No one visited the Cafe while Lila was gone. Only hummingbirds, butterflies, and the noise of the traffic reached the terrace, although I watched many people from a distance as they crossed the scruffy field. It was a market day, which happens twice a week. Since there is so much to eat there, market days are quiet up here. Lila had brought me to the market on my first day in the village. That must have been four days ago already.
The market is held in another clearing about a two minute walk from the central field where the Cafe is. Just after the bridge, the highway veers south, away from the community. A little footpath leads in the opposite direction up a well traveled footpath, bordered by gallumba, prickly pears, wild thyme, and ubiquitous blackberry thickets, to a small grove with a surprisingly expansive view of the Vega, gradually descending down towards el Rio Genil. Vendors set up on the clay ground, under an oasis of eucalyptus trees shading them from the baking heat, turning wheat, tobacco, and vegetable fields around the towns in the distance golden brown.
It was pleasant sitting under the grape vine, watching people, mostly in groups or pairs, return from the market, meander across the parched field in the noontime sun, and then disappear into the woods along one of the smaller trails. The couple with the donkey came back to their barn below the Cafe steps. About thirty handmade baskets, and other objects such as blinds, sandals, and twine were strapped lightly to the animal’s back. The dark colored larger baskets were strongly fashioned from willow branches. The smaller ones were woven with reeds from along the stream, which become yellow and durable when they dry. Other traditional Andalucian vessels, rolls, and coils were made from esparto, a grass, or gallumba, skinny hollow plastic-like leaves, both of which grow in the wild everywhere, in full sun. They too become brown and very strong when dry. Along with making baskets, Lila had told me our neighbors also plow people’s gardens for barter with the old fashioned metal plow which hung on the outside of the barn wall.
Families with small children crossed the field with baskets and cloths tied around their backs bulging with groceries and infants. The little kids’ faces were smeared with messy fig and red current juices. A co-ed soccer game was going on between the older kids on the field. They hollered and laughed and were all grubby, wearing threadbare clothes which were in style decades ago. A handsome man with stubble, wearing an elaborately tailored leather kilt, emerged from the market trail, turned, and strode towards the hills. His artisan knife-sharpening wheel and stand were fastened with leather shoulder straps to his back, and what looked like a hammer dulcimer was attached on top of that. He stole the ball from the kids, dribbled it playfully around a couple of them and then gave it back before heading home to the woods.
The kilt I recognized as one of the high quality unisex garments being sold at the market. Live music played when I was there too, but with no hammer dulcimer. There had been a fiddle, a guitar, a goat hoof rattle, a xylophone, a didgeridoo, and a conga. Besides the fish sold from the back of one guy's truck, who had managed to back all the way across the abandoned field from the road, most everything at the market was locally raised, grown, or made. The fish man went to the coast regularly to visit his daughter, and people often ordered things from him, such as buckets, rope, propane, canning jars, salt, etc.... Most things are not purchased with money, since few shoppers have jobs outside the community. Money is accepted according to individuals’ discretion during friendly trade negotiations.
For example, Lila used outside money to buy locally grown and fresh ground wheat flour when we went. Since the Cafe is visible from the highway, sometimes people in cars pull over, walk down the steep slope by the bridge, and buy something to eat. I also figured out from working there that people from the village mostly have tabs, which they keep track of in their heads, and eat for free at the Cafe. They in turn provide us with vegetables, fresh meat, grains, dairy products, eggs, and much more. The asymmetrical cutting boards, the coil-built or thrown stoneware in an array of different styles and glazes, and the raw linen handwoven dish towels at the Cafe were all presumably payments for the fresh food we serve. Silvia, the owner of the Cafe, grew her own herbs, for seasoning and tea, and she lacto-fermented, sun-dried, and preserved in olive oil other foods when they were in overabundance. ‘Owner of the Cafe’ is not the proper term; Lila had explained to me that the entire village, and the woods all the way up the Sierra, is public land.
....
