spain – andthepea

Relearning beauty, Latin-style

A discoball that’s sprung up under the boardwalk in the past week

I’ve been looking at my body all wrong. At least for the place I’m in, the people I’m meeting. Thinness and the style of clothes are secondary. What’s first is inhabiting your animal form, speaking and transforming through it.

I’m learning that beauty is more a projection and a feeling than an entity bestowed or withheld at birth. This, after a lifetime of Cinderella stories, which teach that a women’s beauty is intrinsic, an entity to be discovered and declared by others, usually men, but also fashion-arbiters and the media.

According to these myths, any woman who claims beauty for herself is presumptuous, because somewhere along the way, both the despots and the Cleopatras of this world realised that owning one’s beauty was a form of power. If women owned their personal beauty, then they might not have such need for the approval of men, their circle and wider society – they would have fewer doubts and use their strengths, both physical and intellectual, to get what they wanted. And that might just change the world.

bluefairy — *Habladores* preparing to samba

Having swallowed the patriarchal juju, I used to think that women who owned their beauty were intimidating and even grotesque, like the evil queens in fairytales or beauty pageants. Wanting to avoid what I considered to be the most complete form of ugliness, I decided that I would only be beautiful when someone told me I was; whatever advantages I had in my body, I would put into the hands of others. I played the Cinderella act well, but with the cost of disassociating from my body and any kind of power I might gain by taking ownership of it.

Here in San Sebastián, a half-sunny, half-wet Basque city with a prominent Latin American population, I’m seeing both beauty and bodies differently. The Latinos who have come here to work and study, have infected both native Donostiarras and those of us from elsewhere with their music, their dance and that untranslatable word, sabrosura, whose meaning hovers somewhere between deliciousness and love. In high heels and low, wetsuits and party frocks, Latinos and those they’ve Latinised, own their beauty. Not in a pretentious way, but in one that means they are comfortable in their own skin, enjoy food, music, movement, contact, display and attention. They have an enviable sense of the body as an earthly home, one that can nourish and keep them safe, but can also express their personality, feelings and desires. Their beauty comes in numerous shapes, sizes and colours and is generous, sunlike in illuminating the attractiveness of those around them.

dancing shadow.jpg — A little less conversation, a little more action…

Of course I shouldn’t idealise Latin culture, where both machismo – the cult of the chauvinistic male and plastic surgery are rife. Like their European counterparts, Latin/ised women bewail the 6 kilos that have snuck up on their thighs since moving to San Sebastián and even men feel under pressure to have that instagrammable tableta de chocolate. But while static bodily ideals exist, the beauty and the hunk are just a starting point. If you’re beautiful, so are others. What are you going to do with your beauty? What are you going to show and share with us?

From my outsider’s perspective, showing and sharing are vital in Latin culture, where people communicate more through the body and its five senses. I used to think of music, food, dance and sports as diversions from the important matter of discussing thoughts and feelings, but now I’m learning that these bodily, being things can themselves be the point of connection. Sensitive and restless, by both nature and nurture, for me, living through the body, is full of altibajos. Sometimes it feels grounding and sensual and other times, I find it limiting or even scary, when I can’t express myself through it, or my personal boundaries are being tested. But little by little, I’m learning what’s right for me, given who I’ve been and who I’m becoming.

This is one of a series of posts on moving to San Sebastián. I’d love to know what you thought of this post and how a change of culture also affects how you feel in your body.

GLOSSARY

hablador/a/es/as: chatty (adjective)

sabrosura: untranslatable word that hovers between tastiness and love. Somatic intelligence coach Chen Lizra translates it as physical self-love, meaning pride and love of one’s body.

tableta de chocolate: literally translates as a bar of chocolate, although the meaning is more six-pack, abs

altibajos: ups and downs

Castaway

Bella was in a mood that day. I’d struggled to lead her all lesson and we shouldn’t have insisted that she canter round the ring that third time at a broken pace, when she wanted to stop and have her lunch. Still new to cantering, I was on her back, drunk on exhilaration, fear and love, so far beyond my comfort zone that I was past caring. When she tossed her head suddenly, I lost my balance and already falling, tried to roll off her, but my foot was so far in the stirrup that it contorted. Bella stood docile while I was being rescued, her big mare eyes full of mock sympathy. She had gotten what she wanted, the lesson was over and she’d soon be munching through a pile of hay.

