Descent into Memory: Book about the Alhambra

 

  I have not made it down to the basement to sort things out...except for one foray into the far corner, yes, where so many of Jim's books are on the shelves and more in boxes and everything every which way. Topsy turvy chaos, not unlike the way it always was in his  room.Perhaps that how the books like it..all in a pile..it was pretty much how he like it...the chaos and wonder of his room and his mind.

INSERT PHOTO HERE OF JIM AT HIS DESK IN HIS ROOM

     It's bitterly cold outside...dipped to minus here as I lay in bed under the covers last night. I looked through a book that had sifted up from the basement and into my hands. A book about the Alhambra bought so long ago when I traveled to Spain in 1969. After a romantic cruise for 5 days across the Atlantic on the SS Michelangelo we docked in Algeiercieras Spain. With Africa at our back we alighted at night. What other way is there to enter Spain but at night. I still recall the mood, the moment and the mystery of that moment.
      There at the dock was Jim's brother Dan who knew Spain like the back of his hand. He had been a missionary there for decades. There he was with his wife Frieda and 3 daughters to greet us. 'We traveled together for the next 6 weeks.
    The two brothes were so different. Like oil and water. My father so expansive, and incendiary. Dan so contained, focused and mild mannered and deeply perceptive. Each brilliant in their own way.
      Dan was our guide to mystery and enchantment and the next day we visited the Alhambra with him.

       Why do we always place our parents at such an undefinable older age?
     I looked in the front page of the book where my dad noted his birthday that we celebrated later in Denia Spain and he wrote 45 years old. I'm older now by year than him. So that would place my mother at age 48.
and so we romped through Spain. Me with my youthful romances..them with their reinvigorated passion at traveling together through an exotic land.

     The billetes from the Alhambra are folded at the back of the book. July 19 1969. 50 pesetas.
and one small crushed flattened red flower. A red flower from the Alhambra. 45 years ago.

       I press the flat red flower to my nose and inhale the scent of memory. Leaving the cold of Minnesota behind, I go back to the heat and mystery of that Spanish day so long ago. There we were wandering the tiled majesty and halls and fountains of The Alhambra....built centuries ago it was the apex of beauty and architecture.
      The colored photos in the book bring back each fountain spray, each expanse of infinite tiled beauty and each moment.

       The carved lions, the flowers and us. 8 Americans, 4 adults and 4 children wandering the mystery and the beauty.

I hold the book and allow dreams to enclose me. Frost glitters on the window forming patterns from an ancient citadel

I explored years ago. Gazing at the back cover I see the water lilies and  red pots of flowers surrounding a mystical pool of serene water. I float there now in my dreams.

    I leave to go to school, driving quickly to get there. Absentmindedly I turn on the radio. Beautiful guitar music fills the small space of my car. I turn it  up as far as it will go, as I head up Ford parkway.. I am carried away by the intensity and familiarity of this tune...and feel lost in the passion of the music..

The music ends and the announcer says.....this is "Dreams of the Alhambra" ...the synchronicity astounds me and I feel affirmed in these musings.........