arcadio appeared one morning as we were sitting outside the cave. he looked at us with his grey beard and grandfatherly smile and his first words were, simply "tenéis un sitio espléndido"
- you have a splendid place (not the first time a spaniard has greeted me with such words)
then he asked if he could take a photo of us to put on his blog. jenifer and i just looked at each other for a while, humming and hawing, not really able to decide. if i were alone i would have said "shure fire away" but i knew that jenifer is generally disinclined to let her photo be taken by strangers, so i was waiting for her to decide, my eyebrows raised. in the end we cobbled together our conclusion "go on then"
then it ocurred to me to ask arcadio to send me the photos via e-mail, which he did:
a photo is worth a thousand words. i may tell people that i live in a cave but how better can i transmit my idea that a cave can be such a thoroughally agreeable - and aesthetically pleasing - place to be than through the showing of a photo? my mother, for example, had in mind the image of the gaping, rough-hewn caverns to be found along the scottish coast, upon learning that i had taken up residence in a cave. jenifer is generally sparse with her snapping, but has taken of late a few scenic shots, to wit:
i have had the opportunity to do quite a lot of reading of late (e.g. harry mulisch, stefan zweig, haruki murakami, tom robbins, italo calvino, jack kerouac, dostoevsky) and i have particularly appreciated the style of those authors whose use of language is so clear that they leave absolutely no space for ambiguity. no need to reread any sentence to deduce what the author was probably trying to say. say what you intend to. i mean say what you mean. or mean what you say. you know what i mean? i apsire to a crystal clear use of language. not always. for me writing can be a process through which i discover what it is i actually want to say. and sometimes, of course, an ambiguous use of language is the only recourse for the writer who faithfully wants to record his ambiguous impressions, or unclear thoughts.
after the burning of all dwellings our stretch of coast was cast into an unusual original stillness. for a week police officers came and fined a few people who had just arrived and were camping on the beach. then the long easter weekend came and the beach filled with local canarian families and youths in tents who played techno music all night and took drugs and left lots of pieces of toilet roll scattered around the tabaibas. after that the police did not come back. for that first week we stayed in the cave, but lying low, not wanting to show any signs of inhabitation. one morning we were in the middle of making chappatis over a fire when a file of uniformed men walked past on the high path carrying out a few scraps of metal. they looked at us with curiosity. one of them took a photo. we felt very conspicuous. jenny said "quick, take the old roof cables up to the rubbish skip. show them that we are tidying up."
we didn't always want to be lying low and so we cast around for another less conspicuous spot. marcel - a young blonde german with a beautiful dog with one eye true blue, the other dark brown, who had very white fur and looked like a cross between a fox and a wolf - reported to us that when the police went past his cave, they saw that it was very tidy and that he hadn't really constructed anything and let him stay there. the russian valentin had also been spared - his cave was rather difficult to access, and he had covered the entrance with fabrics matching exactly the colour of the rock so that from a distance nobody could tell that anybody lived there. then we learned about an old german by the name of frederico who had lived in a very hidden, well-nigh inaccessible cave for thirty years. he was over seventy now, and had only begun to walk again after a period of not leaving his cave at all, as a result of sore legs, getting his little sustenance brought to him by friends. when i met him for the first time he had the appearance of a wizard, wearing a long dark blue morrocan robe, his white hair and white beard flowing and framing his tanned, wrinkled face. he had one glass eye; through the other one he looked out with intense vivacity. as he spoke he seemed to gather energy and talked with passion about how mother nature had created this place and had called him to live here and protect it. it was his wish to live here for the rest of his days. he talked disparaginly of babylonia (modern civilisation) and lamented the increasing encroachment along this coast of people bringing their rubbish and disrespectful ways. he thumped his long staff on the ground as he spoke, to emphasize his words. "i have a guanche spirit" he called with fire in his eyes. "here on tenerife i live like a guanche" (the indiginous people of the canaries, before the spanish slaughtered) "when i lived in america i lived like a native indian. when i lived in india i lived like a sadhu. and when i lived in germany i lived in the woods"
these words made a considerable impression on me. he said that he was glad the authorities had cleared the place out. twelve years ago - the last time people were evicted - he had heralded the arrival of the guardia civil by blowing loudly and triumphantly on a large conch shell. the police knew him and respected him. we felt that we would be safe living near him. when i first asked frederico what he thought about us moving into the emtpy cave beneath his cave, he said he would be very happy to have good tidy neighbours, on the condition that we first brought all the rubbish out, including an abundant fake leather sofa somebody had lugged in. "everyone needs to sit on chairs in europe" he said "but it is better to sit on the ground. the sofa does not belong here." i could kind of see what he meant, but it was a pretty comfy sofa. i wouldn't have lugged it in myself, but nor would i have taken the trouble to remove it after somebody had taken the trouble to bring it in. however, i felt good about living near frederico, and wished to respect his wishes. i spent a cosy afternoon sprawled out on the sofa reading a book, before borrowing a sharp axe the next day from the russian valentin, breaking it up and feeding the wood to following fires.
