Listening to John Scofield’s “Kool” here in row twenty on United Airlines Flight 50 back home to Newark. Appears we’re halfway over the Atlantic from the look of things in on the map over at next guys screen. The gent in the seat ahead of me is watching some dark film where what appears to be a Chinese man and woman have been battling for the last eight minutes. I do my best to ignore it. I finished off Giles Trimlett’s “Ghosts of Spain” which I quite enjoyed. There was a chapter there at the end that focused on Galicia, which provided a warm afterglow of our time there earlier last week. Two rows up and off to the right someone is now playing “Imagine” and it is essentially impossible to not glance over and over again at John’s visage.
There were not insignificant risks in traveling this month. We were vaccinated, Spain’s number of cases was declining and unlike so many other places we might have headed to or from we were welcome in Spain and free to come and go in the US. We were, in no small part due my younger daughter’s persistence, negative upon testing and registering these facts with United was straightforward. As we sat there in the airport cafeteria reflecting on things, my kids seemed to all agree that this had been a good one. Very grateful once again, that none of the many things that could have gone wrong did.
Hugh Thomas’ history of the Spanish Civil War is imposing. Nineteen pages into the nine-hundred-and-thirty-page brick I’m not sure if I’ll get drawn far enough in to where I’ll need to end it. It is surely one enticing piece of the puzzle that merits more time. But how much longer will I invest in this particular enigma? Reading the Trimlett I noted some of the interesting (inevitable?) comparison point to China. The turmoil and injustices of the last century, remain unexamined in the swift catch-up to wealth and normalcy. I’d assumed that the western nations with Christian ideas of confessions were places where the mothers of “the disappeared” of Argentina would not rest until their children were remembered. No stranger to confessions, Spain however did not set up truth and reconciliation committees after the death of Franco and the end of censorship. Thomas suggests in his prolog to the 2012 edition that a monument be created that simply lists all the names of everyone died during the conflict, with no regard for affiliation.
Regardless of whether or not I decide to finish off the work or the other two or three that remain around the house, my brain feels well exercised having slammed all the titles I did in during the last six weeks to complement the two weeks of time in the Spanish indigo vat. I won’t teach my Chinese history class the same way again. Some of the platitudes I rushed through distinguishing the Conquistadors from Zheng He were naïve and I’d speak more cautiously now, knowing more about the kingdom they sailed from and the heroes like El Cid, that informed them. I wouldn’t blithely say that Paris was the largest city in Europe during the twelfth century, juxtaposing it with Hanghzhou which was much bigger, without considering Cordoba. And as always, I hope that this new component of civilizational, and historical mapping will make my girls stronger and give them more confidence and richness as they consider what it is they want to do, with whom and where.
Monday, 8/30/21
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