June 23, 1999

Outside our window, on the neighbor’s roof, the clean sheets hanging on the clothesline gently flap up and down, billowing like sails, blown by the welcome breeze, dancing continually as the soft air lifts and drops its breath. The breeze cools the heat and it is bearable to exist here today. We are becoming gazpacho experts, tasting gazpacho at nearly every restaurant we try. One day, a day with no breeze, that was all we ate. The next day we added fish in the evening and even that seemed too heavy and my stomach was bloated. But the third day we were hungry. Today we tried eating earlier but we weren’t really hungry and the salty salty food of another new restaurant again bloated my stomach. I tried to sleep this afternoon but only rested and now it is nearly time for class and I am hot and tired. Despite all this, I have nearly finished the Siguiriyas and have managed to learn each new part before my next class.

June 27, 1999

So much has happened that I don’t find time to write about. I finished learning the Siguiriyas Friday and will start the arduous work of polishing, of working on style on Monday. Concha says to get ready to sweat, that now the real work begins and we will both be sweating. It is a little scary, like jumping into cold water, but it is what I want and what I need next. If I can get it, it will be dramatic and my dancing will really change. I practiced Saturday for an hour and a half and today, Sunday, for two hours. I now have the arms I learned Friday that go with the end steps I learned on Thursday. I keep going over the whole choreography so I won’t forget it. I still have to think about what comes next in this ten minute dance and sometimes I still forget for the moment and leave out sections. But sometimes I get the whole thing right. Today Freddie and I ironed out some difficult parts that I wasn’t fitting to the music, that were slightly out of comps. I practiced late as I have had a touch of a stomach flu and didn’t feel up to it. When I started it was quiet. Sergio was outside in the patio watering and no one else was around. After an hour Freddie came down to play for me. As we finished, a few people (customers) had already straggled in and some were up by the stage watching us. I find I can just blank them out now instead of getting nervous. It is a lovely and quiet time to practice. Tomorrow I will still get up early (I have the clock set for nine thirty) and practice before my class, which is now at one. Then I will try to get a second practice in in the evening before the Carboneria fills up. When Paco had suggested that I practice in the evenings too if I wanted I had said that I didn’t want to still be practicing when people showed up but he said that would be fine, that it would be good for them to see me. So I did and I like it. The “door man”, Jose Luis, who watches the front door for Paco, always comes in now and says Ol with big smiles. He introduced me to his wife recently as a “good dancer”. It’s nice to feel the support here at the Carboneria. The people who work here are like a family, and of course some are actual family of Paco’s. Saturday, before I practiced, Paco asked me if I were going to practice that day, because I hadn’t gotten up early to practice as usual that morning. That was because, the night before, we had gone to Utrera for the Potaje Gitano, a six hour Flamenco show with primarily Cante (singing) which happens every year. This was the forty third year. It didn’t start until eleven PM so of course we didn’t get to sleep until six AM. the next morning. I hadn’t even planned to practice that day because my stomach hurt but after Paco’s question I thought about it and decided to do it that evening. I felt much better afterward and I had a good practice both Saturday and Sunday. The people here at the Carboneria keep tabs on my practicing. They are very aware of when I skip a day.

