‘Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug, metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry.*

So, what exactly am I doing in Barcelona? I realize that I have been very skimpy on the explanatory posts, especially in expounding the Santa Fe, New York, and Barcelona connections.

Well, as of right now, I am working at the front desk of a cute little boutique hostel started by two intrepid young American women. They opened the ten room hotel/hostel last year and I’ve been there nearly a year now. How time passes!

Aside from giving metro directions to travelers hailing from everywhere, I have been freelance writing. Hold your breath, I work for a client in New York writing internal corporate communications for enormous global corporations. Okay, the tough part is over.

I have been published a few times in a local glossy magazine here, The Barcelona Metropolitan, but the times have been particularly rough on them as they survive entirely on ad revenue. So, I am not sure they will continue to pay as well, or at all.

Otherwise, I spend my days procrastinating on learning Spanish, forcing myself to meet complete strangers to talk in a foreign language, writing poetry, cooking, researching other places to live, and lots of sleeping. Exciting ex-pat life!

I don’t make much money at all, but somehow, I have been scraping by. As I tell many people, I moved to a foreign country without a job, without knowing anyone, where they speak two languages I don’t know, and where my U.S. citizenship can be problematic…but it is STILL easier than living in New York.

Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make their end.*

My grandmother passed away last night. My mother and family had been by her bedside for a week and she went peacefully and gently. I cannot be there in person (curses to the dubious legality of my living abroad), but I am doing my best to be there in spirit. When I left for Spain, I knew that something like this could happen, and that, given the limited resources of my family and myself, as well as the logistics of immigration controls, I may not be able to return to the United States if something of this nature occurred. I think this is the hardest part of living abroad, not being able to be with your family when struggling through grief. I will add this to my list of reasons to return to America eventually.

I wrote a poem for my mother, although I am not sure she will be able to read it through her tears. I would like to share it here, even though it is slightly off the tone and topic of this blog. It is an attempt to project my love further, and to feel closer.

One of the things I keep thinking about when remembering my grandmother is how she enriched my childhood by sending several large boxes of old library books to our little cabin in the woods each summer. Reading was my saving grace as a child, my education where the NM public schools failed me, my entertainment when I was lonely in the mountains, my comfort in the incredible darkness of New Mexico nights. My grandmother fed my passion for literature, literally, and I will be forever grateful.


Alma
– for my grandmother

Five in the morning, Barcelona, Spain,
my father’s voice crumbles warmth,
in trembles and pauses, you are gone.

My mother has lost her mother, and
she wails into the phone, a plastic
beacon to her far away daughter,
we are women alone in this moment,
and we have lost more than words.

All day, I stared across rooftops, sun
came and rain fell, dogs barked in the plaza,
people drank cans of beer on benches
below the balcony, laundry sagged,
clouds hid the sea, and I cradled my grief.

Now, I touch the mysterious fabric
of death, and watch my love fold
your life into words, spelled by heart.

Grandmother, mother, Alma, your name
is kind, nourishing, gentle. Your soul
is a word of worship where I am. Alma,
now you are pure soul, complete grace.

I knew you through my mother, your patience
mirrored in her, your strength filled her voice,
your honesty held her truths, your love lived
in her arms. You were never far from our lives.

Alma, you gave me words, boxes every summer,
heavy and full of dusty secrets. Pages of worlds,
stories that shaped me, lives that lived through me,
journeys taken into what it means to be human.

Alma, I give you these words, late and humble,
sent across the world, but meant with every
breath to bless, celebrate, and love you.

We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination.*

My research on the pigarrot proved rather fruitless. I unearthed a photo of a multi-colored pigeon shaking itself on Las Ramblas, but it didn’t really resemble my mythical creature. According to most of my sources (Google), it appears that pigeons and parrots cannot mate. Perhaps it was an incredibly selective mutation? Hmmmm.

I haven’t looked up the cause of the tree destruction yet, further report to follow.

Currently, I am participating in a poem a day challenge celebrating April as Poetry Month. A few of my poems might actually be pertinent for this blog, so you will see them in the coming days. Please remember these are more for fun and to burn the cobwebs in my brain with tiny, joking little fires.

I also have a surprise from Friday night to post soon, another random Barcelona moment that would NEVER happen in the US.

Here are a few of the poems I thought fitting for this space thus far. First, a tribute to the wonder of nature known as the parrgeon.


