***
I knew I had stuff to read again. Cuenta todo (tell everything). I am going to build this book on these two words that God just gave me. Style will do the rest. Style is everything. This is my opinion. The crown of technic. So, where were we? Spain in the 70's. When grandpa took me to Aranda de Duero for once, the closest real town, in the morning bus, where Fernando still lives today, because apparently, and telling anecdotes from my summers in Spain at my paternal grandparents, and I needed a haircut. We left the hair salon with a band-aid on my cut right ear. Drunk in the morning hairdressers and anecdotes, these two were meant to meet each other.
I'll try. I even risk to tell things I already said, since in my first novel, I already novelized these holidays in Sotillo de la Ribera, and some of the Sotillanos. But it's ok. Firstly, I am untranslatable from French, Even if not all of my work is like that: hermetic like some of those antic Greek texts. Secondly, I am simply having a blast directly writing in English. I am making progresses and all. I dream to be able to be as good someday. Maybe in 10 or 20 twenty years. I think it is worth the effort. I feel so good when I am writing. It makes me feel alive and kicking. On earth, only playing Rock & Roll on stage beats that in my opinion. I hope it's the same for you in your speciality. Only that, but still way behind the epiphanies that God do give me so often now, of course. But it is another category. I classify it in the heavenly category. The competition killer. Cocaine and LSD can't compare. Nothing can. Nobody.
I mean, I once in my life smoked cocaine, in Sotillo, when I was 20 years old. The first time I went there driving myself, in the second hand Fiat Uno that Marina and Jose gave me when they bought another second car for themselves, with my wife even if we weren't technically married, and future mother of Lucas: Natacha.
It's my friend Louis who made it happen. Well... one of his cousins. I don't remember his name. I just remember the four of us that night, during the annual fiestas of the village, in the first days of September, when having a few days is just like paradise. Every corner of Spain has it's own fiestas days every year. And it all comes from the middle age. Colorful traditions. In big cities, every quarter have their own.
We were at the fountain of the village. Central piece now turned a park, with the occasional concert, since all the houses have had tap water installed many years ago. He started rolling a hashish join, and added a line of coke in it. It was totally unexpected. I was interested. Natacha was quite nervous first. You know, I grew up in a totally atheist environment, but her, she grew up with Jehovah witnesses parents. Cocaine is another planet, even for me. I quickly reassured her. She already knew that I am the good kind of Rock & Roll. The smart one. Full of culture, read books and religiously listened to albums made by masters like Miles Davis or Led Zeppelin. No risk to see it all going south like if spending a good night wasn't the better thing to do. I never started a fight. I am smarter, and faster, that is all. Excuse me. You can do it too. It is something neither that easy to be the only French one in a Spanish village, once or twice, nor to be talented but with a Spanish last name in central France, all the time. I think I am going to be just fine in Los Angeles. At home, eventually. Imaging: Spanglish! All this to say that just a few puffs completely stoned me. I was just so damn high suddenly. Don't tell my son. I couldn't stop laughing while watching the man in charge of the Ferris wheel, literally making it turn with just pumping a lever. Most hilarious thing ever. Silly me.
It is not the relatively small size of the Ferris wheel that was so hilarious, I am not a mocking spirit at all. Small village, small attractions, end of story. It is the drug. It had this manner of putting everything like "on stage". It made my brains find it to be extraordinarily attractive and exciting. It was just too dang fantastic, that man, making move this giant metal wheel with people on it, in carts for two, like that, hop! just by pumping a lever back and forth, coolly, with just one hand. It all looked divinely magnificent, super fabulous. Even his glances. Everybody's glances in fact. Everything. The all scene. It was all like injected with gilded light from heaven. Within, and shinning like trumpets at the same time, glorious as a party in heaven. And that was all. It also had that distance in it. Lights years. The observable universe is an illusion, so imagine, cocaine. Then, the drunkenness slowly faded away, as we walked here and there, in the joyous streets and bars of Sotillo, busy that night with sacred celebrations. An interesting painting to remember, tho. But dangerous. I will never do cocaine again. Same with mushrooms or LSD.
