Chartres
Chartres
April 19, 2007
Dear Friends,
I left Seville on Sunday the 15th of April, on what was arguably the best morning of the nearly six weeks since my arrival—deep blue skies, sunshine, light breezes, temperatures in the mid-seventies. When the breeze blew one way you could smell azahar (orange blossoms) mixed with jasmine. When it blew the other, strong coffee and warm bread. It was a calm city I left behind, calm for Seville, anyway—a fraction slower, a little bit quieter, and many fewer tourists on the streets.
When I crossed the Plaza de San Francisco and the Plaza Nueva to the taxi stand in front of the Hotel Inglaterra on the first leg of my journey to the airport, I stopped to chat with some public works people who were dismantling and stowing all the fancy Holy Week viewing stands. They were also busy scraping candle wax off the adjoining streets, a city-wide job that (they told me) will take as long as a month to complete. Although it’s tedious work, they were not complaining about it; they are well-paid, and Sunday work is time-and-half. “Además,” one said, “en cuanto se acaba una, ya viene la otra!”—“What’s more, as soon as one fiesta ends, here comes the next one!
And he was right—I was leaving behind a city that was really not quieting down—it was just catching its breath before the next big bash, the Feria de Abril, when Seville re-plays the days long ago when the spring market brought all the farmers in from the countryside to sell and barter, and all the ganaderos—the bull-breeders especially—exhibited the best of their herds. Feria was, and still is, the start of the bullfighting season in Andalusia, and in Seville, which possesses the most beautiful of all Spain’s bullrings, La Maestranza, the corrida, or bullfight, is still extremely popular, despite the efforts of some regional governments to ban it. An anti-taurine protest in Seville in the days after Holy Week drew a grand total 37 people, not counting the 20 or so who mounted it.
(I won’t even begin to try to describe the complex relationship of the corrida with Iberian society—for example, bullfights are reported and reviewed on the culture pages of the newspapers; it is NOT considered a sport! Just be prepared, if you should enter into disapproving disputation about it with an aficionado, to defend yourself against charges of sentimentality—after all, he or she will point out to you, as one did to me, that “at least we know how the animal was raised, and in the ring it is open to all to see how it is slaughtered. Tell me all about how your chicken, your beefsteak, or your loin of pork got to your table, and then we’ll talk about the ‘cruelty’ of bullfighting.”)
As I left, I was of course very much looking forward to coming here to Chartres—and to having Anne join me!—but I confess also to feeling really sorry to leave Seville and to miss the Feria. And that’s not all I’m missing for having left Seville behind me. I’m missing my weekday telenovela, “Love in Tumultuous Times” (i.e., during the late 40’s, and the consolidation of the Franco regime). Oh, will smarmy arch-villain Ernesto ever gets his just desserts? (I left him playing both ends against the middle in a fraudulent land scheme in which he has involved his wife’s innocent and unwitting family.)
I also won’t know what sort of impact Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the conservative opposition party, will make on the public when he appears this week on the TV program, “Tengo Una Pregunta Para Usted”—I Have A Question for You,” a show on which one hundred “ordinary” citizens ask their political leaders any question they want, uncensored. (The socialist president, Zapatero, was on three weeks ago and did not make a very good impression, foundering on economic questions liked, “Señor Presidente, cuánto cuesta un café hoy en día?” –Mr. President, what does a cup of coffee cost these days?” He guessed, “About 80 cents…” Right. In his dreams!)
And I’ll never know whether the elegant old lady, who practically every day tacks up new “SE BUSCA” (Searching for…) posters all around the Murillo Gardens, ever found her wandering pooch.
But… it’s a life-lesson that is as true as it is trite: you can’t have everything! And how silly it is to be disappointed about that, and possibly miss thereby the fabulous-ness of all that you do have! Gratitude is the antidote to such silliness. And so with deep, ever-expanding gratitude, I flew away—to Chartres. (Poor me.)
Chartres is a jolting change of pace from Seville. It really is quiet here! Pretty much all- the-time-quiet, even with lots of tourists in the town. The sidewalks roll up here around 7:30 p.m., just about the time sevillanos are pouring into the streets for the evening stroll and crowding into the bar-cafés for the odd tapa and copita of sherry before supper at 10:30 or 11. People in Chartres do not speak in loud tones or congregate in large groups or slap each other heartily on the back at the slightest friendly provocation. I don’t know enough French to be able to say whether the denizens of Chartres ever employ anything like the extended, intricate plays on words, metaphorical fancies, and exaggerated verbal jousting that characterize daily conversation in Seville (everything sevillanos do, it seems— from religious festivals to shopping for bananas—is somehow Baroque in feel, limit-pushing and over the top!), but my impression so far is that a somewhat more serious and reserved bunch resides in this picture-postcard, prosperous cathedral town!
