June 3, 1999

Is it being in love? Whatever it is I am thoroughly enjoying it and my physical body has been healthy and strong and seems to be getting stronger. Perhaps the lack of tension and the increase of walking are also helping me. I am sure the second hand cigarette smoke isn’t. But climbing all these stairs constantly should also count for something. I think of the stair masters in the gyms and know that I have my built-in one right here. My dance, my dance is inspired when I hear the beautiful music my lover, the love of my life, is practicing. I try to practice each detail of my dance the way he must practice each detail of each exercise to be clean and controlled. His music drives me to dance, to practice, to move, just like it did when we met and I knew that I had to study Flamenco to dance to his music the right way. Now, as he approaches sixty and I fifty five, after more than twenty six years, I can start to do his music justice.

June 7, 1999

It is Monday night and the Carboneria is less crowded. Already people are leaving Sevilla for the country and the sea shore. It is unusually cold this summer, a blessing for us, because the weather is balmy and pleasant. It was starting to get too hot when this coolness came, with soft wind fanning the heat and the sweat. People say that summer has not yet hit and when it does Sevilla will be like a furnace. We are thinking again about whether we should stay here or find an air conditioned apartment. We find that we spend a lot of money eating out because we have no stove. But then again, we want to see more of Spain so we might just travel to the cooler regions right here in Spain.

Concha is back. I had my first class with her today and started to learn the escobilla for the Siguiriyas. Last Saturday she gave a party to celebrate her return from a month in Japan and her husband Rafael’s release from jail. Rafael is a quiet man, giving an air of refined sensitivity and kindness. His gray hair softens him and he looks like the last person who would spend time in jail. I heard that he had taken a drug rap for someone else but I don’t know anything else about it. He sang a beautiful Siguiriyas at the party. It was a great party with people whose names we had heard before, Curro Fernandez and the Familia Fernandez, Carmen Ledesma, Pepa Vargas. People were friendly and relaxed. Carlos and his family were there and his two year old, Fatima, danced a buleria in her diapers that blew us away. Her little foot stamped right in compas. The adults encouraged her and I saw again that Flamenco will not die if this tradition continues, if the parents continue to take such joy in the passing on of Flamenco to the next generation. Concha and Rafael’s eight year old daughter Carmen also danced and sang. The smiles on her parents’ faces again spoke of passing on the tradition. Both kids were good and had been around good Flamenco all their lives. We have videos of them dancing. I thought it would make a wonderful documentary to video artist parents passing their art on to their children like this, in an informal and relaxed setting. Rubina also sang and danced a little and everyone loved it. Luis’ face was beaming in a huge smile as he watched her. Carmen who cleans at the Carboneria was there and she too sang beautifully, with tears in her eyes, truly meaning the words she was singing. Freddie and I were tired because we had rented a car the day before and had driven with Luis and Rubina to the Feria de San Lucar. At this Feria all the Casetas are open and people are continually dancing Sevillanas. Rubina and I both danced and everyone but Freddie drank wine, beer, and manzanilla. We spent the night at Luis’ house (near Chipiona) which is near Sanlucar and then drove back in the morning and arrived in time to return our car and take a quick shower before going to Concha’s. By the time we arrived at Concha’s the food was almost but not quite gone. Concha makes wonderful gazpacho and luckily there was still a little left. I found out today that their apartment is new. They must have bought it just before Concha left for Japan.

June 8, 1999

The wind continues to fan the heat and Freddie and I continue to practice and to take classes. It doesn’t leave much time for much else. I will be doing a soul retrieval (Shamanic work) for someone who works here, on Thursday, which is Freddie’s birthday. I will have to change the hour of my dance class to do it. The other day, while eating salmorejo (like gazpacho, but thicker and with ham in it) at an outdoor table at Bar Modesto, we talked on our movil phone to Viva in Granada (a young dancer friend from Sweet’s Mill who has been studying dance for her junior year of college at the University of Granada). She too said, after immersing herself in the Spanish life all year, that if you do just one errand in the day you have accomplished something. There is little time for more, but I guess that is the price you pay for slowing down the pace and relaxing. We are still working on going to bed earlier and last night I made it by two AM! When it gets hotter it will be important to be up earlier and to take a siesta during the strongest the heat of the day. So now, all our friends and family, try not to call us after two AM Spanish time just in case we make it to bed early.

