Autonomy. Solitude. Isolation. Independence. While all invoke the general idea of aloneness, they harken to very different interpretational strategies of this aloneness. And none of them are ever truly acheivable, I have concluded, and perhaps not even desireable? Autonomy, individual or national? A summer spent "alone" has proven to me that while I am able to strike out unaccompanied, I am fully incapable of remaining so for more than a few days. And yet, as I stand naked in the half-light, reflected in the mirror of the antique dresser that was once mine on loan, and now houses my daughter's accumulation of summer wealth, I contemplate my solitary body, semi-pleased at the effects of non-motorized transport, and of my growing sense of self, in relation to self, but also in relation to others. Let me explain. In the bedroom I am alone, I will remain alone, as the house has been evacuated for morning travails and other such necessities of a Thursday in mid-August, and yet, the simple act of reflection reveals a second set of eyes, putatative eyes, that may never (in fact will never) see this exact scene, and yet whose presence create a certain effect, of affect, or warmth, self-satisfaction.
Galicia was in flames, for over a week. The gorgeous landscapes that we had just recently blown through on the wind of our petrol-charged vehicle, is now devastated by flames, flames that could have been damped much more quickly had circumstances been other. We pondered, it is true, the autonomous movements, and part of me (much of me) fully understands the need to carve out an individual identity, linguistic-cultural in this case, in the case of the Basque, the Catalá... but what else does it imply? Autonomy? Divisiveness? I. wakes me at the crack of dawn, five hours after sleep has finally been granted, but in body time, mid day, and after bathing me in kisses, I insist on speaking Spanish, I insist that she try, even though it is hard to express herself, because it is part of who she is. Why? Because I decide that it should be so? Because I believe in language maintenance? Because I wish that I had been given that gift as a child? I empathize with the desire to preserve, to protect, to make one's own way, and yet, neither K. nor I could quite figure out what possible benefit any of the separatist groups could possibly reap from excision from the Spanish nation, especially now, with the EU firmly in place. I ask Antonio over tapas and claras at the Chueca Plaza (we both had a good laugh that the general Spanish public finds nothing ironic in the fact that this is the gay quarter of Madrid) and, as always, he gives me a balanced and knowledgeable analysis of the situation (he also cleared up a whole bunch of questions that I had about Berlusconi, but there is no need to go into detail), noting that the newly elected Galician government in its haste to distance itself from the Spanish speaking National Army who had historically been hired to care for the forests, failed to instate a sufficiently trained alternative, and, when fire season began, (as arsonists abound) were left defenseless, to the economically ravaging destruction of the season's crop.
Upon arrival in Madrid, and after settling with tía Loli for an afternoon merienda of Tortilla de patata that she made in my honor, Antonio picked me up to meet a majority of Madrid's libertarian movement (a small one indeed) and while we mostly didn't talk politics that night (or at least me, who had nothing intelligent to say), we did comment on the food: Empanada gallega, and a tortilla de pemento de padrón. K. and I had been sampling them in Santiago only a few days before, but, as one of the men at the table (because they were all men, 15 or so, and me), because of the fires, the entire Galician crop had been destroyed, and now they would have to import them from Brazil. Vaya independencia. Alone in our folly is perhaps the only time we are ever truly alone.
Solitude. Now, there are those beloved to me who claim to detest solitude, but I find that, in brevity and self-imposed, it can be wonderful, while imposed by others, or our own inability to communicate can be a truly terrible thing. I. and I speak on the phone days before my return. She is upset about a triviality, a back pack that my mother has declined to buy for her. I explain that when we are back in California, I will get her one for the start of first grade. She claims, despondently, that she already has one there, but I insist, and she comes around to her real concern. "What if your flight is cancelled and you don't come home?" she whimpers, and I promise (and complete succesfully) that nothing of the sort will happen, and within a few days she will have me, and the inordinate desire to cry that had settled over me since K.'s beau failed to arrive in Barcelona because of being grounded in London on the day of the "discovery" of the latest terrorist complot (which makes me wonder if there aren't other parallel complots designed to mold the public into a quivering, malleable, civil liberties' renouncing mass), chokes me as I hang the phone back on its cradle. I want my little girl, I think, I want to smell her skin, and brush my lips against her cheek (and I do just that as soon as I walk in the door, listening to her sleep sighs and her heart beat as it pulses against me). Days in a car, close quarters, a bubble of togetherness, K. and I have grown up considerably. We congratulate ourselves on our ability to aquiesce to the other's needs before letting a situation melt into an unpleasant tension, 10 years of friendship will do that, and several trips under our belt together. We ponder this in the darkness of the Alhambra's one Renaissance palace, on the second floor, looking through the pillars out into the simple stone, circular romanesque patio, nothing like the rectangular central patios with long reflecting pools, and carefully carved mudejar flourishes of the arabesque palacio de los nazaríes that, by the grace of god and K.'s excellent driving skills (all the way from Barcelona to Granada in under 11 hours) we were able to see, just in time, as the taquilla's blinders rolled down and I made a final dash, to beg at the window for the woman to give us the tickets that had already been paid for on line. Next time, we decide, it will be one place, where we will stay for a longer time, we will take cooking lessons from a local near the Chateau. We fantasize about the next big adventure as this one comes to a close. We have learned to give each other the space that is required.