Thank to God, I had already read, at that point in my life, too many mind blowing books to realize the cons of such a man engineered powder, overcoat compared to the made in God's hands hashish, who frankly opens you the gates of heaven if you know how to smoke like an honest man, and who has no downsides, except it tires you, sir. Please someone, make us a legal and 100% pesticide free hashish that we can buy in shops, whatever the kind and the name you give them. There is nothing like paying taxes. Be glad if you have some to pay. Just make sure that the smartest ones won the elections fair and square. That is my humble political opinion. Vote even with your money. Every cent counts. Believe me, do not steal even just one. You are never alone.
I am against a regular use of the too potent drugs like cocaine. I have to be clear about that. I am a Father too. It is like LSD, or mushrooms, a once in a life time experience. Twice at best. More is dangerous. More is just you are already being a bad explorer. Meta-Geography is too risky for you. You are going to hurt yourself. Don't be such a joy downer when you are sober. The kind of storms these drugs create in your brain will only slowly lift you up, like a cataclysmic tornado would do, and will destroy your life, your health, your future, and leave you with tears and regrets only, and broken bones, stopped in the clouded side of the road, my friends. Read good books instead. Ask around to know which ones are the best ones. You can't imagine how of a mind blow they can be if you never read. How transforming they can be. Reading is like jogging, the more you do it, the easier it gets. Exactly like a sport. And you end up way richer for real. Do not whine that you are not smart enough to read books. You just have to start. You will become smarter on the way. It is almost a way of praying. Everybody has a thing to understand per day anyway, and Wisdom will talk like a book to you, always, if they don't are around, for few you do the effort to decently talk to her. Hashish is the wine of the drugs. And if you like neither drinking alcohol, nor smoke hashish joints, well, just don't and have a nice day the way you like it anyway. Let's just calm down irrational fears born from ignorance.
I am not a monster. When José lost control of their huge (for Europe) Toyota 4 wheeler, and crashed against the wall of that slope taking to Fondettes and their transformed old charming farm, I cried. I just had the slip second reflex to leave the hospital room, as soon as I saw how blue, black and timid, her face was. Her eye overcoat. And I was in my 20's.
I cried just after I saw my son Lucas for the first time too. It was different, but these tears surprised me as well by their same suddenness and unexpectedness.
I even cried, long after, on the little brothers and sisters of mine, that disappeared in the toilet, during my teenage, because they were trying to get her pregnant with the aid of the modern medicine of the nineties, which was not advanced enough to satisfy their parenthood desire. They had nothing really founding their couple they estimated. Only a baby with their both DNA could have. They never did more than just talking about adoption. I heard the word Brazil once. They should have. They would have someone to love now.
My hero was my cousin Kimet from Barcelona. A Santamaria like me. He died there in a traffic accident on his moped at the age of 18, but I loved him very much. To hurry to his house, as soon as arrived in Sotillo, was like the begin of 60 adventures. Our cousin Christina would be there too of course, since their fathers, both brothers of grandpa, lived in the capital of Catalonia.
He was so cool with me. They both were older than me, overcoat Kimet, but I was accepted. He wasn't
left apart when teams were sorted. He would check if this idea of biking to that super far away spot, impressive as a legend for a kids's mind, was going to be manageable for 4, 5, 6 years old me. A good boss.
This is it, I am making laugh myself just imagining mini me tried to keep up. Running here, and there, and to the bikes, or after Kimet of course. You are all legs when you are 4 years old. I have no idea what games we used to play together, Kimet, Christina, other kids, maybe cousins them too and me, since I think I still didn't met all the possible cousins I have in that Spanish village, but gosh I still have the sensation that it was constantly epic to try to be a rocket on two legs. Sad he ended so tragically, and so young.
