Where to Start?

So many things are happening outside, in this whirling world that is never still, in which there is no justice, and the poor always lose. Carles Puigdemont arrested in Germany, awaiting extradition; growing civil unrest in Catalunya; Cristina Cifuentes, president of the region of Madrid caught falsifying a master's degree, and the university helping in the cover-up; the March for Our Lives in Washington and across the world, in favor of decent gun control in the U.S.; the continuing massacre in Syria; the indecent shooting in the back of peaceful Palestinian protestors in Gaza; the Francisco Franco Foundation celebrating the Nationalist victory in 1939. I could go on. 

My head is refusing to think about any of it, lately. There's only so much anger and indignation one can take. While that anger can be used to help change things, such as the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students have done, to create a movement to change how gun ownership and control is regulated, sometimes there's absolutely nothing one can do with that knot of boiling, black anger. I continue to be outraged over how so many things are done in this world, but I won't let it overwhelm me, either.

I have other things that require my attention these mornings, before my afternoon classes. I have been working on a pastel painting that I might finish this week. This is from a picture I took some years ago in Madrid, coming out of the Prado museum one winter evening after a rainshower, looking out over the Paseo del Prado. At first, my intention had been to paint the entire picture, trees, lights and all. Then I realized it would be too daunting for me. So I started to crop. I cropped down to this, and even so left out elements that I thought would not contribute, such as a police car, and various other pedestrians. 

Then, I have a magazine that came through the mail, and another, French, I bought in Portugal this past Saturday. The English one I've pretty much read through. The French

one I still have to dip into and reread some articles which I think I understood. Between my high school French, and its closeness to Spanish, I can get the gist of magazine and newspaper articles in Voltaire's language. But, I bet that if I sat down with Voltaire himself, I would need a good dictionary with me. 

Next, I have a proscribed book that I bought before the Spanish justice system abducted it from bookstores. Yes, books are being forbidden in this, our democratic Spain. Apparently, an ex-mayor of a Galician town (and a member of the ruling PP party) was mentioned in the book for the role he played in the drug smuggling cartels from the 80's

and 90's. It is a matter of record that the man was tried and convicted. It is also a matter of record that he was exonerated because of technicalities. That is mentioned in the book, Fariña. However, the man still sued for a large amount of money, and his name to be expunged from the book. A judge in Madrid accepted his argument that the book is hurting his reputation, and ordered the publishing house and bookstores to stop its sales until the case is resolved. 

The book is very good and well documented. As you read, you understand that things are rotten not only in Denmark. It's no wonder they want the book gone. Well, right after the pronouncement of the judge, until her ruling went into effect, the tenth edition (the latest) mostly sold out. A book forbidden turns one reader into three. Someone forgot that.

Lastly, I have a book my daughter gave me for my birthday, Celia en la revolución. It's really the first draft written back in the early 1940's by Encarnación Aragoneses (pseudonym, Elena Fortún) in exile in Argentina. It was published many, many years after her death in 1952. 

The Celia books are to Spain what the Anne of Green Gables series is to Canada and the United States. It's a series of books written in the 1930's about a little girl in an upper middle class family living in the Madrid of the 1920's and 1930's. I first discovered her when I moved to Spain. One Epiphany, a television channel showed an adapted miniseries of the first two books, Celia, lo que dice, and Celia en el colegio. I loved it, and bought the books, which I loved even more. When my daughter started to read, I gave them to her, and she loved them absolutely. I also bought her later Celia en el mundo, and I think that one is her favorite. The one my daughter bought me continues Celia's story as a teenager in the Civil War, and promises to be very interesting. 

And, apart from all that, I have this self-imposed chore of occasionally writing a blog about life in Spain and in general. I really have little time to twiddle my thumbs, and even less to dedicate to house cleaning. But, then, that is not on my list of favorite things to do. It never has been.