Lately I’ve noticed that The Cool is slowly and steadily dying away from me. Can’t say I’m sorry for its passing. Despite its beauty and allure, The Cool gets in the way a lot. It crowds out the tender, more delicate qualities — sincerity, earnestness, silliness, openness. Chokes their roots, hogs the water, blocks the sunlight.
I got rid of a good deal of it in high school, and shed some more in college. But The Cool is sneaky, and very tenacious. It can assume different forms. Some are cliché and therefore easy to spot: Beautiful Woman, Brilliant Student, World Traveler, World-Weary Activist. Others, though, are harder to detect. Some of The Cool’s most clever disguises include Polite Young Lady, Devoted Daughter, Good Friend, and more recently, Serious Meditator. It catches you off your guard.
Still, I’m getting wise to the tricks of The Cool, and I see it weakening. If there’s ever a funeral, you’re invited to come and celebrate. :)
My friend Nuria grew up in Catalunya, so she knows where to find the quiet beaches here. No screaming babies, squawking vendors, or complaining tourists. (Though those scenes have their own charm, too).
This Sunday she took me to a tiny one, 45 minutes by train outside of Barcelona. Maybe two dozen people in the little nook we picked.
We had a simple day, enjoying the sun and sand and water on our skin. (Bathing suits: unnecessary. Ya feel me?)
But even the simple days are also, inevitably, complex. When you escape the crowds, sometimes you find the loners.
First there was the white guy crouching in the rocks above the beach. Nuria’s eyes narrowed. “Qué hace?” she hissed, hackles visibly raised. She stood up to get a better look. When she was reassured that he had left, we talked about the violence of voyeurs. Men who spy on naturist beaches to ogle and masturbate. A couple of shady characters I encountered on The Camino. Nuria is one of the most loving people I know, toward everyone she meets, but she also has a temper, and this behavior is a big trigger. She has been known to throw stones.
So we talked about the ways in which these men are suffering from addiction, lost deep in their own pain and ignorance, and doing such harm to others because of it. How almost everyone on Earth, including ourselves, at times, is addicted to pleasure in some form or another.
And how, fortunately, most of the time, the collective, family vibe among nude beachgoers (who tend to have a higher level of comfort with their own bodies, and less sexual neurosis about nudity) overwhelms the negativity of predatory intruders. As we talked, Nuria opened up about her past, her own painful histories. Even on the simple days, these things tend to resurface.
Then there was the long-haired argentino dude who sat down next to us, asking for rolling papers and tobacco. His speech was so rapid and his accent so heavily Italian that I gave up trying to follow. One thing I did catch: “. . .parejas?” “Partners?” Pointing to both of us. Well, we are in Spain, a country that recognizes same-sex marriages. Maybe assumptions here are different. Maybe this was a heartwarming break from heteronormativity. Except that…it clearly wasn’t. I didn’t have to understand this guy’s words in order to see his intentions. Just the same old sexist fantasy: girl-on-girl action. And even better — a white girl with a brown girl.
Oh, dear.
Why does a day at the beach have to be so complicated?
Except that…it doesn’t.
There’s a lovely saying I’ve heard a couple of times recently, in different contexts. Just as darkness cannot survive the arrival of light, suffering cannot survive the arrival of equanimity. When you become equanimous — that is, fully present and accepting — toward something that is bothering you, it stops bothering you. You just see it for what it is. Someone is acting out their insecurity. Someone is doing harm. If the harm occurring is severe, requiring action to stop it, take action. If not, let it be. Let it pass. Either way, the first step is to observe, without a knee-jerk reaction.
Eventually, not finding the response he wanted from us, the long-haired dude left.
Did racist patriarchy spoil our day at the beach?
Well, we took some photos. You tell me.
——— [Heads-up: nothing explicit, but maybe not the safest for work]
Ok, so this section is about language, not kvetches, but it was too good a pun to pass up, no? :)
Cool, language. My Spanish is getting better, and even though I often end a day completely exhausted from trying to speak and understand, communication certainly has its benefits. Two weeks ago, I hit a major milestone: made my first friend by speaking only Castellano. A nice old dude in my favorite tea shop; he recently published a book on el amor del alma (love and the soul). In keeping with my inability to meet Spaniards in Spain, though, he was an Italian Jew. Oh, well. :) Tonight I’m having dinner with a for-real Spanish family — I met the mother at the meditation center, and she gave me a standing invitation to visit their home. People have been incredibly friendly and generous — with their homes, their belongings, and their patience while I struggle to find words and keep up. Feels wonderful.