I saw his parents again in 2004. Nice people. They invited me to diner at the bodegas, on the south side hill of the village. A beautiful place made of wine cellars dug in the hill, and picnic tables in wood, or in bricks & mortar, with benches or not, under the stars or under an almost troglodyte recess of the hill. Almost every Sotillana family has it's bodega, or shares one with others. There is nothing like in the world than dining chuletas de cordero that the men would have just barbecued on the thin embers of a faggot of local wine yard branches, standing, using a piece of bread as a plate, and throwing every now and then a fork in the obligatory ensalada in the middle of the table, by the poron filled with that red wine sometimes mixed with lemonade. All this during sunset, with, to crown it well, the echoes of someone singing a song, or the laughter of another family, in another bodega, having a great time them too. I always saw my father very proud of Sotillo, and the other Sotillanos too in fact, now that I think about it. You are supposed to hear the swallows right now. Or, of course, of the birds from where live. Sure you have a memory with one or several of them in it. Well, it was Angels, consider yourself forewarned.
At the hour of the almuerzo, what is called in English the 11am snack, the men of the village, like grandpa, and the younger ones like my father when they are in the village for the holidays, go there, to eat a little sandwich of chorizo usually, or some can of tuna, with of course a glass of wine, or two, or three, or four. What killed that shepherd? Uh? Alcoholismo! That is the kind of thing too, you might have heard once, as a kid, around the Sotillanos. You thought you was listening to men. You are wrong. Birds talked. Consider yourselves forewarned.
To follow one of their abuelo or father, down the middle age like stairs behind one of these doors you can find all over this beautiful hill, in the complete darkness if it wasn't for the little candle butt that someone has to be in charge of, in general the kid begging the most convincingly to hold it, and the rapidly progressing coldness of the thermic shock, is one of these eyes widening initiation that every child of the village experiences. Call Jules Mandatory Verne's someone!
The treasure's room. That is how the Penguin dictionary of Symbols describe cellars. Buy this dictionary everyone! It's French. You will thank me later. You know I became an American now. I am adopted. At least I hope. Therefore the American recipe should take a little addition in the form of a dash of French way to be spiritual again. Universal melting bayou pot all the way!
The cellar is the closed place, where people hides the wine or the provisions. The houses of the Hebrew ended by terraces didn't had attics; rooms protected from the heat and the light, sometimes dug up in the soil, were used as cellars for the wine and the provisions. The cellar can also designate the treasure's room ; as in the first temple, a room was used to collect the produce of the tithe. It is talked about the cellars of the second temple (2 Ezra, 13, 12-13 ; Malachi, 3, 10) in which the Israelites had to bring they offerings.
On the spiritual plan, the word cellar possesses a precise mystic meaning. Bernard of Clairvaux will say that God the Holy-Spirit guides the soul in the cellar, to make him realize of His richnesses. Le cellar thus correspond to the oneself's knowledge, the soul who knows itself succeed to exercise charity on others, she gives what she possess and refuses to conserve for herself only the received benefits. The Christ directed the soul inside herself, the Holy-Spirit encourages to share his spiritual gifts. The cellar is compared by Bernard to the second sky. In the mystic order, the cellar again designates the room of the treasure, which we talked about earlier; but here, the word cellar designate the secret room, in which the soul must penetrate so as to meditate while acknowledging the received graces. Cellar takes here the meaning of interiority, of room of the secret.
In Islam equally, the cellar where is conserved the wine of the divine knowledge symbolizes the sacred place where the mystic one goes to unite himself to his God.
Dang interesting in my humble opinion. That dictionary is an absolute must read, if you want nowadays to be a voice in the wold's theological debate, not just a student, or even a passionate commentator, whatever your faith or rank. Kids are magicians too. They are sirs and ladies like you. They just happen to know much much less than you. Please guide them correctly.
All this reminds me that time when a giant spider suddenly appeared just before me. What a beast, almost a shoebox! I remember this little guy like he could have had attacked me foot! All teeth out. A champion. A Queen! Mother of a million babies. Hey, that is not stupid! This creature was a messenger for sure. It was suddenly there, epiphanic, shacking twice it's incredible two front teeth, and pfeeoot! left the place even faster than it entered it. The magic of this memory resides in how exactly exactly in front of me this spider was, like triangulated on my forehead, and certainly it's third eye. The Angels exist, and they happen to ride on horses back, anytime. Earthlings just can't out speed them. Better cooperate.