And yet, after our morning visit the next day, and our wonderment about a culture capable of creating such beautiful and intricate patterns, spaces so disposed to contemplation, elevation of the spirit and human art, capable of constructing from nothing (or something, that is, to us unavailable) an entire universe of knowing, seeing, being, understanding and a technology to express it, in only 400 years from its inception; after this, and the realization that this very "same" (or rather very different) culture is now capable of (it seems) so much destruction (though I then think of the waves of fundamentalist Almorávides and Almohades and think that maybe this is all just cyclical after all, and there will always be a human thrust towards self-destruction), I found myself alone, in Cordoba (after another last haul where I felt ok leaving her to rendezvous with the since arrived missing man) and relieved if only because I could, at last, let my guard down and weep. Perhaps it was sheer exhaustion, or the cold that I was fighting (waking from my daily 2:00 car nap absolutely aphonic - hoarse?), or the nervousness about whether I was really going to be able to keep my promise to my daughter, that everything would be ok, or maybe it was something else.
You see, solitude allows us the opportunity to reflect, unencumbered by others expectations of us, on exactly who and what we are, and sometimes, just sometimes, that reflection smiles back at us with a rueful crooked grin, fighting back tears, or apologetic for the things that we have told ourselves. Sometimes that little berating voice apologizes for the years of insisting "not good enough" and it is then that we embrace ourselves alone. And yet.
I feel nauseous and dizzy, and trapped as the AVE speeds out of the Andalusian (desolate was not what we expected here, but was what we encountered, bone-dry, over-taxed land with only the dappling of olive groves and the occasional grapevines that seemed to split the earth and grow out of rock) landscape towards La Mancha. I listen to Silvio embody the voice of a man looking in on the lives of others, asking to be excused for his intrusion, reliving a youth of bohemian art and I begin to sob, a silent sob, voiceless, endless that springs from a well far deeper than any superficial illusion of happiness, but that doesn't negate it either. And I am alone, finally, alone to mourn, which I have been doing in snatches here and there, in starts and lurches in the few moments of true solitude, when you don't have to explain yourself to anyone but yourself, and you realize the depth of the pain that you feel for all things lost, abandonded, forsaken. And even then you are not alone. I try to breath quietly, in, out, controlled. I don't need to stop crying yet, but the buxom African woman in the seat in front of mine turns and reaches along the thin strip of window that separates her from me and takes my hand in hers and squeezes it, and gives me permission to cry, but not alone.
I manage, it seems, to do things alone, and I take pride in my independence, my ability to move through spaces, to not require the aid of others, but I suddenly realize the absurdity of all that. Antonio laughs at me because as we dance at the bar after dinner, waiting for the rest of the group to come out to a club, I am approached by a girl, quite beautiful, in fact, with sad eyes and white linen shorts and shirt, and cowboy boots, her hair falls in a studied look of disarray and she pulls me out onto the floor that I had claimed for my own (as no one else felt the need to dance, but I, who needed to either start moving or go home to sleep). "Let's dance!" she tugs on my hand and I agree, and the Persian (NOT Iranian, he insists, as to not be mistaken with fundamentalist terror) bartender who has just slipped me a wildberry vodka on the house in apology for his lack of a warm drink to soothe my sore throat, puts on Mecano and we dance. She swings towards me, a bit tipsy, I worry that something just isn't right, and she whispers that I have beautiful hair, and a gorgeous face. And I smile, and thank her, and keep dancing, because, well, what else is there to do? And she tries to pull me into the back corner, and tells me that she is a little embarassed about the situation, and I ask, what situation?, and that there is nothing to be embarassed about, and she reiterates that I have such beautiful hair, and that I am beautiful and to never let anyone tell me the contrary (and I think about how many times I have told myself the contrary, and I secretly thank her for her kindness, even if it is an interested one) and she wants me to meet her friend (who, it seems, Antonio tells me was with her at the Tapas bar earlier) who is not her boyfriend, she explains, but invites to dance, and he tells her that we should dance and he'll just sit and watch, but he nurses his drink from the far corner of the bar, and the rest of the bar is only our group of libertarians, laughing, drinking, filling my hair, and clothes and pores with smoke. I whisper in Antonio's ear "please help! come dance with us because I am afraid she is going to try and kiss me if you don't!" and what's wrong with a kiss? Well, nothing, I suppose, and I think about how if this very same situation had presented itself 10 years ago the outcome might likely have been quite different, but I am getting older, and the excitement of following the night in strange and bifurcated paths seems like something for my students to do, but not me, not the mother. And it is strange too, because there is a safety in knowing this about yourself, that you need nothing from anyone else and that you are searching for nothing, so everything is a gift of the moment, and that kindness does not require more than simple kindness in return.
