"We are all orphans here, meeting an appointment one has with oneself....You all know what you're doing here - we're doing many things and nothing"...Raul..our Teatro Madrugada physical theater facilitator..singer of African morning songs and hand harmonizer told us this at the end of a music session, possibly the 2nd day of my training at Gratowski...I'm still worn from it, in a haze of emotional awareness and physical perserverance..I see myself...I see myself hiding...I have created many walls, many ridges, many crevasses and catacombs..I faced them each time I fell to the ground to do a diagonal shoulder roll or shoulder stand on the wooden studio floor. A massive fire place stood at the end of the room..continuously pumped full with logs...full standing thick forest relics burned as we sang African harmonies..."Lumbe lumbe lumbe" "Lumbe..Akaykengangwa...." and Andalucian lullabies "Si mi nino se dormiera.."
But the singing and harmonizing was not in the Koombayah sense of harmonizing..it was a daily ritual to clear the space to prepare for the acrobatics we'd attempt...to spark connection and love and focus in the group...trust....i felt a lot of lack of trust...i know that is a reflection in me..getting down to the truth....everytime i get down to it...it becomes less clear. more later...still humming with processing and intention.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Uvas
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.
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.
Monday, March 15, 2010
XXXL
I was right to think that coming to work last Monday was a mistake. As soon as I was on the train to Mollett, the new snow was scurrying, accumulating. So, I waited at the school, Idiomas Mollet, for my 1 hr conversation class students, who didn't arrive, then the teens who come at 6 didn't come..So, I used the time to be paid for coming in and worked on my blog...but as 610 pm approached, and I realized my students couldn't, wouldn't come to class because of the snow, I reasoned that I shouldn't wouldn't stay here in Mollet because to stay there would be to be stuck there..snow-stranded. I waded over slush and snow banks in inept sneakers and saw an unpromising crowd of grim Catalonians, black-coated carrying para-aguas (umbrellas, literally translated "rain stoppers"). The trains were frozen in their tracks..no more runs for the night..marooned in Mollett.
After a moment's whimpering, I returned to the school, where 3 children talked loudly in front of a TV and 2 English teachers corrected tests. My wet feet were numbing, I nervously munched away on a bag of rice cakes, as the teachers and a woman who apparently signs my checks created a crack team to determine what to do with me. Ummmm, taking a taxi is not possible, it costs 100 Euros and you would be stuck in traffic for hours...I see, munch, munch, munch.... Don't worry, you won't sleep at the school..thank you, munch, munch, munch...there may be a bus....Let me look....Do you have any friends who can pick you up?...None of them have a car, munch, munch, munch....it seems that she is prepared to give you 40 Euros, you can stay at a hotel for the night...I would do this if I were you, it is the best option..Let her arrange it, then one of us will walk you there...
I went back up to the teacher's room to troll the internet and consider what a motel in the rubbly town would be like, something told me it would have a Reno-ian style...orange carpeting and deeply embedded cigarette odor.
"Natanya!" Lidia, curly-haired, round receptionist peered into the workroom.
"Tengo un habitacion libre. " ( I have a free room). Lidia, told me the free room was in her parent's house where she lived with her parents, her grandmother, and her 15-yr-old dog. But, I have a free room.
Excelente! Gracias! Venga!
We left. Lidia, Sonia (an English teacher from Mollett), my "boss" (Whose name I still don't know), and another English teacher who brokenly told me about her trips to Nueva York in English, as I brokenly told her what I loved about Nueva York in Spanish: Each of us trying to get our non-native language practice in. We delicately stepped over ice puddles, and mentioned how cold it was during awkward breaks in conversations about how it hasn't snowed in Barcelona in 20 yrs. Then we parted, and Lidia brought me to the gray block, alongside the gray cobbled walkways that was her family's house.