Un esguince, a sprain, is what everyone at the stables thought I had, when my ankle purpled and swelled. Un esguince, something that could pass in about a week. I held onto the hope in the hospital waiting room as I chatted to a similarly afflicted patient and read the first sixty pages of my fat Irish novel, quite calmly, wondering how much more alcohol Dermot Healy is going to pour down Jack Ferris’ throat and expect me to believe he’s still alive.*

Then, I was taken into a room and seen by Doctor Number One. He said he wanted to feel around my ankle, before looking at the X-ray, so as not to be influenced by sight alone. Doctor Number One was handsome and just so you know how shallow I am, his good looks and charm made me brave and smily. While he couldn’t see any fracture on the X-ray, the swelling was unusual for the hoped-for esguince, so he sought the advice of a traumatologist, aka, Handsome Doctor Number Two.

Handsome Doctor Number Two’s specialisation meant that he could spy out a fracture and a broken ligament in the X-ray, which were invisible to Handsome Doctor Number One. When this diagnosis meant a cast, crutches and an excruciating daily injection in the stomach to prevent blood clotting, I bawled, thinking that Doctor Number Two wasn’t so handsome after all, that I couldn’t speak medical Spanish and that I’d have to be in a cast and crutches for six weeks. I felt utterly helpless in that moment, knowing that I’d have to rely on an unfamiliar medical system and the kindness of friends I’d made in three months, as opposed to a lifetime.

wintertree — Wobbly, one leg on the crutch vantage

I have to admit, I was eased into the transition when my mum came to stay for a few days. When she left and life returned to normal, I felt fragile going back fully into Spanish. It’s like my maternal and linguistic crutches were removed and now I’d have to rely on whatever resources I had gathered in the short time I’d been here. Luckily, I had enough knowledge of the city to know where I could hop to in small, breathless increments and my friends of three months were ready to help me in the form of car-rides, medical translations and company.

I feel that I’m convalescing in Spanish too. Whereas in London, people either mind their own business or try to cheer you up, here is different. Strangers in the street offer assistance and advice, some of it confusing. How, old man, am I meant to avoid planting my foot in front of my crutch and go forward at the same time? Then, there’s the gallantry without harassment – a hobbling woman turns your average tipo (bloke) into a caballero (gentleman). And finally, there’s the pity. Which takes some getting used to. No-one is trying to cheer me up, a bad thing has happened, so I’m meant to feel miserable and a little afraid. Povrecita; It hurts me to see you like this, the grocer next-door says to me, life is hard. No, it’s temporary, I say defensively, it could have been far worse; No need to look at me like that – I’m smiling; I’m fucking Pollyanna.

Truth be told, I fear pity because the open, despondent look that accompanies it feels like the transmission of a curse. It’s like someone recognising that your misfortune is real, which to my emotional mind, makes it feel heavier and less transient than it is. But maybe, as part of my Spanish convalescence, I can learn to see pity differently, as a form of compassion, a common recognition that we’re all human and vulnerable.

*I always compare literary bodies to my own. While I love Jack and can understand that he drinks booze like water to cope, it’s hard to imagine this state in my own body, where the mere smell of wine makes me fall off a bar stool.

This is the fourth of my posts on moving to Donostia/San Sebastián. You can check out my last post about navigating the city’s linguistic scene here. Feel free to like or share.

Pilgrimage

If my brother hadn’t gone on that Tinder date; if I hadn’t been irritatingly hyperactive on the plane seat next to him, then I wouldn’t be here, almost two months later, hiking up a Spanish motorway. I’m in Gijón (written Xixón in Asturiano and pronounced Hee-hon), an industrial beach-town in Northern Spain that’s on the route to Santiago de la Compostela. Maps of the city have the scallop shell motif of Santiago (St James) informing pilgrims just which streets, petrol stations, cafes and kiosks they have to pass on their way. There’ll be more churches as they get closer, to remind them that their mission is holy.

grandmarin — Pilgrim’s choice: foot, horseback or water

Surfers, skulking around the bay of San Lorenzo are also on a pilgrimage. But their divinity, the sea is imminent and capricious. A day of blue sky and towering waves is auspicious. The tide is high in the morning; but by afternoon, when there’s barely a sliver of beach, the waves have come to meet the surfers. It’s more than some of them bargained for; only the bravest will descend the concrete steps, climb a wave.

