10 Minute Rule

I’m listening to Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Zafon. The language and the idea of the story brings to mind a particular mindset born of an idea I had long ago. Once, I believed that books—story—was an ocean. I believed that the type of stories I read became the water I drank and felt against my skin. In that way I became acclimated to a particular way of being. I learned that I wrote, and on occasion, spoke in the diction of the language I consumed. It occurred to me that writers were always adding stories to the oceans they consume. Few started their own bodies of water and the ones who did we knew, even moreso than the one that made great waves on these established oceans with frothing white crests of acknowledgement.

Reading Zafon is very different from other reading I do so very often. I read him and feel my words impacted by the reading, shifting from the style and character of the stories I often tell. These diversions are always a plus.

ideally I will be able to merge these waters into a new style, a new body of thought and imagination that washes over my readers. I’m hopeful that I can do so, and that it sounds authentic as opposed to borrowed and unreal. Reading is writing. Writing is imitation in its most flattering form. Ones voice is an echo of their experience both in consuming and experiencing. Therefore to expand the boundaries of both is the most useful pathway to understanding and creating good things.

Things are looking dark in the United States.

While many are cheering the latest developments, to me it feels like a moment from the (3rd?) episode of Star Wars when our favorite Senator sighs, “This is how a democracy dies.” It turns out her feelings are not isolated. A Yale study found that a lot of people are loosing faith in democratic systems. So, is this a trending thing, or a blip? I don’t really know nor do I think it matters within my lifetime, as I am now too old to see the other side of that argument. Trump and his people are still breaking things, like angry children who got into a frienemy’s toy chest. The damage I’ve seen already will take a long time to fix, and there is no guarantee we flip into fixing mode any time soon. What they are breaking and remaking will have lasting repercussions. One of those will be an inability for Americans to gain citizenship elsewhere, so if it is going to happen, people who are trying to do it need to do so soon.

We are not Golden Visa people.

If I had that kind of wealth this would be a different conversation. I’m an airbnb guy. I cannot even afford to stay at hotels for an extended stay. I live at a financial line where I have enough to travel, but little else. Perhaps leaving the country and reinvesting my limited wealth in a small but growing infrastructure is the best way to survive–to at least ride this out as long as we can. The problem is that fewer and fewer countries want us.

Let’s be honest, if you’re a white male under the age of 50 with moderate wealth, you’re getting on anywhere. The few exceptions to that rule are the places those people do not want to be. I’m none of those things, which makes it harder for me to get where I want to be in lieu of being a US citizen. The only place where I’d be easily accepted is Senegal, and there’s probably a ticking clock on that.

So, what to do? Where to go? These are the questions now.

6.5 miles thus far today. That still counts as a down day, though we walked a couple of La Ramblas over the course of a 5 hr jaunt through the city of Barcelona. 6 miles in five hours you say? We did stop a few times to eat and stare. The first time was mostly staring, the second the opposite.

Throughout the walk we continued to encounter a veritable sea of NY Yankee caps worn by tourists and presumed locals alike. The cap hits here. Clothing advertising American cities hits here. The United States of America does not. It’s a rather clear divide between city and States, with the state of the USA continuing to decline globally.

On the other hand, there will be football—American football—here in the fall. You just wouldn’t know it. Instead FC Barcelona continues to be all the rage and the upcoming F1 race (Spanish Grand Prix) is all the hype.

Sports are all hype in general. Being overseas definitely means I’ve avoided the bulk of that. I’m glad. The seasons are coming in a few months. It can be quite exhausting

Some Thoughts:

1. Being overseas from what I’m used to has me growing increasingly curious in F1.
   

We spent the day tooling around Castelldefels with a minor goal in mind: obtain a flat iron and groceries. We scored on both counts, winding through the suburban Spanish city thirsty to drink down whatever nuance and culture it had to offer. Our vacation town is a sleepy one dominated by beach life with a slight downtown area anchored by a small mall. We did it all in a half day. Through the experience I learned that we can navigate this city with little difficulty, and that the citizens here are mostly friendly and knowledgeable—especially along our bus route.