In other fun news: false cognates!
1) If a friend asks whether you’re constipado, they are not being gross or rude — they’re just concerned that you might have a cold. The word means congested.
2) Since the suffix “eria” indicates a vendor (a gelateria sells gelato; a peluqueria sells haircuts), you can imagine my disappointment when I found out that a ferreteria sells hardware.
3) Mealtimes at the meditation center, we had to make sure to give extra food to the women who were embarasadas. Pregnant. Heehee.
And how’s this for a dairy-alternative brand name? Yo Soy.
Tomorrow I’ll take a bus from Barcelona north to Pamplona, and after resting for the night I’m going to take a walk. The walk will take me 30 days, more or less.
Back in the day, El Camino de Santiago (The Path/Way of Santiago) was a pilgrimage route to the city of Santiago de Compostela, in the northwest corner of Spain. The most famous route of the pilgrimage, El Camino Francés, begins inside France itself and stretches east-to-west all the way to Santiago, paralleling the northern Iberian coast. Since the camino’s transformation into a tourism thing (some people still do it for religious reasons, but most don’t), kind souls and entrepreneurs have established pilgrims’ hostels along the route, where folks can eat and sleep cheaply, then move on at dawn.
I’ll be bringing just a trekking backpack with a sleeping bag, change of clothes, some good boots, a map, money and sunscreen. I expect cold mornings, hot afternoons, blisters, fellow travelers, exhaustion, elation, and of course, the unexpected. Needless to say, I’m ridiculously excited.
This phrase has stuck with me like a kind of melody. I hum it every now and then. And it totally captures the spirit of my time serving at the Dhamma Neru meditation center. Especially during the last course, when they put me in the garden in order to spare me from kitchen burnout, I felt such a peaceful rhythm in the work. Lacing up my new boots; pulling on jeans still earth-caked from the day before; lugging shovels and buckets across the silent field; uncovering hypnotic centipedes, an ant nest with eggs like seed pearls, and giant, iridescent earthworms. Making friends with the flies that dive-bombed my ears the whole time, hehe. Turns out that instead of jerking your neck and swatting frantically, you can pull up the hood of your sweatshirt to block their targets. Then they just give you soft buzzing background music, sweet li’l thangs.
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
–Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
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Querid@s maravillos@s amig@s y familia,
I am so happy to be in this plain, because you are the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen. As always, I hope this note finds you happy, healthy, positive, and peaceful. And maybe enjoying some springtime weather, because lord is it ever gorgeous here in Barcelona. I’d forgotten what perfect sunshine can be like.
Thank you so much, again, for your wonderful mail — electronic and postal. I love hearing how things are going in *your* adventures, and I truly appreciate all your support as I continue mine.
And speaking of mail, since my friends the Parks have upgraded to a cheaper but cozier apartment right by the beach (um, score…), the new address for mail to get to me is
[Redacted :) ].
I hope the letter, card, notebook and postcard writing has been fun for you, and maybe even inspired you to write some additional old-fashioned mail to loved ones in other cities, states, countries. (Or, you know, down the block!) For me, putting my love on paper and sending it out has definitely been a welcome anchor and a deep pleasure. Even if the note gets lost and never reaches its destination, the good wishes are there. Besides, this is the main post office in Barcelona:
photo found onlinephoto found online
So it’s not such a bad errand to run, you know?
Ok, so updates. Again, for your convenience, a breakdown by topic. In keeping with the subject line (and my dorkiness), the Miles Davis theme continues, mostly[*].
If Barcelona is a harbinger of trends to come, get ready for the following:
something called “harem pants.” i don’t quite understand. i have seen one person who looked good in them, but she had that dancers’ carriage that can make anything look elegant. plus, she was working in the dhamma neru garden at the time, so mostly i just thought she looked very comfortable and practical, with lots of room to move.
for fans of the hipster rat tail, i give you: the dredlock hipster rat tail.
they are EVerywhere. well, it was only a matter of time.
Lots of these, too. Wear them and people will ask you directions.
I haven’t said a whole lot about what Vipassana actually entails. It’s not because I’m try’na be all mystical, but because I think there’s a danger of overanalyzing it. Personally, I spent years thinking about meditation, reading about meditation, wishing I were meditating, and never actually doing the damn thing, hehe. Much of the philosophy is so fascinating that it’s easy to neglect the application, the ‘swimology.’ But for the sake of transparency and non-cultishness, here’s my own quick personal take on what I do, exactly, in Vipassana.
Kloncke 