as frederico got to know us he told us he was so glad that we had moved in. he felt his strength returning, and that a new positive period of living and looking after the caves was coming. for years a series of sloppy people had passed through, leaving lots of rubbish and uncleanliness behind them. most mornings frederico got up early and made his way down to the beach, where he could be seen standing on his head and performing other incredibly flexible yoga postures on the sand.
we often had looked across to those caves on the cliff from la pintada, and remarked what a good spot it would be from which to see the sun setting across the bay. in time, we came to call our new cave the evening cave - alluding to the good views it affords at sundown - and the cave where we used to live (which previously required no name other than the cave) we came to call la pintada - alluding to the fact that it has been painted. in truth we could never decide which cave we preferred. the evening cave was a very special place. but every few days we would feel pulled back to la pintada, in order to feed the cats and water the plants and generally make our presence felt so that other people would not think the place was abandoned and set up shop. when we were back there it didn't take long for us to look around at the shining plants and twisted volcanic rocks and remark "wow, here is so beautiful . . . here is really the most beautiful place to be" then the evening would creep upon us, la pintada would fall under cool shadow and we would say "let's go and see the sunset from the evening cave; it is, after all, called the evening cave". at the beginning jenifer joked that i could generally take up residence in the evening cave while she stayed back in la pintada, and that we could communicate to each other via smoke signals. what was not a joke was the realisation that it was healthy for our relationship to intercalate our being together with periods of alone time. to this end having the evening cave served us nicely.
the evening cave had been created through somebody chiselling into a stratum of crumbly white rock (as opposed to la pintada whose curvaceous interior walls were entirely designed by the volcano.) there was a series of caves which had thus been created on the reasonably steep cliffslope above the beach. it was an idyllic spot in which to live in a cave. jenifer fumbled for the word "adventurous" in trying to describe the place. i say fumbled because she was aware that it was not perhaps the best word, but it went some way to describing the feeling of living on a pretty steep piece of rock, hanging above a wide blue sea. from the photos you can see that the sea is a fair drop down from the cave, but from the cave i could hurl a rotten apple and watch it fall in a deep downward curve to plop! into the sea a little distance from the shore. jenny showed that she could do that too, at my behest. it was steep! you fairly had to have your wits about you to descend. there was a way. somebody had chiselled out little footholds at the steepest parts. then it came to an exciting overhang (called acapulco) from which one could hurl one's body and bewildered-delighted fall through the air and then splash! a mighty underwater scene of thousands of tiny white bubbles while the hurtling body slowly slows and reaches the lowest submarine point of calm before scooshing back up to the surface for marvellous air.
when it came to defecation (jeni didn't really come round to this way of seeing it but) the most practical way of going about it was to shit directly in the sea. and the most direct way to enter the sea was to jump off acapulco. this led to many a morning scene of mine stepping out of some dream scene and directly needing to shake of sleepiness and regather my powers of balance as i clamboured down the cliff. i grew really fond of beginning the day with a splash. so fond of the sea in general. being in the sea is to form a magical connection of love between my beating heart and everything around me. the sea drowns everything in saltiness, except for the wriggling fishy bodies who know how to float and dive down (me), practising the holding of the breath or the most efficient swim style water yoga gliding through the sea while observing all her moods, swaying through and swayed by the great pulsing movements of the ocean body. nick drake never knew the meaning of the sea:
I never felt magic crazy as this
I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea
I never held emotion in the palm of my hand
Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree
But now you’re here
Brighten my northern sky
o nick drake!
brighten my poetic soul
i use the past tense in describing the cave because all of a sudden we flew back to germany for jenny's father funeral.