I was glad to be left alone, because I had an idea working on the collage. What sparked it was wondering what the bearded guy had meant when he said, ‘....when we were still on the path.’ “What did he mean? Isn’t being on the path a good thing?” The rice glue was working splendidly, and I had raided the place for more art materials as well, (dark gold egg yolks, spices, including turmeric, paprika and espresso grounds, and pink and magenta begonia petals). As I was incorporating these into the art piece, which hung off both sides of my tiny table it was so long, I remembered what had happened at the train station.
The Arrivals and Departures signs, the policemen and the guards, the tracks to town and the dusty road outside leading into the country....I had planned to catch a train there, but I needed some air. I’d stepped outside the station doors, because the cops were looking suspicious about my hair. That’s when I threw away my phone. At the far end of the station I turned down a narrow lane. Yes! That was it. Before I knew it, I was off the path! The path is not a geographical place. It is a regime that governs one’s life. I had stopped where the dusty lane widened on the gravel platform of what looked like the old station to listen to music cascading through the air from inside someone’s garden. When I looked up, under the fig tree, I met Miguel’s gaze, his greasy balding curls frizzy, his sunken eyes knowing. He probably saw me first. Without saying a word, he beckoned me into the party.
Here in the community, it was so much easier to tell I was off the path. Being surrounded by only natural and recycled matter reflected the new approach to life. With my fingernail, across the entire length of the collage, I engraved a pale scratch into the dark smooth paste of hardened espresso and egg yolk, representing a timeline of my life.
“When was the first time I got caught up in ‘the path’?” I asked myself. An image of my elementary school playground flashed in my mind’s eye. There was a jungle gym, a swing set, and a see saw. My friends and I preferred to play make believe in the laurel groves. We practiced being visited by aliens or invaded by neighbors with guns. What was not so fun, and mostly unconscious, was the trepidation that we would one day become adults. I thought about all the job applications I had filled out before leaving the US and how I felt like a helpless child still, hoping somebody would hire me, even though I had more skills than most of the positions required. I’d technically been an adult for years now. My 20th birthday passed, in the same week I graduated from college, just before I returned to Spain. Why was I still lacking confidence? I still did not possess the know-how grown-ups are expected to have.
“Then again, who is this mysterious authority on my life?” My parents didn’t pressure me too much. My mom was always supportive. Even my dad, who pressured me a lot about finding a job and had worked for the military for many years, was kind and accepting. My teachers all meant well. “How did this happen then, that I subscribed to needing a seal of approval to live my life? And from whom?”
I worked on the timeline for hours, gluing newspaper and tin foil to the paper bag, scribbling on it with charcoal from the kitchen fire. Black marks, corresponding to gestures or influences from my past, riddled the composition. Ladders, overlaid windows, and flower petals represented obstacles and lessons which had liberated me. The most emotional areas were highlighted in color, turmeric and paprika paint mixed by finger with egg yolk.
Little by little the story came into focus. The timeline was like a medieval map showing different eras of feudal reign. Below the scratched line was my soul, the landscape, the wildlife and the village, whose culture was terrorized by cruel and merciless landlords, one after another. Above the line was each tyrannical administration that had ruled my inner world over the course of my life, drawn as a vertical band to represent stages, like a colored stripe of plaid, on the wide textured sheet in front of me. It looked like a demented piano score which somebody had puked sangria all over and then made diagrams around all the chunks of fruit, noting how they were related in the margins.
“What are you making?” Lila startled me when she got back. She must have come through the storage area where we keep the bicycle generator.
If it had been anyone else, I wouldn’t have bothered interpreted the meaning of the collage. It was the kind of art that most people look at and say, "a kid could have done that." The kind of art that is shamanic, healing, educational, and transformational. But Lila would get it. She and I got along swimmingly from the very start. She was only a couple years younger than me, and a I liked her panache. Her consideration for my being new here and fairly lost was also much appreciated. Since Silvia was away when Miguel dropped me off, Lila oriented me to all the operations of the Cafe and shared bits of history and gossip about the village. Everywhere I had gone since I arrived here, besides the Cafe and the hay shed, had been with Lila, including the trail leading to a pool further up the stream where she told me I could bath.
