PUEDE SER

that when i went back to the christmas miniatures market next to the cathedral on december twenty-seventh to find the stalls being emptied out into trucks without ever having purchased a miniature christmas jamón for myself (although there’s no reason i shouldn’t have noticed the giant banners advertising the market through the twenty-third before then) -- that, in other words, the true meaning of christmas could be so simply elusive -- should be read as an omen…although whether that omen be good or bad remains to be read. and there, having been admonished by rilke on the evening of christmas day not to write if i could imagine life without writing, i was forced to wonder about the corollary of whether life should cease to exist for someone who couldn’t imagine life without writing but for whom it had been difficult to find the time. for example, if, say, a certain blog that had been building up to the holiday then found itself floundering at the holiday’s first peak, should that blog deserve its persistence. in other words, that we may not make it into the new year. or, that the mystery has just been too elusive to allow itself to have been so simply elucidated (compounded now by the impossibility of the jamón). so, you know, it’s possible. whatever that is.

UNA CHUPA GRATIS; or, WE SEVEN QUEENS

after the master of ceremonies (whose group had added our number to its own as bobo was closing) had finished another song, there was a round of applause for the two women left to close café hercules, who had let the fifteen or so of us in for a round (of singing) just as they were starting to pull the shades down over the doors. (they pulled us some drafts and poured us some drinks, too.) but we only got one round before we had to go back out into the cold (because baby it’s been cold outside in the valley of the guadalquivir the last several days), and we counted seven of us sisters in the group before we headed to the alameda to go that one place – that one place that everyone loves because it’s past closing time on a sunday and the place is still open. then we’d lost two of us – along the short way? – but the girls were still fun, and i’m not sure how many made it to the party at the troop leader’s house because i wasn’t one of the ones who went with them after the other place finally closed and that one female friend of the leader’s (who hadn’t been singing in front of bobo or at café hercules) was making an attempt at a fandango she said she loved but couldn’t remember with the help of that guy with the glasses who’s always asking for money on one knee around the alameda.

it’s a shame that the two who had left the group before our penultimate stop had gone when they did because they really had set the tone of our story (even if they weren’t the ones setting the pace). plus, i probably won’t get another spanish lesson like the one i did when we were seven sisters on that street corner any time soon (the poor French girl), and i’ve no doubt that those two could have gotten something for all of us out of that last bartender for free. una chup(it)a? everyone laughs. at the ambiente. en el aire. everyone laughs.

ironically, if it hadn’t been for all the distraction of the holiday spirit (and the espresso machine being out at la travíesa last wednesday), i might have remembered to mention that the scenes of the christmas story in the display windows at the corte inglés are actually accompanied by a flamenco soundtrack. but there isn’t a leg of ham in sight. and one of the giant snowflakes on the eastern façade of the department store is missing some lights. but the spirit has been distracting enough for most people to forget the crisis for a while. (and on the television the gallego announces his new government.)

it’s distracting enough, and sometimes too much after ten-thirty, but sometimes too you just need to get out to get cozy, because sevillian apartment buildings aren’t really equipped to be accommodating in real winter cold, and you remember that it’s probably warmer in the streets – and even more among all the people in the bars. that’s the excuse of the season.

for better or for worse, at least we know that the nights won’t get any longer, and even if people might come back around to feeling the crisis once the spirit ebbs, you still have time to get one for free.

you read this and think, “this sucks.” everyone laughs. yeah. but it isn’t my fault. it was my sisters’.

O LITTLE TOWN OF SEVILLE/BELEN

now the city's been inseminated with the spirit (inmaculadamente of course), it really is on all over the city. and all over city hall. the flags over the doors of the more, amen, celebratory churches have nothing on the nightly light show projected on the plaza de san francisco side of the ayuntamiento building. what you thought was just another parish marching band having an evening rehearsal turns out to be the bombastic soundtrack to a surprisingly impressive spectacle that narrates the history of the city from the pillars of hercules to its present position, which is, of course (and well after the show depicts the renaissance), at the center of the nativity scene.

and the nativity scene is at the heart of the home again this christmas in sevilla. you can get yourself a cheap and easy portal de belen at the chino store downstairs, but if you're serious (and they are) you go to the stalls of the christmas market between the cathedral and the archive building and get yourself a proper one. but where to start? i couldn't have told you the first time i came across the stalls. other than that there were some nativity related miniatures (and not so miniatures) for sale, i probably wouldn't have said the thing had anything to do with bethlehem. i was, however, excited to see the miniature legs of ham and the flayed and salted codfish, because even if they had nothing to do with christmas, they were good enough as christmas novelties for people outside of spain who obviously hadn't been good enough for the three kings to bring here for tastes of the real thing. and with all the spirit flying around, who has time to care one way or another? what says jesus like selling things outside of a catholic church? should it matter what they're selling?

