Much like the fisherman.

It is more that the residents understand, however. Here in nirvana, as only a traveler, one forgets what it is to belong to a paradise. Not just holiday here, and partake of the wares of traveling salesman, or sample the fish from the men who board those ships, but to live here, to exist here along side the sea. She is an overwhelming force, of beauty and sheer savagery, and with all paradises, her beauty is only matched by her brutality.

Beauty takes as much from you as she gives to you.

That is what I saw on the looks of the people who stared into the sea as the helpers tried in vain to find the lost child. I saw this in their faces because they have seen this before, and they knew…

The child was never found, the student. The search was abandoned, and last I heard, arrangements were being made to have a service by the sea.

la vida

I pray you can forgive me. I have neglected you. It was not my intention, as doing harm seldom is. I have been so busy these past couple of days that I just realized that I haven’t been blogging on you. I do apologize.

This morning I found out I have a test tomorrow on future and conditional conjugation, as well as pronoun usage. I had to run to the groceria to pick up some fresh pulpo to make my paella for my roommates this evening. As well, I went to a spinning class at a gym around the corner from Mercadona (my new absolutely favorite supermarket-Fairway has nothing on you!) I figured I’m pretty comfortable and all being corpulent, however, I don’t want to overdo it, and the wine I purchased from Paulo, the nice man at the supermarket is a sweeter version of tempranillo, and goes good with desserts, too, believe it or not.

Aga, my youngest, Polish roommate is back on good terms with her boyfriend. They were skyping this afternoon as we all sat around the flat in our underwear studying and listening to Nelly Furtado (whose Spanish album is pretty awesome). She stared into the computer as if her next breath came from the screen. If there had been an earthquake and we had to evacuate, she would have died, sitting there on her laptop, and she would have died happy.

I saw him on the screen. He’s a cute kid. They make puppy faces at eachother and have Polish nicknames that I cannot pronounce (one new language at a time). She told me this evening as we were chopping onions for paella that she saw a nice guy from her class on the beach and he wanted to come to dinner but she didn’t invite him, she was afraid Arthur (boyfriend) wouldn’t approve, even though she wouldn’t even think of doing something. Part of me wanted to rant and rave, but I didn’t, because I knew where she was coming from. When you love someone that much, you cant even imagine touching another man. You don’t even dream of anyone else. And if you do, you wake up and apologize. I was extra proud of us, as we had this conversation in Spanish.

Frederique, my other Dutch roommate, sauntered into the flat after boxing class while we were cutting up onions. She’s having problems fending off all the beach bound Spaniards, as she is 5’8, blond, slim, young, and beautiful. Her voice is deep and sexy; her English has a serious, almost German drawl, and smiles like a young girl eating ice cream. I imagine she is hard to resist for most men. She came in to tell us that she was going to be late for dinner, as she was meeting some Spanish girls at Bar Centro for conversation. It’s a class that we attend sometimes now. Girls from Malaga show up because they want to learn English and speak it, we show up because we want to learn Spanish and speak it. It’s fun, actually. Last week we met some fun girls who went out with us to a disco called “ANDEN”. Spanish people will dance until at least 5 in the morning.

I rushed out to the beach while the paella was cooking (it takes a while) to catch the sun dropping. It doesn’t actually set until around 10:30, but around 9:45, it drops a bit. Its balmy extension settles down and prepares for twilight, like a graceful body ready for aging. I paused there for a moment with my camera, trying to get some nice pics, like I normally try to do, but always end up doing something else-last week I ran into Janina, one of the girls who works at Malaga Si, who is pretty, tall, and sweet and whose laugh makes me feel like I’m eating comfort food. Yesterday when I was walking on the sand trying to find the perfect picture (I needed a break from all the conjugation) I was stopped by two boys I met on the beach during my first week here. They grew up in Bulgaria, but look straight up like they came from the jungles of Nicaragua. They are about 14, 15, and bound about on the beach, sometimes on skateboards, at others on bikes. They throw sand at each other and ask me for Euros to buy ice cream. They remind me of my students back home and I am sure are well aware of the fact that I am completely in love with them. Now, as opposed to our initial meetings, when we see each other, we quip each other in Spanish.

I missed my pictures today as well; I stopped by the beach and saw my friend the weed man. I patronized his wares and sat by a palm tree listening to some young men talk about the chicas.

“Ola, chicas.”

“Que t’al, chicas.”

“Mira, chica, que guapa.”

It seems everywhere the boys here love the chicas. I suppose that is what life is like all over.

It is what it is. Esto es.

Life. That is why I have been so busy not blogging. I forgot, because of my intention with the blog, to stop observing and live. This evening, after visiting my old friend ocean and coming back to my flat, and watching Aga coo and giggle into a computer screen, I was confounded by the fervid truth that life is current, and all consuming, and wonderful. We live it most when we don’t try to compartmentalize a moment into a giant magic supernova and just let it unfold, like tide, ebbing and flowing around us.

Life is what happens, when we are busy making other plans-John Lennon.

That is what is happening now, and I suppose always has been, but now that I have found a niche here, a routine, almost, it seems effortless. And wonderful.