Lidia's mother, expectantly opened the door, in her red, pilly sweatshirt, with an aproned koala bear on the left breast, and urged me to get out of my cold shoes, wet pants, and hat. She touched my hands and shoes and commented on how cold I was. Then invited me into her bedroom, and pulled from the vast wooden armoire turquoise velour pajamas, wedge slippers, and a pink housecoat adorned with bows and a tag on the inside: xxxl. You may have to pull the drawstring on the pants, we are big people. She chuckled. 3 enormous wooden butterflies hung on the wall above the parents' bed. Then I was pointed into the habitacion libre. Lidia's brother's old room, that was now a painting studio for Lidia's mother. Vivid brown and turquoise reproductions from photos of the old west, Costa Brava townships, and Matisse-style abstracts..OOh! That is Matisse? ...Who? They're very good! Nooo! Lidia makes some too! They're great! I especially love this one! I pointed to what looked like Cadaques, the town I'd visited in November with Sinead from Ireland. Ohhh!
Now do "tu mismo". They left me in the room, to do as I would normally do on my own. I was changing into a 65 year-old's pyjamas and house coat at 7:30 on a Monday evening under the watchful eye of a wooden bust of Mary, eyes downward, hands praying.
By 745 I was in the family room, sitting in the floral-print"guest chair" watching a Game show that was a blend of deal or no deal and the price is right, drinking a dollop of tea in a bowl-sized mug and avoiding the jaws of the stool size family dog, which were safely guarded within a lamp shade. At intervals, while watching TV with Lidia and her mother, I would hear shouts coming from another room. As best I understood, Lidia's father suffers from schizophrenia, or post traumatic stress disorder. He begins shouting, "Si Senor!" and counting from his back room. Lidia and her mother tell me not to worry about it, to go check my email in Lidia's room. I do, and soon Abuela comes to say hello, calls me guapa, pinches my hands as I stand to greet her...shorter and round, with a storybook face like Strega Nona, the children's book character with the endless pasta pot. At 945 dinner preparation begins. the table in the TV room is pulled out to the center of the room, a floral table cloth and place settings are put out for the "children" (Lidia and I), and Abuelita, of course.
Do you like fish? Is there anything you don't eat?
I'll love whatever your making.
Mother pours nearly half a bottle of olive oil into a massive sautee pan.. By 10 pm I am excavating a massive cut of fish from its deep-fried shell and nibbling bacon-laden peas.
Us girls have the crispy fish, while Abuelita, sitting across from me, quietly pares down her pork cutlets. The news comes on...Don't worry, there will be sun tomorrow. I'll wake you up at 7:30.
Strawberries follow dinner. Then mother hopes I don't mind as she re-prepares the table for she and her husband to have their 11 pm dinner.
Abuelita rises, farts, and says goodnight to everyone...ooooh, guapa...she pinches my hands
Lidia soon follows and promises to wake me, as her parents settle in to eating dinner. I grab a spanish entertainment magazine and head for the brother's room. Thank you thank you..buen provecha..good night! Reading about Brad visiting Angelina, in Paris, in Spanish, I immediately sleep in the most comfortable Spanish bed I've known..A twin-size bed in her 27-year-old brother's room. Mary's wooden bust reminds me where I am in the morning.
After a moment's whimpering, I returned to the school, where 3 children talked loudly in front of a TV and 2 English teachers corrected tests. My wet feet were numbing, I nervously munched away on a bag of rice cakes, as the teachers and a woman who apparently signs my checks created a crack team to determine what to do with me. Ummmm, taking a taxi is not possible, it costs 100 Euros and you would be stuck in traffic for hours...I see, munch, munch, munch.... Don't worry, you won't sleep at the school..thank you, munch, munch, munch...there may be a bus....Let me look....Do you have any friends who can pick you up?...None of them have a car, munch, munch, munch....it seems that she is prepared to give you 40 Euros, you can stay at a hotel for the night...I would do this if I were you, it is the best option..Let her arrange it, then one of us will walk you there...