but then a christmas miracle. and on the night of the inmaculada no less -- at least as far as mine eyes recall the glory. it happened that my angel gabriel was a serbian flamenco percussionist, but as they say, god has a mysterious management philosophy. and a revelation is a revelation. "so people are buying things for their nativity scenes. why are they selling jamón? there wasn't any jamón iberico in bethlehem," objects the non-believer. "of course there was jamón in bethlehem in seville." "and the rest of the stuff? why would anyone need the indian chief?" the angel is confounded for a moment -- or feigns it -- but responds spiritedly, because the answer is the spirit. you have your baby jesus and your jamón and, sure, that's all you really need for the nativity scene. but what fun to go back to the christmas market year after year to collect the rest, knowing with each passing year that you're getting closer and closer to having that third king. and then you're at the market with your grandchildren and want to take them home to show them how fine your portal has become over the years and, yeah, what it's still really missing are the indian chief and the rasta guy and the waterfall. "and you know that god would have invited everyone to his son's birthday. even if he didn't really like them, there needed to be people to serve drinks and the jamón."

i was counting my blessings that night. no way i could have expected such a revelation from city hall. when i saw that light display nearly a week later, i was almost shocked to see that its nativity didn't include much more than a baby jesus, the virgin and joseph. but i knew. and, really, even with all that spirit flying around, what could i expect? the municipal government is a secular institution. and i'm sure it meant well.

HAUL OUT THE HOLLY. PRONTO.

it was a catholic feast day yesterday, although i wasn't sure of which one while the festivities were happening. and they really were happening, although they also all seemed to finish in time for lunch, maybe so that everyone not taking the "bridge" day over to the weekend could enjoy themselves in time to get to bed before they had to be up for work on friday. at one o'clock in the afternoon, it seemed like every parish marching band in the city was out playing somewhere, some of them (several, it seemed from the crowd) even at the south end of the solidly secular alameda. i had a vague recollection that the christmas season in poland started sometime around the end of the first week of deeember with what i thought i even more vaguely remembered was the feast of saint stephen, but the explanation given to me by the owner of the restaurant at number six calle regina was to do with the inmaculada, the celebration, per his telling, of one of the sevillian pantheon's many virgins. jesus is conceived! but essentially, he told me, people in spain celebrate the day like "la navidad pronto." and wasn't it festive. (whether he meant that genuinely or in exasperated irony, his place was packed.) for me, the spirit was contagious -- once i'd managed to escape the crowds on the streets and had found a place to park myself to watch them. i completely understand that sometimes you just need a little christmas -- and right this very minute as, apparently, they also say in spain on the eighth of december. and like they also -- also -- say, when in spain, do like the romans do. so it seems like it's going to be a nonstop party until the magi bring us our presents on the sixth of january. haul out that holly, baby. pronto.

TO THE LIGHTHOUSE

when the ladies came to pick us up at the bus station in ayamonte, the weekend, which we'd started early with a friday departure but which had only begun a handful of hours before with a leisurely coffee and then a mad dash to the bus station, was already boding very well for itself. it had been drizzling on the homestretch of that mad dash, but by the time our bus had stopped in huelva we'd broken out of the clouds, and at ayamonte the sun was hanging, unhurried, just above the facade of the station, remarkably warm for the second of december and strangely somnolent for only half past noon. we were still on the spain side of the border in ayamonte, but it boded very well, and it was at once a matter of course and a welcome forewarning that our hostess announced that portugal was a country of calm as she drove us across the bridge (by calatrava) away from spain.

it was a matter of course, because we couldn't have failed in already having sensed it, and we'd have found out soon enough anyway when we stopped in monte gordo altura, that spot on the algarve that the arabs are said to have conquered just for its beauty. they also say that the french now own most of the waterfront property there (and we joked about the british owning the most of malaga). and the french have built houses where they arabs left the land to its beauty and they leave their boats to be grounded when the waters of the lagoon recede away from the cliff and back over the beach. there is poetry, both official and more extemporaneous, written on the whitewashed walls of the little stand of buildings at the lookout point. there are a church and a cemetery. and a printed sign in a window in english advertising one of the buildings as available to rent.

