Spain

Spanish in the Streets

~ teganb ~ 4 Comments

It’s 9:30pm, on the eve before leaving for yoga training. Rob and I have just finished eating an early dinner by Spanish standards, and I feel like I could fall into bed this instant. The week has been full and festive, thanks to a lovely visit from a dear old friend. After many tapas and plenty a glass of wine, I think we are all ready for a rest. But it is sad to say goodbye. On top of that, I will soon be saying goodbye to Rob and to this city, and even a few new friends here, and that feels a bit sad too. I know it is not for long, but I feel like I am constantly leaving places these days.

At the same time, I am of course looking forward to this new experience—to learning, to movement, to seeing the Spanish countryside, to eating healthy vegetarian food. I am even hopeful that the weather might permit a few swims in the lovely pool pictured on the retreat website. The temperature has been increasing over the past week or so, to an almost summery warmth during the day (Vancouver summer that is—not by local standards). The evenings are still cool. But judging by the change so far, I have a beautiful spring to look forward to when I finish my course.

I also look forward to settling in a bit upon my return, to finding work, to getting into a routine, to unpacking my stuff and leaving it that way for a while. We have not yet found an apartment that is to our liking. We have decided that it is worthwhile to be both patient and picky, seeing as I already have a place to stay the next three weeks and Rob can stay in a single room rented by the week. Tomorrow we we will get up early to finish packing and move our things to his room, and later in the afternoon I will catch the bus to the small village of Villamartín. There someone will pick me up and drive me to the olive farm acreage on which the yoga retreat was built, where I will begin this new experience, and perhaps a new chapter.

Meanwhile, the rest of the city is celebrating Friday night. A group of young señores y señoritas is laughing and drinking outside our window. Someone had a guitar earlier, playing songs like Stairway to Heaven and Smells Like Teen Spirit while his friends listened with the attentiveness he was surely hoping for. Flamenco seems to appeal to an older crowd than that which has gathered outside our window. We were lucky enough to witness a spontaneous flamenco practice session the other day, performed by leather-jacketed thirty-somethings—long dreads hanging down their backs—in the hip and hipster café area of La Alameda. The really lovely thing was that nearly the whole café got involved, keeping time with loud and rhythmic clapping, some of them even singing, or just smiling and tapping their feet as they smoked their cigarettes and drank beer in the sun. What the Spaniards seem to share is a love of spending time together, of sharing drink and food in the open air, of soaking up the afternoon and evening with a presence that might suggest there is nothing else to do—but not because there actually is nothing, but because this social interaction is just as worthy as anything else on the list, so they give it their all.

My own social interactions this past wDSCF2145eek were thoroughly infused with the Spanish spirit. Strolling and wandering, enjoying afternoon sweets before dinner, reading in the sun, and hours of drinking and eating—it was a lovely way to catch up with an old friend and to enjoy the Sevillan way of leisure before moving on to a more austere lifestyle over next few weeks. But for now, to bed! Buenas noches.

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Big Wash

~ teganb ~ 4 Comments

One week remains before I catch the bus to the yoga training retreat . I can hardly believe I am doing this. I feel very nervous… perhaps because of the daunting programme, perhaps from worrying what it will be like and how the people will be, perhaps because it has been quite a while since I studied anything, or perhaps because I have invested much hope in this venture and I fear disappointment. Will it be the transformative experience I desire? Will it be the beginning of a career path? I never imagined it as one until recently,  and it still feels somehow strange to me. Will I be satisfied? Can I really make a living teaching yoga? What other things do I really want to do? How am I going to make the most difference to this world while making the most difference to myself as well? Is it possible to love one’s everyday routine?

Questions have been appearing almost constantly in my head of late, and I weary of them. It is easy to overthink things, which ultimately seems to separate a person from what is actually going on. Then, feeling a bit removed and disconnected, the mind spins even faster, because it is like watching a reflection of life off the mirror of the mind (or through the “vrittis”—whirlpools of the mind, mental activity—according to my yoga text). Well, surely three weeks of early morning meditation will help with that.

My vrittis are in full force these days and I feel easily distracted and often uncertain of what I ought to be doing. Strangely enough, all this whirling activity leaves me feeling like I have nothing much to say this week, and I must admit how challenging it is to maintain a weekly blog. Yes, I knew it would be hard, but contemplating a difficult task is a far cry from actually doing it. The real live act DSCF3164involves a lot more stomach than I expected: a twisty, churning feeling, that physically tightens and agitates the solar plexus as the end of the week approaches.