I went back up to the teacher's room to troll the internet and consider what a motel in the rubbly town would be like, something told me it would have a Reno-ian style...orange carpeting and deeply embedded cigarette odor.
"Natanya!" Lidia, curly-haired, round receptionist peered into the workroom.
"Tengo un habitacion libre. " ( I have a free room). Lidia, told me the free room was in her parent's house where she lived with her parents, her grandmother, and her 15-yr-old dog. But, I have a free room.
Excelente! Gracias! Venga!
We left. Lidia, Sonia (an English teacher from Mollett), my "boss" (Whose name I still don't know), and another English teacher who brokenly told me about her trips to Nueva York in English, as I brokenly told her what I loved about Nueva York in Spanish: Each of us trying to get our non-native language practice in. We delicately stepped over ice puddles, and mentioned how cold it was during awkward breaks in conversations about how it hasn't snowed in Barcelona in 20 yrs. Then we parted, and Lidia brought me to the gray block, alongside the gray cobbled walkways that was her family's house.
Lidia's mother, expectantly opened the door, in her red, pilly sweatshirt, with an aproned koala bear on the left breast, and urged me to get out of my cold shoes, wet pants, and hat. She touched my hands and shoes and commented on how cold I was. Then invited me into her bedroom, and pulled from the vast wooden armoire turquoise velour pajamas, wedge slippers, and a pink housecoat adorned with bows and a tag on the inside: xxxl. You may have to pull the drawstring on the pants, we are big people. She chuckled. 3 enormous wooden butterflies hung on the wall above the parents' bed. Then I was pointed into the habitacion libre. Lidia's brother's old room, that was now a painting studio for Lidia's mother. Vivid brown and turquoise reproductions from photos of the old west, Costa Brava townships, and Matisse-style abstracts..OOh! That is Matisse? ...Who? They're very good! Nooo! Lidia makes some too! They're great! I especially love this one! I pointed to what looked like Cadaques, the town I'd visited in November with Sinead from Ireland. Ohhh!
Now do "tu mismo". They left me in the room, to do as I would normally do on my own. I was changing into a 65 year-old's pyjamas and house coat at 7:30 on a Monday evening under the watchful eye of a wooden bust of Mary, eyes downward, hands praying.
By 745 I was in the family room, sitting in the floral-print"guest chair" watching a Game show that was a blend of deal or no deal and the price is right, drinking a dollop of tea in a bowl-sized mug and avoiding the jaws of the stool size family dog, which were safely guarded within a lamp shade. At intervals, while watching TV with Lidia and her mother, I would hear shouts coming from another room. As best I understood, Lidia's father suffers from schizophrenia, or post traumatic stress disorder. He begins shouting, "Si Senor!" and counting from his back room. Lidia and her mother tell me not to worry about it, to go check my email in Lidia's room. I do, and soon Abuela comes to say hello, calls me guapa, pinches my hands as I stand to greet her...shorter and round, with a storybook face like Strega Nona, the children's book character with the endless pasta pot. At 945 dinner preparation begins. the table in the TV room is pulled out to the center of the room, a floral table cloth and place settings are put out for the "children" (Lidia and I), and Abuelita, of course.
Do you like fish? Is there anything you don't eat?
I'll love whatever your making.
Mother pours nearly half a bottle of olive oil into a massive sautee pan.. By 10 pm I am excavating a massive cut of fish from its deep-fried shell and nibbling bacon-laden peas.
Us girls have the crispy fish, while Abuelita, sitting across from me, quietly pares down her pork cutlets. The news comes on...Don't worry, there will be sun tomorrow. I'll wake you up at 7:30.
Strawberries follow dinner. Then mother hopes I don't mind as she re-prepares the table for she and her husband to have their 11 pm dinner.