Manuel had a few stories about fabulous animals from faded away decades, when the countryside was even more the countryside, and nature even more natural, that means plastic free. I don't remember a single one of them but the one about grandma's sister Nicolassa, when in her little field, back in day, she run away from a snake with a head as big as a cat according to what she said, apparently. She was being made a little fun of her because of that. They had some difficulties to believe the amazing size of that danger. Personally, I understand she might have been very surprised, and impress. We once pedaled away from a fox. I did't saw the animal, since I was a little behind, during the only bike ride I ever had with him. I guess he just wanted to prank me or something.
I also never saw the famous palomas. They never really recovered from the civil war. But the local legend says that pigeons were covering the roof of the church, quite big for a pretty small village, to the point that Sotillo de las Palomas was with Sotillo de la casuelas one the nicknames of this charming crossroad of Castilla y Leon, surrounded by Burgos on the north, Palencia and Valladolid on the west, Segovia in the south, and Soria in the east, and linked by the hip to Aranda de Duero just 17 kilometers away, just like the little companion star of HR 5171, the yellow hypergiant star that the scientific community recently spotted using ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer. They flew back to the past. Miraculous move.
The locals ate them. Voila. Period. They must have starved to a point we can't realize, us westerners from after World War II. That day when I came back home with the antic and more than winded air rifle of uncle Fernando, and a dead sparrow in the hand, stays one of the most astonishing moment of my youth.
Without a word, grandma took the bird, plucked it, cooked it, and gave it to eat, salted, on a piece of bread and with a dash of olive oil, to grandpa. It was like he left only the beak. A feathered impression. I was so surprised to have feed grandpa like a little Tarzan.
Sorry if I tell you all this in the disorder. Time traveling always get harder and harder to narrate. My head is gliding in eternity, while the rest of my body is here rooted in the marvelous reality. I wish you the same.
Bicycles were the internet of the 1920's. You could suddenly go to another village, and back, the same day! Guess what, you could suddenly marry that cutie, from precisely that other village, impossibly far away. Even the wind would help you to look like my
thic. Expedition total hero. Imagine. In the 60's, grandpa would take the whole family to Aranda like that! That means grandma behind, sat on the carrier with baby Fernando in her arms, Juli sat on the top tube, and Manuel on the handlebar, and him of course, somewhere in the middle of that human grape, pedaling God only knows how. These laughters they must have had, at least once, or it is not possible. Bikes weren't made for people wanting to go from point A to point B during these days, they were designed and built with in mind people trying to flatten them. Solid stuff. In the eighties I was still using that bicycle myself, way too big for me, obliging me to ride it, I don't know how to call it in English besides: funky style, because of the top tube under the armpit.
In 2004, I even turned this venerable bike into a Picasso. You wouldn't believe your eyes. Just the way I turned it into a tricycle with the spare wheel, and the saddle, it was grandpa himself, there, reincarnated into a bike. Overcoat the saddle. Him, exactly, with his typical Spanish horsey face. It was so positively beautiful. I can't believe they threw it to the trash. The rust was such a part of the magic and all in this piece. My second sculpture, after 40: A portrait of Marcelo Santamaria.
I can say that I since I am disappointed by my step uncle Jesus. I trusted him till then. I was so surprised when he won the tour of Roa, because he is a racer. Little league amateur maybe, but real, with the gear just like the professionals of the tour of France. During the holiday weeks they would spend in the village, his bike would be hanged there, in the entrance hall, incredibly modern looking compared to everything else in the house, except for the eventual typical mini arcade video games my cousins and I had, like double screen Donkey Kong.
I perfectly remember when the floor of this part of the house was still made out of clay, before the hombres made a cement slab for my grandparents. They bought a little black & white TV amazingly late. All this to say that, before, tío Jesus was a hero of my youth; shaved like a lady legs, iron calfs, perfectly aerodynamic suntan, special high on slow sugar diet included, and muscles, everywhere, even ones you didn't knew they existed and that make you take a look at your own knees again!