I don’t think I wrote that I have been setting the clock to nine forty five in the morning and getting up, drinking our green drink, and then going downstairs to practice. I usually start about a quarter to eleven or eleven but I keep trying for earlier. Paco has said that it is OK for me to practice that early. At first he said that he couldn’t hear in that room (from his bed) but after I started he said that he could hear me. But then he told me that it didn’t bother him. Don’t worry. He only dislikes hearing strange voices and things like that when he’s sleeping. He is like me, (Freddie says, “like us”) he likes to hear Flamenco while he is sleeping. I asked him again if my early practice time was bothering him and he assured me that it wasn’t. I finish by twelve, when it is time for Tula’s lesson with Concha. Then Freddie and I dash out to the Alta Mira and eat a quick breakfast, usually gazpacho, fresh orange juice and coffee, and then we hustle back to the Carboneria to get ready for my one o’clock class with Concha. She has built her schedule around my class so I will try to add extra practice times in the evenings when she used to teach her group classes. It’s much less hot in the mornings and evenings and everyone has more energy. However, it has been cooler lately. When we went to Utrera for the Potaje Gitano we froze. We had brought light jackets and I had worn thin, long pants, thinking that would be enough, but we were cold and so were most of the audience. We took a taxi there and back, splitting it with Ilan and Gabrielle, the young teen age couple from Santa Cruz who are here to study Flamenco. It made it very easy. The sound system was bad and the show was not great. Freddie had been to an incredible Potaje in eighty five so he was very very disappointed in this one. But I had always wanted to go so I was happy that I finally got to go, even though the Utrera Flamenco hey day seems to be over. It was still fun. They gave us wooden spoons to eat our potaje with which of course we have saved as souvenirs. They traditionally serve free potaje, wine, and bread. Potaje is an Andalucian bean soup that is very Gitano (Gypsy). During the intermission the waiters came around to the long white paper covered tables lined with people sitting in chairs on both sides. The waiters carried the large pots of potaje to each person and served it into the plastic dishes waiting on the table to be filled. Concha’s pregnant niece, Esperanza Fernandez, was one of the featured singers. Her father, Curro Fernandez and Pepa de Benito (also related to Concha) sang in Carmen Ledesma’s group which performed last. Carmen Ledesma was the only dancer. She too is a close friend of Concha’s. We met all of these people at Concha’s return-from-Japan party. Only her sister, Pepa Vargas (Curro’s wife, Esperanza’s mother) did not sing in Utrera. I don’t know why. Concha said the next day that she had already heard that the show wasn’t very good and that many of the artists had said they didn’t perform well. Word goes quickly. Paco had heard too, perhaps from Concha. But I still had fun. I have a tape at home from an old Potaje that is great. “Voy pa’ Utrera,” (I’m going to Utrera) is part of a Flamenco letra (part of a Flamenco song). And the famous sisters, Fernanda and Bernarda the gypsy singers from Utrera, have made me feel a warmth towards Utrera because I love their singing. Utrera has taken on a mythical aspect for me. So I am glad I went there this time.

The day before, Thursday, we had gone with Paco, Luis and Concha to a Flamenco presentation nearby in the Barrio Santa Cruz at the French Flamenco Association. They are bringing many artists to France soon for a big festival and the guests at this event were the who’s who of Sevilla Flamencos. Freddie canceled his lesson with Carlos because both he and Carlos were going. I, having had a one o’clock lesson, had the rest of the day off so I washed my hair after my dance class and then painted my nails for the first time here. Then I put on make up, also for the first time here, and wore my black sleeveless silk dress that I bought for Elun and Donna’s wedding. My hair was down and everyone did a double take when I came down to the patio. It was fun to dress up.

Afterwards we had planned to go with Luis and Paco to look at some guitars that were supposed to be great and cheap. However, towards the end of the presentation Concha asked me if I wanted to go with her to the Macarena Pea (neighborhood Flamenco club on the other side of Sevilla) to hear her sister, Pepa, sing to present her family’s (Familia Fernandez’) new CD. We decided that we would meet everyone later at the guitar shop. So Concha and I took a taxi to the Pea and arrived shortly after Pepa had finished singing. We sat on wooden folding chairs in rows with Concha’s family and her good friend, Aurora Vargas (not related), a very well known Flamenco singer. Concha’s non dancing/singing sister, Carmen, whom I had met at Paco’s granddaughter’s Baptismo party was there. So were both Pepa’s, Curro Fernandez, and some other family members as well. We nibbled caricoles (snails) and had fino (very dry sherry) and then red wine mixed with Casera, a sweet, carbonated drink. Then Curro spoke and played about half of their new CD. I had already heard it because he had given one to Paco at Concha’s party which Freddie and I had later borrowed it from Paco. Afterward hearing the CD at the Pea,, we waited on our hard wooden chairs, Concha and Aurora talking to each other so quickly that I hardly understood anything. There were hopes that more music would happen but it didn’t really get going, at least not when we were there. Some of the people who had been at the earlier function had come to this one too, including Concha’s family, Jill (Pedro Bacan’s American widow) and Lucy del Gastor. I talked with Jill (in English) for a while. She filled me in on what was happening. When we left Concha asked me how I liked hanging around the gypsies and I said that I wished I could understand Spanish better, which was the truth. But it was still fun. We took a taxi to where we thought the guitar store was and then looked at the tiny writing on the card again, with my glasses on, and discovered that we had to walk a few more blocks to the actual store. Concha walked slowly in her high heels. We went down an almost deserted street in what looked like an industrial part of town. We found the address and rang the bell and someone called down. Everyone had been there and left. It was two o’clock in the morning. So Concha and I took another cab back to the Carboneria where we finally joined everyone, including her husband Rafael, who was working behind the bar. Luis had just finished singing and Freddie had videotaped him and Carlos. The guitars they had gone to see earlier hadn’t been good and they hadn’t stayed long. But the street that was so deserted when we came had been filled with people several hours earlier. It was interesting to see the same people perform in Utrera at the Potaje whom I had just been sitting and talking with in an audience the night before.