Abuelita rises, farts, and says goodnight to everyone...ooooh, guapa...she pinches my hands
Lidia soon follows and promises to wake me, as her parents settle in to eating dinner. I grab a spanish entertainment magazine and head for the brother's room. Thank you thank you..buen provecha..good night! Reading about Brad visiting Angelina, in Paris, in Spanish, I immediately sleep in the most comfortable Spanish bed I've known..A twin-size bed in her 27-year-old brother's room. Mary's wooden bust reminds me where I am in the morning.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Snow blown Palms
For the first time in 20 years, it is snowing in Barcelona. At first, a novelty that seemed unlikely to persevere past the hour. But now, 6 hours in, the Barcelonians are curious, fearful, bemused. On the train to the job I shouldn´t have come in for today, people were snapping photo after photo of the whizzing snow flurries, the snow sheeps sleeping on the boughs of palm trees, the ice-encrusted station signs. The snow - sunk parked cars, and slush rivers were like the celebrities on the ¨alfombra roja¨ (red carpet, doesn´t alfombra make you think of a rug?...love it!) at last nights Oscars - as the train car filled with the sounds of digital cameras Phssshing....clickin...
I am lucky to be here. On my own terms, alone, and euro-pinching. At least, I feel this way today. I work very little, I am spending money only on working out and preparing for theater work..I just signed up for a week-long physical theater intensive, open only to 12 actors and 2 directors, at the Jerzy Gratowski institute in Brezinzka Poland..This is the first time in my life that I have been truly alone like this, without a boyfriend´s distraction, or even a lot of hours of employment to focus on..I am under my lens. Often, Iḿ critical..thinking that I SHOULD (oof...a therapistś least-favorite word) be at another place in my life..settled, married, in a career, sorted away..having processed childhood wounds and therefore ready to give to a greater good. Heal people, change lives. But having removed myself from my life in California, and being around an international community, I am forced to face the truth of who I am, what I project, where I´ve been, what I want, what my body and spirit absolutely requires, what I want my life to be. This is some expensive, harrowing, incredibly fun and enriching therapy..I am giving myself gifts and lessons that are permeating my whole being...preparing ..it is at once freeing, exhausting, entertaining, and terrifying...lost in the blizzard of becoming...
I am lucky to be here. On my own terms, alone, and euro-pinching. At least, I feel this way today. I work very little, I am spending money only on working out and preparing for theater work..I just signed up for a week-long physical theater intensive, open only to 12 actors and 2 directors, at the Jerzy Gratowski institute in Brezinzka Poland..This is the first time in my life that I have been truly alone like this, without a boyfriend´s distraction, or even a lot of hours of employment to focus on..I am under my lens. Often, Iḿ critical..thinking that I SHOULD (oof...a therapistś least-favorite word) be at another place in my life..settled, married, in a career, sorted away..having processed childhood wounds and therefore ready to give to a greater good. Heal people, change lives. But having removed myself from my life in California, and being around an international community, I am forced to face the truth of who I am, what I project, where I´ve been, what I want, what my body and spirit absolutely requires, what I want my life to be. This is some expensive, harrowing, incredibly fun and enriching therapy..I am giving myself gifts and lessons that are permeating my whole being...preparing ..it is at once freeing, exhausting, entertaining, and terrifying...lost in the blizzard of becoming...
Monday, March 1, 2010
Februarian
I awoke this morning at 4:30 to catch the 8:20 flight to Barcelona from Paris. At 5:15 sitting in the rank, half-opened Paris Metro station a drunken man, pulling two plaid-patterned carts and wine-sodden breath sidled up near my face to peer over me as I read Eileen Myles' The Importance of Being Iceland. A lesbian, poetess with a Getrude Stein-y honest and observant reverance to life, Myles travelogue inspires my uncertain direction and the inherent revelations lent to the solo traveler. I had just had the revelation that this dawn drunk was about to harass me, so without much provocation (I think he said hello in French and then when I told him I didn't speak French, in French, he said in English "Oh American....") I told him if he didn't get away from me I was going to hit him with my weighty paperback. How did I go from being a curious girl who may've entertained a conversation with the man, to an angry woman. He stepped away, somewhat, although his breath lingered between us, my heart puttered as I continued "reading". Breathe. Breath. Breathe. "Please Kiss me..." I rolled my suitcase away from him and plopped down by the well lit vending machines. My man proceeded to pull out a plastic ray gun that belted "Onward men" along with the manufactured tinny guffaws of play gunfire.