I’m here on pilgrimage too, to see a singer called Rosalía. Two months ago, two days before Christmas, following a December that took more than it gave, I was sitting next to my brother on the plane. The five-hour fight to Paphos seemed overly long and I was restless. My brother lent me his headphones in an attempt to ‘sedate’ me. Playing was the music ‘TinderDate’ had introduced him to –Rosalía.

Descriptively it would be called urban flamenco – Rosalía, a young woman from Barcelona takes this indigenous Andalusian art form and makes it her own. Just a voice and a faithful guitar. But as an experience, it’s the kind of sound that makes you realise what other musics are missing.

Afternoon tide, San Lorenzo beach plus surfers’ footprints, Gijón

I daydreamed I would spend a few weeks in Spain, work remotely from there, on the last day of a holiday in November. In December when I had to leave the place I was living, a vague timescale was hatched – I’d go sometime around February. Now I’d add a Rosalía concert to the journey. I originally wanted to see her in her home-town, Barcelona, but only listening seats were available. However, in an obscure (to me) town called Gijón, you could have the full experience. I booked my tickets and diverted my journey.

I decide to walk to the concert hall, somewhere called Teatro de la Laboral, fifty minutes away from where I’m staying, which doesn’t sound too bad. Past residential areas, a few roundabouts, an avenue named after the German physicist Albert Einstein. Did he ever come here?, I wonder. Or can town planners name a street after anyone. Still walking, I follow the instructions on the route I copied down beforehand. A new moon sprouts to keep me company as the sun sets, turning the sky purple. As I pass a stream, a horse-riding track, a technological park and a botanical garden with a camellia festival, I don’t feel like I’m going to a concert at all. But I’m to keep going straight as as a deserted clock tower and amphitheatre come into view.

By Calle de las Clarisas, it gets dark. The road with its diminishing pavement leads to the clock tower. To my mind, Las Clarisas sounds like a remote nunnery. There are even fewer cars on this stretch of road; I wonder once more if I have the wrong route. My hands get cold and perhaps my feet too; I doubt that I have the right way. But the map, even the one on my phone, says to continue. I’m to keep walking, keep the faith, past the little cottage with the ceramic groves, up, up, up, until I reach the clock tower. Even cars are few here – but I’m to keep going, past the little house with the ceramic roof and the orange groves, until I reach the clock tower – one and the same as the concert.

Travelling to places I don’t know is the biggest test of faith. At times the way is so intricate and unlikely. At the end of granny’s cottage is your dream concert; Fireworks and a Hallowe’en parade are two stomach-swirling bus rides away; that strange man named Joey will drive the two of you to your destination – you’ll arrive interrogated but unmolested.

‘Laboral’ in Spanish means ‘labour’ – so hearing on that the concert would be at a Teatro de Laboral, I pictured a brick-red venue, bustling and beer-powered. The place, surrounded by columns, topiary gardens and terraces with a view of the mountains and moon, is nothing of the kind. We’re each assigned a seat and we’re to stay there unless to give an ovation. But as soon as the show begins, I see why we’ve been placed in this stilling fashion. Because we’re in the dark and all we see of Rosalía are her open palms and the shadow of Raül Refree, her quiet guitar player. Isn’t it odd to describe a musician, a person employed to make noise that people listen, as quiet? Maybe, but it seems that the while the guitar plays, the man is mute, not especially caring to promote himself. As for her, there’s enough variation in her voice, even the movements of her fingers for the little girl in front of me to start swaying wildly, as though it’s a Stones concert she’s at.

hairclip — Arrived and inserting a hair-clip

Rosalía’s voice has been described as magical. While flesh or paint or plaster sticks to the other arts, a voice is itself; made up of sounds you might or might not find in nature. The voice could be a divine gift and the singer carries it. It’s fascinating to watch Rosalía carry her songs – seated bolt upright, her legs in a wide squat, her palm an opening flower; slouching towards the guitarist as she hides behind dark hair; standing directly before the audience in the light. Throughout, you have the impression that the hands deliver the sentiment as much as the voice. My yoga teacher back in London describes the palms as the pathways to the heart; apparently, there’s a direct energy line between the two. Though it’s cold in the theatre and I’m inclined to shiver, fold my arms; I place my hands in my lap and unfurl my fingers, receptive to whatever spell is being cast.

Luckily, the route home is different, a bus-ride shared with fellow pilgrims and a walk back by the beach.