Freddie and I both notice that our Spanish is still improving. We can both understand almost everything that Nacha and Jose Luis say to us. Although I must admit that Nacha has learned how to talk more slowly and distinctly to us. When Paco forgets and speaks normally (rapidly) we still miss a lot, but not as much as before.

I have just realized how courageous Freddie is. He is working so hard to change his entire style and technique: the way he holds his hand, the placement and curve of the wrist, the amount of movement and placement of the right hand fingers, the length of his nails. There are so many things to change and during this transition he cannot play what he has learned in the last fifty years. He has played scales over and over, becoming cleaner and cleaner while yearning to play the falsetas he knows so well and to learn the new ones that Carlos can show him. But Carlos keeps pushing the technique first and Freddie now can start to play the old falsetas cleanly. And some of the exercises Carlos has given him are beautiful and haunting. Carlos is a task master with Freddie, not letting him slouch on compas, tone or cleanliness in his playing. Carlos is with Freddie the way Freddie is with me, making me do it more and more cleanly, perfectly, over and over, not letting me slide in the least. And now I see my Freddie and his wonderful determination and I try to encourage him as much as I can. On Thursday June 10 he will be sixty years old. That used to seem so old to me and now of course it doesn’t. Juan Camas, the cantaor brother-in-law of Paco’s who lives in the room with cardboard walls on Paco’s floor, told me that Freddie is young. Juan is eleven years older. He is seventy one, Paco’s age, but he looks to me like eighty. He looks like an old man, much older than Paco and much older than my father who will be eighty in September. Yet, despite his appearance of age, Juan has a girlfriend, for two years now, a young architectural student of twenty seven.

Carlos is teaching Freddie a falseta right now and they just had me listen. Freddie did it right. It is a complicated contra (counter time) tune with a jazzy upbeat sound. Carlos won’t let Freddie get away with anything and he stops him and makes him do it over, and sometimes more slowly. Don’t run. It’s the same thing that Concha tells me. Play it less “brusque” is like dancing it lighter, not pounding the floor. I am learning the escobilla as of yesterday. I learned two more steps of it today. Now remembering what I learned is the challenge, and stringing them together. I have to learn them by heart before my next class tomorrow at seven PM. The choreography Concha is teaching me is a little different from the group class, I discovered. Yesterday I took her group class because they were working on parts of the Siguiriya I had already learned. But they have more footwork because, Concha said, they are younger than we are and can do it. We are older (and I am sure I am a lot older than she is) and so we do less footwork and concentrate on our body and arms. She said this in class and later Delphine, the girl (young woman) from French Montreal, Canada who is here for two years to study Flamenco, came up to me and talked about it. She thought Concha was too blunt but I told her that I was older and didn’t mind it. That’s why I have let my hair go gray. Even so, Delphine had thought I was in my forties, not my middle fifties. I had told Rubina a few days ago that I would put a temporary dye on my hair and that Freddie would do the same, but every time I pass a beauty store I know that I don’t want to do it. I like my gray and I don’t care right now if I look “older”, if I look my age. And I don’t want to spend the time dying my hair, I want to dance. I want to write. I don’t want to take time away from these things to dye my hair. So probably I won’t touch it. It is a big job just to wash my hair here because the hot water tank is so small. I usually try for the afternoon, and then I wash my hair with cold water for both shampoos and then after the conditioner is on I get in the tub and turn on the hot water to wash myself, after soaping without the water on, and then I rinse the conditioner from my hair with the rest of the hot water. That way I have just enough. I hate to think of what I would have to do to put dye on both Freddie’s and my hair too. And then I probably wouldn’t like it. When I tried to explain that I liked my gray hair to Concha, and that Rubina and others wanted me to dye it, Concha started to tell me what color she thought it should be! A little darker than the tinted part I still have. Everyone in Spain, at least all the women, seem to dye their hair, no matter how old they are.

