The Beach in Chipiona

The first bus to the airport of Seville leaves from the Plaza de Armas at 4:30 every morning, 365 days a year. At this hour it is still so early that there is no sign yet of the sun, or the dimming of the stars. It is dark and quiet and all the passengers look tired and lost in their own world, stopping a various stops, passing Santa Justa, before making the journey outside of town. On Saturday morning, I was one of these people, alone on a bus, not having slept, head resting against a dirty window, thinking about my ongoing relationship with Spain and wondering how it always leaves me feeling completely hollow and empty but also so full at the same time.

It is a peculiar country in this way; one that sometimes I hate, and other times I love. Sometimes I give it a middle finger and vow to leave tomorrow, and other times I want to stay forever. Sometimes I feel like I have done more than any American since Hemingway to adapt and convert, and other times I feel like I have not done anything at all. It is a paradox Hemingway noted often in his writing, calling it the best and the worst country in the world, and that is about as good a way to describe it as there is if you have spent any time there longer than a vacation. It is a country that gets me thinking about the ten thousand ways one can choose to spend their life, at least one or two ways I could spend perfectly content there, marrying someone Spanish and having Spanish children that speak better than me and writing something like Washington Irving wrote about something old and meaningful and timeless.

But back in real life - apart from the pending lives we imagine - I spent a week on the beach in Chipiona, surrounded by family more family than many are by blood, after having been gone for a year. There I made a number of real life choices that will affect everything, greatest of which the decision that a return to the United States for family will preside over a return to the Middle East for work. Sometimes you need the clarity of a little sun and sand, and a few helpful words from people who matter. In Chipiona, probably thirty miles from the nearest native English speaker, I had that, did that, made a plan, and said my goodbyes in a way that was intuitive more than it was difficult.

In this strange vagabond life I have been living, I am sometimes startled to find out things have been going on in places I was before like I had never been there at all. People now have boyfriends they did not have. People still go and drink at the same bars even though I am not with them. Two people I know from different places meet each other and I had nothing to do with the introduction. People go on living as one would expect them to, and meanwhile I have been doing other things and no matter how natural that is, it is still hard to get used to even after all these years. I want to be drinking a Tiger in Singapore and looking for work in New York and giving something a shot in Los Angeles and doing something with English in Seville and trekking a volcano in Guatemala and riding a bike in the Texas Hill Country outside Austin and learning to scuba dive in Queensland but all those things require your entire person and you cannot be everywhere at once for all your life, so in the end you start feeling a little left behind because you still try to do everything and be with everyone and it is impossible and people move on.

These are scrambled thoughts for the beach in Chipiona, colored by umbrellas and games of palas and groups of young boys kicking a soccer ball around and the rising tides and jellyfish alerts and memories of taking Pepe down to the water and various family members passing him around, holding his head above the surface, floating with the waves. Then long walks down the beach to the lighthouse, and back to the other end where it gets rocky before leading to Costa Bellena, looking at the pretty people who get pretty very young, with often three generations walking hand in hand at the waters edge. Then at night having cold small beers that are finished before they get warm and small plates of tapas that lead to other small plates. Then back to Seville for a few days and having a beer with that girl that is so damn beautiful down by the water, the Puente de Triana in the background, speaking Spanish with an occasional English word or phrase when the phrases get too important to mess up and hoping to God she understands it right, and holding hands while that singer from Sudan sings the same two love songs by Bob Marley every night, and then saying goodbye and having no idea when the next hello will be. 

These are scrambled thoughts and memories from Spain this time around and all makes me think for a moment I am leaving the greatest thing there ever was, and however irrational and silly and incorrect and unfeasible that may seem, how does one leave the greatest thing there ever was?