Barcelona...
So, history: frequently, between about 2003-4 and 2008-9, Susan and Rob and I spent some time each summer in Barcelona, or Sitges, which is nearby enough. Changing circumstances, the deaths of Chris and then Dennis, and my increasing preoccupations in Zürich broke that pattern...
And: a few years ago, Susan gave a seminar at the Barcelona music conservatory, and said they were really interested in her work – and that I should contact them. I sent a couple of emails – can we set up an Erasmus exchange? – but no answer. I assumed, well, you know: a large conservatory, attitudes between conservatories and universities – they probably aren't interested.
Then, a couple of months ago, the Barcelona conservatory emailed me out of the blue: they had heard of our department (ha! not because I had already told them about us, of course) and wanted to set up an exchange. Some fussing around, G. wanted to go in my place, I semi-gracefully capitulated; then he was too busy – so, fine: I get to go to lovely, strange, warm Barcelona again, to set up an ongoing relationship... that is intended to support going back and forth fairly frequently.
Uh, I mean, for the whole department, I mean... not just, like, for me. You knew that, didn't you?...
•••
Just after Easter is acceptable timing for them. I tell Norma about it, and she wants to go – so we set up an entire week, over Easter vacation. (Yes-I-know-don't-visit-a-Catholic-country-around-major-church-holidays... but that was when we could go; and it ended up being fine.)
Four days of Norma and I – some fantastic/exotic/complicated restaurants, including some modernist cuisine, plus its current avatar of Catalan-Japanese fusion. Various wonderful meals – at points it was as though that was the main point in being here (my fault, I think).
That first night, a series of small plates (Norma photographed the complicated menu) one after another – fifteen courses, I think? by a frantically energetic bunch of young guys that included some Adriá students.
A later evening, a plain modern café two blocks from the apartment – young people, trendy – great food: and I mean really great food. Small neo-tacos, experimental combinations by someone who really knows what they're doing. And, at the next table, two handsome, bearded Spanish guys talking energetically, kissing at intervals – and this isn't even the gay neighbourhood.
Two dud meals, which isn't too bad. Please read online reviews before going in.
Much architecture, much Gaudí. Parc Guëll was the high point – I'd never gone into the cordoned-off central area; Norma ordered the tickets, which was smart. Much calmer, much more beautiful – that park really works if you can experience it as a park, some place calm and quiet, without all the masses of tourists.
Good Friday!... parades; men and boys in black robes, like the Inquisition come to town. With mockups (I hope they were mockups) of flagellation; statues of Christ – one gaunt and bleeding, another more reservedly covered with a purple robe. A tiny, pale girl in a nun-like outfit, with a tragically pale cast to her face her eyes a bit sunken – she was part of one of the school group parades, and looked a bit too much the part of the suffering believer for my entire comfort. She caught Norma's eye and gave her a small card...
Walking, the harbor... some points where I got peevish with the walking; Norma is thoroughly energetic and likes walking. Well, I got better, after a while.
•••
Could I live here?... I really wanted to, seven or eight years ago. Then I thought: no, that probably won't work – I can't afford it; then with the rise in planning a late career as a psychoanalyst, the mildly anxious sense of the restrictions and qualifications on working in Spain (as in Italy), the number of Jungians in Barcelona (about a hundred?), and how long would it take for me to work out the language...
But I'm thinking about it again. I know, Bologna: but honestly this city is larger, more fantastic. I probably lose some clout by having a Sicilian name, which makes me just another foreigner in a city full of them. But I think it wouldn't be hard to work in English; and perhaps I could occasionally work in German or French, and eventually polish up some Catalan or Castilian... the psychoanalyst from another country, with a heavy accent: it's been done before.
Reading Claudia Roden and Zafón, Robert Hughes, Michener... all on Barcelona, on Spain. Rediscovering my desire to be here... and watching closely to see the good and bad points: a big, gorgeous city; shabby/scruffy in spots; lively, artistic in others; too many tourists; good weather, good food...
El Raval is much too scruffy. The Barrí Gotic is increasingly touristy. El Born – hmm, used to seem a bit boring, but now... except for the smell of urine on too many corners. The Eixample? Maybe, some part of it that's not too massive....
I do still like the idea.
•••
Then my plane home is canceled. Laurie and her family have no trouble getting home to southern England on the same day – but I don't have their luck: planes are full, I have to stay three more days.
And cancel analysands, appointments, students... move a class back a week...
Sergio, whose apartment we are using, has to come back – but fortunately we like each other, we share the apartment. Slightly more complicated are his old girlfriend, and then his new one – the first takes me as part of the family, the second is cooler, French, and clearly would prefer the apartment to herself.
But Sergio likes me, we manage. All a bit chaotic...
•••
On the last night: a small, funky restaurant on the quiet, dark side of El Born, with surprisingly good food; a charming young waiter, who keeps catching my eye and smiling, and laughing, as though slightly self-conscious; and says at the end, Adéu!...
So: I keep seeing guys, and it is erotic. Not exactly sexual, but instantly passionate, sensual: a sense of possibilities, which rarely appears in Newcastle.
Now, at my age (yes, Virginia, I am 58) it may seem a bit graceless – tacky? – to go on and on, especially as these men are often distinctly younger than I am. (I don't put much cachet on youth – it is fortunate that I generally find 20-year-old men uninteresting; which easily keeps me out of trouble on a university campus. Unlike some people I have heard tell of.)
Perhaps it's just that younger men are, themselves, more on the lookout....
But I don't want to act like Goytisolo. Or Capote or Genet, or (please, no) Burroughs. No tacky slavering over the young and handsome.
Perhaps I can be like Cavafy – of course his endless wistfulness does seem a bit pathetic after a while; and so many of the men he is watching have such disastrous lives ahead of them....
•••
But it is the last day. I could live here, I think. (Let's check those regulations again.) And it is pleasant to see the buildings, the sun, the food – the men....