- you have a splendid place (not the first time a spaniard has greeted me with such words)
then he asked if he could take a photo of us to put on his blog. jenifer and i just looked at each other for a while, humming and hawing, not really able to decide. if i were alone i would have said "shure fire away" but i knew that jenifer is generally disinclined to let her photo be taken by strangers, so i was waiting for her to decide, my eyebrows raised. in the end we cobbled together our conclusion "go on then"
then it ocurred to me to ask arcadio to send me the photos via e-mail, which he did:
a photo is worth a thousand words. i may tell people that i live in a cave but how better can i transmit my idea that a cave can be such a thoroughally agreeable - and aesthetically pleasing - place to be than through the showing of a photo? my mother, for example, had in mind the image of the gaping, rough-hewn caverns to be found along the scottish coast, upon learning that i had taken up residence in a cave. jenifer is generally sparse with her snapping, but has taken of late a few scenic shots, to wit:
i have had the opportunity to do quite a lot of reading of late (e.g. harry mulisch, stefan zweig, haruki murakami, tom robbins, italo calvino, jack kerouac, dostoevsky) and i have particularly appreciated the style of those authors whose use of language is so clear that they leave absolutely no space for ambiguity. no need to reread any sentence to deduce what the author was probably trying to say. say what you intend to. i mean say what you mean. or mean what you say. you know what i mean? i apsire to a crystal clear use of language. not always. for me writing can be a process through which i discover what it is i actually want to say. and sometimes, of course, an ambiguous use of language is the only recourse for the writer who faithfully wants to record his ambiguous impressions, or unclear thoughts.
after the burning of all dwellings our stretch of coast was cast into an unusual original stillness. for a week police officers came and fined a few people who had just arrived and were camping on the beach. then the long easter weekend came and the beach filled with local canarian families and youths in tents who played techno music all night and took drugs and left lots of pieces of toilet roll scattered around the tabaibas. after that the police did not come back. for that first week we stayed in the cave, but lying low, not wanting to show any signs of inhabitation. one morning we were in the middle of making chappatis over a fire when a file of uniformed men walked past on the high path carrying out a few scraps of metal. they looked at us with curiosity. one of them took a photo. we felt very conspicuous. jenny said "quick, take the old roof cables up to the rubbish skip. show them that we are tidying up."
we didn't always want to be lying low and so we cast around for another less conspicuous spot. marcel - a young blonde german with a beautiful dog with one eye true blue, the other dark brown, who had very white fur and looked like a cross between a fox and a wolf - reported to us that when the police went past his cave, they saw that it was very tidy and that he hadn't really constructed anything and let him stay there. the russian valentin had also been spared - his cave was rather difficult to access, and he had covered the entrance with fabrics matching exactly the colour of the rock so that from a distance nobody could tell that anybody lived there. then we learned about an old german by the name of frederico who had lived in a very hidden, well-nigh inaccessible cave for thirty years. he was over seventy now, and had only begun to walk again after a period of not leaving his cave at all, as a result of sore legs, getting his little sustenance brought to him by friends. when i met him for the first time he had the appearance of a wizard, wearing a long dark blue morrocan robe, his white hair and white beard flowing and framing his tanned, wrinkled face. he had one glass eye; through the other one he looked out with intense vivacity. as he spoke he seemed to gather energy and talked with passion about how mother nature had created this place and had called him to live here and protect it. it was his wish to live here for the rest of his days. he talked disparaginly of babylonia (modern civilisation) and lamented the increasing encroachment along this coast of people bringing their rubbish and disrespectful ways. he thumped his long staff on the ground as he spoke, to emphasize his words. "i have a guanche spirit" he called with fire in his eyes. "here on tenerife i live like a guanche" (the indiginous people of the canaries, before the spanish slaughtered) "when i lived in america i lived like a native indian. when i lived in india i lived like a sadhu. and when i lived in germany i lived in the woods"
these words made a considerable impression on me. he said that he was glad the authorities had cleared the place out. twelve years ago - the last time people were evicted - he had heralded the arrival of the guardia civil by blowing loudly and triumphantly on a large conch shell. the police knew him and respected him. we felt that we would be safe living near him. when i first asked frederico what he thought about us moving into the emtpy cave beneath his cave, he said he would be very happy to have good tidy neighbours, on the condition that we first brought all the rubbish out, including an abundant fake leather sofa somebody had lugged in. "everyone needs to sit on chairs in europe" he said "but it is better to sit on the ground. the sofa does not belong here." i could kind of see what he meant, but it was a pretty comfy sofa. i wouldn't have lugged it in myself, but nor would i have taken the trouble to remove it after somebody had taken the trouble to bring it in. however, i felt good about living near frederico, and wished to respect his wishes. i spent a cosy afternoon sprawled out on the sofa reading a book, before borrowing a sharp axe the next day from the russian valentin, breaking it up and feeding the wood to following fires.
