We returned to our mountain home a week ago and already we are settling back into our simple life.
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| A flowery welcome home |
Our trip to the States was full and we were overwhelmed by the generosity of friends, and the joy of spending time with each of our kids and welcoming our new granddaughter.
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| Our first grandchild |
We were fed and housed by friends and family from Seattle to San Diego, and many locales in between, and from Las Vegas to Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We enjoyed spending time with friends who have visited us here in Spain, and with others we haven't seen in over 40 years.
But our minds were never far from our home in Las Alpujarras and as the countdown neared our return, we found ourselves longing for the peacefulness of our life here, while experiencing heartache knowing we would, once again, be so far from our loved ones.
We returned to welcomes from our friends and neighbors on the mountain. Gracious neighbor picked us up at the Malaga airport and when we arrived home we discovered a lovely spread of veggies, and fresh cornbread and homemade jam, and other groceries, complete with Welcome Home cards from his family. Jésus, the shepherd greeted us warmly the next morning, and Manuel brought around a box of peppers and tomatoes and aubergines (eggplant) and a large bag of almonds from his trees.
In the past I have asked ex-pat friends after returning to their new home, following the first visit back to the States, "Did you feel as if you were coming home?" Answers varied, but I can report that we definitely feel as if we are back home. And that is a comfort to discover.
Throughout the summer we enjoyed sharing stories of our new life with friends and acquaintances, and one question that was asked over and over was, What is a typical day like for you? We tried to explain that our days here unfold and we rarely have a plan for the day when we get up. I thought of that today and realized that today is very typical of our daily life here.
We woke up when the light came in our window, sometime between 7:45 and 8:00. Sam made the coffee and I set up chairs at our patio table where we spent the next half hour drinking coffee while enjoying the view. We heard the bus that makes an early trip up towards Mulhacén to drop day hikers, and we watched as it switched back and forth up the mountainside across the valley from us. The sun popped over the mountain just after 9:00 and we shed our fleece layers.
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| The day begins |
After breakfast Sam went out to gather piles of weeds he has been pulling since arriving home a week ago and I started a load of laundry. While the clothes washed I cooked some of Manuel's tomatoes and removed the skins in preparation for making tomato sauce. Tomorrow we are going to a gathering with friends and I will take Melanzane alla parmigiana (Eggplant parmesan) to share.
After hanging out the laundry, we went for a walk to the barranco and back. This is our typical "neighborhood" walk, on days when we don't go elsewhere for a longer hike. On the return I stopped to gather walnuts scattered across the track under an enormous walnut tree. We have a lovely walnut tree of our own and I've been harvesting them since we returned home, but it is hard to resist freshly-fallen wild nuts. We will have a good crop to crack and eat throughout the winter.
Back at home we had a snack and then Sam went back out to water the garden and move some plants around. I got the tomato sauce made and it has now been simmering for several hours.
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| Making sauce |
I decided to make salad and farinata for lunch. Farinata is a flat bread made with Garbanzo bean flour and it takes about 90 minutes to make. It is a luxury to have the time to make such a treat in the middle of the day.
We ate lunch at 2:00 and then Sam picked strawberries while I cleaned up the kitchen. It is clouding up now and I need to get the laundry off the line. The house smells of tomato sauce while the outside air is perfumed with the mint that Sam pruned earlier. After blogging I'll rest in the hammock and then we will probably take another walk to the barranco later this evening; or not, we'll just see what unfolds.
So that is our typical day. There are variations and some days are nothing like any previous day, but the point is, there is no schedule. We can go many days without driving the car, and we never feel like we need to rush off to something.
We are living life at our own pace and we do it to a natural soundtrack of birds and bugs, and at night to nearly total silence. Occasionally we hear a helicopter and rush out to see what's going on, or we hear the early morning bus to Mulhacén, or dogs barking in the distance, but the gentle sounds of nature and the heavy silence of nighttime heal our mind and spirit, and that is what we missed the most while we were away from home.
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| The peaceful backdrop for our life here |