Life. It goes on. Thank God. And it is beautiful.

por el cine

On Sunday, my roommates and I went to the cinema because we felt like our Spanish was good enough, after a certain amount of time here, to be like the rest of the people in Spain and do what people do.

There is a cool cheap oldies cinema on the other side of town that plays movies for almost nothing. It reminded me of the old cinema on 42^nd street that played $2 movies back when I was in high school. I write, “Back when I was in high school” because it occurred to me this morning that my roommate was morn when I entered high school. I am old.

We went into the theater and saw Volver, a great movie starring Penelope Cruz, who is now married to Javier Vardem and is Spanish royalty. As soon as the movie got started, I realized that I have no idea what the hell was going on in the film. Not because it was a bad film-on the contrary it was wonderful. But my Spanish is still so bad I could really only understand when Penelope wanted to use the bathroom and when an extra asked her what time it was. I was completely lost.

My roommates shared my sentiment, so we decided to rent and American movie with subtitles. Frederique, my Dutch roommate picked out The Perfect Man, a movie starring Hillary Duff and Heather Locklear, and Big from Sex and the City.

This was much easier. We were able to read the subtitles, and felt much more confident in understanding what was going on.

The only thing was, this was the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. Hillary Duff is an absolutely awful actress. I had no idea she as so bad. The movies was an exercise in torture. I feel like Guantanamo Bay has nothing on this bitch. Why is it that she allowed to make films? I had no idea such things were going on in America.

The movie was about a girl who wanted her single mom to meet “the perfect man”-of course, as my roommates would say, it was a very American film. It starts out genial; there is a minimal amount of drama, and then alls well that ends well. I couldn’t wait for the end. If it weren’t for the constant reading of the subtitles, I probably would have stabbed myself in the eyes.

The funny thing is, I had to come all the way to Spain to find this out. I would have never seen this film under any other circumstance, and I actually thought, “hey-it cant be that bad.” It was.

Heather Locklear has had WAY too much work done as well. I don’t know why, but she looks like some kind of wolverine. Now I sound so American, because I sound like a movie critic.

My roommates tell me that that is extremely American as well-judging things in a negative light. I must say they are right. I realized, being here, that I am much more negative than I need to be. Maybe they’re right. Maybe that is an American trait.

What can I say; at least I’m not French.

Tomorrow we’re going to rent a Brittany Murphy movie. I figure. I figure we’ll keep the bad movie theme going.

por la playa

This weekend I went to Terramolinos, a sleepy beach coastal town about 30 kilometers from Malaga. I am noticing that the Meditteranean looks different wherever you go.

The beach at this place was stunning. Not to say that the beach at Malaga isn’t-it is absolutely gorgeous-but this place, it was new, it was sleepy, seductive, and calm. I sat on the beach with my flat mates and sunbathed naked. I had tapas at a restaurant so close to the water that the spray danced at our feet as we ate. The water was a deep European blue, the Iberian version of the tropics.

As I walked along the boardwalk and watched the people going about their business (I like to people watch in Europe) I thought to myself, “ I could do this, I could live here.” As soon as I thought it I felt a pang of guilt in my stomach, as if I were betraying my New York. But it wasn’t that at all. Living in one city your whole life you feel that there is nothing else for you anywhere, but now, being here, experiencing all this place has to offer, I feel like my world is getting bigger, and consequently, almost obligatorily, my world back home is getting smaller.

I don’t know why the beach has always called to me. The water here beckons so sweetly, as if it knows you, and wants to know more. Terramolinos has the allure of a place that people who have been hurt would regard as sanctuary, those with broken hearts would deem therapy, and those with broken lives would look to as renovation. Spain’s south coast with all its sand and sea and naked women and guitar players serenading passers by for spare Euros is not at all cliché, or superficial-it’s deep, unending, dirty even. Real. Visceral. Seductive. Erotic.

I watched my flat mates absorb our surroundings in the same way; the looks of partial awe and enticement visible in their young supple faces. I watched my roommate, Agnuiska, especially. She is young and pretty and she is from Poland and there is a boyfriend back home whom she loves more than the waking world. She glows when she speaks of him, so much so that I can tell the moments when she thinks of him, as the same light emanates through her pellucid, blue eyes.

They fought yesterday morning, the same fight that most young lovers have at this point in life, when the love is new and real, when it is no longer high school flirting or sex in a car that you borrowed on a Friday night. It burns with the intensity of that original love, that they will always compare her future loves to. The first responsible love, replete with birth control pills and sleep over’s that parents know about. The love that makes you a grown up.

I watched this little woman child stare out at the water with an esoteric intensity, as if she were sending something across that water, to someone, just one, in particular. Here, in Terramolinos, the sea is celestial, and obliging.

I smiled to myself, and walked on ahead, leaving her to her moment, and I collected the smooth, pretty stones I saw on the coastline.

It seems that somewhere, always, there is someone nursing a broken heart. At that moment, I was glad it wasn’t me. But I paused, brought myself closer to the shore, and looked out at the horizon, at my old friend, carrying the message on her deep cerulean flourish of foam and surf, and I remember, and wonder to myself, if the lover on the other side ever really gets the message.