The East Coast (of Spain)

From Calella de Palafrugell to Almeria, the summer stretched through a series of stops dotting much of the Spanish Mediterranean. I’d meant to write two separate posts, one for the Costa Brava and the other for the Costa Blanca (both re-visited), but the days blended into each other and before I knew it, fall was upon us.

Recently I’ve reflected on how I miss the long summer days of childhood, and long days in general, when time was more manageable and there seemed to be enough of it to encompass everything. When it was the right fit. When everything felt big, when now it feels vast. When I saw more good than anything else in my own species.

The unhealthy human relationship with each other and the rest of the natural world, increasingly mediated by machines, was driving me to the edge of my own reality until I took a step back. The psychological pressure from the expectation to be constantly connected in a way that demands immediate response was too much.

Following the “lockdown” and nearly a half year of succumbing to this relentless expectation, I was able to get away for a few days to the Costa Brava. Stopping in Calella de Palafrugell for a leisurely lunch on our way back to Begur, we enjoyed the turquoise views of the magnificent Catalonian coastline. The color suited the mood of the previous six months.

Once someone experiences a lockdown as absolute as the one experienced in Spain from March to May, the threat of future lockdowns looms large. Therefore, just two weeks after returning from our long weekend getaway we fled, two weeks early, to the Costa Blanca, where we worked remotely from Torrevieja until the beginning of vacation in August. The change of scenery with breathtaking views and access to and stories about the cove where you grew up propelled me forward.

Home was “el campo”. The luxury of being able to escape cities for the greater part of the month did not pass unperceived, but my faulty human nature made it hard for me to stay in the moment, and I dreaded my yet uncertain return to one. Sounds of species other than the human hummed in the background, and my mind was able to disconnect for the first time in months. “El campo” provided the base for day hikes along the Chicamo River of Murcia and the Nerpio River of Albacete, an afternoon at La Marina beach and another at the salt mines of Alicante, an overnight trip to El Perelló in Valencia to visit friends, and a day trip to Almeria to have lunch with a coworker and his partner.

Most of the details from these days will either be stored in my memory or lost to time, save for the ones that appear in pictures, provided the electrical grid remains reliable. Perhaps the most stunning of them went uncaptured by nothing more than our eyes, when we were snorkeling in the Cala Corralete in the Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park in Almeria. Transparent water covered coral and seagrass and hundreds of different types of fish and other sea creatures in this seemingly unscathed and wild aquatic wonderland. I had never seen anything like it.

Now that it is nearly fall and pollution levels are back to the old “normal” and political nonsense persists, and I am reminded of the inherently destructive nature of humans, I have reached a point where I no longer have much hope for our species. There seem to be too few good ones among us to effect the changes we need to move forward in harmony with nature.

Though I do hope that our extraordinary earth survives us.

I’m almost certain that it will.