If you know me by now, you know I'm pondering Paris as my next neighborhood. I've just returned from my second visit in 6 weeks, and upon my groggy return to Barcelona, questions hover, sprout, hide... So I've seen that community, that seeking what you seek that uncovering your life purpose brings community and from that community yields your fullest potential. I went to visit the Lecoq international theater school, a physical theater school in Paris; reputable with staff; simultaneously chilly and warm and inviting students all truth-seekers and attention-revelers...such as actors are...And I have already, through previous theater work, absorbed many of Lecoq's concepts somewhat. But to be in Paris. The museum city. A new friend I met at a dinner in Belleville told me that Berlin is a roving instillation, a concept factory, and Paris is a museum. One elastic, the other established. Paris does feel ancient, an institute of deco, literature, gothic texture. I curled up in Shakespeare and Company twice, the creaky stairs and type writer closets spoke of romantic death and Anais Nin, Gertrude Stein, Margeurite Duras - all called here - as I am. But I know my life would be belt-tightening and somewhat unromantic..Paris' project-housing is more likely to be my residence based on my teacher/actor income.
But I've already pulled the bandaid off..I undid my life in California (ohhh beautiful winter dream). I moved to Barcelona, sight unseen - Hence, my unstable self can get thee to Paree. There is such a freedom in the anonymity and instability of my life and work here..there is also a palpable loneliness. I miss California, I miss Brendan, I miss enormous to go coffee cups with stiff all-day-long coffee, tri-weekly mani- pedis. I miss the light in my apartment, my bed, yoshi's, rollerskating, who I was, clarity..Knowing my place in the world..being sorted and tucked away. Only recently have I gauged the brevity of what I've done, and how I won't go back ..Can't go back..All my things are scattered and another man's magazines are in my blue bathroom.
So, I'm focusing on theater creating art. Working on a piece based on my Grandmother's letters, working on singing with Rico, the round atheist pianist who loves America, Jazz, Frank Lloyd Wright, and correcting my grammar. I'm working on sticking to my goals without fear of accomplishing them. Looking to going to Poland for a week long theater intensive at the Gratowski institute in the woods. Looking at putting work in.
All I did as a Januarian and Februarian was work and workout. I've developed a Spinning addiction (Izzy predicted this), mainly because of Merribelle the mini horse-maned blonde with a voice that is uniquely throaty and cheerful. "VENGAVENGAVENGAVENGA" SUBE!" LUCHALO!" Her passion for my pumping the pedals in time with house remixes of Ennio Morricone is the best inspiration of my day ... that and the free towels, soap, and filtered water I deserve as part of my ludicrously expensive gym membership.
If you can't play in the city's distractions you become militant with your money, saving at all costs. I think this conscientiousness about saving money accounts for all the drawn hungry faces and wiry bodies I see in Europe..It's not that they are soo fit - they appreciate the monetary value of all they consume, so consume conservatively. Also, because of their concern with outward appearances, public eating is a rarity, and it seems they would rather throw entire meals away than put them in "to-go" containers for potentially embarassing public consumption at another location. Ohh its true...and yes, it has.
I'd better get a narrow, high-cheekboned face out of all this.