June 9, 1999

I found out today that Concha is only forty three! I guess that people here in Spain, and I know in many other countries too, look older than we do, although Concha does not look old to me. If I dyed my hair and appeared even younger, would people expect me to dance as a younger person too? Despite my looks, my body is still fifty four, almost fifty five years old. It is in good shape but it was in better shape when I was forty three! Today I learned the rest of the escobilla. Class at seven PM is harder because I am tired and we couldn’t find time to eat first. A package arrived but we had to go to the post office to pick it up and that was our eating window. Time sure flies here. Last night we fell asleep early as we watched the video of my yesterday’s dance class. But we awoke at two PM to actually go to bed and our room was filled with smoke. We looked all over and opened the windows. The smell of something burning was definitely in our room and not outside but we couldn’t find anything burning. Finally I told Freddie I was going to the bathroom and we could look more when I got back. I was so tired I just wanted to go back to sleep. I went downstairs to the bathroom which is below our room and I discovered that someone had put a cigarette in the plastic trash bag that hangs in front of the toilet for toilet paper. (In Spain you don’t flush the toilet paper, you put it in a bag instead, because much of the plumbing is old and can’t handle much paper). Anyway, the plastic had melted and the contents of the trash bag were burning on the tile floor. I got a bucket and poured water on it and stopped the burning. Then Freddie and I got dressed and went downstairs to tell Paco. He started to follow us up and got sidetracked and we were too tired to wait. As we started to go back up the stairs Freddie told Sergio, one of Paco’s sons who works at the Carboneria. He immediately came up with us and then said it was probably his fault! I know he comes upstairs to use this bathroom. He cleaned up the mess. It still smells of fire and someone has placed a fan on top of the washing machine. We were able to get the smoke smell out of our room by turning on our two fans and opening the windows. We went back to sleep and managed to wake up at ten AM and get out of here by eleven, which is early for us. We went to a new place for breakfast that we had discovered the other night. It is in a little plaza beyond Plaza Alfalfa. We ate outside and watched the Spanish morning. There were few tourists, if any, in this part of town. Spain does start later than the US and this was still fairly early in the morning. The stores open at ten AM.

After breakfast we looked in a few jewelry shops keeping an eye out for wedding rings and then went down Calle Cuna to Menkes, a very well known maker of Flamenco shoes. I bought a practice skirt there but they had no shoes with the right heel in my size. I will order some, but I have to come back at ten AM before my feet swell so the shoes will fit right. Concha recommends buying my shoes at Menkes. She thinks they are better than the Corrales that I have but she said to keep the same heel, the Cuban heel, which is low and easy on the body.

She loved my new skirt today. I have no class tomorrow because Concha is performing in Madrid. It will give me time to cement into my brain what I have learned so far of the escobilla. After this there is one more letra and another escobilla and then an ending. Then I will be concentrating on bulerias. I had thought to also try other teachers but I think I will get more out of this experience by just concentrating on learning this Siguiriyas and gypsy, fiesta style bulerias. I like Concha’s gutsy, funky, “down home” style of bulerias.

Freddie and I are both thinking that we don’t want to leave. We love it here in Spain and will plan return trips on a regular basis. I think I want to learn it all this trip and I know I can’t. At last we are learning to navigate our way (walking) in Sevilla. This week we have taken some exploratory walks and are starting to learn the layout of this part of the city. It is fun to know where we are going and how to get there quickly and not get lost. It takes about five minutes of a fast walk to get to the Giralda, the major cathedral in Sevilla. When we were first here we went to meet Carla and Miguel there and got lost. It took us half an hour! But we had a nice walk and they were late. They arrived shortly after we did so at least the timing was perfect, it was Spanish.

June 11, 1999

Freddie turned sixty yesterday. In the morning we went to Menkes and ordered my shoes and then we ate breakfast, starved, at the little restaurant near there, Bar Europa, which we discovered the other day. While we were still in Menkes, a small shop filled with shoes, dance skirts, leotards, and other dance related items, Rubina and Luis called and said they were on their way to Sevilla and wanted the telegram which we had read to them over the telephone the day before. It was about a driving citation that Luis had to take care of. I had a soul retrieval scheduled at two and told them that I couldn’t be disturbed during that time period. They arrived earlier and decided that they too wanted soul retrievals and would take care of the citation the next day.

