i could've stayed in andalucia for weeks ... but now i'm looking over a heathrow runway from a hotel room (it's not a bad sight, actually... lights, even some lightning.. )
this morning though, (when i wrote this) i had no desire to leave the heat, the wide openness, the slow and laziness of andalucia
perhaps the fact that we had no wifi where were staying was part of the magic. when we first arrived it felt like it was going to be a drag. it turned out to be a gift that internet was not easy or a given whenever we wanted it (e.g. i had to wait to post this post till now)
1492 is famous to americanos as the year columbus "sailed the ocean blue"
he left from upriver in andalucia
it's also the year the reyes catolicos booted the moros (moors) as well as the jews
the exiling of moro king boadbil is captured in salman rushdie's book "the moor's last sigh"
here in miguel's parents' condo there is a rather poetic Fodors from 1979. travel books don't seem this poetic anymore... (this one seems to be co-written by Eugene Fodor himself). fodor writes that when "When Boabdil, the last Moorish King of Granada, surrendered the city to Ferdinand and Isabela, he left his palace by the Puerto de los Siete Suelos and asked that this gate be sealed forever. His heart-broken sobs found a lasting echo in Arab hearts, for of all Spain the Moors deplored most the loss of [Andalucia], and mourn it still in their evening prayers"
over the last days as I felt the heat of the sun... as I watched arel and dorian run in the sea/ocean and giggle and scream in the sprinklers.... as we played our 100th game of bullshit or elferraus... as we discussed connections between shakespeare and mike meyers.... or on our last night in andalucia as kristin searched for the first star and the kids ran over the rocks and in the sea at 10:30 pm (and as later in the car kristin gave the kids the most heartbreakingly beautiful explanation of wishing on the first star in the night sky) ... i sighed... happily
work awaits, details await, real life awaits
but i'd like to seal the gate here a while longer