If you know me by now, you know I'm pondering Paris as my next neighborhood. I've just returned from my second visit in 6 weeks, and upon my groggy return to Barcelona, questions hover, sprout, hide... So I've seen that community, that seeking what you seek that uncovering your life purpose brings community and from that community yields your fullest potential. I went to visit the Lecoq international theater school, a physical theater school in Paris; reputable with staff; simultaneously chilly and warm and inviting students all truth-seekers and attention-revelers...such as actors are...And I have already, through previous theater work, absorbed many of Lecoq's concepts somewhat. But to be in Paris. The museum city. A new friend I met at a dinner in Belleville told me that Berlin is a roving instillation, a concept factory, and Paris is a museum. One elastic, the other established. Paris does feel ancient, an institute of deco, literature, gothic texture. I curled up in Shakespeare and Company twice, the creaky stairs and type writer closets spoke of romantic death and Anais Nin, Gertrude Stein, Margeurite Duras - all called here - as I am. But I know my life would be belt-tightening and somewhat unromantic..Paris' project-housing is more likely to be my residence based on my teacher/actor income.
But I've already pulled the bandaid off..I undid my life in California (ohhh beautiful winter dream). I moved to Barcelona, sight unseen - Hence, my unstable self can get thee to Paree. There is such a freedom in the anonymity and instability of my life and work here..there is also a palpable loneliness. I miss California, I miss Brendan, I miss enormous to go coffee cups with stiff all-day-long coffee, tri-weekly mani- pedis. I miss the light in my apartment, my bed, yoshi's, rollerskating, who I was, clarity..Knowing my place in the world..being sorted and tucked away. Only recently have I gauged the brevity of what I've done, and how I won't go back ..Can't go back..All my things are scattered and another man's magazines are in my blue bathroom.
So, I'm focusing on theater creating art. Working on a piece based on my Grandmother's letters, working on singing with Rico, the round atheist pianist who loves America, Jazz, Frank Lloyd Wright, and correcting my grammar. I'm working on sticking to my goals without fear of accomplishing them. Looking to going to Poland for a week long theater intensive at the Gratowski institute in the woods. Looking at putting work in.
All I did as a Januarian and Februarian was work and workout. I've developed a Spinning addiction (Izzy predicted this), mainly because of Merribelle the mini horse-maned blonde with a voice that is uniquely throaty and cheerful. "VENGAVENGAVENGAVENGA" SUBE!" LUCHALO!" Her passion for my pumping the pedals in time with house remixes of Ennio Morricone is the best inspiration of my day ... that and the free towels, soap, and filtered water I deserve as part of my ludicrously expensive gym membership.
If you can't play in the city's distractions you become militant with your money, saving at all costs. I think this conscientiousness about saving money accounts for all the drawn hungry faces and wiry bodies I see in Europe..It's not that they are soo fit - they appreciate the monetary value of all they consume, so consume conservatively. Also, because of their concern with outward appearances, public eating is a rarity, and it seems they would rather throw entire meals away than put them in "to-go" containers for potentially embarassing public consumption at another location. Ohh its true...and yes, it has.
I'd better get a narrow, high-cheekboned face out of all this.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
The InBetween
Since last I posted I've discovered many things, and have written many a blog in my mind only to hit a wall of disenchantment or unenthusiasm or social interaction or other such manufactured distraction to keep me from divulging every smattering juicy detail of the past months.
I have been here in Barcelona for nearly half a year now, and feel this time as both lengthy and dreamily brief. I have learned many things about Barcelonians; their desire to follow a routine , each day, coffee at 10 breakfast at 12 lunch at 2 nap mid afternoon meal tapas at 10 drinking til dawn. Their scrupulous attention to detail, which, I've been assured, is more of a European thing than a Spanish one, and makes for decadent, tidy, button-upped, bag-closed fashion, but also makes for a presentation before people approach to life, wherein the emotions, the desires, the fullness of being is sacrificed to straight stockings, a well- bloused scarf, a well-ordered egg display. 2 weeks ago, I was at the local supermarket, Dia, perusing the soups, and a sales woman began edging in front of me to straighten the barely out-of-place soup cans and packets, without regard for the fact that I was there considering my purchase. Presentation first. There is a ritual, routine, a kemptness that accounts for my passing the 70 - yr - old grandmother donning a cocked feminine fedora, pointed heels, long, fountaining fur-collared coat, while gripping the palm of her high-booted granddaughter, but also accounts for the frowns on their well-manicured visages.