Nonetheless, I like it here. People are cordial, the weather is perfect, the cathedral is beautiful (the last time I was here, two years ago, many of the most famous of its stained-glass windows had been removed for restoration, and now they are back, and the results are breath-taking). I spent the first four days pretty much alone, wandering about, in and out of the cathedral, and preparing a series of talks that I am now giving on the several themes of the retreat—medieval village life, the building of the great gothic abbey and cathedral churches, the devotion to saints and the Virgin, the many uses and meanings of pilgrimage sites and shrines, medieval conceptions of life, death, the universe, faith, scripture, the use of reason and the religious imagination, and things along those lines. All in all, a welcome time of retreat, silence, prayer, and study, all for myself.
The other leaders of the program arrived on Thursday and Friday, and we began some last-minute planning for receiving the group of twenty people who are participating in the retreat—a healthy mix of clergy and laity, from various places, including our old FC friend, Jane Fadden. I love working with my co-leaders—among them they possess an unusual combination of administrative savvy, pastoral skills, imagination, humor, and artistic flair; and the program we have created together reflects care for the mind, body, and soul, in beautiful rhythms of study, exercise, worship, and mutual enjoyment. (The next time we put on this program, I’ve been thinking what a joy it would be to have some First Church people be able to experience it! I’ll let you know if and when….)
And, of course, Anne Minton came. I know you share my joy in that arrival! She’s well, pacing herself wisely, making a little more progress every day. I was frankly surprised and gratified to see her as well as she was, even after a long and arduous journey (made possible and much lighter by Patricia Gnazzo Pepper, who generously offered to accompany Anne to Chartres as factotum extraordinaire). I have you all, and so many other friends—as well as those who attended to her professionally—to thank for this happy reunion! And I do thank you, with all my heart! Patricia can tell you more about Anne’s trip, her arrival, and what this place is like. (I’m also sending some pictures along with this letter so you too can get an impression from them…)
From here, on Sunday the 29th, Anne and I head back to Spain, to spend five weeks at a farmhouse on the outskirts of Arcos de la Frontera. Check it out at www.elmembrillo.com. But before I leave you for now, one last story from Seville…
For the first couple of weeks I was in Seville, I’d buy a different newspaper each day in order to sample the range of editorial approach and opinion from the far left to the far right. I’d also buy the papers at different prensa kiosks around my neighborhood. At nearly all kiosks in Seville, stacks of six or seven national and local dailies are laid out on the sidewalk in front of the kiosk. You simply take the one you want, go to the kiosk window, show the paper’s masthead, and hand over your Euro, or whatever the price might be. Even if there are only three or four papers on offer, however, you can always find the ABC, the leading conservative paper, and El País, the paper of record for the socialist viewpoint. After a couple of weeks of sampling, I settled on El Pais as my daily paper, adding the ABC on Sundays (it has, among other things, the better comics).
One day I went to a new kiosk on the Plaza de la Encarnación, a few blocks from my flat. There was no El País in sight. I wondered if they’d sold out, or perhaps the proprietor had a stack inside the kiosk—time to inquire. So I went up to the woman inside, offered the obligatory “Buenos días,” and then asked, “El País?” “El País, no,” she replied. Okay, I’d find it elsewhere. “Gracias,” I said, and off I went.
The next morning, I was passing through la Encarnación again and stopped at the same kiosk. Just as had happened the day before, I didn’t see the paper I wanted on the sidewalk. Again I asked the woman inside the kiosk, “Do you have El País?” “El País, no,” she replied. I was a little surprised. It was early to be sold out…but I was in a hurry that day, and so I left it at that and went on my way.
A few days later, I stopped by that kiosk again. Same story—no sign of El País. And when I asked, again she said there was no País. But this time something very final and emphatic in the way she said it— El País, NO!”—finally made the penny drop: she didn’t carry it, never had carried it, and never would carry it. She had never voted socialist, never would, and wasn’t about to do anything for them either, including sell their paper!
She could tell that I got it too… A sly smile spread across her face as I reached, almost obediently, for the ABC. I had only a five-Euro bill on me. I handed it over. She made change, but when she put it in my hand, she did something odd. With her own hand she closed my hand over the change, and she curled my fingers tight around the coins—and around something else that I could also feel in my palm.
As I walked away and opened my hand, I saw that along with my change, she had given me a big piece of hard candy in a bright cellophane wrapper. She might have been a conservative foiling a pernicious leftist, but not for that should I not have a treat—and a joyous day!
The same generous, ample and sweet blessings be yours—and more, until we meet again.
Much love,
Mary