Back from the Dead

Emily left the day before yesterday which may explain the previous silence. We (including Harry) had a fabulous time cooking and eating together, snagging shwarmas and eating terrific or terrible little plates of food. (Terrific: lamb’s kidneys with garlic and lemon; small white beans with baby squid; little sandwiches with soft blood sausage. Terrible: octopus head cut into squares then drenched in aioli; little burrito/quesadillas decorated with cheez wiz and filled with lunchmeat; lightly and unintentionally effervescent tomato/pepper glob on old bread [why did I continue to eat that?].)

We (only E. and myself this time) also traveled to Sevilla and Barcelona for a few days. In Sevilla, I dreamed that a ghost sat on my bed which appeared as a female torso dressed in some white garment. It was startling, but not threatening. Barcelona was lovely, sunny and warm. Eating razor clams and drinking beer at a Boquería market stall at 10:30 am was a definite highlight.

I am settling in. The play is coming along well.

I saw a great painting by Zurbarán in Sevilla. It showed an adolescent that has just pricked his finger on a thorn—he is weaving a crown of throns. Presumably it is Christ as a youth; he has a halo after all, even if it’s faint. It is strange; we aren’t accustomed to seeing Jesus at this age (without a beard!), nor dressed this way. The “stage” of the painting is set peculiarly, flattened out and absolutely still. The boy’s face is strangely impassive as he watches his “human” blood drip out. He squeezes it a bit. His future death is crystallizing in the room. A scarlet curtain bunches and hangs above him like a cloud. It stayed with me for days.

Nino de las espinas

More later.