Old Haunts

When you read or hear about people who are haunted by their past, you probably think like I do. You assume the haunting is done by ghosts and is scary; or you figure the haunting is because of something somebody did which makes them feel ashamed. I suppose I could write about either of those, because I am human, after all. However, I am haunted in a different way. I’d like to explain, because this might be a rare condition and could be cause for concern..

There is another meaning of the verb that we need to include, and it’s the one that pertains to me the most. When we say a person haunts movie theaters, we mean she goes to see films frequently. If a person goes to museums a lot, he can be said to haunt the museums. No ghosts involved.

Between the examples in the first paragraph and the ones in the second, we can say that haunting is generally the work of human or human-like creatures. Human-like is used here to refer to ghosts, spirits, beings that are attached to people, pretty much.

My situation is a bit different. My past haunts me, which means that it gets right up in my business and just hangs around. Often there are people in these pasts of mine, but more often the humans are off in the margins. Mostly, what I see or sense is just a place to walk, run, sleep, drive. My past, then, is full of spaces vying for my attention. They are not subtle about it, either.

There is nothing truly scary about any of this - like I just said, there really aren’t any ghosts and I don’t believe in them anyway - , but it could get downright annoying. That’s probably what you’re thinking. If anybody has good recommendations for keeping the past in its place, I’d sure like a little heads-up. You see, it’s more than annoying, it’s unnerving. With all these spaces following me around at all hours, I constantly have to watch my step.

The easiest way to get what I mean across is probably to take you through a typical day for me. You’re welcome to hold my hand if you think you’re getting lost, but I doubt that will be necessary.

Let’s go out in the garden. There are a lot of flowers - lilies, azaleas, campanulas, clematis, nasturtiums - all blooming at different times during the summer. Garden also means tomatoes, hot peppers, carrots, kale, pementos de Padrón and grelos or broccoli raab. 

Maybe it’s the names of the last two items, but the when I go over to the pemento plants, I don’t stop. I keep walking and end up in my favorite restaurant in Santiago de Compostela. Those of you who know me may have already read what I had to say about this brand of peppers, some of which are hot and some, not. I’m in my most favorite restaurant of all time, eating away, talking with friends, occasionally rubbing a hand over the old stone walls as they reach out to greet me. The other hand is resting on the worn, dark brown table that has been used forever and will be used for another forever, I suspect.

I finish eating, all the while taking in the stones of the walls, the ones in the floor, the noisy bar (the only one where I can stand the clinking of glass and porcelain), then order dessert: flan de queixo, cheese flan. Better than any cheesecake, plus the amount of homemade whipped cream is double the normal, because they know me and my tastes.

Only when I’m totally stuffed do I leave and look at my little plants, but knowing my peppers will always have the taste of Compostela and that restaurant. Even the coarse salt I sprinkle on the tastes like Compostela. Thank heaven for that restaurant.

The grelos or rapini or broccoli raab have the same effect, but instead of a restaurant interior, I am in fields of the sturdy green leaves. I could also be in the outdoor market where they’re bundled and tied with grass by the women who sell it into semi-circles that make nice fans if it’s a warm day. My grelos will never look that pretty, I suppose. 

Since I’m in the market, it’s natural to stroll around, picking up a few more greens or some fish or local cheese. Then it’s time to just walk, swallowing all the colors, voices, and smells. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to get a lesson on all the words to designate grelos. There must be a dozen, minimum. I rarely buy couve (big-leafed cabbage), but I take advantage of being in the market to ask the women whose Spanish is rusty but whose Galician is fluent as rain, to give me the lexical run-down on that item. Another dozen or so terms are offered.

It can take a phone call or tripping over something in the grass to make the peppers and greens let me loose. I guess I have things to do in Maine. Inside again, I decide to arrange some of my art supplies. Among the large assortment are some pastels and tempera paints made from woad. You know, the blue dye that made the Tarn region of France and Toulouse the center of woad trade in the medieval period. Woad makes so many shades of blue and is the rival of Johnny-come-lately indigo, which actually has less variety.

