The Pig's Elbow

I was on the lam in Madrid and ducked into a bar for lunch. The place was a sea of cured ham legs hanging from the walls and ceiling.

I used to complain that every American city had the same inventory: Starbucks, Barnes & Noble, Wal-Mart, Bed Bath & Beyond. It hardly mattered where you lived because every town was the same. I romanticized European cities, where diverse people ate diverse foods prepared in traditional ways. But the thing about an illusion is that it’s an illusion. In Spain, instead of the same companies selling the same thing, you have different companies selling the same thing: every bar and restaurant in the land has a selection of little piggy legs dangling overhead. It’s like sitting down to the table beneath a pork burlesque show. Wow, look at the knees on that one!

This was typical Spanish fare. The "menu del dia" would give me three courses, and this one included a bottle of wine! And not a bad price either.

I made a pass through the list of options. I don’t speak Spanish, but after a year-long course as an undergrad in ‘89, a tour through Europe in ‘93, two summers with Peruvian sheep herders in Idaho (’05 and ’06), and now two plus months in Spain, I can get along just fine.

The first course was easy. The elderly couple seated nearby had chosen the shrimp in a garlic butter sauce, and it looked very fine. I chose that. Then for the second course.

Hmm, I thought, running through the options. I don’t know what this one is. Or that one. The "chuletillas de lechal." Little chops of some sort, with fries. Probably lamb, or maybe pork. A safe choice. But I bet everything was good.

Might as well just pick one, I thought, trying for spontaneity. Perhaps the "codillo estilo Aleman?" Must be German. I’ll have that.

As it turned out, it was German. At least that one word I got right. “Codillo,” I learned later, means “elbow,” so this was a dish of pig’s elbow, German style, with side dishes of boiled potatoes and brussel sprouts. When it arrived, the steaming elbow stood at least eight inches off the surface of the plate, all covered over with a thick layer of hearty boiled fat, which separated and fell away when I touched it with my knife.

Almost everyone can locate a moment when an expectation was not satisfied by reality. If the difference between expectation and reality is extreme, several things happen: a sour emptiness floods into the stomach making you feel queasy and unsociable; time is suspended, and what is likely seconds goes on for days; and the happiness you sat down with drains from your face only to be replaced by a violent surge of heat and blood swirling with regret. This is how I felt when the codillo estilo Aleman appeared in front of me.

A Eulogy for my Grandmother

It is a spring Sunday in southern Spain, where I have been teaching and living these past months, and we who are still alive wake to the sun breaking for us. It comes into the window of my flat, the shutters now thrown back, and I sit under it, my hair wet from the bath, a coffee, hot in my hands. The sun lights this whole splendid world for us, and for everything else too. Everything that is or ever was on earth was made by the sun. Trees and flowers were made by the sun, whales and elephants and giraffes, yogurt and beer and biscuits were all made by the sun. I was made by the sun. And you too are made by the sun.

My grandmother, Maxine Ophelia Buchholz Caswell, died in Idaho, on Friday, in the early morning hours. She is the mother of my father, and of two of my uncles, and she lived to see nearly 31,000 sunrises. That seems like a big number, and enough for anyone, but putting the number down at all connects me with my own end, and maybe connects you with yours. Our little lives are brief next to the great age of the sun, and what my grandmother has accomplished in her passage from this world to the next is to show all of us the way.

I was not with her when she died, but the story I am hearing from you who were there is that she refused to accept that her body’s life was soon to end. She held on to this world with a fierceness I did not know was in her. For years I thought of her as someone who lived mostly at the edges of the world, not in it, and that when her time came to die, she would willingly let go. She spoke often of not wanting to be a burden to anyone, and stated so in a sealed letter she included with her will. But what I mistook for detachment, I realize now was a quiet and uncontestable independence. She wanted to do it herself, or not at all. I must smile at this, for it is in me too, and in my father and my sisters.