We are heading to the club, it is 3, and we have finally rounded up enough of our cohort to move on, or at least to acknowledge that we are moving on. She is sitting with her friend, and I say goodbye. She begs me to take her with me, and I flounder that I don't know where we are headed (which is true) and am not in charge of our transportation (also true). She hopes we will run into eachother again. I nod, sadly knowing that we won't but realizing the ultimate unimportance of this fact. Dancing it is, and again it proves that I cannot be left alone. We dance, and I let myself go, fully released to the terrible techno music and the vodka that pulses through my veins. I let the room swirl around me in some sort of karmic retribution for all that I have, and for which I am grateful, and I remember the ashen faces of the disinterested Rumanian and Norther Africa girl prostitutes that lines the streets in little clusters, sitting on cardboard boxes, looking cold. And I shivered too, my bare scoop neck exposing me to the painful chill that made my throat burn, little black shoes finally able to be used on non-cobbled stone. I danced for their solitude, in solidarity? To release myself from some sort of divine guilt? Thirteen year-old girls on the street with dark circles of eyeliner and who am I to spend 30 euros on diversion? And what right do I have to say no when they can't? And ultimately those are not the questions that lead to anywhere, so I let go, and let myself be, and I dance for whoever wants to watch, because that's what it is really all about, the show, and I see the eyes, maybe Turkish, I think, and the Italian tourists that bunch together, and make feeble attempts to approach, and I dance alone, and in the aloneness is an unbelievable power, a compelling force, because ultimately, we are never allowed to remain so. From across the dance floor he motions, ever so slightly with a turn of the chin, for me to climb up and dance on the impromptu stage that separates the two hemispheres of the larger dance hall, and I deny with a haughty swish of the hair, but it keeps coming and suddenly I am being followed around the floor until the song ends and he offers me his drink, to which I politely decline, turning my hand and bowing my head, ever so slightly, in the Mexican sign of "thank you but no". And he backs away, nursing his drink, and his pride, and Antonio pulls me in and marks me as "protected territory" and we giggle, because he was very attractive if not terribly sharp and had seemed shocked by rejection.
And it is 5:30, and we decide that we have had enough, and one of his friends is too drunk for his own good and spewing strange Zionist rhetoric and we both think it seems as if he is trying to hit on him, and another friend calls as we are walking towards a more transited street in search of taxis and offers us a ride, and we all drink coffee together and I manage to keep my head from lolling to the side too much, fluttering my eyes open until 7 am when the metro opens again. And I am alone again, and strange men call out "oye guapa" from behind the fence of a construction site, and I suddenly feel vulnerable, even though it is theoretically day light, and I think of the little girls and I wonder if they have gone home, if they have something to eat, and I hope that I am walking in the right direction for the metro that will take me back to La Latina, over where Loli lives, and I am suddenly aware of how much I don't want to be alone, and how I am glad that I didn't "let" K. drive across the country alone, because being a woman alone invites attention that being a man alone doesn't seem to. And I don't really have the energy to confront this thought the way it should be savored, but when I finally leave Madrid, the morning after the culmination of the barrio fiestas de la Virgen de la Paloma that carried on into the wee hours just in front of my bedroom window, and the radio taxi driver is a woman more or less my age and we get to talking about what it is like being a woman taxi driver, and how you start to feel about people in this world when you wish that you could trust them, and the cynicism sets in. She says that she and a group of her friends were thinking about setting up a web-based service of late-night taxis for and by women, a sort of mutual protection, and I think it is a fabulous idea, and if I knew how to help, or how to get back in touch (wait, maybe I can) I would like to see her plan work out.
And I realize that there it is! Isolation by choice, segregation for mutual benefit, as in schooling (Antonio tells me was implemented in Sweden, for example) or in the case of these taxistas can be a powerful source for good, where isolation, or the anonymity of city life, stripped of community ties, and of any sort of mutual responsibility produces, quite the opposite effect. And so I am ready to step off the fast track for a moment, dig my heels in, return, renewed, and only partially alone (as we carry certain people with us always, no matter where or when), to my community, where I can begin building again. Here's to coming home.
