Homage To Andalucía

And Some Very Special News

Granada, Spain, June 7, 2022

The gentle, blue-eyed tailor wove around the work in progress, for one of the final fittings of my son’s suit, his whole being completely engaged in the pursuit of the perfect cut, his quick hands pointing, measuring, framing, as rapid-fire negotiations in Spanish filled the air and I wondered how I would ever be able to describe this.

I was on the bench watching the fitting session, with Carmen.

She'd given me a gift, and told me to open it right away, as it pertained to this moment. I untied the ribbon, opened it, and pulled out a beautiful hand painted wooden fan. Carmen was already fanning herself with hers, and was about to induct me into a secret world.

"Mira," she said. And then the sound.

Prrrrrr-clack.

A wooden fan flaring into active position at the wrist of an Andalusian woman, is how I would describe it.

The flaring of the abanico had what seemed to be portent embedded. Carmen tried to teach me, the balletic rotation of the hand, opening, turning and commanding the fan all at once. I can’t explain it! But this video I found online (different Carmen) will give you an idea. I believe you have to be born to this Andalusian soil, to master this.

If the sound had a word, the word was: Live!

We were entering Carmen and Antonio's home when I showed Paula the gift from her mother, which I still could only manage to operate when I really concentrated and really relaxed.

But I was getting there.

"Paula I bet you know exactly how to do this as well," I said.

Paula took it, flared it, and moved it through the air in a most charming manner, displaying the first few seconds of a flamenco dance.

"It's because I learned to dance flamenco as a child," she said, finding a way, as she always does, to be reassuring.

And later, when we raised glassed of Condoniu Prosecco on their terrace overlooking the Sierra Nevada mountain range, with Granada sparkling like a jewel below, we drank a toast.

We raised our glasses: "To family!" 

It seemed so easy, all of a sudden, whereas all my life, as far back as I can recall, “family” was a mirage in the desert.

We discussed so many things, exhausting Jeremy and Paula, who took turns as simultaneous translators. Carmen had made a spectacular cold soup which I dubbed the cousin of gazpacho, called “Salmorejo.” As the night wore on, I couldn’t understand why anybody would live anywhere but here.

At the end of the night, we tried to call a taxi for me to return back to my lodging.

Carmen was having none of it—she stood up, and all but stamped her foot. “Family does not take a taxi,” she said, in Spanish, of course. She didn’t care what time it was—she would drive me.

On the way back she told us that her nearly 90 year old parents, upon learning I had arrived a few days ago, were bordering on upset that they had not met me yet. I have a kind of instantly conferred status here in Granada. I am: La Madre De Jeremy.

I think it sounds grand.

This is my way of telling you, (as I have finally been granted permission to,) that my son Jeremy and is fiancee Paula, are getting married—here in Andalucia, at the end of this month.

Here’s Jeremy and Paula!

We’ll be back with wedding photos in two weeks, June 25…