Going To Graz

“Take a good look at me! 

I am an idiot, I am a clown, I am a faker.

Take a good look at me!

I am ugly, my face has no expression, I am little.

I am like all of you!”

-  Tristan Tzara

*

After a month in Cadiz I needed solitude for winter writing. Patricia opened a provincial map. She pointed out coastal towns. “Villages full of Germans this time of year. It depends on what you want.”

She highlighted areas and small towns north of Cadiz like Arcos de la Frontera, Bornos, Villamartin, and Prado del Ray.

She pointed to a village named Grazalema. It was in the Sierra National Park and a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve with 146 species of birds, tracts of Pinsapar Fir and climbing opportunities. “This is also a beautiful area. One of my favorites but it will be cold there this winter.”

“Thanks for your help. I like the sound of Grazalema. I’ll live there for three months before returning to Morocco.”

“My pleasure. Good luck.”

One Romani said adios to another Romani. I carried my pack and word machine past the San Francisco cathedral where men fitted fragmented dolomite stones into puzzles.

Tanned people drank coffee or red wine watching muscular workers string plumb lines and hammer beat up rocks into passive submission. A priest in religious shadows fingered rosary beads waiting to hear sinners release imaginary guilt.

Hammer music faded as I traversed passages to a park where a bronze Spanish hero on horseback waving a sword dripping blood proclaimed freedom and a constitution in 1812.

Transatlantic shipping vessels with the word FAST loaded at a dock. The Canary Islands were two days away.

 A harbor billboard extolled CONSUME.

 Adjusting my antenna I heard Sonny Boy blowing his harp, “If you don’t help me darling I’m gonna have to find me somebody else.”

The COMES bus wound north passing olive and cork trees, crumbling stone homes disintegrating to earth, tilled soil and walled estates. Giant black steel bulls advertising local sherry guarded hills overlooking highways. Bulls, sheep and cows grazed in fields. Moorish castles hovered above old Roman roads.

Men manipulated shovels, small dump trucks, cement mixers, wheelbarrows, chisels and hammers. They heaved, hauled and sweated as homes and businesses consumed fields. They attached stones to existing structures. Roman stonewalls married Moorish stonewalls.

Adults were big kids assembling life projects to authenticate their being.

Bread, water, lentil soup, ham, cheese and olives dressed mid-day tables with a siesta for dessert.

Yangon, 2015

In Algodonales I negotiated a ride past Zahara de la Sierra into rising mountains. The abandoned castle sat on a pinnacle above fields and three lakes.

The Almohads, a strict Berber sect from Morocco, built Zahara in the 8th century. It fell to Castilian prince Fernando de Antequera in 1407 and was recaptured in a night raid in 1481 by Abu-al-Hasan from Granada.

Spanish anarchists, bandits and literary outlaws in exile used it as a hideout in the 19th century.

The high vertical mountain pass at 1300 meters was Puerto de los Palomas or Dove Pass. Doves did not live there. Egyptian vultures ruled skies.

The narrow hairpin mountain road wove through clouds, rain and snow as plateaus, rivers, lakes and forests disappeared in fog. A disembodied spirit floated.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Yangon, 2015

Omar's Daughter

Omar remembered his daughter in Cadiz.

Faith worked at Mandarin Duck selling paper and writing instruments. She practiced a calm stationary way.

“May I help you,” she said one morning, greeting a bearded forcestero. Their eyes connected loneliness minus words. She averted her eyes. He was looking for pain free intimacy and ink.

“I’d like a refill for this,” he said, unscrewing a purple cloud-writing instrument with a white peak.

Recognizing the Swiss rollerball writing tool she opened a cabinet filled with boxes of cartridges.

“Fine or medium?”

“Hmm, lets try both.”

“One box of each?” she said.

“Yes please. I don’t want to run dry in the middle of a simple true sentence.”

“I agree. There’s nothing more challenging than running empty while taking a line for a walk,” she said.

“Isn’t that the truth? Why run when you can walk? Are you a writer?”

“Isn’t everyone? I love writing, sketching, painting, drawing, watercolors moistly,” she said.

“Moistly?”

“I wet the paper first. It saturate colors with natural vibrancy,” she said.

“With tears of joy or tears of sadness?”

“Depends on the sensation and the intensity of my feeling. What’s the difference? Tears are still tears in the rain. The heart is a lonely courageous hunter.”

I twirled a peacock feather. Remembering Omar’s Mont Blanc 149 piston-fountain pen, I said, “I also need a bottle of ink.”

