Romanticising a Summer in Spain!

Sevilla

LOVE IT! People dancing and singing in the streets; clapping away to the rapid and ornate rhythms of the Spanish guitar. It’s simple. Clap fast, strum fast, move fast, think fast, twirl fast and wiggle your bum like it’s infested with ants. All the music is heavily influenced by the Arabic infused gypsy flair. It sings a very strong rhythm that you just can’t ignore. Your hips move without permission, your arms spring up into the air as if responding to a sergeants order. It’s hot. It’s insufferably hot. You lose all focus, you lose all control over stance and movement- you simply float aimlessly through this gypsy dream which hurries past you alive in colour and rhythm.
    I think I’m sweating from every pore possible. I don’t even know any more. All I’m wary of is that I feel I’ve been locked in a sauna and am rapidly proving the theory of osmosis.

The floor burns, the water of the river literally bubbles from the heat. There’s simply no escape, but you kind of accept that and throw yourself fully into the flames. The rhythm of the music carries you, like a feather over turbulent water kick-starting you back to life every time the chorus starts.

I love how summer nights really are a family investment. By family I don’t just mean in the traditional sense of the blood-family unit but also the society and people of the town as a whole. Everyone contributes, everyone participates and nobody stops. The suffocation of the sun’s heat goes to bed and everyone comes out of hiding to celebrate. They exploit the night and all it’s cool glory. The wind escapes from its captivity and clears all the cobwebs collected through the day. Summer is when it all happens. I can’t imagine what life is like in the winter when apparently the city hibernates. I imagine a ghost town haunted and taunted by the echoes of a vivacious and musical summer.

It slightly reminds me of Peru. The Semana Santa celebrations- the streets lined with food and beer stalls, the streets lively with kids playing and people dancing and warbling. But, there are yummy and cheap mojitos and there’s a kind of seriousness to the way in which people sing and dance here. Everyone joins in but at the climactic point of the song, the accompaniment stops and leaves the sound of guitar resonating in the echoey silence. The people stop, hush to a silence and clear the space for the obvious professional. In this particular instance, it’s an old dude from the bar. He wears Ray Ban sunglasses, black polo shirt and khaki shorts. He looks up slowly with torero grace, grins and then...his hands burst into action, quickly following by his feet, his bum and then his warbling voice. Everyone respects him. Nobody smirks. Nobody giggles. Nobody exchanges awkward glances. They appreciate him, they respect him, they idolise him- the maestro. For that moment, with the twiddle of the guitar, it’s all about him and what he can do. He communicates with everybody there as his grace sweeps the dance floor and catches everyone’s attention. 
     I love how people can define a moment and time and yet have no idea that you even exist. I will never forget that moment and, in that small way, that old man will live forever in a stranger’s memory. Freaky? A little bit. Should he be afraid? Probably. Maybe a little flattered? Probably not..just scared.

   One added extra that may ascertain any ideas that I’m crazy- the legendary lady in the fringe gold dress. She fluttered into my life for all of forty seconds but, I love her! She walked past the restaurant singing gypsy music, walking like a flamenco and artistically fluttering her fan. She wasn’t doing it for show, simply because she felt like it. Legend.