I set up our room for the soul retrieval, laying two blankets on the floor and covering them with a sheet. I placed a pillow at the head. I burned rosemary instead of sage, for purification. I had a piece of fresh rosemary in a plastic bottle of water and a white feather I had found the day before. I placed a new candle in a green bowl that Leslie had bought for us at the rastro (flea market). I had my medicine bag around my waist and my tape recorder with earphones so I could hear the drum. Fortunately I had brought my traveling rattle with me to Spain. The client, a gypsy employee here, had brought me some dried rosemary. Many gypsy women here, dressed in long, colorful skirts, walk around selling rosemary on a donation basis for good luck and Luis always buys it from them. I don’t even know the word for sage in Spanish, but in my journeys I have been told that I can use romera (rosemary) as I use sage, for purification. I was a little nervous about doing this work in Spanish and without my usual shamanic tools, but the soul retrieval went very well. My client’s face was totally changed by the end of it. And the next day (today) she reported that she had slept very well at night for the first time in a long time. She was still smiling too, which was good, because she has a long term depression which even medication hasn’t been helping. Who would have thought that I would be doing soul retrievals in Spain? Certainly not me. I came to study dance. I ended up doing one for Luis that day too, but postponed Rubina’s to the next day so we could continue to celebrate Freddie’s birthday. And I also wanted to practice a little to prepare for my next class. In the evening before the sunset, around eight PM, the four of us (Luis and Rubina and Freddie and I) walked to the Triana bridge to go pedal boating. On the way, just before we reached the Giralda, we ate ice cream which in Spain is much better than at home. By the time we reached the river Luis had decided that he really didn’t want to go pedal boating so he and Rubina waited on the shore and Freddie and I pedaled for almost an hour. It was fun, relaxing, and tiring. There is something about being on the river just before sunset, floating in the warm wind as the day starts to cool, that is totally enchanting. We pedaled first west into the setting sun, with Triana on our left and Sevilla on our right. Then we turned east and when we passed the dock where Rubina and Luis were sitting we called them with our mvil to see if they had changed their minds and wanted to come with us. They turned around and saw us and waved. A little later they walked along the river bank as we pedaled up the river, but we were faster than they were. Afterwards we ended up walking all the way back home again and Freddie and I discovered parts of Sevilla we hadn’t yet explored, including the arched gate in the old wall of Sevilla. There are only two left of the sixteen gates that were in Sevilla long ago. This one originally divided Sevilla from Triana. I had arranged a surprise party for Freddie’s birthday at 10:30 that evening at the Carboneria with Nacha. She was bringing the cake. It is hard to keep a secret from Freddie because I tell him everything, but I did keep this secret. We were a little early as we passed the Giralda so I suggested that we stop at a nearby bar we knew for a quick tapa. We ordered coquinas (tiny little delicious clams) and of course they took longer than I counted on. Then I had to rush to pay the bill and hustle us out of there. Only Freddie didn’t know why we were rushing but I told him we needed to change clothes to go out and eat. Then I told him I had to hurry because I had to go to the bathroom. Rushing is not very Spanish and I am even surprised that there is a word for it in the Spanish vocabulary. We were about ten or fifteen minutes late but Freddie was really surprised. Nacha had bought two candles in the shape of five and added five more small ones to make sixty. I carried the cake and Carlos lit the candles when we were almost to the patio where Freddie was sitting with Paco, Luis, Rubina, Jose Luis, Alfredo, Sergio and others. I sang happy birthday in English, with people singing the words they knew. Carlos brought Freddie a tiny guitar as a present. The cake was delicious and Freddie’s sixtieth was celebrated in style. After we ate cake we got to listen to Luis and Carlos perform. Then we ate some food at the Carboneria because I hadn’t arranged the day to get us fed before the surprise party. By the time we were done eating we got to hear Luis and Carlos perform a second before we staggered upstairs to bed. It was after two AM so we are getting tired earlier and getting up a little earlier too.

I remember years ago, for his fortieth birthday I gave Freddie a huge party at my house on Amesti Road. It was before the adjacent lot was sold and the houses built so the land stretched to the next street, filled only with plum trees and weeds. There were no neighbors to disturb in those days and the party lasted until dawn. We roasted a goat over a spit outside and Steve and Alice Peterson made paella, also outside. There was a small platform for a stage that Freddie had built next to the chicken coop (converted into a simple house) where he was living at the time with Jenny and her daughter Jesamy. The flamenco went on all night, on the stage, around the campfire, and later in our house. I have given Freddie other parties too, before we were together. Last night’s party, the first since we have become a couple, was smaller, but it was in Spain! My birthday gift to Freddie this year will be a new guitar, made in Spain, when we find the right one.

