Duende Andalusia

“Something magical always happens in Triana.”

A wealth of historical knowledge and secrets, Carmen’s words were truth. We wandered the streets of sunbaked plaster and cobblestone with subtle spats of bright blue tile glinting off the Moorish, Gothic and Renaissance architecture. I ooed and awed at the intricately painted tiles on the side of Casa Montalván. Reminiscent of the buildings in New Orleans, I wondered how much influence this building pulsed. A gentleman walked by, stopped and noticing our intense interest and then invited us right in before the place opened just to view the old ceramic kilns, original tile prints, and murals. Giddy, we accepted his generous invitation. Once the world’s focal point of trade, there is definitely something special here that is more than the centuries old finely crafted personal touches of masterful artists, craftsmen and craftswomen. Something so special that it hovers on the precipice of being overlooked and lost by most who visit southern Spain.

Flecks of indigo and gold have permanently bonded to my heart, kicked and sprayed up by the feet of two incredibly talented flamenco dancers. Their whole being resonates with life’s need for purpose and motion.

—TO BE ALIVE.

Bereft of words, I am overcome by a feeling I cannot and will not even try to describe, nor can I capture the charge in the brio of their body language. They physically move ‘passion’ across the stage punctuated by raw guitar and the numinous pair of singers. It was an ethereal moment of the past on up to the present that will stay with me the rest of my life.

The gypsies, from whom flamenco welled, were pivotal laborers of Triana in the late 14th century as blacksmiths, craftsman, and sailors. Within the courtyards of their corrales, their feet churned dust into art. Their dance tells a story of struggle and pain, of blessings and grace, of secret nights when the heat dissipates and the city breaths rich with tapas and sangria. It tells of the early morning hours when the streets are empty but brimming with parrots who chatter away swaying in the palm trees of plazas. It speaks of survival over centuries, of perseverance through wars by surrender and enduring instead of destroying, of building on that which is already there, embracing what is and expanding on it. The dance is of painted tiles and a tomb name erased with the scratch scratch of echoed disgrace, of the legend of two women martyrs whose faith defied an empire and overflowed jars of clay.

—A FORCE THAT TAKES HOLD

This story is centuries full still playing out today and tomorrow. In a place where cultures danced around each other, collided and fused into the colourful beauty permeating the senses.

I was positively ebullient as I drove down Spain’s southernmost roads along the coast towards the Gates of the Mediterranean. Ever since reading the myriads of versions in Greek mythology and Dante Alighieri’s Inferno XXVI as a teen, I was filled with an appetency to see—no, to stand and just be—at the Pillars of Herakles. A place and its meaning can have more weight than how impressive it might appear. A version of the myth I liked the most centered around the Straights as the mythological site where the Titan, Atlas, finds freedom from an eternity of damnation. The pillars are created to hold aloft the sky away from the earth liberating Atlas from carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. Standing on the point, hair swept high by wild winds from the east, I was not disappointed.

—CARESSED BY A MUSE.

I thought of the countless battles and sieges fought upon the waters; the explorers and navigators who dared to journey further; ancient men and women who sat in this very place contemplating the extent of a horizon and the heavens. The rock of Gibraltar was a sheer pinnacle of sea spray and the cry of gulls. Just on the other side could be seen the North of Africa, Morocco. More than its cliffs this place was ne plus ultra, a marker for the unknown of what lay beyond the Mediterranean. A gateway where those who traveled past were often in the vastness lost to those who stayed behind.

The journey continued along the coast from its southernmost tip, now northeast towards Estepona for paella and an unexpected conversation. Las Marias was mesmerizing. The hosts of the meal, Maria and Raphael, filled my heart with laughter—shaking the pan while cooking with ‘sexy moves’—as well as my stomach with the best paella and family wine. Their generosity was enhanced by their effulgent storytelling banter. The farm was full of memories that have remained in Raphael’s family for generations. Their passion was sharing the family paella recipe and authentic conversation with folks from around the world. We talked about them opening their home, meeting people for the first time and the kinds of interactions they’d experienced with guests.

“You can tell a lot about people by just looking in their eyes.”

Maria’s words were truth.

She recounted a story I will not soon forget. Many of us get lost along the diverging labyrinths and paths in life. Some are darker than others, but sometimes detours are where the miraculous awakening of the spirit is found. A dear friend was lost to addiction, his family tried to help but soon realized they could not. His eyes were vacant, hollow. He had to want help, want to change. He pushed them away and his addiction pulled him into homelessness. Day after day, a policeman walked by and told him that when he was ready for help, to come to the station and they would help. Years went by along with the dwindling of his soul. One morning, he woke up and propelled himself to the station. That day he chose the journey of recovery, sobriety and reconnection with his family. He’s married and doing really well. Now when he walks the streets past those in the grip of addiction and homelessness, he lets them know that when they are ready, he is there to help. His eyes now had that glint, that life, that…

There it was again, that something there just hovering, teasing to be grasped. What was that just on the periphery?

I was then reminded of the true accounting told by Clara, historian extraordinaire, of the painting in Seville Cathedral by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo – The Vision of Saint Anthony of Padua. In 1874, the clergy woke to find that Saint Anthony had been cut out of the canvas leaving a gaping hole in the painting. The church had lost their beloved patron saint of lost and found things—the irony. It was in all the papers worldwide. Several months later, a dealer at a pawn shop in New York purchased the fragment from an anonymous seller. The fragment was brought to the embassy and sent back to Seville, Spain where Saint Anthony was restored back into his painting.

—WHAT IS LOST IS FOUND.

To find something so profoundly moving and powerful shared in a dance, a story, the generosity of strangers who seemed like old friends, a myth and a muse on the wind, shaking up paella, a personal touch painted on a tile centuries ago, a pomegranate on a tomb profoundly stabbed, the life breath of a city, the spin of Giralda’s weathervane, the mere company of others…

There is magic, miracles and secrets in Andalusia, but only these can be discovered by standing there and just being, being alive and filled with centuries of taste, touch, smells, feelings, sights, sounds and the whispered word ‘duende’ on the breeze.