Spanish views from a small town

Have you got fifty-two thousand euros lying around? Buy yourself a village. You might have to spend a bit more on reforms, though, since a tree is growing through a wall of the largest house. Two hundred forty eight thousand will get you five water mills (four restored), a main house of 700 square meters, two rivers, and 24,000 square meters of woods. All this only nineteen minutes from the city of A Coruña, beaches, and golf course.* If you don't feel like getting into a fixer-upper, you could spend three hundred eighty-five thousand on a beautiful fortress-palace from the eleventh century, fully furnished, the house consisting of two floors, 250 square meters each, and a meadow that measures 23,000 square meters surrounding the entire house. It's a little bit far from the major cities, though, just outside the town of Lalín, at 47 kilometers from Ourense and 63 from Santiago. It's a steal; it's list price was originally €785,000.* It's the truth of a problem t...

This semester my daughter has an interesting class called Philosophy of the History of Religion. It sounds quite fancy and deep, but the two words that caught my attention were "history" and "religion." I love history in just about any form, and I've always been interested in the different belief systems man has held since he began to wonder about the world.  My daughter said there would be no problem with my attending the class as an observer, especially since the professor is relaxed and approachable. So yesterday at twelve thirty saw me sitting outside the classroom, waiting for my daughter and ready for my return to a formal classroom in almost thirty years.  There were very few students. Empty seats gaped here and there and from the middle of the classroom to the back was a sea of emptiness. Not many people rush to study Philosophy; it doesn't generate money in the real world. The professor had his notes in book form, and referred to them copiously....

September is my month. I am on vacation, with no classes. Yesterday, since my husband wasn't coming home for lunch, I went for a drive. I decided to go to Vigo along the old national road, the N550. It passes through countless towns and the city of Pontevedra before reaching Vigo and melting into its urban streets. As I was driving, however, I automatically made a right turn into the entrance to the tollway that runs north to south from Ferrol to Tui. My automatic pilot was on, so I turned it off and took the first exit, to Caldas, where I finally incorporated onto the N550.  As I drove south from Caldas, I remembered an old disco, A Condesa, where I had gone once with friends, well over twenty years ago. Now, large modern factory buildings dominate the area, and the disco is long gone. Lone gone, too is what used to be the cheapest gas station in the area, buildings in ruins, spray painted logos on them, weeds adoring the tarmac. Further on, to the left, is the park Ría de Bar...

Without realizing it, it's all around us. I remember it was ubiquitous in every street in Boston. Here, even with the European fame of its supposed non-existence, you can find it easily in the most unsuspecting places. We're surrounded by trash. It is said that even on Mount Everest, one of the last pristine places on Earth, there is trash that climbers have left behind. If they could carry up their belongings, why couldn't they carry them back down? That being the case, it shouldn't be strange to see overgrown ditches stuffed with papers and plastics and cans along our roads. It has become commonplace for us when trying to find out of the way spots for our picnics when we drive around Galicia, to find a beautiful little corner and see it filled with all sorts of junk from previous travellers. Tissues, plastic wrappers, plastic bottles, bags, smashed cans, cans bleached from the sun, everything that was too much of a burden to someone to pick up and take back home to ...

It is said that man is the only species that uses language. (Listening to some animals, though, one sometimes wonders.) It seems our world is built on shades of meaning, and perceived intentions of language. The true power of language has nothing to do with its science of grammar, but with the interspersed clouds of vocabulary. The more languages you speak, the more nuances you see. Being able to speak three languages - English, Castilian, and Galician - I sometimes find the words easy to translate, but not the real meaning. The word parish in English to me speaks of a neighborhood church to which believers may go from that neighborhood or ten streets over because they like the priest or because there doesn't happen to be a church of their denomination any closer. In Galician parr oquia speaks to me of various villages in which whatever one wants on a religious basis (weddings, funerals, etc.) has to be done in that church because that's the church that handles those village...

Google is telling me today that it's the 166th anniversary of the birth of Emilia Pardo Bazán, a feminist writer born in A Coruña, and who was highly criticized during her lifetime for writing about working women and defending the education of women. She was a prolific writer, essayist, and speaker, and her most famous novel is Los Pazos de Ulloa , a novel about the decadence and rot at the heart of the traditional land-holding Galician aristocracy. I don't think she would have like Franco very much if she had lived to see the Civil War. He represented the pretentious land-holder she criticized in her novels.  Emilia inherited the remains of a castle, or pazo , that had been almost entirely destroyed by Napoleon's troops. She remodelled the castle, and built upon the ruins. The origins of the Pazo de Meirás are therefore sixteenth century, with rebuilding in the late nineteenth, and major work added in the late 1930's. Still, in pictures it has the aspect of a mediev...