The paint and pastels are from Cordes sur ciel and I walk into the lovely shop of two painters, one of whom is quickly going blind. It is a rather narrow shop and to reach it you have to walk up a steep incline. In summer it is very hot. The cobblestones are hot and golden. The little town was a bastide and attracts tourists, but they are the well-behaved sort, not the ones on cruises. These tourists are interested in history and the impressive scenery that is the valley surrounding Cordes’ peak. 

You want to rest and take it all in every few steps. You want to sit on a terrace and listen to the voices of the Cathars screaming as they were thrown into the town’s well for heresy. You want to visit the sugar museum and paint or sketch. You don’t think it ever rains more than a couple times all summer. You buy some really attractive glazed pottery that was not made in China but in Cordes. You keep walking, looking for new things to photograph. Cats abound and are quite photogenic. A tree beside one tiny shop has been yarn-bombed and you smile, wondering how often it outgrows its handmade attire. You’ll buy at least one book in French, because you like the subject and can manage to read well enough to learn something.

I look at my woads and wonder what would happen if I were to use them all up, if I could never walk the plazas and lanes of Cordes again. I wouldn’t want that to happen. For the same reason, I use the brou de noix from a hardware store very sparingly. That’s a kind of wood stain made from walnuts that is a great substitute for walnut ink. That ends up in a walk along the lower part of town and into the edible garden where you get nasturtiums and other blossoms in your salad. Le Jardin des Plantes is a place nobody ever forgets, especially me.

I’m now looking for books to donate because I really have too many to fit on my shelves, but it’s so hard to give any of them up, because a good number have them have crossed the ocean with me. Determined, I keep sorting, and in the process I end up in Cyprus. I think it’s Lefkosia I’m in, but it’s hard to tell, because I saw a lot of cities in three weeks and it was always over a hundred degrees, dry as a bone. You know you’re in a place with more history than most, but you search the outdoors, planning where to walk according to where the shade is. You are tense, knowing there is danger of sunstroke. Maybe it’s Episkopi I’m in. It’s so hot.

Sunstroke or not, you know I have to go into bookstores. I’m looking for certain Greek poets and find several I can read, because I studied modern Greek for two and a half years. I love the Greek language and its attachment to the land, the myths, the art, the food. (Food is definitely one way to my heart… ) So what if the selection is very limited because of my intermediate skills? It’s really about being inide another bookstore and seeing how the beautifully-written words swirl about the shelves, on the spines of volumes, and on display tables. It’s just slightly less hot in here.

It is sweltering, over 110 degrees, maybe, and time for a very large, very cold drink of anything. Any liquid will do, almost. I am desperate, because extreme thirst is something I don’t tolerate well. I get panic attacks and feel very dizzy when I get dehydrated. Anyway, I shake off the dizziness and decide that the books in Greek, never to be read again, are not candidates for donation. They are a space I need, albeit a very hot space, an overheated landscape that I did not get to see in spring when the almond trees flower. Still, I need it, and I’m keeping the books. The curved writing is still in them.

It would be easy to drag this account out just by going through the books on my shelves, but you and I would be here forever. I guarantee that it would take awhile, because I’d be surrounded by old haunts, from childhood in western New York to college in snowy Buffalo, to several Latin American countries and several more in Europe. And don’t get me started on Portugal, because those spaces are just all over me, weaving in between my feet, hanging off my shoulders, tapping me on the arm. Persistent, that’s the word.

They are really never going to go away, and the most persistent of all is Barcelos. Yup, another outdoor market where you can find anything you need in life. Seriously. Even a pet canary or a kitten. Bougainvilleas, olives in brine, pork gut for chouriço casings, everything. Then time out for the world’s best bacalhau meal. If you don’t like salted cod, I feel sorry for you, because A Muralha is the best place for it in all of Portugal. The cook there always helps me prepare it when I get the urge for a dish back in Maine. I’ve got two pounds in my refrigerator now and if I take it out, I can guarantee you Barcelos will be hanging over my shoulder while I put it to soak to remove the salt, then make one of the three dishes that I most like. 

