~~Cooking

I bought the lentils and, out of nowhere, the ham bone appeared. The butcher gave Hermione the ham bone for the dogs …she gave me the jamon-laden bone for the lentils instead. She pulls it out of the refrigerator that stands in for a cavern. There it is in her kitchen of mayhem …the meaty thigh …the long leg and shin …the knuckle and hoof. She hands me a saw, a cleaver and a board and I get to work. Out comes the soup pot. The bones thump in the pot and the lid rattles on the seat in the car that has an orchestra of strange clanks and whines all its own as I bump down the road …my own bones rattling.

Evening comes …the long Spanish twilight. I fill the pot with water, an onion, carrots, celery and parsnip …the bones …fat, jade laurel leaves. I cook it up for hours. I take out the bones and soggy vegetables …strain the broth in a clean tea towel as any well-taught Romanian …cut off the meat and, then, it’s the middle of the night. I go out into the night before I fall into the bed with regret that the warm darkness is almost gone. The moon has gone away, but the stars cover the heavens. I shiver. I can smell the petunias mingled with the perfume of gardenias …hear the crickets …watch the eerily shining eyes of some feral creature on the craggy ridge above the patio as it watches me.

The sun blazes up out of the sea in the morning …I make a cup of coffee with rheumy eyes and cowlick while skimming off the fat and put the broth on the stove to heat again.

It’s time to make bread. I bless the unmeasured amount of whole-grain flour that I thoughtlessly throw into the bowl …add a little salt. I wave my hands in blessing over the fresh yeast and sugar. I watch it proof. It is the yeast of abundance. The fragrance is just what the earth gives up in things unseen. I throw it into the well of flour and water and begin to knead. It’s cardboard, crumbly texture transforms itself into a satiny lump. I work in toasted walnuts and pumpkin seeds. I cover it and let nature do the work of bread …wash my hands …have another cup of coffee over the sea …pinch off a dead petunia here and there.

I cut up fresh celery, onions, parsnips and carrots into a dice …saute them in olive oil to release their flavors …add sweet paprika at the end. The pot is boiling …now, the picked over lentils …then, the vegetables and chopped parsley and cilantro …salt and pepper. The bread has raised a second time. I form it into lovely oblong loaves and slash the tops in three places. It springs to double. It bakes to crusty richness.

It is the time of steaming, fragrant lentejas …a very Spanish meal. I clean the glass on the table. I’ve ladled the soup into the cheap, white soup bowl on matching dinner plate. I hack off a piece of bread from the oven. Next to it is a dish of fresh Burgos cheese, a sliced tomato with olive oil and globe basil from the pot on the patio, olives cured with oregano, thyme and garlic. I eat the cheese and tomatoes with the steaming bread …drink a glass of palomino fino. The heavy drapes are drawn against the sun, but I can see the side of the mountain through the kitchen window. The clumps of dry grass blow in the hot wind, but the craggy rocks are unmoving.

 

~~Planting

…one geranium became two …and then, two pots of petunias …a variegated ivy …and a gardenia plant. I wheeled the cart to the back of the viveros to the aviary to hear the canaries sing on such a cool night with the sea breeze blowing right in through the front door. The canaries sang, but the pots of thyme, globe basil and mint took wings and flew into the cart. I bought a big bag of dirt and took everything out to the car …but something drew me back …it was the bright pink Gerbera daisy …and then, a soft yellow tuberous begonia.

I collected pots from here and there to plant them and dug around the ornamental fig …fertilized the asparagus ferns …weeded and pruned …watered and swept up …looked down at my grimy hands. It was late when I finished …the last of the twilight just before Saturn appears in the southwestern sky. I was tired. I sat among the pots …imagined evenings of watering the flowers and picking off the wasted petunias …the fragrance of them at night …and the gardenia, too. I drank a glass of gazpacho …ate a piece of bread for dinner …looked far out to the small patch of sea …the long shadows disappearing with the last of the light …the darkening mountain…

….and, suddenly, there was Saturn.

 

~~Walking

….the morning light comes late …then the sun …the heat is not far behind so I pull on only the essential and am off down on to the road and into the campo. The path winds down dusty roads and narrow ground between the grasses. The branches of the wild pomegranates hang heavy with fruit …their tiny fists of ruby jewels burgeoning against the tawny skin. The retamas blancas wave their willowy forms like spirits. In the spring their white flowers smell so sweetly, but now their green has faded …their diaphanous arms drawn into the umber landscape. There is one wild fig with its green globes nestled in the ruffled leaves. It grows in a circle, its leaves touching the grass …a lady with a long skirt sitting on the  ground. The wind snaps through the tall clumps of reedy spikes as the crickets join in. The swallows soar and dive.

A friend has told me that the fragrance in these hills comes from a plant like Artemesia. I hunt for it and find that it is exactly so except it is a moss green and pointy to the touch. I stoop to pick a bouquet. A column of ants cross the path …one column going …one column coming. They are hauling bits of grass and seeds. They are so busy they often crash into each other like bumper cars at an amusement park. They are hilarious …but the relentless sun won’t wait and I am on my way.