“Nobody ever comes up here,” she had assured me. “There are hundreds of even better swimming holes before this on the stream, so don’t worry about it.” I found out later that this same stream, el Rio Darro, flows through downtown Granada, along the Paseo de los Tristes, where the Moorish sultan is said to have wept when the Crusaders managed to take over the Alhambra. I often wondered what the world would be like today if, instead of Ferdinand and Isabella Catolica funding Columbus’ trip across the Atlantic, the Moors, who already knew the world is round, had made the journey instead.
“Oh, it’s a map. An autobiography of chapters which were controlled by different spiritual values throughout my life.”
“Wow, cool! Like which ones?” She seemed to be following so far.
“Well, for example, the first one I can remember is the empire of Personality and Shame. The dictators are all in pairs. I envision them like kings and queens who were supposed to protect the peasants and their kingdoms. They killed anyone who stood against them.” I pointed to an orange section to the left. “See these shapes represent the playground when I was little. This is the violent takeover of Personality and Shame. They were young leaders, and very afraid. Their army was all child soldiers as well, and they promised safety, kind of like a street gang.”
My finger moved along to the right where charcoal lines crossed into another area whose base was tin foil. “This is getting into early teens.” I glanced a Lila who was still paying attention. She sat down next to me, her short shorts edged between two pots of calendula with robust bright orange flowers.
“Reason and Sex Appeal are the bosses of that time. They’re a couple too. They were powerful enough to overthrow Personality and Shame, adopting some of their predecessor's tactics to keep people's allegiance.”
I decided I’d better speed this up. I could go on all day, but people could arrive at the Cafe wanting to eat at any moment.
“Then Guilt and Altruism staged a coup.” I indicated that their dictatorship was located along the band of violet wax paper anise cracker wrapping lathered in glue.
Lila spoke at last. “Hmmm. I think that happened to me too. The first ones didn’t resonate for me, because I was brought up in a really loose alternative way. My parents were part of a yoga and meditation sect, and I hardly ever saw people my age.
“Did you grow up here?”
“No. I was home schooled. My parents pushed the Guild and Altruism ideals on me unknowingly with their spiritual beliefs, so that kingdom sounds familiar to me.”
“Isn’t homeschooling illegal in Spain?”
“Yeah, but we weren’t too worried about that. People rarely get busted for that. The police mostly just protect the tourist and drug industries, and enforce anti-immigration policies. Although there have been some serious run-ins here over the years.”
I was fascinated, making a mental note to find out more about this later. Lila went on about her family.
“The stuff my parents prioritized made me feel like nothing was ever good enough. Luckily I was able to get them to see how hypocritical it was and allow me to move here to apprentice with Silvia. It took years of fighting, believe me, before they agreed. They brought me up to question everything, but they still pressured me to get a degree and make good money and everything. So what’s this last one?” She pointed to the right side of the collage, speckled with espresso and begonia petals.
“This is the reign of Appearance and Vanity. They are different things that go together like codependent spouses perfectly.” I was quiet for a second. “This phase went on until quite recently.” I was embarrassed saying it.
Lila asked about a spiral of torn blue paper glued over the line scratched across the center. “Appearance, the king, went on a tour of his lands and actually fell in love with the culture there. He brought his wife down and they stayed, giving all their wealth away to the archetypes down here who were all being oppressed for so long.”
There was more to the story, but I stopped there. How weird I must have seemed. Lila doesn’t mind, though. She stood up and said, “I love it! You’re so creative. It’s inspiring!”