I believe that the universe is not tuned for extinction, but for transformation—transformation that is in-line with the first law of thermodynamics: energy cannot be created or destroyed, but it must change form. Birth and death are bound together at their ends; they are as much the same thing as they are opposites.

We cannot know if we will see her again, but we do know that where she has gone, we will all one day follow. After this ceremony today, it is our great task to live on without her, to work hard, to love well, to open ourselves to the sun that is rising for us through the window.

Goodbye, my grandmother. Godspeed you on your way.

The Arab Bath

But for Stockholm and Copenhagen; Sapporo, Japan and Portland, Oregon, all cities are unnecessarily filthy, smell of refuse and decay, and tend not to deliver what they promise. People like them, I guess, for the shopping, the fresh pastries, and the proximity to indoor plumbing. Seville is such a city too, but it also has its finer points: its beauty is drawn forward from the distant past—Roman, Visigoth, Moorish and Christian. It is a wilderness of masonry and stone settled on a river port, punctuated by bright oranges hung in the trees like Christmas bulbs. People are everywhere in the streets, a lively, gay parade of dark lovely hair and bright voices. But better than any of this—it has an Arab bath.

At calle Aire 15, just beyond Iglesia Santa Cruz, you enter Aire de Sevilla through an unassuming portal in the narrows where the music, its mellifluous flutes and strings, calls you in along with the sensuous warmth of burning incense. You cannot pass that door without turning in, which is what befell me just the other day, strolling through town, minding my own business, gazing up at this and over at that. Of course, I had also made an appointment, which is essential—the number of bathers is limited to prevent over-crowding and preserve the sanctity of your experience.

So in I went, and took a seat to wait my turn, just as Christ waited at the gate for Mary Magdalene (or don’t you read Kazantzakis?). The bell struck 4:00 pm, and I dressed down to my swim trunks and entered the bath.

You cannot believe such bliss lies just beyond those doors. The soft candle light releases your heart from the weary week as you enter first, the sauna. You can see nothing through the steam, walking blindly in until the benches introduce themselves at your knees. You sit. You breathe that gentle good earthy air. That music you hear is the main theme from House of Flying Daggers—I guess the Moors love that movie too. You settle in. The steam washes you from the inside out, and you sweat and sweat and breathe deeply again. Water, condensed on the ceiling, splashes onto your head and thighs. When the futbol players arrive and shatter the silence, you head for the bathing pools.

When the Moors ruled most of Iberia (711-1492, roughly), the bath was not just for personal hygiene. It was central to social life, and functioned too as an informal meeting place where men conducted state business. It so complemented the affairs of state, that in Granada’s Alhambra, the bath is located close to the entrance to the Hall of Ambassadors, the first door on the eastern wall of the Courtyard of the Myrtles. As friendly as it was, a bath warden stood by to quell any escalating disagreements.

From the sauna, you find your way from pool to pool up and down a system of wooden stairs—the soft quiet pool, the jet pool with the ceiling fretted with stars, then through the resting room to the big one, which conceals a much hotter pool in the back, next to the cold bath. This is what you’ve been searching for—you go hot then cold, hot then cold, hot then cold, and return again to the sauna. Now the sauna is empty. And so are you. After all, you’ve been cooking in steam for an hour and a half. A couple arrives and seeks out the darkest corner, vanishing into the mist. You leave them for a cup of cold tea in the resting room.

You’ve booked a 45 minute massage, instead of the usual 15. Might as well go all the way. Don’t worry—you’re just getting a rub down. Lance Armstrong gets one every day. The masseuse leads you up two flights of stairs to a private room—what the bath didn’t take out of you, she does. You leave feeling like a million bucks, and you’re down only about 60 euros. The problem is you’ll probably come back.