There is an immense political hullabaloo going on this month in Spain. The central government, run by the conservatives, is butting heads with the Govern, the regional government of Catalunya. The knocks are becoming more serious as the month progresses and October 1st nears. I fear that one of those knocks might leave one, the other, or both unconscious. For some time, the parties that promote Catalan independence have been gaining ascendancy in the autonomous region. Catalunya has always felt itself to be separate, and merely allied to the central government of Spain. It was independent once upon a time, though some may dispute that. From the tenth century until the twelfth, the counties that made up the Spanish March once established by Charlemagne owed allegiance to no king. The counties were loosely allied under the Count of Barcelona, who was the feudal lord until his marriage with the daughter of the King of Aragon in 1137. From then on, the feudal lord was the King of Aragon,...

In eastern Galicia, where this region meets León, there are mountains that reach 1500 meters, with soaring summits, and plummeting valleys with wild brooks that meander down ravines. There are no commercial pines or eucalyptus planted on their slopes, and the local flora flourishes. Chestnuts, oaks, walnuts, maples, birches, hazles, heather, all kinds of Mediterranean and Atlantic flora, depending on altitude. It's a beautiful, yet rough land, through which there are lanes that in winter snows become impassible, obliging the dwindling residents to be resilient and prepared for isolation.  The Romans reached this area, and, of course, exploited it. They took iron, gold, and antimony back to the Empire. There are still abandoned mines to be found, including tunnels near the village of Romeor. To get to them, you need to cross the village, and walk just over a kilometer up the mountain. We got to the stepping off point, but it was beginning to rain, we weren't in possession of a...

The Dreamers. There but for the grace of God...  Down the street lives a child that has gone to school with our children since first grade. Her parents don't speak English very well, and sometimes the girl has to translate for them. Instead, they speak a rapid-fire Spanish. They are good neighbors, though. We can see both parents go to work every day, and that their daughter is well-taken care of.  The child has turned into a young woman and has recently graduated from college and graduate school. She has become a social worker. Recently, with all the growing hysteria against immigrants, her parents have been staying at home more and more. Both still go to work, but other than that, don't leave the house. Their daughter has been going out to bring them necessary groceries. She only replies that they don't feel like going shopping when we ask about her parents. But one day there is a commotion, and police and other people in uniforms are at the neighbors' house. The ...

I love cats. I much prefer them to dogs. As a result, I have too many cats. There are three that make their permanent residence inside our house, and nine that live outside in the barn and sleep in the basement.  Most of those were born here, others were brought, like the three original outside cats. Last year we had a plague of mice and rats that preferred our barn to the cold fields and woods. Poison didn't do anything other than feed them, it seemed, and the dog could only bark at them. My husband decided to re-introduce cats to the barn when my mother-in-law's cat had kittens, and brought three of them. This year they multiplied to nine. There isn't a rat nor a mouse to be sniffed out in the barn, the basement, or the field.  Over the years, my daughter has gotten into the habit of bringing home strays. Our indoor Anton was the latest. She had gone to the festival of St. Anthony at a nearby parish in June seven years ago with a friend. While wandering around, my dau...

There is a scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in which Tom, Huck, and Joe Harper (a sometime partner in crime) are presumed drowned and the village holds a funeral service. In the meantime, the three boys, who had been holed up on Jackson's Island the whole time, are in the gallery listening and then make an entrance the current POTUS would envy.  I am sure that sometimes, some of us wonder what our own funeral would be like. Generally, those thoughts creep up on us when we're at someone else's funeral. We see the deceased in his or her coffin, comment on how life-like they look, whisper and wonder what the family was dreaming of when they chose the clothes, and count how many wreaths are stacked in the refrigerated room around the coffin.  Well, a woman who died last week in Guitiriz, Lugo, must have had the same idea, only she acted upon her musings. Ever since her husband died some twenty years ago, she had been preparing for her own demise. Those around her insis...

The Facebook pastel group I belong to has posted next Friday's painting challenge. We have to choose something that gives us comfort and paint it. We can't cheat and choose something easy. The argument is that if we love it, painting it will become easy. I have noticed that painting with pastels has become easier for me. What isn't easy for next Friday's challenge is settling on something that makes me comfortable. Where do I begin? Books, cats, kittens, food (yes, it does), daughter, husband, sun, sunsets, driving, lying in bed, falling asleep, painting, writing, going to a stationery store, going to a bookstore, words, walking in Santiago, morning coffee, taking photos, looking at photos, and so much else that doesn't come to mind at the moment. What do I paint? I suppose I'm lucky to have so many things in my life I can call comfortable. Too many people in the world have too little comfort or peace. Perhaps I'll go with a painting of some of my book...