I cross a field of ochre grasses …Queen Anne’s Lace and overgrown wild fennel plants …jagger bushes …everything going to seed. It is so quiet …and then something rustles in the bushes. Is it a quail? I learn to walk by quietly …maybe one day I’ll see it. I trudge up and down the stony path past carob bean trees …and through a passage of tall cactus. Once there was a fox cavorting below in the tangled grasses with a lone palm tree growing on their edge. He leapt through the air in a natural freedom of movement, bushy, red tail with the white spot of fur at the tip disappearing quickly into the close cover of the ground.

I hear a sheep bleating across the rincon and notice the mud shed for animals built to the edge of a house. A dead tree stands on the edge of the facing hill …the background of its thorny branches, the blue sky. Up …up an old road past crumbling stone walls and an abandoned cortijo at the top of the hill. I exhale. In the space of one breath, my body seems to run down to the sparkling sea of diamonds. I feel light and my feet don’t touch the ground …but my body has not run …only walked into a neighborhood of white stucco houses where it catches up with the essence of me that ran ahead.

All is quiet on the beach road …the restaurant persianas all shut up …the curtains of beads hanging from the open doors of the white, stucco houses barely moving in the breeze letting in the last coolness of the night air and the smell of jasmine …it is so early for Spain …

…but there is a venta that is open, a guarantee of coffee con leche and media tostada with olive oil. I stir the coffee. The tiny spoon clinks on the china saucer. The slice of toast crunches as I bite into it …crumbs fall on the blazing white paper table cloth.

….the breakers roll to shore. In the distance someone is walking on the beach.

 

~~Bailando

Sometimes I take a flashlight and creep down the rutted driveway. It’s midnight and I go to the beach to walk along the paseo by the sea. The Spaniards are just coming out for dinner at the restaurants before they go to the clubs. The younger women are in bright high heels and miniskirts …their long hair streaked blond. The older women are dressed nicely, too …all tawny pomegranates like the trees of wild fruit I’ve seen on my morning walk. Soon they will be dancing.

I want to dance, too, but in Spain I am not with the Nubians or the Bedouins I’ve wistfully just left who pull older women to their feet and dance away the night to avoid the impropriety of dancing with the younger women or the newly married. I drive by the clubs …Mandala …Lua …L’Incante …I feel a longing look that changes my face. The Latin beat is in my heart, but my body moves in a cadence known as walking …not dancing. I park by the sea and walk past women selling cheap beach jewelry and henna tattoos and Nigerians selling knockoff DVD’s …the map to Africa and the smoke of sandalwood incense drifting up from their eyes. There are beach fires …the smell and glow of pungent pine wood …the little blue lights attached to the tips of fishing poles that will let the fishers know they have caught a sea bass or a hake …the laughter of families out on that beach …fishing revelers who will be out there until morning.

Music from the clubs comes out on to the beach. The wistful look is still on my face …then, I throw back my head in laughter at what I think I don’t have. Who was it who said I cannot dance?

The dance begins in my head …thoughts that samba away into a percussive conga line by the side of the sea …until I am finally dancing up the darkness of the driveway …bailando …bailando …feet that move …hips that gyrate …turn and sway …dancing until the last pirouette in the star-spattered blackness and my tingling body falls into bed and sleeps with the ruby jewels of pomegranates scattering from my hand.

It’s early in the morning …still black as pitch. I return to walk along the sea as the light comes …the clubs are closing. Families and friends weave along the road like refugees turned out with unbelieving looks on their faces. The women wobble arm and arm on sore feet …they turn to kiss the men on their cheeks …the men laugh …throw their arms over the shoulders of the women …a torrent of staccato Spanish endearments. They are having fun …this, their month at the sea.

We are all cats here, one sort or another, with eyes that flash only after midnight.

Spain …an August full of nights.

 

 ~~Arising 

“Each day is a new day, and each minute is a new minute and a new opportunity for the renewal of life. If we do not renew ourselves, we become heavy and stagnant. Every day and every moment that we accumulate more experience and have more contact, we become more worn out mentally and physically. Only by knowing how to renew ourselves can we face the future with freshness and enthusiasm. Renewing ourselves means getting rid of contamination from various sources connected with the different levels of life. The concept of renewal is important.

Renewal is easy; you let nature do it for you. But you don’t need to wait for nature to recycle you; it is better to renew yourselves each day and each moment rather than wait until we cannot do anything but accept the cruel fact we do not like. We should do our best to renew ourselves, including recycling our negativity.

 

Do not stay in one place or one time.

Nothing stays the same.

Wash away all the poisons that you have accumulated from your culture and religion and be a happy child.”

~~Hua-Cheng Ni
~~excerpts from The Power of Natural Healing