What Comes In Through the Window

Birdsong, when the weather is good, and the neighbors on the 3rd floor throw open their shutters and hang the caged canary in the sunshine in Seville. Hang two cages, each with a canary, in the sunshine, that sing and sing to be freed. A woman singing, roughly, hanging her laundry to dry on a rack near the window, wearing a white dress with black polka-dots, she sings and catches my eye through the window as I pass. A dog, a little wiener-shaped wire-haired dog, that might as well be a rat, barking, its little bark enough to urge me to violence, even I, who love dogs. Then the dog-mother walks it, the cling! clang! of the iron gate, where it squats in the street, and then returns with her, quiet now, for a time. A short time as people are yelling, in Spanish of course, shouting at each other, a lover’s quarrel, as if this is what the voice was made for. Another voice was made to sing, the man upstairs, bass or bass baritone, he sings his warm-up scales, resonant and warming, and I am transported to that opera house in Prague where I saw Figaro, my first. A saxophone, when I pass under it in the evening hours, through the open window as its piper practices and the sounds rolls down into the narrow, ancient streets and smile upon me. And I don’t even care for jazz. Love, the hard-edged sounds of it roughened by the drum beat pulse of it from the flat next door. The workers overhauling the building, “Oi! Oi! Oi!” and the psst-whir of the construction elevator. The gentle breeze, topping the palm trees, the one that comes up in the courtyard there. The smell of a kitchen, garlic and roasting something in an oven when I pass, the bread too from the little bakeries and coffee when I sit near my own window which comes forward from the back of my flat. The fuggy city smell with carbon and carbon monoxide, sewer stink and lovely roast lamb from the kebab shop. Oranges, fallen from the city trees and pounded into the cobble stones by cars and bicycles and feet. The sun, warming my face. Cigarette smoke from inside and outside the building manager’s lungs. Darkness. The cold.

Alhambra, Evening Light

Why write the name of your lover on every orange in Seville, or make promises about spring and the cherry trees when, as the day wants to pass into tomorrow, you might walk unknowingly into bliss up the narrow hill roads of the Albayzin to the Mirador San Nicholás to gaze upon a beauty nothing else can match?

You reach the little view point near Mezquita Mayor de Granada, the new mosque serving Granada’s re-surging Muslim population, and there, before you, the Alhambra in evening light all along La Sabika hill, and in the far-off nearby, the Sierra Nevada, its snows fresh from last night’s storm. The air is cool but not cold, with lovely freshets rising off the green valley and the river Darro. The view point is filled with people, dogs, babies, and traveling hippies selling handmade jewelry. You don’t need any handmade jewelry, but you have a look anyway because it’s all part of the scene. And as the sun drops lower, the light on the palace walls drops too, a brighter yellow gone all ruddy warm. You stand at the edge of it, needing nothing else to feed you, imagining the colorful, silk-draped world the Muslims created in southern Spain long ago, and you decide that it was good.

That was the moment I had been hoping for, the moment to end my suffering after an oh-so-ordinary tour of the Alhambra. What, with 6,000 people passing through each day, each one required to follow a guide, for better or for worse, and that guide speaking whatever language you speak, her eye on you so that you don’t wander off to a quiet corner and enjoy yourself, wander off to feel the place as Irving felt it, alone, in the dark, his body a pile of tender bones upon the cold, hard invulnerable floors. No. You won’t get any such luxury here, and certainly little enjoyment, trapped inside a sea of people, group after group, wave after wave, the click and whir of countless little cameras, the swish-swishing of fat legs meeting in the middle, the plastic bag sound of a million square yards of Gortex, all of it, all of them together a tired mass of writhing eels, and you, yourself, the worst little eel of all.

