As time gets tight

On Sunday, Marga and I drove out to the northern tip of the island. We stopped at Playa de Formentor, a pristine and peaceful beach and I waded around in the crystal clear water and marveled at how incredibly blessed I am to be experiencing these things. We quickly loaded back up and drove further north into an otherworldly landscape of jagged grey cliffs, flecked with vegetation which inexplicably sprouted in the rocky landscape. The skyline resembled the spiked spine of a dragon and the narrow lane wound and curved along the steep walls of rock while gravity scooped away at the fringes of the asphalt, which made it very interesting.
We finally arrived at the old house called Cala Murta and, following the instructions in my hiking guide set out to follow the easy 2 hour trail of En Fumat. Allow me to go ahead and deliver the punch line: we never once encountered the trail. Marga was in a foul quitter mood and as such I felt pressured to get her as far out as possible as quickly as possible so she would fall in love with it and change her mind. This resulted in us finding ourselves at the foot of a gigantic embankment following no discernable trail. She spent the first ten minutes telling me she was tired and could not do it but I pointed out this was impossible, as we had not been walking long at all and I started telling an interesting story. Erstwhile we climbed the terraced embankment using our hands and scrambling up walls. By the time she caught on to my ploy, we were half way up and it was the kind of terrain that is easier to ascend than descend. After about an hour we were 4/5 of the way up and decided to stop for lunch. We sat on one of the retaining walls, built many generations ago and enjoyed the view through the layering mountains between which the sea seeped into harbours.It was beautiful and solitary and my nervous glances at Marga confirmed that she too understood and was enjoying the magic inherent in such ventures. It is the sort of thing you know you would never intentionally get into but once you are there it becomes a matter of conquering. Every wall which she stares at and says "no puedo, es imposible," then promptly surmounts, injects a person with that incredible sense of satisfaction and drives her to that next impossibility, to see if she can overcome that one too.
Eventually we made it to the top and after dipping through a high valley we spotted the sign for a trail off down the steep mountain side. As we stood in this pass, looking around I wondered at the people who had built these zig-zagging terraces and thought about what a desolate spot this must be. Then I looked at the cliff nearest us and saw that a beautiful cross had been etched into the stone. Silly, silly, egocentric me. We made our way down to the trail from which we could see the highway down a very steep hill. Marga decided the trail would lead us away from where we wanted to be going and I realized I had maxed out my ability to persuade her so we took off down the treacherous hillside. I slid on the scree as Marga took a more cautious approach. The hill ended with a 15 foot drop to the road. I pulled a maneuver and jumped safely, then realized Marga might not be quite as happy with this method. I was right. She stood there above me, fists on her hips and just stared. Then, behind her, out of nowhere, appeared a man with a helmet and climbing ropes. He climbed down and then expertly guided her, planting her feet into foot holds and giving her simple verbal commands until we were all safely standing on the pavement. The guy caught up with his friends, who had been caving up in the hills and Marga and I quickly found ourselves back at the car, covered in dirt and sweat and positively beaming. It was a...unique...Palm Sunday adventure.
On Tuesday the 1st and 2nd graders were having a surprise going away party for me and, being a secret, they of course had to begin telling me all about it on Monday. When the party happened, on Tuesday afternoon, I was inundated with dozens of hand drawn cards. The presence of potato chips, soda and sweets sufficiently distracted everyone that I was able to tuck into a corner and look through the cards. They were precious. This experience has been a good one.

Now Semana Santa is in full swing and once I have seen it all and can find a Catholic who can actually explain all the facets of the garb and details of the processions, I will in turn pass them on to you.

~~~~~

One of the biggest lessons I learned in Oxbridge was that nothing kicks a person into gear like a deadline. My imminent departure from the island is the quintessential manifestation of all the adjoining sensations. As I walked out of my last day of classes, beneath the looming cloud bank, I opened myself to the moment wholly. Reality is gigantic and its pressure is immense. It is difficult to explain this sensation. I suppose, the best I can do is to say that, for example, when I looked at a tree, I was aware of how many leaves it had and felt inept for being unable to process them all. Everything around me was so much more than I could process that I had to surrender my attempts at making sense of it all and just let it pass around me. I arrived home and sat quietly and waited to feel something. Again, a sensation I can barely make sense of, much less put into words. The closest I can get to describing it is to compare it to sitting in the absolute darkness of massive cave far beneath the earth. The silence echoes and the open space oppresses. And there is just nothing.
Also, periods of transition always bring on a myriad of dreams. They populate my naps and I wake up out of breath and utterly out of sorts. I wake up in the mornings and find my blankets in a bundle on the other side of the room. It is as if there is all this chaos being riled up inside me but my waking self can't make sense of it, so I ignore it and it comes out by its own avenues. Any insight into or techniques of dealing with these things are more than welcome.

Expressions

An old Mallorcan expression declares:

A mal tiempo, buena cara.

