Nosce Te Ipsum – An Interview with Chary Panés
Chary is the reason behind this series of interviews. She interviewed me for European Irish, the website for all the Irish expats and Hibernophiles living in on the Continent. So I thought I would turn tables and get to know her. She lives in Chiclana, Cádiz, a very special paradise with its own guardian, the Wind from the East (like the witch in the Wizard of Oz) that protects the area from overcrowding.
She studied Philosophy in Salamanca because she wanted to know EVERYTHING about this world, she really wanted to fully understand it, and she thought Philosophers would give her the answers she needed. Funny enough, they just had more and more questions. As one friend of hers says: we’re still at the beginning, but not as we were at the start. And I suppose that’s the important thing.
She got an Erasmus grant, and headed to Galway for a year. Not being able to stand the crazy climate in that country, she decided to come back to Spain, where the light of the sun makes life so much easier. But she brought a nice Irish fellow from Sligo who was delighted to get out of the rain. And since then, they’ve been living in Chiclana. they have two lovely children (one of them says about himself that he’s a miracle! And that he wants to be like the guys in The Beatles, have a band, become famous, but the most important thing, have long hair; and the other one says she’ll dance for her brother’s band, she just loves performing).
What is love for you?
Often answers depend on who is asking… I suppose love is what makes us BE. This is just a guess. So much has been said about this topic! I don’t exactly know what love is, but I’m aware of its effects. Love must be shown, or it is not love. Love is also irrational. And so are humans, even though it has been said they are rational animals… Nonsense. Computers experts try hard to make computers think like humans by getting them to be logical. The truth is that a computer will never be like a human being… because the essential part of humans is irrationality.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Coincidence. This might be difficult to accept, but I don’t think there’s a reason beyond this.
What is the biggest problem facing the human race at the moment?
How to cope with intolerance, how to accept that difference is part of our lives. Multiculturalism is a challenge for us.
If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be?
I wouldn’t change a single thing. Not at all. Everything in life is so weaved that it is very difficult to change one thing without changing the others.
Do you read poetry? Why? Why not?
I think there might be a difference between poetry and poems. While poetry is felt, poems are written down. How many poems do you know that have a lack of poetry? And yet, sometimes, one single word could be full of poetry… Anyway, I used to read poems, yes… There was a time when I could read in loud voice. Poetry has to be read in loud voice; otherwise we just have loose words on a piece of paper. Life is made of different stages: you do exercise for a while, and then you suddenly stop. The same thing happened to me with poetry. Sometimes you have to leave the land fallow, and give time a chance. From time to time, someone delivers a poem for me on a tray –in the inbox of Outlook . And I’m starting to recite them… again.
What is your mission in life?
Mission? Missions have to do with heroes. And I don’t like heroes. Jesus was one of them. They all have a tendency to die because of a real necessity of stating that his ideas are worth a life, their own life, and sometimes their follower’s life. Therefore, I do not have a mission. I might have little goals…
Have you ever felt hate? If so, tell me about it.
No.
Is optimism a strength or a weakness? Explain your answer
Optimism is, without any doubts, strength. I’m not talking about some sort of naïve optimism for which everything is fine. As I understand it, optimism means being aware of reality and its faults and it entails a great effort in order to make it better.
What is your favourite recipe?
Shepperd’s Pie… but the way we’d cook it in Andalucía: white wine, onions, garlic…
If you had a motto, what would it be?
I wouldn’t have a motto. Humans are too changeable to have just one single motto in life. But“Nosce te ipsum”could be a good motto. However, Simone de Beauvoir said that “you cannot get to know yourself, all you can do is narrate yourself”. Isn’t it what I’m doing know? J
Add and answer two more questions that you would like to be asked!!!!
Ok. Why am I answering this questionnaire?
Because it seems to be a challenge.
(I would not add a number 13th question, sorry)
Besarkada – An Interview with Simone Hadder
I had arranged to make a Skype video call to conduct this interview and what came alive on the screen was a white well-lit room. On the wall hung a cheerful painting – ‘Children of the World’- and sitting in front of it was Simone, dressed in white and smiling angelically. It was like phoning Heaven. She has a smile like spring water.
What is love for you?