“We have Black, Midnight Blue, and Cornflower Silk Red. British Racing Green just came in.”

“Racing Green. Sounds fast. Let’s try it.” Omar would be pleased with this expedient color.

I switched subjects to seduce her with my silver tongue.

“Are you free after work? Perhaps we might have a drink and some tapas? Perhaps a little mango tango?”

“I have other plans. I am not sexually repressed. I am liberated. I have a secret blind lover. He peels my skin to enjoy the fruit. Here you are,” handing me cartridge boxes and a bottle of green ink with a white mountain.

I paid with a handful of tears and a rose thorn. My ink stained fingers touched fine and extra fine points of light.

Faith and her extramarital merchandise were thin and beautiful. She was curious.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Older than yesterday and younger than tomorrow.”

“I see.”

“It was nice meeting you,” I said. “By the way, have you seen the film, Pan’s Labyrinth, from 2006, written and directed by Guillermo Del Toro?”

“Are you crazy or what? 2006 is five years from now. How could you know about it?”

“I live in the future. It’s about your Civil War from 1936-1939, repression and a young girl’s fantasy. It’s a beautiful film on many levels. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland.”

“Wow,” she said, “I loved that film, especially when Alice meets the Mad Hatter. Poor rabbit, always in a hurry, looking at his watch.”

“Funny you should mention time. A watch plays a small yet significant role in the Pan film.”

“Really? How ironic. I’ll see it in the future.”

“Yes you will. The future memory will inspire your spirit, art and life.”

I pulled out my Swizz Whizz Army stainless steel water resistant Victoria Abnoxious pocket watch, laughing.

“My, look at the tick-tock. Got to walk. Thanks for the ink. Create with passion.” I disappeared.

Faith sang a lonely echo. “Thanks. Enjoy your word pearls. Safe travels.”

Sitting on a park bench under a Banyan tree I fed cartridges into a mirror, clicked off the safety and turned a page.

It was a musical manifesto with a touch of razzamatazz jazz featuring Coltrane, Miles, Monk, Mingus and Getz to the verb.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Burma, 2015

Cadiz

Outside a cathedral across from the Citadel a virgin bride threw her red rose bouquet into blue sky. Friends pelted her with white rice containing 50,000 genes. Humans with 30,000 genes raised teary eyes. It rained flowers. Friends and strangers inhaled wild fragrances drifting from the sky.

They scrambled, pushed and shoved in a desperate struggle for aroma’s meaning.

“What’s happening?” said a blind widow leaning on her cane.

“They are celebrating the passing of an era,” said her son. He was a survivor of the Civil War when 350,000 Spaniards died. The war divided friends, families and communities. Another 100,000 were killed or died in prison after the war.

The rebellion started in Morocco in 1936 when five Spanish Foreign Legion generals revolted against the leftist government. Francisco Franco took control. German and Italian soldiers, weapons and planes shifted the balance of power to the Nationalists.

A UN sponsored trade boycott of Spain in the late 1940’s turned Andalucía into ‘the years of hunger.’ Peasants ate wild herbs and soup made from grass. 1.5 million went into exile.

“Let’s cross here,” said her son. They blessed themselves. Roses rained. It was impossible to explain how it happened and wedding parties knew it.

Berber-Spanish poets revealed truth as a variety of theories in a cosmic soup. When survivors at the wedding reception heard the word soup they experienced enlightenment with lentils, carrots, potatoes, bread, and slivers of cured ham.

Tavia Tower, Cadiz

Moving through broken light past cathedrals holding silent iron bells I walked to the Torre Tavira Tower at the intersection of Marques del Real Tesoro and Sacramento.

Cadiz was famous for its dominating watchtowers during prosperous trade in the 18th century. The tower was built in a Baroque style as part of the palace of the Marquis of Recano. It was named for its first watchman, Antonio Tavira and appointed the official watchtower of the town in 1778.

A Camera Obscura projected a live 360-degree image of Cadiz. A guide pointed out imported rubber trees from Brazil, the Mercado, and political and religious buildings.

Maps showed voyages since 1600 to Central and South America, Africa and Northern Europe.

Columbus sailed from Palos de la Frontera, north of Cadiz in 1492 after receiving a cedula real or royal document when the abbot, Juan Perez, a confessor of Queen Isabella promoted his cause as she played chess.

She decided the Queen would have more power. “I want to move as far as I want in any direction.”

The royal document granted Columbus 100 men and three vessels.

Cadiz’s golden age controlled 75% of trade with the Americas. This contributed to its development as a progressive city with a liberal middle class and imported architecture.