June 12, 1999

I started to learn the second letra of my Siguiriyas today. People are impressed with our dedication to practicing and learning here and are being very supportive. A lot of people see me practice because there is no privacy on the stage here and I have learned how to block everyone out and just to concentrate. Paco says I have first choice of practice times here and I can start earlier than I thought I could. I had been afraid of disturbing him if I started too early. Of course, I can’t practice in the evening because the Carboneria is open then. Concha usually starts to teach here around five o’clock so I have to get all my practicing on the stage done before then. Freddie and I are getting a reputation of being “practicers”. Yes, it is what we are here to do. Concha wants Luis to sing the Siguiriya for me and Luis wants to do it. I can’t believe all the support I am getting here. I love it and it makes me want to do even better. Rubina says she thinks I am going to get very good. I hope she is right. The other day I had only been practicing half an hour and Concha and Rubina walked in and I got distracted —I blew the new escobilla that I was practicing with Freddie and was disappointed and upset because I didn’t know that Concha was going to teach a private class. I had had to wait for space on the stage to get my time to practice and I really needed at least another half hour to prepare myself for my next class. I couldn’t help crying, I was so frustrated. But, everyone said not to worry and Rubina told me that everyone had been impressed with what I had been doing. And I could only see my mistakes. That was when Paco said that I had the priority of practice times.

I haven’t written of this yet, but it seems to be for sure. Luis has been hired to sing in the Grand Canyon while the French high-wire expert Philippe Petit crosses the canyon on his high wire. This “performance” is being aided by the Navajo Indians and will be televised world wide. Although the contract won’t be here until next week, Philippe was here last week and definitely confirmed, after he heard Luis sing, that he wanted him. Luis will fly to Arizona on August 31 and the performance will take place either September 5 or 6. Luis wants Freddie and me to go with him. Rubina, who leaves for the US on Monday morning, will fly with us from San Francisco. Afterwards Luis will be able to stay with us because he will have an open ticket for his return to Spain. He plans to do some “fragua” work for us, which means working with a forge to make wrought iron railings for us. We have been walking around Sevilla looking at railings with him, talking about what we all like and what we don’t like. He would like to stay in the US at least until after our wedding. So we are planning to leave Sevilla early, with Luis, to witness this spectacular event at the Grand Canyon although we have not yet changed our flight reservations. I think that neither Freddie nor I will be ready to leave. We have so much to learn here. And then, we want to see a few sights too! But learning is certainly taking a priority. Concha will work with me on styling once I have mastered the choreography. And then we will move on to buleras. I know that Freddie and I will just have to come back to Spain to study more. I don’t know if we will return in September or wait until next year. We will see. Will our beautiful home in California keep us from returning to Spain immediately after my father’s birthday? We can’t know that right now. But I have time off from my psychotherapy practice until January of 2000 so we could go again if we wanted. Of course Luis will be at our house in California. Will we feel done with Spain? Spain grows on us more and more, especially as it is becoming easier and easier to speak Spanish and our brains no longer feel so overloaded. We even discovered recycling bins near here the other day. It used to kill me to toss all our plastic bottles in the garbage. Now we can take them to a plastic recycling bin. I love it. Yes, Spain grows on us and we wonder how we can leave it. Of course if you live here you want to travel to other places, like Luis does.

Concha too would like to visit the US, both to teach and to attend our wedding. I am hoping that Rubina and I can get someone to arrange classes for her. I will be too busy with our wedding to even attempt it. The most I could do would be to arrange a week or two of classes in my dance studio. Concha is willing to come next June or July, whenever we want. The wedding of course is June 10, so we will be sure to arrange that she arrives in time for that. If she is here in July she may want to come to Sweet’s Mill although she won’t be able to make money there. She is a wonderful teacher and her Spanish is very easy to understand. Her style is very gypsy (which she is), from Lebrija, which I like. But she knows how to teach Madrid style dance too and this is what she gives the “young ones”. We will see what happens. She will either give Rubina promotional materials tomorrow before Rubina leaves for Madrid or she will fax them to her soon. Fax in Spanish is pronounced “Fa”.

June 14, 1999

I have finished learning the second letra of the Siguiriya and will start to learn the second escobilla. It is a beautiful choreography. Today I got two hours of practice in and it showed. We changed the time of my class to five PM which is better. Now Freddie and I have time to eat before he takes his class with Carlos at nine thirty.

June 16, 1999

As to the subject of age, I wrote about it the other day. But to reflect more on it, I had these thoughts today in response to an e-mail I received.

I was recently asked in Santa Cruz if I were the mother of a beautiful Flamenco dancer who had just danced on the stage. At first I was taken aback but as I thought about it, I could have been her mother. I was old enough. I don’t think I am aware often of how I look, except mainly when I dress myself.

I also have an article on my web site about Sweet’s Mill, Dance of Mortality, about passing on the art of dance to the younger generation and becoming the elder generation. The only thing I really don’t like about aging is the deteriorating and often aching body. The rest just keeps on getting better. And I do like my gray hair!