there is a two-thousand year old olive tree in the side yard of one of the houses in the development through which we passed to park nearer our next destination, a beach whose name i don't recall being told. although we opted for it on our way back to the car, we chose to walk to the beach instead of taking the little shuttle train, and maybe that made our catching sight of the ocean the more exciting, or maybe just the opposite and it got us better acclimated to the calm. portgual may be a country of calm, but our hostess told us that the atlantic was a different story and that the waters weren't usually so still in the winter. they were, however, still, and the only sign of their movement beyond the lapping of the surf were the long horizontal lines of shells left in the sand by the tide. braver visitors swam (they were on the shuttle train with us later still in their swimsuits), but we relaxed with a snack at a beachfront restaurant. a snack and beers, which were remarkably better than anything available in spain, as was the bread, which the portuguese seem to take as seriously as the calm, and which we savored with our salted tuna while bewailing the poor excuse that we dealt with daily in sevilla.

and we had another beer on the seawall at olhão before heading to the store to buy what we needed for a dinner to go with the wine that the friends of our hostess would be bringing with them later to her home. carlos deals in wine, and he brought at least a case of it to rosie's; but as i rationalized to him a bit shamefully (but only a bit shamefully) later when he inquired after my apparent aversion for it, maybe a confident sensibility for drinking bad beer was better than wasting something good of something else. maybe. but like what we'd had at the ocean, whatever it was that the ladies brought the two of us who waited at the seawall while the business in olhão was finished was much better than the family of cruzcampos available in spain (even if i can't remember the name of whatever it was or whatever were the others i had that day or the next), although that beer at the seawall was probably given an edge by the sunset. and there won't ever be a shortage of renderings, tritely artistic, of sunsets over the ocean, how the light and the colors change gradually but perceptibly, in the sky and in the water, and reflected until the sunlight is gone and the water is an almost black shade of purple, imperceptible to anyone who didn't watch the entire transition. but our sunset, which had given an edge to our beers, had a special edge of its own, for the beer and the rest, yes, but more so for the lighthouse, which rosie had pointed out earlier (and i'd mistaken the name of the object for the name of the island where it was located), but which hadn't been lighted (or anyway it seemed) until exactly the moment when the two of us waiting at the seawall had noticed the light and the colors changing.

and then we were at the seawall in olhão again. the market had closed at one, but even a two-thirty breakfast didn't make it too late for meeting the group for coffee nearby. the place where we'd sat the previous evening as the sun set wasn't far. in fact, that place was only a short walk both from where we had our coffees and where we caught the water taxi to farol island. it wasn't exactly clear where they'd met rosie, but the friends of hers who had joined us for dinner the previous night had originally met on the island. and the island was where we were going to meet he rest of them, except for carlos, who came with us and our bag of jackets on the water taxi (with his two giant bottles of wine).

the walk from the docking area for the water taxis to the lighthouse on farol island takes about as long as the ride from the seawall to the island. in other words, they're both over too quickly. but there's more to walk to the end of the jetty after the island path passes the lighthouse. and that walk -- and the one back -- we passed much more deliberately. or it seemed that we passed them much more deliberately because we were suddenly caught again in the sunset. up and back the jetty, which was increasingly haunted by fishermen as it got darker, twice past the spot where a ten foot slab of concrete had been torn out of the pathway and deposited half in the water on the other side. the atlantic, however, was still weirdly calm. one of the portuguese joked that one of the would be spaniards must have brought the stillness of the mediterranean. the peacefulness of the water seemed to unsettle the native calmness of the land. but that concrete slab thrown over onto the one side of the jetty was a sign from the sea that it had once moved there, just like the arabs had once been at monte gordo, even if the latter hadn't left so much trace.

the sun had done most of its setting on our journey out, and by the time we'd nearly made our way back off the jetty (which was nearly as long as the breadth of farol island), the last light of the day was nearly gone. but the corona of the sun was still visible over the strip of fishermen's huts on the (nearly) deserted island (that's the only name they have to call it) across the water to the west. it was to the two adjacent and conjoined ones at the rightmost end of the strip that we were going for dinner, but we stopped to wait for our ride at the restaurant near the base of the lighthouse. we didn't eat much because we had plans to eat at that other island, but we did order snacks to go with our beers and ate them (quickly, our ride was coming) while we drank behind the sheets of plastic that protected the covered patio of the restaurant from the wind at night and in winter.