The Alhambra, to say something of its history, dates from the 9th century, when it was built as a hilltop fortress by the Muslim rulers of the day. Over the next few hundred years, it was expanded into a fortress palace. Then in 1492, Abu Abd Allah, the last Muslim king of Granada, handed over the keys to Ferdinand and Isabella. Various obscenities followed—the razing of the mosque for construction of a Catholic church, destruction of part of the Palacio Nazaries for the Palacio de Carlos V, and the eventual closure of the bath. Later, the fortress was abandoned and forgotten and occupied by beggars and thieves. During Napoleon’s little Narcissism, the great Alhambra was used as a barracks and livestock stable. Washington Irving took up residence here in 1829, and wrote down the stories from the palace’s history in his famed Tales of the Alhambra. That book helped illuminate the obvious need to restore and preserve the palace, which Spain did and so, much later, garnered the honor of UNESCO World Heritage status.

All that really is just history, because the Alhambra is a live thing, a glorious thing, a beauty beyond compare when you gaze into its future from across the river with your friends. The light falls against it, and a little brown bird goes whiffling by. A dog barks at a puppy asleep on its master’s discarded sweater. In the mountains there, the high clouds come down to cover them.

That’s just about as much beauty as you can take. On the way back down the hill, you are careful to avoid speeding cars, wrong turns, and excrement in the road.

Viva Itálica

The first trip I made out of Sevilla after arriving on January 4, 2009 was to Itálica, the first Roman colony in southern Spain.

Established in 206 BC, Rome was still a burgeoning empire. After defeating the famed Hannibal of Carthage, the Romans claimed rule over most of Iberia. Maybe you remember this bit of history, because it was the staging for Russell Crowe’s first appearance in the coliseum of Rome in Gladiator. (These days, it’s OK to admit that you really love that movie, no matter how well-read you are.) The story goes that veterans of this Second Punic War settled in Itálica, and the city rose up around them.

Interesting fact: did you know that Caesar, the original, was one of “the great fornicators [of] antiquity?”

It is but an eight kilometer bus ride from Seville (both spellings seem acceptable) to the ruins of this once great city and its impressive ampitheater, theater, and lovely mosaic floors which characterized the homes of wealthy Romans.

Walking among the ruins, you would believe that the city was carved out of the very Earth, so dense and rough-shod are the worn walls and tunnels. I love stone—“as God intended,” a friend once said—and prefer it to two-by-fours and dry wall. I announced suddenly that I wouldn’t mind to have lived during Roman times.

“I wouldn’t mind to have lived during Roman times,” I said, suddenly.

“Are you kidding,” said Dr. Inglis, the TTU Center site director. “As a historian, I love to look at it, but I don’t want any part of it. How old are you?” he asked.

I told him.

“See, if you had been a slave or a servant, you’d have been dead 15 years. If you had been rich, maybe 10 years ago, five if you’re lucky.”

Five or ten, what would it matter once you were dead? Anyhow, “Gee,” I said. “I get your point.”

We angled across the ampitheater floor and had a look into its underbelly, the passageways where gladiators and various wild beasts awaited pain and slaughter to delight the crowd. Then into one of the gateways and under the ancient grandstands. Here we admired the replica of the iron plate posted on the wall—the credo of the gladiator. Spock reminds us to “Live long and prosper,” but the message here is rather the opposite: your life is brief, and generally meaningless, so you might as well die valiantly to make the crowd happy.

Despite the dark reality of a short life, rich or poor, have you ever considered that the Roman’s got it right? In their day, the well-educated were the elite, and were likely wealthy. Professional athletes were slaves, and died for sport in the coliseum. (Except Russell Crowe, of course, bless his heart.)

Two thousand years later, professional athletes enjoy god-like status, and make millions, while over-educated teachers scratch a living out of shadows and dust. In fact, a sure route to poverty is to go to graduate school, evidenced by the extreme glut of out-of-work PhDs. Alas.

Does Tiger Woods deserve millions? Or your daughter’s third grade teacher? You decide.