I like to take a break and go to the artesania outlet in the city as well, so might do that while the bacalhau is soaking. Portuguese artesanias are so colorful and watch me from the shelves here in Maine. People, flowers, trees of life, devils and humans with animal heads - there are many shapes - grab my hand and insist I listen.

So far you may think I’m haunted by spaces associated with objects and plants, and you’d be right, but not entirely. You see, just driving along a road anywhere in Maine or walking downtown in Brunswick, where I live, I become aware of what you might think are alternate worlds. I don’t know what that means, exactly, but I do know these are not fictional worlds. They exist. In the car, a certain pine tree or shady pond opens the door to places I’ve known. Simply walking, or a table set out for eating outdoors, or the scent of a linden has the same ability to whisk me off. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that those things open spaces and I walk into them. That must be how it works, although of course there’s no real door.

I’m starting to get worried now that you’re not going to believe all this and are just thinking I have an overactive imagination. I imagine I don’t have to remind you about Dorothy and her trip to the Land of Oz. She started out in Nowhere, Kansas, didn’t she? Look where she went! I started out in Nowhere, New York. Now that was imagination.

If you’ve read other things I’ve written, you might know that I now have my magic suitcase named Blue, who brings back everything imaginable. He doesn’t get all the credit, though, because he has another role to play, other things to transport. The spaces that haunt me don’t need a suitcase. They just show up, there they are, and there I am - inside again. Sorry, Maine, you’re down for the count and I’m walking free in other regions. There are so many yellow brick roads out there… 

Look at those stands over there, selling wurst and hand-engraved champagne glasses. That’s Berlin, I think, or maybe Prague. Prague with its museum to Kafka and frighteningly beautiful theater. Or Amsterdam, scented with legal weed and paved with bicycles. That huge olive tree is a forest in itself and so this must be Cyprus again. Pass the mezedes, please! Except it’s not quite as hot in Moissac where I am now, having a quiet stroll through the Abbey with the gorgeously intricate door. Now all I see is mustard yellow and wonder if I’ve gotten lost along with Dorothy and Toto, but no, it’s the Abbey at Cluny. It might date from the tenth century, but don’t hold me to that. People used to spend a long time building their religious monuments. I have to say that I’ve never seen so much yellow in the same place. My house is yellow, but it’s pale by comparison. 

Still, yellow means Cluny, immense and imposing; it also means fields of woad flowers and sunflowers, a sunset in San Marco, a painted box from Copán or Guatemala. Yellow is everywhere and is one of my two favorite colors, so I notice it a lot. That’s part of my problem. Or condition.

Short of stripping my house down to a bed and a kitchen table, I’m at a loss as to how all these places can be held at bay. They are so distracting. Maybe I could stop gardening, stop reading, stop walking? Store my art supplies where they are out of sight and never use them again? Erase all the photos I’ve uploaded? That alone would take a week. The thought of disposing of so many things is daunting, but I’m willing to try. I am getting desperate.

Before I get started, however, there’s something I need to do that shouldn’t take long. I’d like to listen to some music, just to put myself in the appropriate mood. Here’s an old CD of the group Fuxan os Ventos. Just one song… “Iste vaise,” ‘This one leaves, the other leaves, they all leave.” It’s based on a famous poem by Rosalía de Castro, who breathed her last in Padrón.

Padrón again, or is it Bastavales? The lemon trees already have small yellow fruit. (I knew it!) The sky is as blue as woad. There’s nobody in the little atrium of the tiny church with the statue of San Xulián that’s really too modern to be on the façade. Maybe the current building is from the seventeenth century, but it’s on the site of a Romanesque church. That’s a lot older. 

This is so peaceful. No revolving doors, no tugging at my sleeve. I think I’m going to talk to some of the people here. They might be able to tell me something about the church’s history. They might… wait! I see a little house just on the other side of the road. It’s pretty old and looks empty. All right, you win, Val da Mahía. The view here is fantastic, with patchwork of green and gold fields covering your misty valley. 

I think I’ll stay for a while. A very long while. Maine will never haunt me here, in my past, which is now.