June 28, 1999

I received an e-mail the other day for Rubina and she received the same e-mail also at Johnny and Celeste’s e-mail address. The great Canyon Walk with Philippe Petit has been postponed for a year due to scheduling problems between the national and international television broadcasters. Luckily we were waiting to change our tickets until Luis actually signed the contract and had his tickets in hand. So now we are back to plan one, returning as scheduled on September 15, in time to celebrate my father’s eightieth birthday on the eighteenth. We don’t know now how Luis will get to the US but we are sure that he will. He is hoping for other work there as he still plans to do some iron work for us and wants to attend our wedding. He also would like to spend some time in the US and to visit his sister, Angelita, who lives in San Diego. He is planning on staying with us when he comes. That will be nice. In the morning when he wakes up here, we hear him singing softly from behind his closed curtain. He hears me go down the stairs to the bathroom. “Ba bum ba bum …. “ a little part of a tune comes out of him as a yawn might come out of someone else. I like to see his music oozing out of him, not just there in performance but in life as well. Concha also has dance oozing out of her and dances at almost every chance she gets. I used to be like that but now I just practice and practice. Concha commented the other day about my loving Flamenco. Of course that is something I take for granted. Of course I love Flamenco. That’s why I am here. I just wish I felt like I knew enough to get up and dance at a party here in Spain. But I am timid and am here to learn. So I get my dancing in when I practice. We started to work on the styling today. And Concha was right, I sweated. I practiced an hour and a half this morning and then an hour later took my hour class. Tonight I practiced for another hour, much of it with Freddie. I am trying to not only work on the steps, but to get the full dance so well in my memory that I don’t have to pay attention to what comes next, but to how I am dancing it. I seem to be mixing up the two escobillas right now. It is frustrating to have it and then lose it again. But I will get through that also.

Freddie too is pushing himself. Carlos makes him stop and play it over whenever it sounds “dirty”. We both get frustrated but we keep on going. I finally realized how much of his time Freddie is giving me. He plays for my practice, but not all of it now, and he also plays for my classes. All this takes time away from his personal practice time. As I swept the floor today and hung up our clothes I realized that although I do it because I can’t stand the dirt and mess, that it is also a fair division of labor. I can clean and do the dishes, which I have been doing, when Freddie is practicing. I can only dance so much, and then there is no place to practice and my body can’t dance as long as Freddie’s fingers can play anyway. And Freddie gives me hours each day that he could use to practice what he is learning from Carlos. So I clean our room smiling because I am giving back to Freddie as well as to myself. I am appreciating him and his wonderful good nature. We talked the other day about his finding more practice time and now I am understanding what he has been figuring out and telling me. We are such a good team, we work together so well. And we talk out any potential problems and come up with solutions quite easily. Our chemistry is just very compatible in so many ways.

Carlos just distracted me by playing an incredibly beautiful and complicated piece he is teaching Freddie. It has a new arpeggio in it and of course it is very difficult to play.

June 29, 1999

Sweet Panther (Pantera Dulce) that’s what she calls herself, that’s how she dances. She has the force and strength and the stillness and grace and raw emotion of Panther. Concha Vargas is a very shamanic person in her way of being. The more I spend time in class with her the more I like her. She is giving and fun and fiery and totally supportive both with positive and encouraging feedback and with helping me to form my dance, such as showing me how to access the dynamic side of me. She is warm and kind and full of energy. Contraction here, she says, and I remember from my childhood modern dance and I hunch a little too much. But I see it now in the video and I can correct it. She really worked up a sweat in me today and my left knee (the old injured one on which I used to wear a knee brace when I practiced my dance), that healing left knee, is now hurting again. I have put on the oils and taken anti-inflamatories and I might have to dig the old knee brace out of the suitcase until my knee stops hurting. My poor body. But, my feet don’t ache so much any more and the small blister under my toe has receded and my two corns on top of my two fourth toes aren’t too bad with the corn cushions I use. Now my knee and leg ache. There is always something hurting or stiff at this age (or with this dance). But the dance is improving. Today we worked on making the first part of the Siguiriyas both strong, sweet, and dynamic. Now I just have to get it.