When the mind’s waters get choppy and the stomach starts doing gymnastics, it generally helps to just start moving—and the most therapeutic method of movement for me is going for a walk. If I don’t feel like going, I know I need it especially. Far away from the forests and shores of home, it is the riverside here that beckons my footsteps.

The charm of stone streets and narrow alleys remains undisputed, but Sevillan architectural beauty would not have quite the same effect if this city were not cloven by the elegant, gently-flowing giant, the river Guadalquivir. Apparently the name comes from Arabic, al-wadi al-kabir, which means either ‘great valley’, ‘big riverbed’ or ‘big wash’. Here in Sevilla, it is wide and calm. It is always peppered with rowers and kayakers, and every hour or so, a pack of tourists on a big oldfashioned-looking riverboat, that broadcasts information about the city over a loudspeaker, echoing in different languages across the water to the runners, cyclists, and walkers on the paved banks.

I find myself somewhere along that waterway almost every day. It feels like a friend, like a steady presence I can count on. I always feel better, at least a little, after a walk by the river.

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Pasos y Presencia

~ teganb ~ 3 Comments

Two and a half weeks have passed since I joined Robin in Spain. To my relief, it feels like longer. I had always hoped that time would expand once we took this leap, especially in these first few weeks of settling in—because at last there would be nothing to do. That is not true, of course; there is always something to do, and once you deal with one list another one quickly appears: registering as a Danish ex-pat now living in Spain, applying to obtain my EU health card, asking questions of the infuriatingly unhelpful Spanish bureaucrats, looking for an apartment, finding cheap phones, trying not to lose any more money through visa mess-up madness, etc.

But more and more both Rob and I are hit with the knowledge that it is all about perception. There is always going to be ‘something to do’, so we had better find a way of lifting our spirits despite the mountain of administrative tasks our society requires—especially of those who move around internationally.

Some people are naturally very good at dealing with logistical things. For us, they often feel insurmountable. I think we both find it less daunting to commit to plunging ourselves into a foreign language and culture than we do committing to the process of applying for a study visa. Ugh! I almost changed my mind about going on exchange to Mexico years ago because of the exhaustive requirements of the visa application. Of course I am glad I did not. And that is the thing—once you get going, it comes along alright, and somehow you do get through it. I think it just seems overwhelming for those of us who forget that a building is constructed brick by brick, and mountains are climbed one step at a time.

All this aside, there is much less to do here than either of us has experienced in many years. I am frankly very grateful for it. In the past, during times of transition, I have often found myself anxious for the next activity. Despite how much I may yearn for ‘nothing to do’ when I am full tilt into the work schedule, and/or studying, socializing, and keeping up on life admin, I have found it difficult to truly enjoy the lulls when they come. This time I am consciously savouring this feeling of limbo. Although I have had a few moments of financial panic, I know that something will come along. And when it does, I will look back at this stage, and this time I am determined that I will look back with gratitude that I made the best of it, rather than realizing that in worrying about the future, I missed it. No, not this time.

So what do I do with myself these days?! Well, lately, I fight colds and coughs. My main weapons are sleeping in and drinking tea, and I am making headway. I also practice yoga; in two weeks I start my intensive yoga teacher training, so I aim to practice at least four times a week, in hope that the inevitable butt-whipping brought by three weeks of intensive daily practice and study does not hit me quite so hard. I pick my way through the book on yoga philosophy that we are supposed to have read before going. I eat lunch with Rob after he is done with his classes, I walk by the river and through the city, I try to tackle some of the ‘things to do’ (but honestly I have not made much headway there), and I watch Spanish movies with Rob. We also meet Spaniards for language exchanges, and from one such exchange came a really positive step towards our immersion in Spanish culture: going out for dinner with a Spanish couple and understanding the majority of the evening’s conversation while successfully explaining whatever we attempted, one way or another. The night’s other success was the discovery of  a magnificently delicious tapas restaurant, which cost half as much as such a place would do in Canada… so come visit, amigos, and we’ll take you there!

Delicious tapas aside, sometimes I ask myself what all this amounts to, and why we are really here. We both have to remind ourselves many times that this is one of those brick by brick situations, and it is okay not to see the whole picture yet. So in the meantime, it is also okay to sleep in, drink tea, practice yoga, and wander the city, all the while counting the moments until the next meal… it’s still early days. I am hopeful these tiny steps are the first in finding our way to a life honouring our hearts’ desires, and indeed, first taking the time to sit still long enough to know what those are.

