Matters of Fact

Let’s talk fruit and veggies. I get mine just up the street at Frutería Miryan, where a week’s worth of produce — about half a kilo each of bananas, tangerines, pears and onions, a few avocados, some lettuce and garlic and eggs — normally costs me a little under ten Euros. That’s kind of amazing, especially since most of the goods are brought in fresh from regional farms. I think of the little flecks of chicken poop on the eggs (a hen’s parting shot, as it were) as my freshness guarantee. It occurs to me that the proprietor of Frutería Miryan, a stout, matter-of-fact young woman named Miryan, would probably be puzzled by the “eat local” movement back home in the States. That locally grown produce frequently costs more than produce shipped across oceans and continents, and is often only available one day a week, at a specially staged “farmer’s market,” would no doubt confound her. It certainly confounds me. Back home in South Carolina, shrimp pulled from local waters by local shrimpers tends to be more expensive, by a long shot, than shrimp imported from places like Thailand. I’m guessing this has something to do with economies of scale, all that, but it still seems backasswards.

Because of limited space, certain items at Frutería Miryan are located behind the counter, and a customer obtains them the old way, by asking Miryan for _____ kilos/units of _____. Of my usual staples, eggs, avocados and mushrooms are all behind-the-counter items at Frutería Miryan. Miryan knows that I like to buy three medium avocados, just about ripe; six large mushrooms, white as possible; and a dozen eggs. When I walk in on a Monday morning, she will start putting together these behind-the-counter items, so that by the time I’m ready to check out and head home, so are my eggs, my avocados, and my mushrooms. While she’s ringing me up, Miryan and I make small talk, which small talk has gotten more sophisticated as my Spanish has improved. I’m especially proud of my progress with verb conjugations. Now instead of saying something inane like, Wow, sure is hot today, I can dazzle Miryan with, Wow, sure was hot yesterday.

Seriously, though. This being Andalucía in June, we actually have been talking about the heat a lot lately. Winter was unusually long, wet and cold, and then, with nary a nod toward spring, a scorching summer was upon us. That theme has long since been exhausted, so the other day while Miryan went about gathering my dozen eggs, three just-about-ripe avocados, and six large mushrooms, I brought up the fact that I was heading back to the U.S. for the summer, perhaps for a year. I mentioned how tough it was to find a good deal on plane tickets. Summer is high-season for travel between Europe and the U.S., I noted, so the airlines can pretty much charge whatever they want, which is a hell of a lot. Weighing my avocados and my options, Miryan asked me why I didn’t just rent a car.

I considered saying I’d look into that, and going on my way. I didn’t want Miryan to feel like an ignoramus. But something — maybe it was the teacher in me, wanting to do his small part to educate, to keep people from feeling like ignorami — something led me to mention the large body of water that lies between Europe and America, el Atlántico. When I did, Miryan didn’t look at all as though she felt like an ignoramus. Neither did she come off surprised, or bewildered. No. She simply rang up my avocados and said maybe I should take a boat.

I told her I’d look into that, and went on my way.

A week later, I’m still mulling this over. Here in Puente Genil we’re not very far from the port where the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria were rigged and provisioned before shoving off to cross the Atlantic Ocean those many centuries ago. It’s true that when he landed, Columbus thought he’d found a water route to India, but as I understand it, he wasn’t long in revising that theory. Even if maps still give us the “West Indies” and natives from Anchorage down to Tierra del Fuego are routinely called “Indians,” it’s been well established for quite some time that Columbus did not land in India but in a whole new territory, the New World, part of which would one day become the United States of America. Meaning among other things that an individual trying to drive a car to the United States from Spain would face considerable challenges, early. I’m saying, challenges of the sort that not even a rental should be subjected to. It would in fact be easier, a lot easier, to drive to India. Had Columbus owned a car, he probably would have. Screw finding a water route: we’ve got wheels, and internal combustion. Road trip.