Love is everything for me. Love is what I need to live. Love is what I want to give to my nearest and favourite people. And for me love is God. I’m a very religious person and I know what love is in a spiritual way and of course in a human way.
If love comes from God, why do we suffer from love?
Because we are just human beings. I studied theology in Germany and I know that we’re so little that we’re just thinking and feeling like human beings. Love can not mean for us what it means for God. So we’re suffering from a love that is not the real love that I know is the love of God. I loved my ex-husband but I loved him in a very small way compared to my love of God. I’m still on way to understanding my love for human beings and transcendental love.
Why do bad things happen to good people?
I’ll speak personally now. That’s my talent…to be personal. I am a good person and bad things have happened to me like my car accident in Preston, England on 1995 when I was almost dead. This was my essential experience. This influences me every day. I broke my pelvis in ten places and the pain was terrible. I asked myself a lot of times ‘why did this happen to me?’ I had to fight a lot and I’m still fighting against my pain but I have good faith although I have chronic pain. I hate having pain. You can’t imagine what it is. It’s like I am a bull in a bullfight and the matador is killing me. But I am still fighting and l am still living. This is my destiny. This is my drama.
What is the biggest problem facing the human race at the moment?
I have a great fear of terrorism. And I want to maintain nature. People are destroying themselves and that’s a fact and so we are destroying in our little relationships and in general. When I watch the German news I am very worried about what’s happening in the small things and the big. We need the economic crisis, I think, to be more responsible and show more solidarity. But terrorism and stupid religious mess this is what I worry about.
If you could change one thing in your life what would it be?
I’ve been thinking about it but I wouldn’t change anything in my little life. But I would go with my daughter to a poor country to help and I would change my little emotions against my ex-husband and seek mediation with him. This a complex question. I can’t answer it in two sentences.
Do you read poetry?
Sometimes. It depends on my mood. I have a lot of poetry in my room. And yesterday I read a little bit of poetry – ‘Pasión’! Love poems. We have a lot of great German poetry – not Shakespeare we have Goethe and Schiller, and I like it and I have in the other room more poetry. Ask me which poetry is my favourite.
I don’t have any favourite poems but I have one motto. In Latin it’s ‘carpe diem’. That my favourite poetry for my life. I saw it in ‘Dead Poets society’. This is pure poetry. I saw that film when I was a student nurse in Germany in 1991 I think. I and I have it in my DVD library. I love it. I am a teacher and I wanted to be a teacher when I was 6 years old. This is my passion.
What’s your mission in life?
My mission in life is to be still alive and to make this life full of life and full of love. I need people to love and be loved by. This is quite religious but it is what I am for. And also to be a good mother. My daughter is the best thing I ever did. I hope I can love to be a hundred. My new decade – I am now 40 – and I think every decade has its own energy and in 2010 I am 40 and very happy to be!
Is optimism a strength or a weakness? Explain your answer
Both. I think I’m optimistic but I know how hard it is to be optimistic if you’ve got in your surroundings pessimists and people who cannot use their intelligence because they are jealous and selfish. When you are optimistic and in a very good mood and you have success, and then because…oh, how to explain it in English?! I’m optimistic but sometimes I feel quite weak. Or it could be because…no I’m not pessimistic..but I am sometimes weak because I have all the constructs in my head that I am not good enough and I don’t do what society expects me to do.
What’s your favourite recipe?
I don’t have any favourite food like children but my Mum is a good cook and so when you ask me this I am thinking of her to ask her for a good recipe. Yesterday I cooked something with potatoes and mushrooms and it was good. And I like pasta and Italian food bit this is not my favourite recipe.
You have already told us that your favourite motto is ‘carpe diem’…
My motto is ‘carpe diem’ and in Facebook I put a motto one and half years ago – ‘I love to live and I love to love’ . I put it in German and it’s a nice wordplay.” Ich liebe mein Leben und lebe, um zu lieben…!”
What does the future hold?
Well, I will have a man in my life but I don’t know if he will be German, Basque or Spanish. My mission is to help people, this is my energy. I have some photos of over sixty people who have stayed here in my place and I am saving up to buy a hostel. I have about 8 years to go. Everything I try, I do! I am Capricorn. I will call the hostel Besarkada , a Basque word, which means something like ‘hugs’ or ‘meetings’. So that will be the future; hugs and meetings in my house!