June 30, 1999

I dug out the old knee brace last night and pushed myself to practice for an hour in the sweltering evening heat. We ended up getting to bed after three AM again but we got up at nine thirty and I got an hour and a half of practice in today before Tula’s twelve o’clock class with Concha. Freddie played for my last half hour and I was drenched in sweat by the time we finished. Then we ran out for a little breakfast and I had my class with Concha at one. I used the knee brace but now my leg and knee are still hurting. I took my shoes to the shoe repair man to have the rubber on the bottom replaced because I was starting to slip on the stage, and my knee hurt walking there. Both my thighs are stiff as well. So I called Concha this evening and canceled my Thursday class because I couldn’t practice this evening or tomorrow morning. I have to have my first shoe fitting (for the shoes I am having made at Menkes) in the morning before my feet swell. After that we plan to go to police department to get our visa’s extended. You are only allowed to stay three months in Spain now unless you get special permission or leave the country. David Jones says you can just go to Morocco. I have also heard that you have to return to your country of origin. Hopefully we will have to do neither.

Yes I am pushing myself. Concha had warned me that this is where the work starts and she is right. Make the body tense, more tense. Contract. Now open and stretch higher. Get that crease in your waist, this angle. It’s hard to translate the words into English. But I push my body to its limits to change the style. I think Concha is a phenomenal teacher.

Freddie and I were just talking about Luis’s Andalucian English. For example, people in America won’t understand that a “fa” is a fax. He leaves off the ends of his English words as he does with his Spanish words and then he mixes his sentences with both English and Spanish. Sometimes when I can’t understand a word it turns out to be an English word with an Andalucian accent stuck in a Spanish sentence. Only other Spaniards or Rubina, Freddie and I and a few other people (probably Flamencos) will understand Luis’s English! And the reverse goes for some of our Spanish. In Utrera at the Potaje I asked someone across the table, “Quin es?” (asking who a certain singer who was performing was) and it took them moments of thinking to finally translate what I had said to “Quin ay (or ) (as in the letter a)?” Technically I was correct but when I said it the way it was written people couldn’t understand. My accent had to be somewhat correct too. Now Freddie’s accent is good and just this week his Spanish ability took a big leap and he is really speaking Spanish. His tenses are better and his syntax is getting very Spanish. I guess because he is a musician he has a good ear and can pick up accents as well as falsetas. He also picks up how people say things, such as putting the you after the verb instead of in front of it like English does. “Que pasa tu?” he says.

July 1, 1999

We got up early and went to the police station which is not air conditioned. We waited in line for nearly three hours only to find out that we had filled out unnecessary forms, that we needed two copies of our complete passports, two photos, a bank statement (which we had), and international health insurance (which we didn’t have)! But we did find out that we could go to Morocco instead and get our passports stamped again, so we could stay another three months if we wanted to (and could). So one of these weekends in July, before the 28th we will take the ferry to Morocco. It will be more fun than waiting in line after we spend a bunch of money for unnecessary services. It was 46 degrees centigrade today, probably hotter than the 21st. I don’t know the exact translation, but I do know that it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Both my legs and knees ached from standing in line and it was hard to walk. We stumbled back to the Carboneria around two thirty and Paco, Maribel (a young Spanish dance student of Concha’s, pronounced Mari-bay), and Luis were sitting at a table outside on the patio while Concha was teaching another private class. (Concha seems to have no trouble filling all her days with private classes and I can see why. She is a phenomenal teacher). Luis mentioned going to the beach and Maribel had a car. Paco couldn’t get away but we could. Freddie canceled his class with Carlos and within half an hour we were driving to the beach in Chipiona, about an hour and a half away. Actually it was after five PM when we finally arrived. It was much cooler there and the water felt great. It was the first time I had been in the ocean here, the Atlantic. The waves are not too strong and the beach is shallow for quite a ways out. There were some large, sharp rocks but we made it in twice without injuring ourselves. How quickly I forgot how hot Sevilla was until we arrived back about midnight and it was still sticky hot. Freddie and I took a shower and I started to do laundry. Yes things get going late here. Now it is one thirty AM and we are still too hot. Yesterday, on a whim, I had asked Luis about the possibility of Concha giving me classes, if she wanted to work, at his house in the campo when Concha spends August in Chipiona (which is very near Luis’s house). He said that he didn’t want other people at his house, only Freddie and me, Paco, and a few assorted other friends. And there is really no place for a dance class. So I stopped thinking of that idea. Sometimes I forget that Luis is a very private person. He routinely turns off his telephone during the day and never checks his messages. He prefers the country to any city and periodically must return to the country to recharge himself, to get his head back together. Then today, to my surprise, on the way to the beach, he said that he had talked to Concha and that she was willing to give me lessons at the Pea in Chipiona when she is there in August if they are agreeable! What a wonderful surprise. Then Freddie and I could spend time at away from the August heat of Sevilla and I could have more classes from Concha. It sure was hot here today, and muggy. The sky looked all overcast instead of blue. Freddie thinks air conditioning would help. He’s probably very right!