My hotspot and I.

Travelling with the voice while breathing flamenco deep into my soul

I’ve tapped into my hotspot as we do on holiday. I have never been away so long in my life, one week in and we still have more days left than our usual summer break. I can’t help wondering what kind of headspace I will get to by the last day, unwinding, spoilt rotten for so long.

My husband insists that we need to make more of time together and see more of this world, ‘who knows what is round the corner?’ How lucky can I be? So here we are, mobile studio unpacked, lyrics to the next album filling a quarter of the suitcase that my sex would rather fill with clothes. You know; ever so important details are to be planned for; bras that must hide their straps with unusually cut summer dresses, sandals for walking long distance in the heat, shoes that can go with leggings, under warmer dresses, if it rains. One must plan for such holiday minutiae. Or maybe not!

He finishes breakfast early to get the job done. So while my man is recording a quickie before the cleaners storm the floor I find myself happily, momentarily homeless. His wicker chair, now empty, leaves me face to face with a young woman who appears to be on holiday by herself. She has a fun, heavy bun of dreadlocks tied loosely on top of her head. It’s so heavy it lops to one side and its rough-edged tails kick outwards towards the sky above her ear. Her eyes focus on the floor or the distant horizon. It’s weird when we eat alone. I’ve been there. Her eyes don’t have the easy target of loved ones to assert her presence and seal her comfort zone on the table map.

We don’t speak. We don’t need to for we have a language in common; the smile. She is enjoying her own space I am sure, although I can’t help feeling like saying hello to break her silence. Does she need her silence broken at all? Or is she happy for a break? Maybe she talks for a living, like my husband, and this is her retreat. Or was she jilted at the airport and decided to travel alone?

Two tables across the terrace from me is a tall chap with a gentle manner, with fine metal-rimmed, shiny glasses, the type only a clever chap would choose. Stupidly I find myself wanting to matchmake. As if it were that simple. Or indeed maybe they were a couple and they have broken up on holiday. Oh for heaven’s sake, why does my imagination work so many details into a story all the time?! I guess I was born like that. I suppose that is why I love to write. To get it out. Things could be worse.

Breakfast gets busy. You can choose one of two shifts. The Spanish arrive in the later one, of course because they know how to enjoy the night. They know how to work the heat. We chose the earlier shift knowing it is easier to record in the early hours, but we were up on the rooftop last night with them too. I have lived in a hot country long enough to know there is a beauty to the night that shouldn’t be missed. Indeed it was live flamenco night. We found ourselves on the roof and of course, the barman absolutely insists I drink one for the road. Which in English measures is more like five for the runway!

A guitarist under the spotlight plays a blood-red guitar, his hand flicking across the dark hollow so fast you can’t see his thumb. The singer listens to every note and taps his hardened heals on a white board in a staccato, as if he were trying to wake up the stars. He curls his fingers, hands and wrists above his head pulling the stars nearer, constantly twisting his arms as if they were hot steam. He stretches his laced sleeves out with their loose, embroidered cuffs with such a passion for life he unknowingly awakens the northern European in us. His unpatronizing energy seeps out towards each table, triggering in each of us an adolescent hunger for the raw and the real.

The wingspan of his voice stretches from quiet velvet to a roar, straight from his soul. The stories. The zest for love. The tragedy. The heavy heart. The rocky road. I think I got it. For once I got it. I breathed into the flamenco, the raw jazz of the night. I felt at one with the black sky, carefree of the rudder set on its invisible path and I awoke today feeling inspired to breathe deeper and smile bigger. Minutiae put aside. Thank God for musicians.

waking the stars by Pipp

I want to thank

Erica Drayton Writes

for helping me to write better, by trying her 100 word story challenges. Once you try it the next writing is never the same.

Equally inspired by writers who write of beautiful nights and life abroad, by

Susie Mawhinney - A hill and I

and Barrie from

Feasts and Fables

. Have a good week. Hope to be back here next week to share some more. Lots of love.