Spanish views from a small town

The year is ending, history continues. When one looks back, one can see just how far we've come. And how far we have yet to go. Our society, which seems so much more egalitarian and modern than a hundred years ago, is really not so different. We have the same griefs with the same forces of government and money, just in different ways. Now, we still protest the overreaching of government, and the abuse of those with money. A hundred years ago, people were protesting it and dying for it. In 1909, the powers of Church and State were aligned. Both ruled equally. In Oseira, Ourense, there is a magnificent monastery with its church, which serves as the parish church. That year, the bishop decided to sell a stone canopy which stood over a tomb. (If an entire stone church can be moved stone by stone, so can a stone canopy.) The baldaquin, stone canopy, or ciborium, was the pride of the parishioners, who had been dismayed as the bishop had begun selling off other valuables from the church...

Traditions come and go. For many years, it was a tradition that our daughter be the first one up on Christmas morning. She would go downstairs, bring up all the presents under the tree, and open hers while we opened ours, if we had any. Then, along the morning, our bed would have to be emptied of wrapping paper, bows, and useful boxes. Now, she's a grown-up, so she comes down late in the morning and opens them in the kitchen with us. The wonder in her eyes when she was a child was great to see. Now, it's the expectation of seeing if we could buy her what she asked for, almost always books. I began the tradition of Christmas morning gifts when she was a little girl. The traditional day for gift-giving in Spain is Epiphany, 6 January, which is when the Magi were supposed to have brought their gifts to the infant Jesus. Our daughter was one of the very few in those years who received something from Santa Claus as well as the Magi, or Reyes Magos . Now, just about every kid recei...

Tonight is Christmas Eve, and it's the night everyone gets together for supper. It's the day for family reunions, much like Thanksgiving in the United States. Already last night on the news, they ran a story on arrivals and reunions at the airport in Madrid. Just about every family has relatives living elsewhere. The luckiest come home for Christmas.  Tonight's supper, in this crazy, commercialized world, would be late by any Anglo-Saxon standard. It's normal to start eating past ten at night. This year, doubly so, because stores are open today, and some will close at eight. The employees will probably get to go home at eight-thirty or nine. Supper will be even later in those families.  For the past few weeks, people have been stocking up for this special supper. First and foremost is the seafood. And since everyone plans to serve at least one seafood dish, prices react accordingly. Crab at twenty euros a kilo, prawns at over a hundred. Let's not even get into t...

The bean stew is starting to bubble, the sun is shining warmly after a cool dawn in the upper thirties, and the children from the school of San Ildefonso are singing the Christmas lottery on television. I know I'm not going to win anything other than a possible reimbursement on a number, yet I don't care. My lower back has decided to hurt, but I don't care, either. It's a funny morning. It's a satisfied and happy morning. The cats are meowing all over the house, my husband and I are having our private jokes, and we await our daughter's arrival this evening for Christmas break. There is no real reason for being happy, yet I am. Happiness is a state of mind that the little things foment. Who cares about winning the lottery? With every passing year becoming monetarily rich is the least of my ambitions. I am already rich.  The only thing I wish for is a little more money every month to meet my every need, and a couple of extras, like being able to save up for an...

Fake news. Biased news. It's what we hear about whenever we pick up or enter a newspaper or watch a news program. It's supposed to be news with such a bias that it makes you believe the opposite of what is true, or what is convenient for a certain group. We hear that Russia has meddled in our newsfeeds, creating news stories that aren't true, or extremely biased, picking over facts which help further a cause they support, such as the election of Trump in the U.S., Brexit in Europe, and the Catalan fiasco in Spain, all in the name of creating instability.  There's nothing new under the sun, as mentioned in a wise book, "The thing that hath been, is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun." (For those of you who have a current copy, I prefer the King James version; the language is much more beautiful.) The only new thing about fake news is its title. Biased news has existed since the firs...

The United States is an imperfect republic disguised as a democracy. The democratic aspect appears in that, at elections, you vote for a person to represent you according to their platform, broadly based according to the political party the person belongs to. Sometimes it's a choice between good and evil, sometimes it's a choice between the best of two devils. But, once elected, you have the possibility of getting in contact with that representative, whether through emails, regular mail, or telephone. They may ignore you, but you can keep flooding them with attempts at contact. There is that custom of getting in touch with your representative so that they know what their constituents want. Spain has been proud to declare itself a democracy since the first elections after Franco's death. Spain is not a democracy. It is a parliamentary and constitutional monarchy. You vote for a political party. The ballot has a list of names of people who may become your representatives, d...

Today is a typical winter's day in this area. The rain is pouring, the skies are dark, and one has the feeling of a perpetual twilight. It feels like one should be getting ready for supper rather than getting lunch ready. There's a brewing storm offshore forecast for today, an explosive cyclogenesis, that is going to bring much needed rain, albeit in not too subtle a way. Already the tree tops are bending, and the winds are raising their voices in strong gusts that will approach hurricane force this afternoon. The rain is whipping into everything sideways, running from the clouds, trying to burrow into the ground as if to make up for more than a year of drought. There is nothing strange about this storm except its lateness. The first storms of fall generally come at the beginning of October, end of September. This year it's come at the middle of December. Climate change, working its insidious way into our present.  Meteorologists say we'll need about twelve storms l...