I told him once. We were in the backyard, him my cousins and I. Doing I don't remember what around the bikes, besides being a little bit taller than the handlebar. I just recall that he was sat and that I was watching the spokes of a wheel. "They should make the wheel with just 4 of them, in plastic!" They weren't invented yet, or at least seen by this part of the world and us. He was not convinced. I let you imagine his "nah" and his smile. He couldn't believe that we'd ever have materials strong and lightweight enough for that. Nonetheless, this type of wheels was everywhere a few years later; every kids dream. We never talked about my prediction again, but I am sure he still remembers it. I am such a pain. I guess I don't realize sometimes. It's not intentional. Leave me nowhere near a Trivial Pursuit board game. I read too many science magazines. Am quantic.
But he did indeed won the cyclist race of Roa de Duero, a Sunday I guess, Jesus of Colindres. He used to come back silent and smiley from his practice on the roads of the region, shiny and covered in sweat, in his typical cyclist clothes, full of colors and dots, filling the modest entrance hall of the house with the tic tic tic sound that cyclist's soles shoes do. I never saw him create a problem, or smoke a joint. Just cigars and alcohols, moderately, for a Spaniard. I am back on jogging like in my 19's, but it is not what is going to stop me from smoking a maximum of joints all the time. Sad sometimes you just can't. I will not smoke and drive. Just one or twice. There is days where you got to be that rascal everybody loves, even the birds.
His wife Juli is just the opposite. She smiles, yes, but she's annoying. She is a teaser. Too horsey for a human. It is weird. Horses are not like that. I had to tell her once, to stop hitting me in the back like that, each time she sees my back, when brush passing me, for example, while sat at her kitchen's stable in their apartment in Cantabria on the north coast. Usually she would had a wooden spoon or some other kitchen utensil in the other hand. Years long. Like a maniac. Each time she sees my back. And tac, and tac again, and then the question she has in mind, just to push buttons. Nothing is for free. You are going to pay for this meal, sobrino, no matter how! Not to meanly of course; you know, with a smile anyway, but annoying you, paf! here, just for you, another pat on the back: do you want more paella? Paf! Answer, Franchute!
It's a sign. I am right now looking in my memories, for which one with her in the middle I could tell here, and I find no other one. Not that she is a monster, just, it is she don't interest me anymore. You are not interesting, Juli, voila. Jódete! Now that you heard that, sure you will understand me now. Viva la revolución!
With my cousin Jesus and Victor it was cool. I was their Kimet. Kewl. Sadly, they didn't have had the time to know him, but I was their hero, and we were under the same roof. How much fun we had together us three? All the fun in the world, like plenty of you. For us it was creating super car accidents, in slow motion, on the floor, messing our knees and elbows. We would read a lot of Spanish comic books like Super Lopez, Zipi y Zape, and of course the unavoidable adventures of Mortadelo y Filemon. All of them, anyway. There is never enough comic books in the world to read for young boys. We were no exception. I am even convinced that there such a thing as a magic life of the comic books. Angels in charge to throw them here and there, in piles or well arranged, abandoned of preciously kept, for a kid to read for free, and even noting down which one he read, to send that little corsair you are elsewhere, tomorrow, for that Smurf's album with missing covers along scribble made by an infant hand, and something for you to learn in it.
They were still nice guys the last time I saw them in 2003, the last time I had a car. Both practically married. I cannot hide that I am a little bit disappointed in them. I guess that they are even more disappointed by themselves. You know... all my cousins are tall guys. It is only because of me and my 5'7 that we can't be a Basket Ball team. Well, we are not friends with cousin Diego, that is another reason, more real. I am ok, yet, it is embarrassingly visible that they have been hard on me. Believe me, I come from a "savings first" family, overcoat when this money could have been spent on me, even just for meat. I still do not know up this this day how in the world I managed to never satisfy them. They do not risk to see me at their table again. Heavens. Lucas only. Not that I hate them. I'd like to see Jesus and Victor again. I know that the Sky is, in a way or another, going to tell them what they think about their silence since they knew about all these Prophecies and Miracles. It was a harsh silence in my humble opinion.