The sumptuous globular red grapes that sit in short paper bags. My ritual this week is to buy a 2 Euro bag of sugary pitted grapes and snack on them til my mouth is brimming with juice, sweetness, pits, til the bag is empty and I'm fishing through the grape branches wondering where they all went. And my days in Barcelona, are drifting away, ebbing and flowing. The winter here was particularly rainy, dark, quiet. And, as I've been poor, it has been much easier to be grateful for not going out with the rain being as it was....gray, ceaseless, intrusive. The rain stole Barcelona's whimsy as puddles filled the sandy parks, people hid. On those rare days or segments of days when the sun interrupted the clouds, dogs would be walked, children splashed around their grandparents, and oranges flourescently hang in branches.
Now the sun's coming more regularly..there are still erratic days with rain and sun, but mostly it's spring here and cherry blossoms froth in the trees.
My time here has had a lot of aloneness, introspection, clarity, fear. I'm rehearsing with Rico, the 70+ year old Jazz musician in Sitges...his plump lips and seething desire for his days playing in Washington, DC and Brooklyn. He is a bit of a pervert. I spied a copy of Nymphomaniacs, a video amid his Spanish translations of Lady Chatterly's Lover (El Amante de Senora Chatterly), and his volumes of jazz songbooks.
I find myself hiding here, as I did when I lived in Tahoe. I am seeing Barcelona as a place to get away, escape my old self and cycle into another. I'm learning that I'm uninspired by teaching, as I have been, what it takes for my body to be healthy, my need to bite into things, my absolutes (exercise and friendship and red grapes). I am going to Brezinzka next weekend, to Gratowski's institute with 11 other actors, to see what we can make in the woods, to test myself again. I don't know what to expect, but my anonymity here in Spain, my getting paid in envelopes marked Natyna, Nantanya, Natalia, like an English pusher, I feel the freedom almost too much to be and say and take as I want. Even if it means poverty, even if it means losing a job. I see the theater community as where I'm real, or where I can really, safely hide. I sacrifice whatever my position is here to be there. This year has been traveling with respites in Barcelona, and I'm ready to take respite with actor creator collaborators.
I went on my first date here last night, with an Italian, Massimilio, couldn't stop disbelieving how we were speaking in Spanish together...about family, travel goals, the energy in the city. I didn't know I could speak Spanish. I can't really, there is always more to know about any language, and my conjugation is confused. My friend Virginia told me she's seen me change and grow here. Speak better. I look different, she says, more confident. I feel clearer...and more afraid..which tells me I'm going in the right direction.