At one point several people on our bus needed to teach the driver where to go. She got lost twice along the route, swapping ours for a route she was more familiar with—one belonging to an entirely different bus. I’m guessing she was a first time sub on the route and had what o like to refer to as muscle memory in regards to her own route experience. The passengers corrected her and helped her navigate back to the actual route.

Twice.

it would have been less funny and considerably less warm had we not been hard chilling at the time and enjoying the detours. If we’d been trying to catch a train or a similar deadline had been in place, it wouldn’t have hit so funny.

but this is a vacation and we have been fortunate enough to enjoy the calm and nuance of not having to be anywhere, or when we have then having enough of a lead up time to make it work without stress. The most stressful part of the trip so far has been overexposure to the sun. That’s a fixable problem.

I needed the quiet and the away time. I did t know how much until I fell into it.

it’s taken me this long to get into a grove here in Spain. We’ve seen a few great things, settled into the beach culture, and I’m writing every day. I don’t have myself up to chapter a day speed yet. Once I do I’m going be able to shoot through these edits with time for another pass. What I do have is a clear understanding of how to get there and a much better grasp on how the vacation is going to go.

I prefer longer vacations. No matter what the length, I am still going to be seen as a tourist. The difference happens on our end where we start to feel like we are settling into the area and the space and understanding the way it all works from a cultural standpoint. Fast vacations leave little time for that. Of course, most people live lives where the only vacations are fast vacations. I am extremely grateful for the life I fought for and am blessed with.

A large part of that life is travel and learning about new places. Over the next few blogs I expect to talk more about these discoveries—including my encounters with the works of Gaudi and how that is changing the way o feel about space and a home.

I’m happy. I’m enjoying life. There was a time where I never thought this possible. There were times when I wanted to end it all. None of that is present tense. All of that was preface to the days and nights I have with the Lady Talis and our beloved kids. As I said, I’m blessed. I earned the blessing.

Yesterday I posted my first piece of flash fiction for this new class. I wrote it in ten, published as is, then submitted. I treated it like a writing exercise, because it felt like one. The task came by way of Pamela Painter, whose text What If? has long been central to my summer creative writing workshop. In the first pages of the guide we are using for this class, Painter explained how and why she uses writing prompts. I languished in her explanation. It spoke to me in a way I haven’t been spoken to in a long time by another CRW instructor. Not only did I understand, I was inspired to elevate and explain how and why I do things in my own classes. It felt good to be reinvigorated by teaching. Painter’s approach is straightforward and honest. In a way, she lets you off the hook dore using prompts by arguing that what comes from them is genuinely your creation, and with a good prompt, no two stories will ever be the same.

My story goes off the rails early. I was thinking about escape rooms and imagined that a man might see relationships in that vein, and be misunderstood after a fashion–though not entirely. You saw the results. The prompt was to write a story that started with He said, ____________ and She said, _____________ . I continued on in this fashion until the end when the matter was, inevitably, decided.

I am enjoying the chance to write more and different things. That being said, I am increasingly excited about the direction of the novel in this rewrite. It is going to be good–better than it was and better than I thought it could be. This could be a top marks book for me.

He said, “I don’t want to understand you.”

She said, “That’s good because you can’t”

He said, “I could. It would be a matter of course, like solving a riddle, or maybe a puzzle, but doing that would leave me with a solved puzzle. What is the good in that.”

She said, “I’m trying not to be offended that you find me so easily solved. I’m trying even harder to accept that you think the solving of me is something final.”

He said, “Everyone is a puzzle waiting to be solved. The people who aren’t are merely pretending or expect they cannot be solved at all. I don’t find anything wrong with being solved. I think we want it, after all. Think about it this way: Who doesn’t want to be known and seen in this life. Seeing, really seeing a person is a way of solving them. You are separating the public face from the person beneath.”

She said, “Like an onion.”

He said, “Yes, exactly. It’s a clever and simple way to put it. Wherever did you discover it.”

She said, “I heard it from a donkey once. He was easily more interesting than you’re pretending to be.”

He said, “No need to be crass. We’re merely feeling each other out. I am explaining what I have to offer, and you are doing the same. This is the dance. These are the parameters of a first date.”