as frederico got to know us he told us he was so glad that we had moved in. he felt his strength returning, and that a new positive period of living and looking after the caves was coming. for years a series of sloppy people had passed through, leaving lots of rubbish and uncleanliness behind them. most mornings frederico got up early and made his way down to the beach, where he could be seen standing on his head and performing other incredibly flexible yoga postures on the sand.
we often had looked across to those caves on the cliff from la pintada, and remarked what a good spot it would be from which to see the sun setting across the bay. in time, we came to call our new cave the evening cave - alluding to the good views it affords at sundown - and the cave where we used to live (which previously required no name other than the cave) we came to call la pintada - alluding to the fact that it has been painted. in truth we could never decide which cave we preferred. the evening cave was a very special place. but every few days we would feel pulled back to la pintada, in order to feed the cats and water the plants and generally make our presence felt so that other people would not think the place was abandoned and set up shop. when we were back there it didn't take long for us to look around at the shining plants and twisted volcanic rocks and remark "wow, here is so beautiful . . . here is really the most beautiful place to be" then the evening would creep upon us, la pintada would fall under cool shadow and we would say "let's go and see the sunset from the evening cave; it is, after all, called the evening cave". at the beginning jenifer joked that i could generally take up residence in the evening cave while she stayed back in la pintada, and that we could communicate to each other via smoke signals. what was not a joke was the realisation that it was healthy for our relationship to intercalate our being together with periods of alone time. to this end having the evening cave served us nicely.
the evening cave had been created through somebody chiselling into a stratum of crumbly white rock (as opposed to la pintada whose curvaceous interior walls were entirely designed by the volcano.) there was a series of caves which had thus been created on the reasonably steep cliffslope above the beach. it was an idyllic spot in which to live in a cave. jenifer fumbled for the word "adventurous" in trying to describe the place. i say fumbled because she was aware that it was not perhaps the best word, but it went some way to describing the feeling of living on a pretty steep piece of rock, hanging above a wide blue sea. from the photos you can see that the sea is a fair drop down from the cave, but from the cave i could hurl a rotten apple and watch it fall in a deep downward curve to plop! into the sea a little distance from the shore. jenny showed that she could do that too, at my behest. it was steep! you fairly had to have your wits about you to descend. there was a way. somebody had chiselled out little footholds at the steepest parts. then it came to an exciting overhang (called acapulco) from which one could hurl one's body and bewildered-delighted fall through the air and then splash! a mighty underwater scene of thousands of tiny white bubbles while the hurtling body slowly slows and reaches the lowest submarine point of calm before scooshing back up to the surface for marvellous air.
when it came to defecation (jeni didn't really come round to this way of seeing it but) the most practical way of going about it was to shit directly in the sea. and the most direct way to enter the sea was to jump off acapulco. this led to many a morning scene of mine stepping out of some dream scene and directly needing to shake of sleepiness and regather my powers of balance as i clamboured down the cliff. i grew really fond of beginning the day with a splash. so fond of the sea in general. being in the sea is to form a magical connection of love between my beating heart and everything around me. the sea drowns everything in saltiness, except for the wriggling fishy bodies who know how to float and dive down (me), practising the holding of the breath or the most efficient swim style water yoga gliding through the sea while observing all her moods, swaying through and swayed by the great pulsing movements of the ocean body. nick drake never knew the meaning of the sea:
I never felt magic crazy as this
I never saw moons knew the meaning of the sea
I never held emotion in the palm of my hand
Or felt sweet breezes in the top of a tree
But now you’re here
Brighten my northern sky
o nick drake!
brighten my poetic soul
i use the past tense in describing the cave because all of a sudden we flew back to germany for jenny's father funeral.
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