It took me a while to fully understand the implications of this simple phrase because I understood tiempo to mean 'time' but it is also the word for 'weather', although the application of the adage is not limited to inclement weather. I have been having fun throwing that one around over these past few months but it is now that it seems most appropriate. To ease you into the mood for this entry I will start with a haiku, inculcated by the poetic tidbits which Granddaddy has thrown my way since I began blogging in Alaska:

gods thumb their noses
tides rise, rain dribbles and spits
Bring it, Holy Week

It seems our claim to Spring has been temporarily rescinded. We have been under constant cloud cover since this past Friday. From time to time the clouds deign to spittle on us but most of the time they are too busy buzzing around looking ominous. At first I was quite put out by it all, these ARE my last few weeks here, why does the weather have to be cruddy. The Mallorcans are unhappy but most just shrug, saying that Semana Santa is moody like this. I decided that being grumpy about the weather wasn't doing anyone any favors, so I decided not to be; I have, however, had to readjust plans accordingly.
This past Saturday I decided to visit the properties once held by Joan Miró and which now house a museum of his works, his studio, and an old finca which he had purchased and on whose interior walls he scrawled plans for his 3-D pieces. Now, I am not much of a modern art enthusiast but I have always made a small exception for Miró and this visit only broadened that exception. His pieces are playful and childish. Yes, your four year old could have made them, but he didn't now did he. So there. It was a tranquil, overcast afternoon during which I was able to balance staring at the art with sitting on a bench hiding in the gardens of the property and look at the sea, oppressed by the bland clouds as the rocky shoreline rippled into the grey, misty distance.
That evening, when I got home, I was informed that we had free VIP passes to the Carlos Baute concert that night. 'Free' being the operative word, I accepted. Baute is a pretty big deal over here and I certainly enjoyed dancing with my friends and listening to the music but the concert was really rather ridiculous. I mean, at one point he picked a girl out of the audience and when she was brought on stage after 2 songs they had put her into a wedding gown and he was wearing a zip-on tuxedo and he sang some wedding song to her. Married couples swayed and looked deeply into each others' eyes, young girls cried, girlfriends snuggled into boyfriends arms and looked longing while the guys looked anywhere except at their swooning females, and I laughed. I tried to keep it under control but it was really just ridiculous and from that point, there was no chance for me to ever take his music seriously. It was fun/ny.
On Sunday, Marga and I took a drive into the middle planes of Mallorca. The villages remain largely untouched by the tourism boom and the people are, as she explains it, "muy cerados, muy pueblo." We drove east into a tiny interstate-side pueblo for a traditional Mallorcan meal at the very popular restaurant C'al Dimoni. As marga was explining how Il Dimoni had tempted San Antoni I was trying to figure out just who this Dimoni figure was. I suggested that he was Satan and she very calmly informed me that, while she did not believe in it herself, they do not speak that name out loud here. It seems some vestiges of the superstitious nature which so irked George Sand still cling in the cracks of Mallorcan culture. Another taboo word here is 'cancer' which is instead referred to as 'un mal dolent'. Dolent being Castilian for mal. So, essentially it is 'a bad bad.' This naturally led to a discussion of Harry Potter and the use of Voldemort's name.
After we ate, Marga began to navigate us along the 'old highways' and eventually decided that I needed to see Monasterio de Curi. It is situated atop a nest of hillocks, plopped into the bowels of the expansive plains. It offered striking views. Also of note is that it was the monastery where Ramon Llull stayed. The entire drive up the hairpin, narrow road we were passing hordes of cyclists out battling the wind and pattering rain. Marga informed me that most of the cyclists here are professional teams training for the cycling season which begins in a few months.

The rest of the week passed as do most of my other weeks although I have had to begin goodbyeing some of the classes which I only visit on rotation. I baked masses of chocolate chip cookies and delighted my Llado students. I got a lot of hugs and appear to have achieved Rock Star status because, after spending the hour explaining how to bake chocolate chip cookies to my 4th graders, they all wanted me to sign the notes they had copied.
Saying goodbye to my 6th graders stirred something treacherous in me. Several times over this past week I have felt like tears are threatening but, despite the fact that I am more than willing to allow them their moment, nothing comes. Instead I just sit and stare blankly as my feelings wander deeper than I know how to follow with words and sense. It is a weird space. But with my students my face had to show something so I smiled warmly and tried to communicate the depths to which they had affected me while they tried to communicate to me that I was awesome and they would miss me.

Lat night the two English teachers from Llado picked me up and we drove through the darkness and spatter to Montuïri, another "pueblo muy pueblo" where there was a small, plain restaurant which served the best pan am boli around. The restaurant, called simply Bar S'Hostal, was an unassuming white building. There were no menus because all they served was pan am boli but we did get to pick what kinds of meat we wanted. It was a simple and traditional place. The seats of the chairs were each woven in a different pattern, as they were hand-made here on the island. The floor was tiled and chilly and a small fire burned in the large mantle in the corner. Living here back in the day was not a matter for comfort, it simply...was...and this place held on to that feeling. The paintings on the wall were dark realist portraits of tables with a big chunk of cured meat, a block of cheese, some wine and a loaf of bread in the foreground as a fire burned in the hearth behind. We chatted and ate for 3 hours and when I gave them the photos I had printed and framed for them, they presented me with a laminated book of photos of all my classes and a beautiful silver bracelet with the Mallorcan cross as a pendant. Again, as with the students in the past days, I was so overwhelmed that I felt ridiculous even trying to express it with hugs and smiles and words. It is difficult when the depth of feeling wanders so much deeper than words can reach; but when I can stop trying to make sense of it and...just...go there, it is utterly enveloping.