She said, “Usually there’s more of the uncovering attraction and deciding if the person is interesting enough to let them in your home, and such.”

He said, “And such?”

She said, “It is one of those things you would instantly understand if you weren’t treating me like an escape room.”

He said, “Oh, you misunderstood! I am merely pointing out how interesting I think it would be to never get to the bottom of you.”

She said, “I understood completely. Also, i’m leaving now. You can pay for the check, consider it my fee for the time I wasted here.”

In that manner the puzzle was solved.

I haven’t done a very good job of getting sleep. I can go down for a few hours at the beginning of the night, but it doesn’t last. I’m up by 3 and staring into the darkness for the next three or more hours. I wish I could make that time productive. The best I end up doing is sorting through ideas in my head; resolving conflicts in my novel revision to be jotted down later. That is productivity after a fashion, but as the habit continues, I am continuing to be more and more run down. We have an extra-long day today, but we’ve agreed to take the next two off and spend them on the beach, getting up whenever we want, and, hopefully, falling into a routine with the writing and exercise.

That is not to say I am not getting exercise. The ten miles of daily walking is plenty of exercise. It feels good, but the pictures taken of me show me how far I really need to go. It is a bad situation with the weight. It keeps climbing when home, and here I can only hope it is leveling out and, at best, declining. The pictures show a man with an awfully large belly—the worst kind of fat for an older person. I need to get it right as soon as I can.

I’m on a Scrabble losing streak. 5 games and only one was close. It feels like the tiles themselves are out to get me. They’re trying to make me loose, and doing so spectacularly. Even in the close game the tiles were like, “Nah, she’s got this.” And I lost by a point. The others were closer to 100 points, removing all doubt that this goes beyond me just getting beat. I’m getting punked. Obviously, this is a massive ego crush. I consider myself an intelligent person. My tiles consider me a fool. This needs to be resolved soon. The losing streak must come to an end!

Some Thoughts:

1. Tomorrow we tackle Girona.
2. Today we tackled Sagrada Familia and tooled around the city of Barcelona for hours. Lots of beauty in the city. Lots of roaches in the gothic quarter. We went to a seemingly pristine Mango clothing store and there were gigantic roaches on the ground. They were dead by poison or stomping, but they were there for the public behold. The classic rule is that if you see a roach then there are many more you don’t see. What is the rule if you see more than one?
3. Tried wine for the first time since touching down. It was bad.
4. Tried a local vegetarian spot with veggie Paella (sp?). It was very good.
5. Coffeenerdness: Used a Bialetti for the first time since Italy 2024. Quite wonderful. Strong. But wonderful. We used a level 10 espresso blend and added in frothed oat milk and sugar. Solid combo.
6. The coffee proved that my body is recovering from the plane nonsense. Never eat plane food. That stuff will ruin your insides. Add that overprocessed swill to the pressure of the plane itself and your insides are cooked.
7. Tired. It’s 8:45 on a Thursday before a rather long day in Girona. I am afraid to sleep, because I will probably wake up before 1 AM and stare at the wall for hours. Maybe I’ll stare at the lights across the street again. That was a fun night. I haven’t slept right since we landed…
8.  

The blog is going to be strange right now. We are in Spain and that puts us half a day ahead of the homestead. Castelldefels is lovely. It isn’t even 11 AM and the 65 degree weather feels more like a pleasant 75 would in Arizona with a breeze coming off the ocean that makes it all the better. We haven’t truly experienced the beach. We walked the boardwalk yesterday and learned quite a bit about the up and down hilly nature of the area. After 15 hours of travel and shifting 9 hours worth of time zones my body gave out by 7pm. So, we have yet to truly experience the place.

Today is going to be that day.

Back to the point of earlier, the blog is going to be strange for a while, because I am exploring new places and new ideas and new forms. Some of this will wander into travel writing. Some of this will be reflective excursions about living in a new kind of situation (the host family of this B&B is a story above us in the home and must pass our area anytime they come or go), more will bit slices of micr fiction taken from the course work of the summer. It is a new day with new adventures, even 50 years into this long and pleasant life.

I’m excited for what today brings.