She returned in a moment from the kitchen with her white plastic recorder. She sat on the other side of the stone wall, in the sun overlooking the field, alternating between singing and playing a cheerful song. Adding the finishing touches to use up the glowing yolk and spice paint, I recapitulated how the story led up until now. King Appearance and Queen Vanity liked many things about their new home, (all the things I was coming to know about the village). People’s thoughts are transparent as posture. They never give advice unless asked a question. Being oneself is the cool thing to do. Everyone is known by everyone by how they act and what they offer the group. I imagined a little scene of the royal couple, realizing they could act uninhibited here, still playing dress up, parading around or throwing tantrums at will. The queen often ventured into the woods by herself and would roll around naked in the ferns, flirting with the gods. Such behavior would have made Appearance jealous not long ago, but seeing how much happier she was, and more open with him, he reassessed, “this is actually fine with me, not at all what I had feared.”
.......
Everyone eats dinner at home or with friends here, so the Cafe doesn’t need stay open in the evenings.
Usually by late afternoon we’re closing up. I would take my time washing the dishes, and of late was journaling by candlelight inside the kitchen, trying different teas from Silvia’s assortment of blends, hibiscus spice, orange chamomile, lavender vanilla horsetail, fennel sage. It got dark quite late, and usually by then I was ready for bed. In a hexagonal Arabic looking lantern with different colored glass panes I carried a candle to light my way to the shed. Because of all the flamable hay I would go to bed quickly, blowing out the light with a distinct feeling of gratitude to be where I was.
That particular evening Lila hung around longer than usual. She was making some poolish with the flour we’d bought a few days before, adding it and some decaying strawberries to a hard skinned bowl of sourdough that was porous with a tangy smell inside.
“What is The Vines?” I asked her.
“That’s the real heart of the community now, but they try to keep a low profile since everything here got torn down."
“What do you mean?”
“There used to be over 100 people living in and around this field. Many of them still worked in town, but it was beginning to really flourish until about ten years ago. They sent the national military who tore apart all the wood huts and cemented cinder blocks in the doors and windows of the other houses. You can still see some of those if you walk a little ways up the trails.”
“I’ve never been very from the road yet,” I sheepishly admitted, rather disappointed that my new glorious home was in fact not the heart of the community.
“So what kinds of things happen at The Vines?” I wanted to learn more.
“It’s changed a lot over the years. That’s what Silvia tells me, and she was here from the start. It was much smaller then, a few families who started a satellite squat using the village down here as their base. The guy with the beard, who was here earlier, and his ex-wife Yolanda, were one of the other families who build the communal hall up there, farmed, and raised their kids together.”
“Have you been there?”
“Silvia took me once. She still keeps some beehives up there. There are many wildflowers. I went with her once to gather the honey comb.”
I was officially envious. “How far away is it?”
“It’s a really long walk. It takes about five or six hours, without taking a long break, and there are no roads. That’s why it’s more safe, although there’s always the risk that everyone could get arrested or thrown out of there too because of the tax issue. What’s going on down here is a big distraction, though, with all the legal things happening.”
“Having to do with how the old village got wrecked?”
“No, there was nothing they could do about that. I guess the laws have changed now though, and it’s not so easy for the police to evict us. Besides, it doesn’t pose any real threat. The reason the government broke things up before was because people were starting their own economy and really getting established.”
“So, the city doesn’t know about TheVines?”
“Oh, they probably do. Being so far away just keeps them from checking from up close much. They don’t have a market up there. Everybody is well dispersed through the mountains and pretty much provides for themselves. They get together at The Vines for cultural gatherings, classes, retreats, and stuff like that. They have two communal mills, one for grain, one for olives, and a large oven which is open to everyone. The Vines also does stuff for kids, and makes wine and champagne, out of some kind of flower fermented with honey.”
“Wow. It sounds amazing. How do they keep a low profile with all that happening?”