Avatar
The floating mountains held with bound vegetation were pure Dali. And the anti-exploitation/invasion sentiment was pure Anti-American sentiment. Odd that it’s a Hollywood blockbuster then, innit? It is, as others have said, Pocahontas meets tall hippy smurfs but it was beautiful in parts. The plot was typical myth structure. Yet it was good to see a hero who was disabled even if his deeds of derring-do were accomplished in another body.
The much talked about 3-D was not at all invasive and it was kind of the director not to shoot us in the eye with an arrow or throw rocks at us. It seemed a coming of age of sorts. The technology was almost not the real protagonist of the film and it made me hopeful for cinema maybe two or three years down the line when 3-D becomes commonplace and we don’t feel like a 1927 audience watching ‘The Jazz Singer“.
The great secrets hidden inside of us
Last weekend my girlfriend took me on a mystery trip. All I knew was that it was within a two hours drive from Madrid and that on the Saturday there was a special activity. So, off I went on Friday afternoon to my class with the creative agency Patito Feo full of that tense joy that comes from knowing that something good is going to happen but not knowing what. A Christmas morning for Grown Ups kind of feeling. After my class, in which we discussed the possibilities that could materialise, I was picked up and whisked away via Alacalá de Henares (birthplace of Cervantes), Guadalajara (difficult to pronounce) to the mediaeval town of Pastrana in Castilla – La Mancha founded in the 13th century as a bastion after the final expulsion of the Moors. We arrived, less than two hours later, at the small hotel Palaterna next to a beautiful 16th century fountain called the Fuente de los Cuatro Caños. Apparently the symbolic meaning of the fountain’s decorations have been lost to memory.
On Saturday morning we walked to the Iglesia Colegiata which began life as the local parish church in the 14th century. It harbours the gothic tapestries of Alfonso V of Portugal. I always light a candle for my late father when I visit churches and, alas, this ancient temple has succumbed to the blight of having electric lights that switch on when you drop your coin in the box. Where, I ask you, is the sanctity in that?
We visited the Ducal Palace that dominates the village square. Apart from some tiles and roof carpentry the building has no sense of it’s Spanish Renaissance history thanks to the disembowelment perpetrated under the name of restauration by the University of Alcalá. The tour guide seemed less than excited as she told us about the one-eyed Princess of Eboli and her legendary amorous adventures with Felipe II. The building is now Spain’s Observatory of Sustainability. Go on, weep.
After a hearty lunch of migas and roast lamb the moment of truth arrived as my girlfriend revealed that the afternoon’s mystery activity was a visit of Pastrana’s wonderful spa. She knows that I am a big spa fan after seeing me spend a week in a jacuzzi in Cadiz a few years back. The people who work in the spa have it perfectly calibrated and we enjoyed the cascading spa pool followed by hydromassage, exfoliation, turkish bath, cool room and aroma therapy in a relaxation room to balance our energies. Bliss it was to be alive that afteroon but to be 48 with your partner was very heaven. Very.
In the evening we hit the road to seek out nearby villages and tap into their rural vibe. All we found though was a badly hidden nuclear power station , a small one like hobbits probably have, and so we turned around and drove back to Pastrana to dine at the Cafe de Ruy . Carmen was not feeling too hungry and so had a ration of ham and a salad. I opted for roast beef washed down with a nice bottle of Cuné . The wine is 80% tempranillo grape and then equal parts of the mazuello and garnacha varieties. Delicious! At the bar afterwards we sank a couple of mojitos and so to bed.
The next day we had the great pleasure to meet a guide who was truly connected with her subject. We visited a convent established by Saint Teresa of Avile and St John of the Cross. Our guide showed us paintings and relics now on display in the cloister and church. One could tell that the guide felt some pride in what she was showing us. Her appreciation of the paintings was palpable and it was a joy to be in her company. It is worth a visit just to see the Via Crucis series of paintings that have a remarkable modernity of composition and light.
After buying some postcards we hit the road and drove through Castilla, wending our way back to the big city refreshed spiritually and physically. Saint Teresa said
“Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don’t remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don’t understand the great secrets hidden inside of us.”
Well, thanks to my girlfriend’s mystery weekend, we certainly tried,
Here’s to You, Mrs.