Up in Ronda

Maria, the seven year-old daughter of my traveling companions—Carmen Pereira of Vigo, Spain and John Beusterien of Detroit—makes a list over lunch of all the careers she plans to try before making her choice. Astronaut. Poet. Pet sitter. Ballerina. Food critic. She loves food, especially meat. But never, she announces, will she be a translator. This, despite the fact that she’s already fluent in Spanish and English, as are her parents, and she plans to pick up a few more languages along the way.

“I want to learn Portuguese next,” Maria says. “Then French, German, Chinese, Japanese . . .”

“How about this creamy vegetable soup?” I ask. “How would you rate it, on a scale from one to ten?”

“Four,” she says, without hesitation. “Daddy. I’ll swap you for your salad,” she says.

The next course arrives, the lomo (pork) in heavy gravy with a spread of greasy French fries.

“And this,” I ask. “On a scale from one to ten?”

“Mmm,” Maria says. “Seven.”

We’re in the mountains south of Seville, up from the broad, flat valley of the Quadalquivir. Ronda is a village of 35,000 people bisected by the dramatic El Tajo gorge. On the south side is the old Muslim city, on the north the modern Christian town with its famous bullring, the oldest dedicated bullfight arena in Spain. Hemingway loved this little town, and you’ll find a walkway dedicated to him, as did Orson Wells and Alexander Dumas. Ronda is home to three generations of Romeros, who collectively gave shape to modern bullfighting. Pedro, the youngest and most famous, was inspiration for a bullfighter by the same name in Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises. Hemingway was also inspired by the Puente Nuevo, the new bridge (1793) spanning the gorge, and turned it into Robert Jordan’s mission in For Whom the Bell Tolls. But you can find this information in any reasonable guidebook, enough texture at least to decide on a visit or no.

We catch a taxi out to the Hotel el Horcajo, a country Inn in the bottom of a little valley. We stow our bags, and set out for a refreshing walk in the hills.

Making our way up the old road, we arrive at a gate near the pig barn. John and Carmen, both overly-curious professor types, dash inside as 100 little black piggies come running out. These are the famous black pigs that eat only acorns from the cork forests all over Andalucía, and are the source of the delicious jamón Ibérico (not to be confused with jamón serrano), made by slowly salt curing the back leg. In almost every bar in every town in the region you find a sea of pig legs hanging from the ceiling.

“I don’t care much for pigs,” I say, as we climb the hill behind the barn. The valley is a vibrant green from all the recent rain, and the ground is wet and soft.

“I thought you were a naturalist?” says Carmen.

“Just because it’s an animal doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I say. “Besides, pigs have tiny brains and they’re dirty. What’s to like about a pig?”

“What? No! Pigs are smarter than dogs,” protests Professor Beusterien.

“And pigs are really clean. They love the water,” says Professor Pereira. “They’re dirty only when confined by human beings.”

We come across yet another black devil rooting up the ground with its nose, and snorting hideously.

“Look! How cute,” Carmen says. “A pig in its natural environment.”

But Maria and I agree—pigs might taste good, but they’re icky and scary. I can only understand Carmen and John’s pig-defense by chalking it up to a hyper-developed sense of fair play, often a primary psychological feature during parenthood.

“But I think horses are beautiful,” says Maria.

Finally someone gets it right.

At dinner, we decide only to order a few plates and share them around, so monstrous was our 3:00 pm lunch. Plates are flying about the table like whirligigs from a copse of maple trees. Maria devours everything that once went on four legs, and then tucks into a dessert of quince and cheese.

“How is that?” I ask, noticing how she is hording the plate from the rest of us. “On a scale from one to ten.”

“It’s wonderful!” she exclaims. “Ten!”

Later, she will give the same mark to a cup of hot chocolate after a long day in Ronda walking in the rain. But don’t think of that hot cocoa you know in the States made with a synthetic powdery mix. This is a cup of chocolate, melted and heated for drinking. Again, Maria knows best.

But it’s not her fault she’s smart and speaks two languages. She’s got worldly parents, and they’ve made a point of taking her traveling. Some people just have a head start on the world.