I don’t mean to be snooty towards Miryan. Honestly. When it comes to running a business, making a living, being a success in life, Miryan is way ahead of me. I just can’t help wondering what she sees when she pictures the wider world. Is everywhere else, everywhere that is not Puente Genil, located just the other side of the olive trees on the hill? Bangkok, Los Angeles, Baghdad… all of it lumped together in one massive Pile of Babel? When I put the question to Concha, my wife, she proposed that maybe Miryan doesn’t picture the wider world at all. For Miryan, the world is the fruit stand. Harsh, but possibly true. And maybe only harsh to the rest of us. I have a feeling Miryan wouldn’t take not-picturing-the-wider-world as criticism, but as a simple statement of fact.

When it comes to being geographically challenged and incurious, Americans can’t really stand in judgment, of course. Where I’m from, a lot of people think Spain is part of Mexico. If you want to get to Barcelona from Savannah, fill up the tank and hit the road. Then again, who would want to go to Barcelona, with all them Mexicans? I digress. In prose as in life, I wander. It’s fun. The point is, in Sevilla and other cities of southern Spain you’ll meet plenty of Andalusians who have lived and worked in other countries, but in Andalucía’s smaller towns you may be hard pressed to find people who have so much as set foot in a foreign country. Cities like Paris, Rome, and Marrakesh are just a short flight away, and discount airlines regularly offer round-trip tickets to these places for half the price of a good jamón, but as a general rule small-town Andalusians don’t take them up on it. Many have never even been to another region of Spain. That is to say, many Andalusians have never left Andalucía.

That may seem disturbing, even depressing — unless you’re familiar with Andalucía. Between the fairs and feasts, the gazpacho, the flamenco, and the alegría, there are certainly worse places to spend a life, and plenty more reasons to stay than to leave. Families indulge the young and old alike: few cultures on earth lavish their children and their seniors with more affection. Why leave? In the U.S., progeny living at home after a certain age is often seen as a kind of failure on the part of the one still (or again) living at home. In small-town Andalucía, progeny living far from home is more likely to be seen as a failure, on the part of the family.

The religious right in the States might even hold up the Spanish model as a good example of “family values” in action, if so many Spanish families didn’t vote Socialist. The religious right might tout the Mexican model, too, if so many Mexican families weren’t…Mexican. What the religious right can’t really brag about is the American model. A lot of my compatriots in the U.S. spend their lives putting as much distance as possible between themselves and their relatives. (And if said relatives are members of creepy political cults, e.g. the religious right, who can blame them?) For some, just keeping the peace over the holidays is hard enough. Few of my friends in Andalucía can understand that. The Yuletide family meltdowns presented in American movies are truly baffling to them. They ask me if American holidays are really like that. They can be, I say. They can be.

It is probably misguided to romanticize one way of life over another. Some Americans would undoubtedly feel smothered in an Andalusian family; some Andalusians undoubtedly dream of breaking free. I for one can’t imagine going my whole life without ever leaving my native soil. I know I’m lucky to be able to. Lucky it is an option. The farther away from home I get, the more clearly I see it, the better I understand it, for better and worse. As my wife and I prepare for a possible year Stateside, my thoughts naturally turn homeward. Concha is all excitement and anticipation: a year in the United States studying English, immersed in Americana, it would be a dream for her. But my enthusiasm comes with a measure of apprehension. Freedom ain’t free, I’ve heard. I don’t look forward to depending on a car to survive, wolfing down rapid-fire lunches, living to work and work and work. I don’t look forward to bumper-sticker wars, drinks served without tapas, politics served without coherence. Good material, sure, but tough on the spirit.

Happily there is just as much to look forward to. I look forward to oyster roasts, pig picks, and bonfires. To tomato sandwiches seasoned with fresh-cut basil; creek shrimp sautéed in lemon-butter; peach cobbler topped with vanilla ice cream. I look forward to saltwater creeks and tea-water swamps; to the Blue Ridge Mountains in fall and the Carolina Lowcountry in spring. To dogwood and poplar, wisteria and magnolia. Above all I look forward to critter sounds at night: cicadas, tree frogs, crickets. In parched, bare Andalucía, the land is still as a tomb after dark. It’s as if everything is over and done with, finished. Back home, the uninterrupted buzz of the wild, ever pressing at the human realm, ever ready to reclaim it, reminds me how tenuous my place here really is — how fortunate I am to be here, a part of life on earth, at all.

Until next month, Hasta luego. It’s time to get packing.

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Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.