The Lovechild of a Parrot and a Pigeon

Perry saw Peggy fat on a rock one day
and knew he had to have her, no matter

the odds. Biology, the flock, her cock,
her indifferent orange eyes.

He swooped down and threw out his
RAAAARRRRRK eh RAAAAAKR!

She demurred, flitted her wings, and
said, coo roo-c’too-coo coolly.

(A quick snack ant distracted Perry)
(Peggy waddled into a dusty bush)

One Cloacal Kiss and several weeks later
a Parrgeon was born…or a pigarrot, you

name it what you please. But Perry
and Peggy called her Daffodil.


Then, a Brooklyn poem…


Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn

Long weeks looking for a home:
not the basement with dilapidated floors
and caving ceilings on the LES,
not the checkerboard tiled, bullet
hole doored, closet free abode
in the Village, not the seven
layered grime palace on Prospect,
not the slanted, ant inhabited
empty nest on Fourth Avenue.

We were more than discouraged,
it was the toothbreaker NYC special,
the empty grin kick, the nosebleed,
black eye, blistered feet, internal
hemorrhaging delight provided via
first last credit check deposit broker fee.

And Then! The setting sunlight
on Grand Army Plaza, and we forgot
it was a pale imitation of older
and grander victory arches, someone
beat someone and who cared because
all was bathed in red tea light and
we knew we would succeed.


And lastly, a haiku for learning Spanish….


Hablando Castellano

I live in my mouth
– bright room filled with dark feathers –
mangle your language.

I caught a cold in the park. The gate was open.*

I ran up to Parc Güell today for the first time in months. Okay, yes, I have been exceedingly lazy, but I have excuses! I haven’t been running much because my neighborhood isn’t very exercise friendly. Every time I run in Gràcia (more about my neighborhood in a future post), I elicit incredulous stares and comments. I know they are wondering how a tourist got up this far from Las Ramblas. I feel incredibly foreign and vulnerable, as if I were a giraffe loping down the street. It doesn’t help that now the weather is warmer, I wear shorts, exposing my shockingly white legs that are taller than many people here. Actually, I have a suspicion that not being tan is a crime in Spain.
Luckily, they can’t catch me.

Anyway, I made it through the eight plus minutes of steep uphill to the park, but the side entrance I usually use was closed. There were herds of tourists milling about in front of the barricade, looking hopelessly lost. I decided to forge on anyway and came upon a tall closed gate and a new looking fence. Further investigation revealed a section where a rock wall (embedded with pieces of broken glass to create an extra challenge) offered an easier climb. Once in the empty section of the park, I immediately discovered the cause of the closure: all the trees were gone. There were piles of trunks and branches hacked to bits all over the place, alongside stumps still seeping sap, and entire root systems wrenched from the ground. It was horrifying. In areas, it appeared that nearly 90% of the trees were gone, while other areas appeared untouched. I ran along my usual paths, finding them all ending in fences and realized that most of the park was closed off. What had caused this? Insane neighbors furious about the constant stream of tourists flowing past their doorways? A mob of deranged Catalan separatists? A drunken bunch of Texan fratboys? A tornado that secretly touched down in specific spots on a dark winter night? I think the exposed roots indicating that some trees were literally uprooted offers a clue. Perhaps some of the strong winds and heavy rains have caused massive erosion on the steep hills of the park, carrying trees downhill.

After trying to escape through other exits, I returned to carefully climb over my glass studded rock wall. Waiting on the other side as an Italian man asking how to get in. I answered in Spanish, he replied in Italian, I replied and he switched to English, so I switched to English and he then switched to Italian. Eventually, I think he understood my alternative directions for entering (after eschewing my suggestion to climb the wall).

My Spanish wasn’t that great during this conversation because I was distracted by one of the oddest things I have ever seen. I wish I had a camera with me. It was a parrigeon or a pigarrot, a mixture between a pigeon and a parrot. As I was approaching, at first it resembled a pigeon someone had cruelly dyed for Easter. Upon closer inspection, the pastel blues, pinks, and yellows appeared to be real. It looked like a normal pigeon from it’s head to mid-back. There, it morphed into a parrot with wings, lower back, and tail feathers all sorts of colors, magenta, bright green, along with the aforementioned pastels. It walked awkwardly (it was also larger than a normal pigeon), but when it flew away, it was surprisingly graceful, with a large wingspan and its bright colors even more vivid and striking in the sunlight against the blue sky.