The Napoleonic Wars and British warships blocked the city after shattering the Spanish Fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Spain turned against France and Cadiz withstood Napoleon’s siege from 1810-1812.

Cadiz delegates adopted the first Spanish constitution in 1812 followed by years of ideological struggle.

Cadiz neoclassic architecture had clean restrained lines with Roman and Greek ideals, harmony and proportion. Courtyards featured classical squares, circles, triangles, columns and rounded arcades.

Cadiz Museum

Twilight hurried toward night as a million birds sang in towering Banyan trees with roots spreading stories in Plaza de Mina, outside the Museum of Cadiz.

I scaled stairs. A white marble sculpture of David glowered down.

The receptionist stopped me. There was a male guard with her.

“Where are you from?” he demanded. It was free for Europeans and 1.5 Euros if I was a forcestero, a person from outside the city-state.

“I am from heaven,” I said, pointing toward a ceiling covered in purple tapestries. “Down to have a look around.” This threw him off.

The guard hustling the receptionist wanted to get rid of me. “Are you from Germany? English?”

“No, I am from heaven,” pulling out Euros. The receptionist detached a ticket.

“Go ahead, it’s free,” she said, smiling. A little stupidity and kindness goes a long way in heaven.

“Gracias.”

Phoenicians founded Cadiz in 1100 B.C. and called it Gadir. They traded amber and tin.

Calling it Gades the Romans used it as navel base. They introduced the potter’s wheel, writing, olive tree, donkey and hen in Spain. They replaced bronze with iron. Metals became currencies. People developed agriculture as settled populations built walls, towers and castles.

Romans contributed aqueducts, temples, theaters, circuses and baths. They gave the Iberian Peninsula the Castilian language based on 2,000-year old Latin.

Their wanderlust built roads establishing communities in the nation-state and satisfied their impulse for cuisine, sex, music, and trade.

The Museo de Cadiz danced with Roman artifacts and stories of archeological settlements from Gades to Seville and Cordoba.

Rooms overflowed with estuaries, isolated tight white pueblos, coins, maps, heads, pottery, vases and unmarked graves.

Roman legion armor, burial sites, aqueduct maps, temples, theaters, masks, sculptures, marble, glass, utensils and bones used for sewing rested behind glass.

A three million-year-old human in a stone chamber slept in cool dust.

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Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Mandalay, Burma, 2013 - Happier times.

Sophia from Panama

The Iberian drama evolved with whiners on one side and complainers on the other. They blamed the weather. Weather laughed at the idiots. Pedestrians on the shady side of the street complained about the cold instead of walking across the street into the sun.

You have to cross the street to learn something, said Education.

A tossed coin landed on its edge. Fate and destiny are two sides of the same coin.

A woman said to her friend, “I think God and Death are two sides of the same coin.”

“I thought it was fate and chance, or tragedy and comedy,” replied her friend. “Life is something to be lived, not talked about. Let’s go shopping.”

Picaros the card tricksters traveled through neighborhoods selling a game of fortune. “Pick a card. Any card. Take a chance.”

Howling Wolf, my word machine, shifted into full automatic sensing a Nothing is true everything is permitted universe.

The Spanish Inquisition lasted from 1478-1831.

In 1492 a bankrupt Isabel and Fernando monarchy expelled 200,0000 Jews from Spain who refused Christian baptism. The church, state and landlords decimated the middle class.

Money & Power & Control

Church bells pealed melancholy songs of salvation and redemption across from the Citadel Castelilo de Santa Catalina built in 1598.

An exhibition from Central America entered a new story-truth.

Sophia from Panama pointed to an exhibit in a room. Inside a large glass rectangle were glowing yellow candles, religious icons, sandy footprints and a huge black and white sepia image of a jungle warrior. Panamanian women danced rituals in a video. Exotic travel brochures collected table dust.

“Adults are afraid to go in there,” said Sophia, pointing to the exhibit.

Her dark eyes were rich.

The music of men hammering grandiose plans to improve their quality of life faded as crashing Atlantic waves cleaned the world of sensation and perception.

“Maybe they’ve lost their innate curiosity,” I said annunciating each letter. “Adults are afraid of death. They run away carrying memories, guilt and fear. It’s the human condition.”

“It appears so. We have to encourage them to go in.”

“It’s a time warp. In the flower market I saw four smiling faces in an hour. The people wear a sadness.”

“It’s the way they live,” she said. “Their attitude. Their Catholic guilt is all conditioning. It’s a bag of heavy deep and real imaginary bricks. They study the stones at their feet when they walk.”