the sunlight had completely gone when the last of us took our turn in the smaller boat that took us from the one island to the other, an even shorter trip than the first one and even closer to the water. then, up on the jetty on the other side of the water people start making comparisons to the movies because in moments like the one they're experiencing that's the easiest unreality to reference. true, though, up ahead, lit on the outside only by two long, bald, yellowish fluorescent bulbs, the blue-green of the fisherman's huts looked especially blue-green as through a lens and from behind a filter, and the strip of huts in the foreground of the darkened and otherwise deserted island was extraordinarily scenic as if the scene had been set.

the fisherman himself was quite the character, suntanned and wrinkled like older fishermen are expected to be, but jolly -- and that jolliness was expected of someone who had spent decades living at those huts on the water and then also surprising in someone who had done the same. his inventions were everywhere and included a system for alerting him when the water had been heated in the outbuilding that housed the toilet and the shower. he had electricity from somewhere, probably the place making the generator noises in the dark about thirty yards behind the outbuilding. there was a wood plank path that led back away from the strip of huts, and it forked not far from where it started, one way leading onto a nearby beach and the other past the recess in the sand that was making the humming noises (that was probably the somewhere making the electricity) and off through the brush to the interior of the island.

the sunlight was long gone, but there were the stars. and like the type of people put stupid by the surreality of being invited to dinner at a fisherman's hut at one end of a strip of fishermen's huts on an otherwise deserted island, we remarked that it was almost more difficult to locate the constellations when they were visible because all of the rest of them were getting in the way. and that larger one near the horizon isn't a planet, it's a signal tower, although we were sure of the moon, half full, and the moonlight more than adequately lit that wood plank path, which we used at intervals to get away from the populated part of the island at the huts and ponder our ignorance of the stars.

there was fish for dinner. and rice. and a salad. and we managed, the eleven of us, to fit inside the hut that wasn't the fisherman's sleeping quarters to eat. the fisherman sat with his back to the sinks and the stove, and on the wall across from him, across the table and all ten of his guests, were hung a sampling of his press highlights. he told the story of his interview for a german television program to the one of us who asked him after dinner about the ethicality of eating those little calamari. (she wasn't happy to find out that the ones she'd been eating were in fact baby squid and not a unique species, but she was glad she asked.)

dinner was simple, and so also, it seems now, was our conversation, both at dinner and afterwards. or maybe it's just that what seemed remarkable then would only be worth remarking upon after sharing another couple of oversized bottles of wine. there was that spirit too, clear and sweet and nameless (forgotten literally in spite of itself), which we poured into each other's shot glasses from that unmarked bottle. it's made from some fruit they collect in the mountains. and it made things easily remarkable. or so i can try to excuse our taking of simple pleasures.

it isn't, however, our fault that our setting was so perfectly cliché. some things are too good to be true, and other's are too clichéd to be taken as good anymore, but we couldn't help the sunsets or the water or the impossibly idyllic scenery. who knows, maybe we'd have experienced that same feeling of a long anticipated reunion (although we'd only all just met and had all just been together less than twenty-four hours earlier) even without the fisherman and without the island that would have been completely deserted without him. but it's also possible that we wouldn't have shared the same camaraderie that we did that night (both for better and for worse) had the scene not been set so perfectly for the comedy.

but no. ours was special. that second night too we had the lighthouse to keep us sure of our bearings, and from its position across the water on farol island we could locate the seawall at olhão and then the city of faro further up the coast, which made amusing allusion to rosie's house in montenegro and our night before. and it was the lighthouse that kept us walking through the semi-darkness toward where the water taxi was waiting after we eventually left the fisherman to his inventions and his huts.

who knows if portuguese water taxis run all night, but one-thirty was late enough for those of us who had taken our dinner early at seven -- not to mention that our return load was several liters of wine lighter than what we'd taken to the fisherman's. we did, however, somehow manage to acquire a guitar.

and then we were back again at the seawall, though not entirely so quickly. none of us knows, actually, why the boat was idling for so long, adrift off the dock at the north end of farol, the opposite end of the island from where the lighthouse was shining. we were tired, but we were lucky. by the time we started up again the half moon had positioned itself low on the horizon, now larger and brighter than before, and as our taxi moved closer to our destination the moon seemed to set its pace to ours, its reflection in the water becoming less and less diffuse until both the half moon and its reflection finally disappeared into a line of boats moored in the distance in the same moment as our taxi pulled up at olhão, the lighthouse still blinking back from farol.

it was something special. maybe you wouldn't, however, suspect it from the tritely artistic renderings. still, it is true that the unhurried sun in ayamonte had boded well for our weekend in the land of calm, even if that isn't the whole truth. but as they say, something always calls you back to the algarve, and what happens on the islands...

if that lighthouse could talk.