These developments require some research…I will get back to you!

More bluggy drunkables?*

I have officially fallen in love with Colmado Quilez, a dangerous (to the wallet!) store I walk by almost everyday on Rambla Catalunya. Last week, I wandered in for the first time in months and came across a bottle of Loriñon, which has always been difficult for me to find. I first encountered this voluptuous wine while working at El Farol in Santa Fe, and was charmed by its name, there is something so woeful about it, forlorn…But as for a Rioja, it is one of my favorites as it has a fuller body and a bit more spice than most. The only other time I have found it was when I came to Barcelona years ago, and believe me, I searched New York high and low for it.

Today, I wandered into Colmado Quilez and tasted a high end beer produced by the Estrella Damm company. Called Inedit, they describe it as “a unique coupage of barley malt and wheat with hop, coriander, orange peel, liquorice, yeast and water. After bottling and capping, a secondary fermentation in the bottle occurs, leading to a more complex product.” Delicious, proving to me that Spain CAN make good beer.

I also discovered that they carry the La Guita label of Manzanilla, recommended to us in Carmona by an on-duty officer drinking his lunch at a local bar (yes, he was armed). The clerk was impressed by my choice and said he is a big fan. For those of you who have never tried Manzanilla, it is a type of dry sherry made in Andalusia. I think it tastes like a salty plum, and others have described flavors of chamomile (where the name originates).

Oh, and they also have every kind of delectable little tidbit of food, condiments, and accompaniments imaginable. I am intrigued and frightened by the saffron gin, you will be hearing more about that, I am sure.

a horrible example of free thought.*

In my quest to transcribe thousands of pages from old journals, I came across this entry that struck me as rather Joycean, though more in its insane jumble than its brilliance. It is interesting to travel in time back to my days in New York. My life there was very different, very difficult. I have included a photo of downtown Manhattan taken from the Manhattan bridge in the wee hours walking home from a party in Chinatown.


"9-24-03 8:42pm
To what land do I go, trot with a head of gibberish, to and fro through the trio of muses I call men but they are but boys and I lost among them only a smattering of woman. Black and white paisley skirt devours Lolita, ah Nabokov you sick bastard to make me think such love is kind to all of our tattered morals. I leave the city downtown in the East river rippling in a fallen autumn air. Who are these beautiful people sitting in orange plastic boats on voyages to lives I can barely guess, even the effort makes my guts crawl. Two liters of seltzer water and I still haven’t burped away this illness, the ravishing vomit bug that creates new back and stomach muscles to scream when I laugh or cough. Excellent weight loss regimen, this. Great for my intellect as well, creating new words stuporific and swelling with more than normal nonsense like a sticky piece of leather, sodden and bloated on a nail. Ah my sense, where hast thou gone? Dreamt of travel last night, France – Paris, boats, villages, dank mysteries. Cast iron belly coils a stew fit for two, myself and a porcelain friend. Skin crawling misery. Why? Not cursed, just free. Must rhyme for some reason (‘tis the season!) (but no reason at all from rhyme) wow where am I, have I journeyed?"

A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled, back.*

It was another incredibly windy day here in Barcelona. Perhaps not as terrible as the wind a while ago that caused walls and buildings to collapse and kill people in the city and across Spain, but something to be reckoned with nonetheless. Spanish buildings just aren’t made for wind, as I write this, the lamp above me is swaying, even though all of our windows are closed…there is enough of a draft coming through somewhere to cause this heavy, ponderous globe to sway. I am afraid to take the elevator on days like this because the wind howls down the shaft, seemingly pushing the already scary old contraption downward. Our hot water heater in the kitchen has an exhaust pipe into which the wind blows and puts out the pilot light, causing gas to fill our kitchen every time I try to use hot water on windy days.

Today, I was walking back from taking the glass out (to the green vidre recycling kiosk), when the wind blew a chunk of soil from one of the planters on the plaza into my eye. I was about to bemoan this fact when I walked into the health food store on the corner and was cheered by taking candy from a stranger. Well, it was a customer purchasing his favorite thing in life, second only to music, eucalyptus and pine lozenges. He offered one to me and the shopkeeper while espousing the merits of Pastora, apparently the daughter of a famous Catalan musician is in this popular band. My eye stopped hurting after that.