jamie's wanderings

 When I studied theology and the bible for my university years, I don't think I would have ever imagined sitting here today in Spain, clutching my laptop on a Sunday morning, telling you about what this strange life is like.     This last week, I found myself wandering the coast of Spain in two different directions with my reluctant-to-be-called boss, Miguel Angel. The first journey on Wednesday took us to a town called Albunol, where we finally signed in the notary for a home that we initially began selling in February.     Like many country homes, it had been added to, and it was not reflected in what we call the nota simple, or simple deed, that is reflected in the public record. In order for a home sale to occur, this doesn't usually present a problem, except when the buyers wish to mortgage the home.     Even though these buyers were already in their 60s, they felt the need to take out a mortgage and thus began the months of descending into the Sp...

 Almost three years ago, Andrew and I were shocked to hear that Jose and Sara got into their car to do some last-minute shopping and never came home, killed by a drunk driver in Texas that day before Thanksgiving evening. It stung and ached then, and it still does. A couple of months ago I drove over by their old flat and I suddenly could hear Jose's voice peal with laughter and it was as if he told me how proud he was of Andrew and I. I burst into tears and missed them dreadfully. Backing up, Sara and Jose were here when we first arrived in 2003 and stuck around for a year or so after we came. He was from Granada, she was from Texas and Andrew and Jose practiced their languages together. We were part of a rather scrappy bunch of 20 and 30 somethings and ate a lot of bad food and laughed alot together. But, Jose wanted to stretch his wings and so they moved to Texas, they made a life, had two boys and would occasionally come back and visit. I always assumed that they would come and...

      One of the things I've promised in this blog of ramblings is to cover more of the last several years and connect the dots between my earlier posts from 2007 to 2015, to suddenly appear on the blogger map again in 2023. For many reasons, 2020 was a massive year of upheaval and change, and for my husband and myself, it affected our lives physically, emotionally and spiritually. As Covid began to take its toll on the world, we found ourselves packing bags for my brother's long awaited wedding. We went, we danced with a feeling that it was the end of the world as we knew it, and then we faced 4 months of living with my parents as the world turned and burned. We said sad goodbyes to my uncle as Covid took his tired, worn-out body from us. We cooked a lot, waited a lot, and talked on the phone a lot with people in Spain as I watched my business implode and then surprisingly restart, but only to succumb to second lockdowns and curfews imposed in October of 2020. And finall...

Olive oil makes the world go around where I live. Property is measured in how many trees it possesses, how many kilos of olives it produces, and its subsequent liters of liquid gold. This year, one of my learning curves, is about this element of olive oil, and how it makes the world go around in Southern Spain. For the last two years for Christmas, my landlord has brought me a bottle of olive oil from Montefrio, and it is some of the best. It's so good, I use it for tostadas and salads, and never for cooking. The other day I finally ran out and it was a sad moment. And I asked God for more. See, I think God cares about the tiny details because that's what life is really made up of. The oil, the parking spaces we need in the city, the daily bread, that's why in what we call the Lord's prayer, He tells us we are to ask for it. ...give us our daily bread... In the midst of Covid, Andrew and I lost the whole business and a lot of hope. Just as we lost the business, someone ...

 I wandered this weekend to just a few meters from my own home, and went to a conference meant for real estate agents. Since 2021, I've found myself counted in this group of individuals, and I've attended meetings, parties and gatherings, but on a local level. This time was national, and as a linguist I was both overwhelmed and fascinated by the dozens of accents and ways of speaking just in Spanish alone, let alone the few of us foreigners that have infiltrated the scene. It was to put it briefly, overwhelming. Even though I am 20 years immersed in this Spanish speaking world, I still find myself in situations that I have no effing clue, or that I feel I've been thrown into the deep end or a very rough sea, and made to survive. Although the crowd was probably around 30 percent women or more, I still found myself at a table full of men for lunch, and in both languages I can hold my own in those situations. However, even though I've been here a very long time, I've g...