“Yes. They love the street, the beauty and perpetual sadness of the mean old street. It’s an old love.”

“A century is nothing here,” she said.

“That’s a good title for a jazz epic opus by a blind writer named Omar.”

“We are all a work in process. We know so much and understand nothing.”

She danced with an unlit cigarette in her hand. We stood on white marble steps hearing ocean erode land. She spelled words on her palm. “You need to learn Spanish.”

“Yes. I am lazy. When I was a kid I dreamed I could speak-talk every Earth language. I could live anywhere. Language is the cultural key. English is the language of cultured barbarians.”

I wanted her. I wanted to tell her she was beautiful in her language, her oral tradition spilling memes, nouns, verbs, proposals, phonics, magic, dreams, gardens and pure land poetry.

“Will you be here tomorrow?”

Sophia danced away. “It’s all random when I will be here.”

While we were talking someone blew up a Coca-Cola plant in India. There were some pissed off marginalized humans in a world inundated with too much sugar consumption in caste systems. A low fat diet of fear satisfied their daily requirements.

I walked to an exhibition in the Citadel. Narrow white oval corridors displayed black and white photographs of Nicaraguans fishing, polling canoes through jungles, chopping forests, sitting for the camera, laughing and contemplating their natural world.

One hall was filled with delicate black handmade fans and tributes to Federico Garcia Lorca.

Considered the greatest poet and playwright of 20th century Spain, he was assassinated by members of the Escuadra Negra (Black Squadron) a Franco death squad in August 1936 for his left-wing sympathies and homosexuality.

Lorca belonged to the Generation of 1927 with Dali, Miro, Picasso and Luis Bunuel a filmmaker, identifying with the marginalized Romani and Spanish women chained to conventional social expectations in Andalucía. Their art introduced symbolism, futurism and surrealism into Spanish literature and life.

Lorca wrote about entrapment, liberation, passion and repression.

“Then I realized I had been murdered.

They looked for me in cafes, cemeteries and churches

They opened the wine casks and wardrobes

They ravaged three skeletons to gouge out the gold of their teeth.

But they did not find me.

They never found me?

No. They never found me.”

By Federico Garcia Lorca, 1929

A long red scarf lay draped over a single rattan chair. Invisible wires held black fans decorated with peacock feathers and suspended rainbows.

This silent beauty contrasted with stark white walls and a wild blue sea. Relentless waves smashed ramparts.

A passenger ship running lights stem to stern sailed toward Lisbon filled with people afraid to fly and losing their baggage and fears in a pressurized tin can at 30,000 feet.

They carried a life vest with pockets of heavy change that would drown them. Sleep with the fishes.

They waited for the captain to yell, “All hands on deck, everyone into lifeboats,” after reaching Brazilian jungles to evolve new survival strategies among noble native savages.

Natives said, “We have the time but you have watches and machines to measure and control the time.”

A native ran across water to a ship. “We are so glad you are back. We forgot how to preach.”

A fat white priest said, “When you retire they give you a gold watch but not enough time to wind it. Turn back the dial.”

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Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir

Old Rooms

Cadiz flamenco students practiced in small oval rooms once used for storing cannonballs to attack ships.

A Romani dance, flamenco was introduced in the 18th century. The essence of flamenco is the depth of a deep song or cante jondo, a lament of the marginalized Gitano. Early forms featured a single hammer striking an anvil as Romani work-music.

Inlaid flooring resounded with black-heeled thunder. A teacher clapped a steady rhythm. “Faster, faster, spin on your toes, stay light. Be the dance, be the single sharp note,” she shouted. “Eyes straight ahead.”

The small room echoed with exploding hands and feet.

In Essaouira, Morocco similar rooms with thick oval wooden doors during Portuguese exploration became working art studios for leather, metal, stone and Thule woodcarving. An artist held a sharp blade steady with one foot while spinning a wheel turning sweet smelling wood. Mint tea aroma filled the air.

“See my shop mister, buy a carpet,” a chorus of boys sang to a ghost. They called me Ali Baba - thief - because my beard was white from life and my apparition scared them.

“Hey, Ali Baba,” implored a destitute youth. “See my shop. Only the best price for you.”

“Just passing through.”

Boys pounded metal, carved wood, tore mint leaves, sat on haunches babbling dreams and beat dusty silk carpets hanging from rusty nails in the sun.