800 years of Sassenach oppression are nothing to the tasty story of a 59 year-old woman and her 19 year old lover. Iris Robinson, the wife (at the moment) of Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister has gone into media purdah (viz psychiatric treatment) after a scandal surrounding her extra-marital adventures.
Apparently, she played away from home with a young lad who wanted to open a cafeteria and managed to get him £50,000 from property developers. He must make one hell of a beans on toast. So must his dad. She had a go on him too by all accounts.
All this has blotted the escutcheon of hubby Peter Robinson who represents the DUP – a loyalist party that espouses family values. The poor fella is being pressed to explain how much he knew. I’d have thought that if his Misses was indulging in extramural matress dancing, it was pretty bloody obvious that he didn’t know anything. Now, I have no sympathy whatsoever with this man’s politics, but give the guy a break! If you just found out that your one and only had been riding the baloney pony with a teenager, wouldn’t you think you deserved a wee bit of space to get your head together?
Samson and Delilah, Anthony and Cleopatra, Monica and Bill….sure, it’s all part of life’s rich tapestry. And I find it comforting that in spite of all the money and power, affairs (of the heart or wherever) can still make a politician declare ‘Alas! I am undone’. There, but for the grace of God, go more of us than we’d care to consider.
Predictions 2010
Listen to the PODCAST
From November 2002 to October 2009 I wrote weekly articles for the website www.weeklyletter.com and every Christmas I would make predictions about what the next twelve months had in store. I predicted, truly, the month and year of Pope John Paul II’s death, I predicted the name his successor would take and I predicted the assassination of Benzir Bhutto.
Here are my predictions for next year.
- The Queen of England will substantially curtail her public appearances after something, possible something very permanent, befalls her husband the Duke of Edinburgh. There will be talk of abdication but she will refuse.
- Manchester United will win the English Football Leage Championship and Chelsea will win the European Champions League.
- There will be a surprise General Election in England in late March and the ruling Labour party will win it but with a hung parliament.
- There will be an Irish presence at all the French games in the South African World Cup – which will be won by Spain after they beat England 3 -2 in the final.
- Penelope Cruz will marry Javier Bardem discreetly and something sad will happen to another famous Spanish actor.
- There will be a major development in battery technology that will rewrite the rules for laptops.
- Osama Bin Laden will be detained or killed by US soldiers in late April.
Let’s see.
Happy New Year.
Cervantes’ House
Mills and Loon
Today, having a black hole in my teaching schedule, I went down to the centre of Alcalá de Henares to visit the house of the town’s most famous son – Miguel Cervantes – author of ‘El ingenioso caballero don Quixote de la Mancha.’ ( know to its friends as just Don Quixote.)
I don’t know what the illustrious lights of the Town Council are playing at but if I were custodian of the house of the nation’s most famous writer, I’d make it a little more interesting.
I was greeted by a security guard who intoned the litany of what I could not do and then pointed to a room. It was an anodyne arrangement of furniture that could have been from a fifth form production of The Crucible. There was no atmosphere. No sense of it being a special place. I felt so sorry for the teachers who had brought their charges here in the hope of igniting some passion for literature.
Upstairs there were some copies of Quixote from variious times and places but again no sense of the importance of the work. The contrast with how the English treat and package Shakespeare – the sheer bardolatry of it all – was striking and sad.
I have been in dentists’ waiting rooms that had more sense of occasion and gravitas. This sad non-thing of a house-cum- municipal office must have Cervantes spinning in is grave. Cervantes the Drill, the angels will be calling him.
…but I Did Not Shoot the Deputy
It was a long weekend where the Spanish who care about such things celebrate the Spanish Constitution. Spain is one of the most interesting countries in Europe when it comes to politics. It boasts a new democracy risen from a bloodless transition from fascist dictatorship engineered by a monarch who the leader of the Communist party admitted was the most radical agent of change at the time. The Spanish Congreso de Deputados – House of Commons if you will – is just up the road from the statue of Neptune and a stone’s throw from Madrid’s central Puerto del Sol. I went there on Monday.
I queued for four hours in the cold and the rain to get a look at the building where on 23th February1981 Antonio Tejero Molina tried to stage a military coup. You can see the bullet holes where he shot into the ornate ceiling. What a prat!