“The main concern really is the water. There are several really good springs, but the Sierra de Huetor is separate from the Sierra Nevada and does not have rivers that run all year. If Granada ever decided to bottle that spring water or use it for irrigation, The Vines would be screwed.” Lila paused as she covered the poolish with a clean wet dish towel and put it in the cupboard under the sink. Since we had no refrigerator, the coolest place was near the pipes which ran with water cold as snow. Then she added, “the low profile thing is especially important for the foreigners. Yolanda is from Germany, and for years friends of hers would come and do retreats and vision quests and stuff up there. It got kind of out of hand. Someone started blogging about it, and people Youli had never met were showing up seeking spiritual sojourns. They’ve paired things down a lot since. There are a bunch of other ex-pats living up there, but everyone is really low key, not trying to import all the comforts of their old life into their new one. They all agree not to make any money there or advertise in any way. Still, there’s no one to enforce this. If people started bringing money from outside and building fancy houses, even bringing solar panels and stuff like that, everything would probably get shut down again.”
“Can anyone go up there?” I was thinking now of myself, wanting nothing more than just to see this place.
“The long walk keeps people away. Most people just stick close to the road.” Realizing I might feel left out, she conceded, “Silvia might take you up sometime.”
I was excited and nervous to meet Silvia. The way Lila talked about her, with so much respect, I knew she would be like no other boss I’d ever had. Miguel had assured me that Silvia was always happy to have new people around, but since then I had grown insecure. Perhaps the reason I was grumpy is I hadn’t thought about myself the whole time I was at Miguel’s. Now I was in a place where everyone has something useful to give to the community. “I don’t know what I can offer here. I’m just a moocher.”
Another intimidating thing about Silvia was meeting her son Cas. A guy like that is guaranteed to have a strong woman as a mother. The first time I saw him, I was coming down towards the Cafe from the stream after cleaning my clothes with the metal washboard. This had been the previous afternoon. Cas stood under the tarp, near the wall where the braids of last year's onions hang. He was wearing a one piece indigo work suit that was covered with splatters of lime and smudges of black soot. Something about the way he was poised against the wooded post, his movements supple as though he’d spent all morning at work, made me raise my own spine in preparation. Lila introduced us.
“This is Cas, Silvia’s son. Cas, this is Aia.” My name is actually a word in Spanish, because my father's parents are from Mexico. Aia comes from the word haya, pronounced aye-ah, meaning beech, a tree that grows commonly in upstate New York where I am from.
“Hi,” I said. I remember being struck by his curly dark hair, worn down around his dignified face like a buffalo’s mane. And his gaze.
He didn’t answer. He was able to communicate more interesting things with his eyes, flecked green and dark brown like the forest. He smiled curtly. Then noticing my hands were full of laundry preventing me from opening the gate, he opened it for me, then attached the clothesline, moving the loop of rope from the tree across the path to the pulley. We take it down when it’s not being used in case the donkey gets away, which happens regularly, and runs into the clothesline which traverses the ravine. As he reached up, his coveralls pressed against his strong back and waist. We exchanged another look. Then he followed Lila inside. For some reason it had felt strange to hang up clothes with Cas there. I had already hung my bra and pairs of underwear down in the hay shed away from the Cafe, so that wasn’t the reason. The way he had looked at me felt like he could see right through me. It seemed inappropriate to wear clothes at all. As I draped my wet garments over the line and extended them in a row above the bubbling river, I overheard Cas and Lila in the kitchen talking.
“Are you coming by the co-p tonight?” Cas asked. “We’ll probably be over at Cati’s playing music again. She's trying to finish weaving a bunch of stuff for a festival coming up, so we’ve been playing in her studio lately.”
“I don’t know. I’ll see what Millan’s up to later. I've been wanting to see how those looms work.”
“Oh it’s really easy. You should come.”
Cas poked his head out back before he left and gave a friendly goodbye. “See ya!”
“See you,” I said, “and thank you.” I wasn’t sure what I was thanking him for, not knowing whether he had any involvement with the family Cafe business or not. Anyway, everyone who talked to me in those early days made me feel welcome, although he hadn’t talked to me a lot. Lila hugged me when she left soon after him. We had spend a pleasant day together. She didn’t invite me to the music jam either, though. They’d said they expected Silvia home any day now.
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