Fernando Pessoa

In Cadiz I collected new material in an old city as stories and songs drifted on sea trade winds. Short-wave reception was clear. A classical Spanish station. A British announcer on World Outlook said, “... in twenty-five minutes we discuss the British solution and new world order to solve poverty, racism, violence, hatred and greed.”

I knew it’d be a great program as the world waited to hear how it would all be decided. Flip a coin. Buy a lottery ticket.

U.S. Rota Navy military radio network mumbled about “disease, helmet safety, unified field states, crashed helicopters, fatalities, future funerals and getting your uniform in order at old Roman navel bases.”

Bases were empty in the top of the ninth. Looks like extra innings. Stay tuned for sustained climate crisis and global financial catastrophe.

At Benjumeda #3, Omar my amanuensis and I shared a round table and open doors on a green and black tiled balcony. Yellow streetlights led up a narrow way below a sliver of cobalt sky. Starlight met star bright. No cell phone. We were connected with friends and strangers through transmutation. Perfecto.

Lost, forlorn, dejected Francophone and Germanic tourists inside the labyrinthine maze of Cadiz streets carried local maps, guidebooks and optical equipment. Men lugged all the heavy stuff on their Homeric voyage of discovery; water, packs, video machines and high tech 35mm point and shoot optics. They were intent on recording their experiences with miles to go before they slept, perchance to dream their impossible dream.

They craned sunburned necks toward balconies trying to interpret street signs. Looking for a way away anyway. They looked up, down at maps, talked, argued, pointing in opposite directions. They had to make a decision. They were confused and lost down at the crossroads making a pact with Satan in a Catholic country.

The women on their traveling team intuitively knew where they were and where they were going. With infinite patience they sighed and plodded on in a spouse’s shadow. They admired history, cathedrals, plazas, the Atlantic Ocean, museums and cafes.

Nobody understood them. Spanish smiles disguised as apathy followed their quest. Visitors appreciated how rising middle class economics and artistic vision allowed craftsmen to work on themes other than religion. Tourists suffered from religious art overload.

It was everywhere. Laminated images of Jesus on key chains dangled from men’s pockets. Carved Virgin Mary icons crying bloody tears decorated store windows. Her statute of limitations hung from dusty rafters in shops and bars. She watched people suffer. She was their redemption and lottery ticket to paradise. Gilt and guilt reflected sacrifice. Marbled voices sang choir hymns.

High solid wooden doors with brass reinforcements protected a woman’s hospital. Reception rooms overflowed with crying children needing a mother’s connection and intention. Widowed women in eternal black followed church bells to catered Immaculate Receptions for spiritual visions.

Spanish smokers crowded streets. Two young lovers hid in a doorway. He groped his girl’s firm small breasts. Rosebud. She slid a cautious hand inside stone washed denim releasing his hard desire. She salivated.

“Kiss it,” he moaned.

“What if I get pregnant?”

“We’ll get married, raise piglets and live off the state.”

“A state of mind?”

Explosions rocked their being.

Satisfied and wrapped on scooters they blasted their way down cobblestone streets looking for sanctuary. Children ate junk food, chips, and sweets before tossing empty packages on the street with satisfied oral gratification and they couldn’t care less.

Jeans and mountain climbing boots were the latest fashion rage. Extended families walked through stone passages inside their waking nightmare. Half the population pushed prams as the other half struggled on canes and crutches toward Lourdes.

It’s a long walk.

Bitter unemployed Andalusia men stood silent on wrought iron rusted balconies. They watched singing gremlins gnomes and sheep propelled by market forces escape caves… “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of OZ.”

Mothers and wives heated water, poured in Ace detergent, scrubbed, washed and rinsed baby clothing, hanging them on balconies with iridescent green, yellow, and blue plastic clothes pins. They peered up and down the street from Moorish entrances and disappeared into darkness safe from the mean old world.

It was a great city for discovering shadows and passageways with nooks and crannies, secret hideouts, alleys and recessed caverns. Now you see them now you don’t reminded a ghost of tribes in Afghan mountain caves.

The quick and the dead remembered Senior Drill Sergeant Prude in Misery. I felt right at home.

Spanish women intent on cleaning embedded rocks assaulted cobblestones with brooms and mops. Water and stones discussed time’s erosion. Spanish women did all the heavy work.

They were emancipated. They were free from conservative repressive social norms and expectations.

They did not sing. I did not hear joy escape their throats. Their faces manifested resignation.

They emptied buckets of dirty mop water in the gutter. Sparrows found salvation. Seeing free relatives take flight caged balcony birds sang sad Romani songs about loneliness and alienation.

ART

Adventure, Risk, Transformation - A Memoir