Spain. Where we found everything. Part 4

August 26, 2010

Spain. Where we found everything. Part 4

There are literally thousands of videos and photos of things we did in Spain - midnight Paella dinners in the square of the village, with everyone young and old sharing together in a meal and dancing late into the night.

Afternoons spent laying in the sun on a blanket in the backyard of the house while Brent sang and played guitar and Everly pulled up fistfulls of grass for close inspection.

A water festival where we went house to house, sampling food from a little card table each household had set up out front. Children and teenagers dumped buckets of water and sprayed water guns on unsuspecting attendees while an accordian player, a drummer, and a bagpipers played us through.

There was dinner after dinner at the long table in Celia’s dining room full of laughing and mile-a-minute conversations spoken in such rapid fire Spanish that Brent and I could only pick out the second and fifth word of each sentence.

But one day… one day stands out among them all as my very favorite. The defining experience of our trip. The day Brent called the children of the village out into the streets like a Pide Piper and we all sang and clapped and danced up to the highest point around.

It was Celia’s idea. Of course it would be. She’s one of the most enchanting people I’ve ever met. Everywhere she goes and everyone she knows feeds of her energy and creativity and overflowing amounts of love and joy for life.

She suggested we dress up some of the local children who were always hanging around the house like little gypsies and have Brent sing through the streets while she recorded it on her video camera.

I painted the older girl’s lips red and swooped black liner on their lids. We dressed them in Celia’s shawls and hats and dangly baubles. Another American who is currently living in the region, Joshua, agreed to play along on his guitar with Brent and off we went.

As we made our way through the village, clapping along while Brent sang and played, people began to emerge from their homes to see what all the commotion was. A line of elderly men took a seat on a bench in the square and watched as we spun our skirts out while we twirled.

Even Everly got in on the action, wrapped in a red scarf and bouncing along on my hip with wide eyes as we went.

Brent would stop and sing where ever little crowds were forming and we marveled as many of the town folks joined our procession - each stop added singing children and clapping adults as we made our way through the streets and up the path to the castle on the hill.

At the highest peak in the village is the ruins of an old fort that the town calls the “Castillo”. We all gathered around with glorious views of the valley below us and Brent sang into the wind while Joshua played a little flamenco on his classical guitar to accompany him.

Multiple times, I found myself taking a deep breath and asking “Is this really happening? Am I really here?”. It has forever been added to the very tip top of my mental list of magical life experiences.

We finished the afternoon with a winding walk back down to the village, the adults stopped off at the local bar to drink wine and cold cerveza and the children ran off to buy candy from the village bakery.

And even now, thousands of miles and 6 time zones away - my heart is still beating for this moment.

Love,