I have been here in Barcelona for nearly half a year now, and feel this time as both lengthy and dreamily brief. I have learned many things about Barcelonians; their desire to follow a routine , each day, coffee at 10 breakfast at 12 lunch at 2 nap mid afternoon meal tapas at 10 drinking til dawn. Their scrupulous attention to detail, which, I've been assured, is more of a European thing than a Spanish one, and makes for decadent, tidy, button-upped, bag-closed fashion, but also makes for a presentation before people approach to life, wherein the emotions, the desires, the fullness of being is sacrificed to straight stockings, a well- bloused scarf, a well-ordered egg display. 2 weeks ago, I was at the local supermarket, Dia, perusing the soups, and a sales woman began edging in front of me to straighten the barely out-of-place soup cans and packets, without regard for the fact that I was there considering my purchase. Presentation first. There is a ritual, routine, a kemptness that accounts for my passing the 70 - yr - old grandmother donning a cocked feminine fedora, pointed heels, long, fountaining fur-collared coat, while gripping the palm of her high-booted granddaughter, but also accounts for the frowns on their well-manicured visages.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Ravalution
I'm laying on the twisted comforter of a wood-soft bed, waiting to move from my first apartment in Barcelona. Almost as though the Raval knew I was leaving it brought out its storytelling best. This afternoon, as I turned a corner to Carrer Leo, the street perpendicular to mine, Carrer Cardona, 4 policia were questioning a drunken woman sitting on a potted plant, while five gaunt drunken men looked on debating about whatever event had just taken place, and, in pure Spanish fashion, two neighbors poked their heads from two small windows above a store sign commisserating over their account of what had just happened. It seems that whatever happens in Barcelona, there are always witnesses and they all have and want to share their perspective of life events. Sure enough, if a bottle opener doesn't work, or you've lost your way in a barrio, a committee of 3 or more Catalonians form to extend their opinion, their belief, their account, their method. Generally, this makes whatever you'd like to happen take longer, but everyone does get a chance to be right, to be heard. Such is the artists' way. As I left one scene to turn onto Cardona, I walked into a movie set. A film crew had set up right in front of my apartment building, hushing the passersby, cursing at the garbage trucks ("Este BASURA!"), and clapping after every take. After snapping a few photos of the filming, I went up to pack my things and watch the filming from my balcony. In one scene, a long-haired Spanish actor snapped at his pixie short-haired leading lady on the corner..Once the scene was finished they kissed and hugged as though to reassure one another they were still friends; it was just pretend. The duende, the spirit, the devil, the nervous energy and ceaseless passion of the people here is so palpable, they scare one another. They love and cry and bite their nails and smoke and talk with all their being. It is like being around sophisticated babies. Not a day passes where I don't see couples kissing and someone crying.
I signed up for an open mic at the Inusual Project, an artists' space around the corner from my flat. Clowns, filmmakers, storytellers, and me, jazz-singing and networking. Last night, my new friend, Siejie, came out to show her support, and afterwards we went to a spot with a fat rubenesque statue on the bar, then to a hookah bar, and dancing. I worked it out with a light-footed Sengalese man..then hoofed it home at 3am..I will miss the spying walls of this neighborhood..like a rambling church with rivers of sky witnessing the clapping, the pulsing, the fury factory of Barcelona's artist's core.
I signed up for an open mic at the Inusual Project, an artists' space around the corner from my flat. Clowns, filmmakers, storytellers, and me, jazz-singing and networking. Last night, my new friend, Siejie, came out to show her support, and afterwards we went to a spot with a fat rubenesque statue on the bar, then to a hookah bar, and dancing. I worked it out with a light-footed Sengalese man..then hoofed it home at 3am..I will miss the spying walls of this neighborhood..like a rambling church with rivers of sky witnessing the clapping, the pulsing, the fury factory of Barcelona's artist's core.
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