So. Moving to Spain. Where does one start?
Probably back in August, juggling the preparation for the move with a month of 60-hour workweeks because my mathematical programming/optimization project started running on chaos theory math instead of MP and MIP and QP and CP and went seriously postal on us. Bugs out the wazoo, simultaneous with on-the-fly design changes. It has been said, and with some veracity, that writing software documentation is like changing a tire on a moving car. This one was an F1 car, with serious AI nerds as drivers, and we lowly tech writers were reduced to running alongside carrying the tire at 300 kph while the developers kept changing the GUI -- and thus the documentation -- over and over and over and over and over and over and over and...well you get the point. So it was potentially a trying period, full of many good reasons for stress. But funnily enough, I really didn't feel all that stressed out. The vision to move to Spain was just too strong and too omnipresent to feel much of anything but anticipation. And now I'm here, and all the anticipation barely scratched the surface. The call to move here was just so strong and so clear that I just couldn't work up a strong sense of worry about it, try as I might. And damned if Lady Luck or the gods or chaos theory math or whomever/whatever runs these things wasn't listening, because there really wasn't that much to worry about. Oh sure, the truck broke down a few times and the truck rental people were real shitheads, but friends helped with the box toting on both ends, and in the end many hands made for light work, and work full of light. And then afterwards we went out and had a wonderful dinner of tapas, after which Eduardo took us to a little chiringuito bar in a port village south of Sitges (a designer paradise about which you will undoubtedly hear more...much, much, much more), and we partied until 3:00 in the morning, surrounded by Buddhas and weird Brazilian drinks called caipiriñas and wonderful waitresses, all of whom seemed to be called Carmen. Welcome to Spain. And now here I sit in my garden at 1:00 in the morning, writing this, drinking a glass of -- I simply can't believe I'm saying this -- local wine that we got at LIDL for 49 centimes a bottle. And it's not only drinkable wine, it's not bad at all. I've tasted worse Napa Valley wines at 20 bucks a bottle. Go figure. At dinner the other night I tasted a *much* better local wine (way over the top, financially, a red from Ribera del Duero at 13.50 Euros a bottle) that put most of the wines I'd tasted in France over the last few years in the shade. Back to the garden. It's the real reason I moved here. I saw a photo of this garden in a real estate office and my first thought -- literally the first thing that popped into my mind -- was, "Uh-oh. That's my garden." And, as it turned out, it was. Suffice it to say that this is not the first time this has happened to me with regard to finding new places to live. Once, at a meeting with Rama in Chicago, he got a wild hair up his ass and announced that he was moving back to the Boston area, and that anyone who wanted to come was welcome to do so. Those words were no sooner out of his mouth but I had this Class A vision of standing and looking out of a plate-glass window at a U-shaped rocky beach, and the ocean. It only lasted a second, but it was so *real* for that second. I mainly forgot about it, but I kinda liked the idea of moving away from Chicago anyway with Winter approaching, so when business drew me to Boston a few weeks later, I booked an extra day in the area and spent it driving around to see what it would be like to live in 'hoods other than Back Bay or the boring-assed Boston Burbs, both of which I had Been There Done That with. And so I found myself driving on a whim to Marblehead and parking my car and, as I got out of it, noticing that I'd parked next to a real estate office. Still feeling that wild-hair-up-your-assness thang, I walked in and asked whether they ever had rental properties right on the ocean. They laughed at me. Four of them -- seasoned Marblehead real estate professionals all. And then this voice emerged from a back office saying, "I just got one. This lady just phoned and has an apartment on the water on Marblehead Island." The laughing dropped in its tracks, like a poleaxed steer. The mysterious-voiced lady (on her first day with the agency) and I drove there. I walked in the door, turned to my left, and found myself looking out of the same plate-glass window at the same beach I had seen in my brief vision. Suffice it to say I rented the place. It wasn't quite that spectacular with Sitges, just a *feeling* that I was onto something here -- vibe- and power-wise -- and that I should investigate it further. I did, went to a few real estate offices to see what was available and at what prices, and was disappointed with both. But on my last day in town on that first visit, I walked into yet another real estate office and yet another mysterious-voiced lady (also -- no shit -- on her first day with the agency) showed me a photograph on her computer monitor that just fuckin' Closed The Deal. The apartment is nice in itself -- three bedrooms, clean, lots of good space to work with when finding places for my art -- on literally the busiest pedestrian street in Sitges. Step outside the front door, and you are assaulted by the sound of techno and the crush of pedestrians of every size, shape, ethnic background and sexual orientation you can possibly imagine. Step back inside the front door, close it, and the noise of the street is just gone. Over, toast, the memory of once having had a memory. Keep stepping inside, up one flight of stairs and into the apartment and then *keep* walking, through the apartment and out onto the balcony and look down, and what you're looking at is a 9 by 16-meter private garden. Completely silent. Like Canyon de Chelly is silent -- quiet, but with an omnipresent background hum of power, like the drone in a raga. In the middle of a busy, bustling beach town, a block from the beach. Go figure. It has lighting and tables and chairs and a big barbeque pit, and it just sings PARTY! But it sings quietly, like St. John of the Cross's solitary bird. It sings of *conversation* parties, not raucous ones. It's pretty neat sitting here in that garden tonight, gazng at my new Buddha. I was with my friend Laurel tonight on the way to dinner, and we walked past a store that had a sign in the window that said, "Bodhas 50%." Some of you may think I'm all jaded and cynical and all, but lemme tell you, the idea of Buddhas being Marked Down just stopped me in my tracks and made me laugh out loud. There were probably 100 different Buddhas in the store, from various countries and Buddhist traditions in Asia. And when it comes to Buddhas I'm really picky. I just don't like the faces on many of them; they're just not having enough FUN. But in this store tonight I found three. Two of them I could carry home with me, but the third was a half-meter high stone Buddha that weighed a ton. So I asked the girl if she could wait for a couple of minutes before closing the store while I ran back to my apartment and got one of the little rolling carts I use for hauling art. She agreed, and I did. So there I was, just a few minutes ago, this weirdass old American guy, rolling a half-meter-high stone Buddha through the crowded streets of Sitges at midnight, weaving my Way amongst people who were just leaving home for an evening out on the town, at that hour. I must have looked pretty silly to them. Then again, they don't always look like the happiest campers in the pup tent to me, either, with all of this looking for love in all the hip places stuff. Different strokes for different folks, I guess. Anyway, now I'm back in my garden and the paella at dinner was good and the glass of wine Here And Now is good and the new Buddha staring at me from across my garden is good and life is pretty good, too. If you ever find yourself in my 'hood, do drop by. I'll splurge and serve you the good wine and we'll sit in the garden and talk until 1:00 in the morning or so and have a good old time. And *then* we'll go out on the town, and walk along the beach to the chiringuito bar in Aiguadolç and we'll order caipiriñas and the conversation will really start taking off. Bring your own Buddha.
