|
Message |
| Posted By: |
UT |
| Date: |
5-Sept-2007-23:34:35 |
| Subject: |
I Rolled the Buddha in Sitges |
So. Moving to Spain.
Where does one start?
Probably back in August, juggling the preparation for
the move with a month of 60-hour workweeks because my
mathematical programming/optimization project started
running on chaos theory math instead of MP and MIP and
QP and CP and went seriously postal on us. Bugs out the
wazoo, simultaneous with on-the-fly design changes. It
has been said, and with some veracity, that writing
software documentation is like changing a tire on a
moving car. This one was an F1 car, with serious AI
nerds as drivers, and we lowly tech writers were
reduced to running alongside carrying the tire at 300
kph while the developers kept changing the GUI -- and
thus the documentation -- over and over and over and
over and over and over and over and...well you get
the point.
So it was potentially a trying period, full of many
good reasons for stress. But funnily enough, I really
didn't feel all that stressed out. The vision to move
to Spain was just too strong and too omnipresent to
feel much of anything but anticipation.
And now I'm here, and all the anticipation barely
scratched the surface.
The call to move here was just so strong and so clear
that I just couldn't work up a strong sense of worry
about it, try as I might. And damned if Lady Luck or
the gods or chaos theory math or whomever/whatever runs
these things wasn't listening, because there really
wasn't that much to worry about. Oh sure, the truck
broke down a few times and the truck rental people were
real shitheads, but friends helped with the box toting
on both ends, and in the end many hands made for light
work, and work full of light.
And then afterwards we went out and had a wonderful
dinner of tapas, after which Eduardo took us to a little
chiringuito bar in a port village south of Sitges (a
designer paradise about which you will undoubtedly hear
more...much, much, much more), and we partied until 3:00
in the morning, surrounded by Buddhas and weird Brazilian
drinks called caipiriñas and wonderful waitresses, all of
whom seemed to be called Carmen. Welcome to Spain.
And now here I sit in my garden at 1:00 in the morning,
writing this, drinking a glass of -- I simply can't believe
I'm saying this -- local wine that we got at LIDL for 49
centimes a bottle. And it's not only drinkable wine, it's
not bad at all. I've tasted worse Napa Valley wines at 20
bucks a bottle. Go figure. At dinner the other night I
tasted a *much* better local wine (way over the top,
financially, a red from Ribera del Duero at 13.50 Euros
a bottle) that put most of the wines I'd tasted in France
over the last few years in the shade.
Back to the garden. It's the real reason I moved here. I
saw a photo of this garden in a real estate office and my
first thought -- literally the first thing that popped
into my mind -- was, "Uh-oh. That's my garden."
And, as it turned out, it was.
Suffice it to say that this is not the first time this has
happened to me with regard to finding new places to live.
Once, at a meeting with Rama in Chicago, he got a wild hair
up his ass and announced that he was moving back to the
Boston area, and that anyone who wanted to come was welcome
to do so. Those words were no sooner out of his mouth but
I had this Class A vision of standing and looking out of a
plate-glass window at a U-shaped rocky beach, and the ocean.
It only lasted a second, but it was so *real* for that
second.
I mainly forgot about it, but I kinda liked the idea of
moving away from Chicago anyway with Winter approaching, so
when business drew me to Boston a few weeks later, I booked
an extra day in the area and spent it driving around to see
what it would be like to live in 'hoods other than Back Bay
or the boring-assed Boston Burbs, both of which I had Been
There Done That with. And so I found myself driving on a
whim to Marblehead and parking my car and, as I got out of
it, noticing that I'd parked next to a real estate office.
Still feeling that wild-hair-up-your-assness thang, I
walked in and asked whether they ever had rental properties
right on the ocean.
They laughed at me. Four of them -- seasoned Marblehead real
estate professionals all. And then this voice emerged from
a back office saying, "I just got one. This lady just phoned
and has an apartment on the water on Marblehead Island." The
laughing dropped in its tracks, like a poleaxed steer. The
mysterious-voiced lady (on her first day with the agency)
and I drove there. I walked in the door, turned to my left,
and found myself looking out of the same plate-glass window
at the same beach I had seen in my brief vision. Suffice it
to say I rented the place.
It wasn't quite that spectacular with Sitges, just a *feeling*
that I was onto something here -- vibe- and power-wise -- and
that I should investigate it further. I did, went to a few
real estate offices to see what was available and at what
prices, and was disappointed with both. But on my last day
in town on that first visit, I walked into yet another real
estate office and yet another mysterious-voiced lady (also --
no shit -- on her first day with the agency) showed me a
photograph on her computer monitor that just fuckin' Closed
The Deal.
The apartment is nice in itself -- three bedrooms, clean, lots
of good space to work with when finding places for my art --
on literally the busiest pedestrian street in Sitges. Step
outside the front door, and you are assaulted by the sound
of techno and the crush of pedestrians of every size, shape,
ethnic background and sexual orientation you can possibly
imagine. Step back inside the front door, close it, and the
noise of the street is just gone. Over, toast, the memory of
once having had a memory. Keep stepping inside, up one flight
of stairs and into the apartment and then *keep* walking,
through the apartment and out onto the balcony and look down,
and what you're looking at is a 9 by 16-meter private garden.
Completely silent. Like Canyon de Chelly is silent -- quiet,
but with an omnipresent background hum of power, like the
drone in a raga. In the middle of a busy, bustling beach town,
a block from the beach. Go figure. It has lighting and tables
and chairs and a big barbeque pit, and it just sings PARTY!
But it sings quietly, like St. John of the Cross's solitary
bird. It sings of *conversation* parties, not raucous ones.
It's pretty neat sitting here in that garden tonight, gazng
at my new Buddha.
I was with my friend Laurel tonight on the way to dinner, and
we walked past a store that had a sign in the window that
said, "Bodhas 50%."
Some of you may think I'm all jaded and cynical and all, but
lemme tell you, the idea of Buddhas being Marked Down just
stopped me in my tracks and made me laugh out loud. There
were probably 100 different Buddhas in the store, from
various countries and Buddhist traditions in Asia. And when
it comes to Buddhas I'm really picky. I just don't like the
faces on many of them; they're just not having enough FUN.
But in this store tonight I found three.
Two of them I could carry home with me, but the third was a
half-meter high stone Buddha that weighed a ton. So I asked
the girl if she could wait for a couple of minutes before
closing the store while I ran back to my apartment and got
one of the little rolling carts I use for hauling art. She
agreed, and I did.
So there I was, just a few minutes ago, this weirdass old
American guy, rolling a half-meter-high stone Buddha through
the crowded streets of Sitges at midnight, weaving my Way
amongst people who were just leaving home for an evening out
on the town, at that hour.
I must have looked pretty silly to them. Then again, they
don't always look like the happiest campers in the pup tent
to me, either, with all of this looking for love in all the
hip places stuff. Different strokes for different folks, I
guess.
Anyway, now I'm back in my garden and the paella at dinner
was good and the glass of wine Here And Now is good and the
new Buddha staring at me from across my garden is good and
life is pretty good, too.
If you ever find yourself in my 'hood, do drop by.
I'll splurge and serve you the good wine and we'll sit in
the garden and talk until 1:00 in the morning or so and
have a good old time.
And *then* we'll go out on the town, and walk along the
beach to the chiringuito bar in Aiguadolç and we'll order
caipiriñas and the conversation will really start taking
off. Bring your own Buddha.
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