 The unholy holy....a phrase given to me by someone whom I respect very much...and it's rolled around in my head this weekend and today again. My current home city has been that for almost 20 years, this week in fact we complete 20 years here. I've grown nostalgic on another post, so I won't do that here, but instead I will wax eloquent about it. It's one of the most beautiful cities in the world, so much so song, poetry, dance and more have been created about it. Conservative and elegant, yet cutting edge and growing, it still never ceases to amaze me. But compared to where I grew up, it's a different world. I've been catcalled and chased after asking if I want boyfriends. Recently in a street in one of the nearby towns, I was presumed to be a prostitute, in the middle of the day, the men in the car were insistent that I join them. Once, a few years back ( long time actually) I wore a beach dress into the supermarket and even though my beach dress was modest on...

 These posioned tables have been like the scene in C.S. Lewis book, The Silver Chair, which is an often overlooked part of the Narnia Series. The Prince is enchanted, and by that, a bettter more modern word would be bewitched, and the Silver Chair is controlling him to stay underground and not possess the kingdom that is rightfully his, and instead and Evil Witch rules over all. The Prince is so bewitched, so possessed by this Silver Chair, that he cannot see what is really happening, and that is he is completely bound to it with chains. It takes courage from a creature called a Marshwiggle, who burns his feet and snuffs out the incense-laden fire which is poisoning the air. The Marshwiggle pays no mind that he might burn his feet, but understands he must do so to end the enchantment. The first poision I realized that so many people have drunk, is that to be a Christian in a respectable church with dignified ceremony and theology, is to give away the freedoms they have. This can be...

I mentioned in the previous blog that we have been removed from various tables at which we were being poisoned. I wish to delve deeper into this, but first some thoughts as to where I'm at now. One of the things that is giving me more courage to do this, was last week meeting an old friend who has worked for The Kingdom of Heaven for a long time. As a very young almost woman, I went and visited him and his wife in an exotic place. He and I had several pivotal conversations during that time that made me think deep thoughts and almost 30 years later, have continued to form my thinking about what this world is and isn't. One of his main complaints then and even now, is that most of the organizations that call themselves churches or the church are just that, organizations. They have lost their true ideologies or missions, and have instead sunk to the level that many institutions do, working at controlling those men and women dedicated to their growth. I have agreed for a long time,...

In 2011, I began my postgraduate journey at the University of Granada with an MA in English Literature and Linguistics. I chose my emphasis to be linguistics and my MA thesis deals with shame and how it directly affects those of us learning to speak a second language as we do so in our adult stage of life. This blog isn't about my MA, but, to deal with a minor topic within it, one of the main critiques of it, and my writing later in my unfinished and unpublished, PhD, that I lack my own voice. Since I can remember, I have read and written. I can't hardly remember learning how to read, and I started writing shortly thereafter. Journals and poetry as a kid and later young adult, and now I do more personal writing on social media and occasionally here. I've had all sorts of horrific critiques in my more formal writing. I don't have a voice, I use too much passive voice, I need to write more, I need to be more concise, blah blah blah blah. And since I finished, or rather, s...

 I sat last night in Andrew's office as we listened to several voice messages sent to us by my uncle Peter. Twenty years ago, we were packing our bags and giving away our life as we knew it to move to Spain. The first night we arrived it was chilly and rainy and dark and we cried ourselves to sleep not knowing what we had gotten ourselves into. The next morning with sunshine and snow gleaming off the Sierra Nevada, we knew it was going to be better. All my clients, both long and short term now, have reams of knowledge due to the internet/social media, and more about the city they are coming to see. We had a shaky picture of the Alhambra and mountains in 2003, and a bit of knowledge having been to Malaga in 2001 for two weeks. What we did know was that an apartment was waiting for us. It was ok, too big and furniture in which lurked Franco's ghost, but we called it home, even with the worst mattress we had ever lived with. And not only were these popcorn walls waiting for us, bu...

 It's been a long time, and a longer journey since I last posted in this blog. I've decided to take it back up for various reasons, the primary one is that writing for me is a journey that helps me process and remember. Until this past Jan, I was busy for 2 and 1/2 years with an MBA. In the middle of the pandemic, I lost my business. Twice. It's a long and boring story, but those of us who worked and still work in the hospitality industry understand. I realized in the middle of 2019 and 2020 that I was a better businesswoman than an academic, and while the world stopped, I realized I could use some more formal materials and hooks to hang my ideas on, and so I began studying online with  University of the People This isn't an ad or even a sponsored post for them, but I highly recommend it as I had a really positive experience. It's almost free, and for a fraction of the cost, I have an accredited MBA that kept me from following down the social media rabbit holes and ...