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Wet Oranges

~ teganb ~ 2 Comments

It is Saturday in Spain, and the last day of January. We woke up to the sound of rain in the streets, and  I found that soft and familiar song of falling water so comforting. I could close my eyes again in the dark room and imagine I was somewhere on the wet west coast of Canada. Soon the rain stopped, however, and my sleepy half-dream of cabins and coniferous forests stopped too, because if I really were on the west coast, it would have rained all day long! Perhaps it is strange to be missing such a thing, when the sun is already bright in the sky again just a few hours later, and the breeze is warm, but there is something extremely soothing about a long wet day, and rain on the roof all night long… with a few conditions of course, such as a good raincoat for walks and a warm home in which to dry off and curl up.

Not a trace of rain remains as I sit looking out the window at the bright orange tree just outside. They grow everywhere here, adding colour to the stone and brick  landscape and making streets look merry. Just as there is some deep calm in the DSCF3113sound of rain, so too is there something inherently uplifting about an orange tree. It may just be the vibrancy of the green and orange together, or the novelty of seeing such bright fruit alive and growing, but at any rate, I do not miss the rainy shores of home quite so much with that lovely tree to look upon.

A week and a half have passed since I arrived in Sevilla and since Morfar died. Gently, patiently, acceptance settles upon me as the days go by and I feel my feet sinking a little deeper into this new ground. I have learned that the Christmas and birthday cards I had sent to Morfar reached him in time, that he had been happy to read them. In them I had written how much I was looking forward to celebrating with him. Last week that occurred to me as nothing but sad, but this week I see how much it means that he knew we all were excited, we all were anticipating being together to celebrate him and his life, and though it did not happen as we imagined and hoped, he did have something very important—knowledge that he was not alone, that he was loved.

Thinking of all my loved-ones at home is a similarly comforting thought; we know we are there for one another, we are connected always, even when far apart.

It seems my heart took a while to catch up to my body this trip, but it is happening. Rob and I do our best to practice Spanish, struggling with this crazy Sevillano accent, we walk the city and riverside, and balance our desires to eat tapas and drink beers out on the town with making meals ourselves and saving money by splitting a beer in the house—about two dollars for a litre! A heartening thought as well.

And I have my orange tree. There is just something inherently uplifting about the green and orange of a naranjo—rain or shine—that comforts me.

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Beginnings and Endings

~ teganb ~ 2 Comments

Sevilla is no less beautiful than promised. In fact, its streets and cathedrals, its ornate architecture twisting through alleyways and wrapped around parks, comes to life with an awing presence far more thrilling than what the few photos I saw on the internet DSCF3114evoked. At any rate, I looked at very few, and was coming mostly on trust – Robin did the research. He ruled out Barcelona (because of Catalan) and I ruled out Madrid (too big), and then it became a game of where the cheapest Spanish lessons were to afford him a visa, while offering us a quintessential Spanish experience. Sevilla, warm southern Spain with Moorish influence on these stunning edificios, suggested a place we both would enjoy. A few days in and it has wooed me well.

Despite the winding, gothic beauty of the narrow stony streets, and the relative warmth, this trip has not started out easy. The last week has been fraught with the rapid decline in health of my Morfar (mother’s father, granddad), and on the night I arrived in Spain, my dear Morfar passed away. My Mom sat by his side, having flown over from Canada just in time, and held his hand as he laboured to draw his last breath. The rest of the Canadian family could not get there, and we are left to mourn his passing from afar. It happened so fast. He learned he had lung cancer a few weeks ago, but no one guessed he would be gone this quickly. Perhaps saddest of all is that he just turned 80, and but half a year further we were to celebrate his birthday all together in Denmark. Almost my entire close family was to be there – the first time in over 20 years for my Dad, and half as long for others. But Morfar could not make it. It became too hard to breathe, his lungs filled with fluid, and my Mom flew in just in time – just 24 hours before he died. I am so grateful they got to see each other one more time before he went. But god, it is bloody sad and I am having a hard time wrapping my head around it, and my heart.

Arriving in Spain feels like the culmination of years’ dreaming. The last few months have been overwhelmed with preparation. Now that I am here—faced with unexpected loss, still jetlagged and shaky—I see clearly and painfully how wrapped up we become in our plans, in how things ought to be, in how this or that needs to happen to make us happy. I am trying to let go of that as best I can. Plans rarely work out exactly how we imagine them, and often life presents us with something entirely different. Often we do not really know what will make us happy anyways, but certainly being present and appreciating what we have is one of the surer recipes.

I do not know what this year will bring. Walking along the river, along the cobble-paved boardwalks, I am doing my best not to fall apart as my world shifts and I don’t feel up to it. Maybe a bit more sleep will help. I think of Morfar and tell him in my heart how grateful I am for the time we did spend together. I do not know what happens when we leave this life, but regardless I wish his soul peace and so much love.

May we live and love well with the time we are given.