June 17, 1999

Unfortunately, today, Thursday, while pedal boating on the Guadalquivir river with Lainey and Ken (my sister and my brother-in-law who are visiting us for three days) our wonderful mvil phone fell into the river. Freddie grabbed it out of the water immediately; the writing on the screen went blank but the green “on” light was still blinking. A little later Freddie took out the battery and when he put it back in the green light was off and we haven’t been able to get the phone back on since. It beeps in the charger and the light comes on but nothing appears on the screen and the green “on” light does not come on. So for right now we are out of the instant communication of a telephone. Lainey (known to her friends as Elaine) and Ken arrived today and will leave on Sunday so we might not find out whether the phone is fixable until Monday. But luckily, the e-mail is still working. (Calling the Carboneria and leaving us a message is still an option, but difficult unless you speak Spanish.) But hopefully, no one will need to call us before we have it fixed.

June 21, 1999

This day of the Solstice is so hot that it is hard to move. The fan blows the hot air around and around without cooling anything, and almost everywhere it is like being in a oven. Inside the air conditioned Alta Mira we sit at the bar for coffee with ice in it and cold gazpacho. The air conditioning in Sevilla is not cold like in the US, but is cooler than outside and quite pleasant. Paco now sits inside for breakfast and we have finally followed his example! It is lovely inside, away from the furnace of summer.

We had to replace our beloved drowned phone today and I do not like the new and cheaper one as much, but at least we have a phone again. And we were able to keep the same number because the card in the other phone was not damaged and in these Alcatel GSM phones the cards (“tarjetas”) are interchangeable. And the phone repair store had air conditioning so at least this errand was bearable. At first I was a snob about air conditioning, not wanting to get used to a “false” cooler temperature and not be able to get used to the heat, but now that the heat of summer has started I am appreciating air conditioning in a new way. After fifteen minutes inside an air conditioned restaurant, we felt renewed when we again walked out into the heat.

This morning (Monday) and Sunday morning too I set the clock alarm and got up early to practice, before the worst part of the heat. Yesterday Lainey and Ken saw the end of my practice around 11:30 AM. Freddie and I were hot and tired and I made some mistakes, but I danced the Siguiriyas through what I have learned so far, almost to the end of the second escobilla. They loved it and Ken said that he had tears in his eyes. They both loved Freddie’s and my interaction which I think by now we often take for granted. They were able to see that artistic and emotional connection between us that is so much a part of our relationship. It was so nice to have that kind of acknowledgment from my family! Freddie and I both enjoyed Lainey and Ken’s visit. I took a break from practicing for two days and classes for four days and went sight seeing in Sevilla with them instead. We saw the Giralda and the Alcazar, Casa Pilota, and the museums in the Parque Maria Luisa. I skipped the Belles Artes museum because I had seen it once already and I had to take a nap. Ken has almost unlimited energy and each day he went running in the morning, exploring almost every part of Sevilla. With his map in hand, he became our guide. It was fun to be a tourist in Sevilla for a while and I enjoyed my time wandering through the beautiful Alcazar gardens with Lainey and visiting with both Lainey and Ken. But now again, I am the dance student. After not having dance classes since Wednesday, I am happy to be back to it again, heat and all. It was so hot at five PM today that Concha decided to change my class to seven o’clock and to stop her group classes, which have become smaller since the heat of summer and the vacations began. I am almost done with the second escobilla, progressing a little bit more with each class. Practicing in the morning is my solution to learning in this heat. I just have to make time to take a siesta, which I wasn’t able to do today. The other day, at the Alta Mira, we ran into a nineteen year old Flamenco guitarist from Santa Cruz, Ilan, and his seventeen year old girlfriend and dance student, Gabrielle who have come to Spain to study. They came up to our room last night and we did a little Flamenco. It was fun. Luis stopped in for a little while until he had to change clothes to perform. That night Freddie made a break through and his playing was clean and beautiful. Luis had a big smile on his face as he watched Freddie play. Freddie was able to play his old falsetas finally with his new technique. This evening at Freddie’s class Carlos kept commenting on how well Freddie was playing and how well Freddie kept his hands in the right position and his fingers from too much movement. He kept saying (in Spanish), “Marianna, look at this, look at Freddie. He’s doing it all right! It’s perfect.” All Freddie’s work is finally paying off. It is exciting and I am very proud of him. We are both so lucky to be able to take these classes so consistently. We appreciate our luck and are working hard to take advantage of it. And so our saga continues, class by class, day by day.

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.