When we arrived at the entrance after joining the queue at Calle Alcalá and going all the way down to the Paseo del Prado and then up and around Calle Zorilla, they photocopied my passport and gave me a plastic cup (one of the cosy foamy ones) of soup. There were no guides. Just blue arrows with the word ‘Route’ on them. It was all very lush carpet and oil painty throughout. There was a fancy table given as a gift by some very important dead person to another very important dead person and a room with clocks. There was a modern looking tribute to the men who drew up the Constitution 40 years ago. The contrast between the modern paintings of these guys with the oil painted portraits of Pre-Franco times highlighted how young modern Spain is.
The debating chamber is beautiful to look at but uncomfortable to sit in. Little wonder they are so grumpy most of the time. Every diputado has an electrical voting system and a computer monitor. Although they look a bit Windows 3.1, they’re more on the ball than the Brits who have to shuffle out and in again to vote.
The debating chamber is a lot smaller than it looks on the 9 o’clock news and I can imagine the atmosphere gets a bit tense at times. In the English House of Commons MPs are separated by a space the distance of two sword lengths. Here they inhabit a classical semi-circle.
I was given a rucksack, gloves, scarf and a woolly hat when I left. I imagine that is so I can be identified as a solid citizen who has done the democractic Haj to the Congreso. I was also given a copy of the Spanish Constitution. I shall read it too.
God on a Summer Evening
As a child I would walk up the street in the snow at half-past eleven at night scouring the rooves for evidence of Santa Claus and his sleigh. This was on the way to Midnight Mass; a massively exciting event for a Catholic child allowed to stay up late on Christmas Eve. As the years went on I passed through the choir, became and grew out of being an altar boy and, as an adult, become God’s Bouncer. As Midnight Mass started with a carol concert at 11.30 pm, the Sacred Heart church in Tunstall often attracted drunks recently ejected from the pubs. My job was to distinguish genuine religious desire from maudling boozy tosh. Many a time, may God forgive me, I sent drunks down the road to the Methodists – who, I hasten to add, had no Midnight Mass.
After my father died Christmas became an intensely sad time and now, frankly, I dislike it. As a step-father I get to see it through children’s eyes and it does make sense. But it isn’t (what is?) what it was.
All our normal aesthetic sensibilities are put on hold at Christmas. Red and green (which should never be seen together) are forced together like reluctant admin staff under the office mistletoe. The music is ghastly. Bells should be rung on a sunny afternoon not jingled in the dark and anyone who has lived in England would take issue with ‘Let it snow/let it snow/Let it snow’. The Greedfest depresses the poor and just encourages the rich. There is often less Christ at Christmas.
I know I sound like Scrooge but I feel closer to God on a summer evening or on a spring hike. Even between the leaves of a book of poems next to a pint of Guinness. I find Christmas something to be endured. It’s cold.
Grim News
I bought a pocket watch the other day. It is more practical as a teacher of private classes to have a pocket watch discreetly placed on the table than to be looking at a wristwatch. It is more elegant that a mobile phone’s digital display.
I also wear a hat. A proper hat. It is practical when it is sunny because it casts a shadow over your face (in Spanish hats are sombreros from sombra – shadow). It keeps you warm in winter and dry when the rains come. It can be angled to hint at your demeanour from Eastwood grump to jaunty lad about town. Men who don’t wear hats are imcomplete somehow.
I like boots. They’re tough and splash proof and their pointy tips are useful for any investigation of pavement flotsam. They make a satifyingly solid clump as you walk. Serious feet wear boots.
And that brings me to the bus stop at 7 o’clock the other day as I went to give my English sessions in Alcalá de Henares. There was a chilly wind racing the cars down the street. What a Yorkshireman would call a ‘lazy wind’; it doesn’t go round you, it goes through you. I was wearing my mucus green raincoat and dark purply tartan scarf. It occurred to me that a cloak would have been ideal. It protects you from the elements and yet doesn’t impede your movements.
And then IT kicked in!
I found myself wondering what people might think of me as I walked along the street in a hat, boots and cloak consulting my pocket watch. I seem to have become someone who suddenly gives a f*ck what other people think. That is grim news. Grim news indeed.
