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| Moratinos Super Heroes |
Sundays for me are fraught, and have been for years.
As a child
in Denver, San Antonio, Bossier City, La., and Little Rock, I was dressed up in
skirts and scratchy petticoats and made to sit through Nazarene basement
Sunday School flannelgraph Bible stories (which I rather enjoyed) and windy
pew-bound sermons that ground my cute plastic-net petticoats into the backs of my
thighs (which taught me the meaning of “wrath”) and hours-long, on-our-knees
appeals to the Almighty by Elder Ernie Slayton, who prayed for each damned soul
on This Celestial Ball, ferChrissakes. (Brother Ernie taught me what Eternity
is).
When I grew
up and had two kids myself, with a husband who was a classical church organist,
Sunday meant everyone on Red Alert. My husband was articulate and beautiful. He
played Buxtehude, Bach, and Cesar Franck with Germanic precision. Every note was
perfect. Every nerve was fried. Every mistake was amplified 50 times. (“This is
Art, people. Can’t you shut that kid the hell up?”)
On Sunday
afternoons I took my babies for long rides in the car, usually to a Dairy Queen
in Van Wert or Stryker, VanLue or Waterville, some small town far away. Small cones. I didn’t
often have more than $4 on me, but I had lots of gas in the tank. Rolling
Stones on the car stereo, our Emotional Rescue. Muddy Waters, singing “Sail on,
little honey bee.” Merle Haggard and his Mama’s Hungry Eyes. Gillian Welch with
her Mark where the Nails Have Been, Springsteen’s Thunder Road, Prince’s Little
Red Corvette, and Johnny Cash stuck in Folsum Prison. They saved our souls. We
stayed alive. We sailed on.
We survived.
That husband left us in Ohio, but we’d set ourselves free a good while before
that. Sundays still happened. We danced to “June Bug” and “Love Shack” and “Keep
a Lid on Things.” We were dancing fools after church at St. Tim’s Episcopal,
Perrysburg. I taught Sunday School, I covered religion at the Toledo Blade. I
did a hell of a job, won all the national journo prizes. I lost my religion, found
my faith. I was a sinner, and Jesus didn’t mind so much. Real Jesus isn’t
anything like the Jesus I’d been taught.
And after many
years and much to-and-fro, I am here in Moratinos, Palencia, Spain, on a Sunday
afternoon. Sundays still are unique. This husband is not an American and not a
Christian, but he’s a devout Catholic. We’re at Mass every Sunday, and at the
community “vermouth” afterward, at the local, catching up on the gossip, the TV
news, the “Norte de Castilla,” a remarkably good regional newspaper. Sundays
set the tone for Moratinos, and today was a rich mine of sociology.
In
summertime, all the chicks come home to Moratinos to roost. The younger
generations that live in faraway cities return to town with their children, and
the families and kids and grannies all mix it up together for a few weeks
(except for the few who feed on grudges and won’t talk to the others.) But
church brings everyone together. And today, this morning, a deep mine of
Sociology showed up for the Divine Office.
It was the
sixth birthday of one of the youngest set, so four of them, all cousins, came
to church dressed in costume: Superman.
Thor. BatGirl (with added princess tiara and wand), and Captain America. They
all sat together on one rickety pew, kicking their feet, tapping their tinfoil
hammers and shields, shaking hands with the priest at the Passing of Peace. Padre
Santiago wouldn’t shake with the Hammer of Thor, but he laid a hand on the Norse
thunder-god’s head and blessed him.
It’s a
little unsettling, having Super Man and Captain America show up at my Castilian
church. I am used to being the only American in the place, and I know the
little guys under the masks are Unai and Ibai, burly little half-Basque bruisers
who don’t speak a word of American Superhero. (They probably have a real leg-up
on Truth and Justice, however.) (I asked Ibai in English, “How old are you
today?” He answered me “sei,” six, in Euskadi. Basque. The kid speaks three
languages, almost. Damn superpowers!)
Anyway,
Paddy and I stuck around for an extra glass of vino, while the whole town poured
in the doors to commune together. Up on the TV screen was a huge national
demonstration in Barcelona, with all of Spain (including the very tall young
King Felipe) saying they are against terrorist attacks but still love the
resident Muslims. Everyone agreed the Catalan nationalists were hijacking the
whole thing for their own political ends, yadda yadda. (Spaniards love
demonstrating against things that have happened already. They are not so great
at prevention. Prevention is risky, and it requires work. We pay the government
for that.)
Paddy and I
sat among the superheroes and card-players, perched at the limit of our
integration. We don’t play Mus or Brisca. Our grandchildren made acceptable holiday
appearances last week, pale-skinned, red-headed, smart and polite, their
parents – our children – speaking acceptably good Castellano, paying in cash,
laughing at the right moment of the jokes. We will never be natives, but we do
OK.
Life is
very good here. Sundays are much more quiet than before, now that the pilgrims
have other options. These days we listen to Eric Satie and Jussi Bjorling, and
eat melon and the summer’s finest gazpacho. We consider what we left behind,
and the options that remain. The next edit on the book. Should I take up Mitch’s
latest offer? That opportunity in Asturias. The house for sale next door…
Sundays
still can be fraught. Sundays often bring us pilgrims, or guests from the
homelands. The second bottle of hospitable Toro often turns people political,
or confessional, or tells them it’s time our dogs were properly trained or our
gardens properly weeded or my novel
properly edited. I have been advised at least four Sundays this summer on how
to “turn this place into a total gold mine.”
We come
from busy, busy places. Our friends and families are improvers, fixers, helpers,
caped crusaders. Just like we were. Usually Paddy goes for a nap toward the
start of the seminar.
I listen. I
hear them. My petticoat scratches the back of my legs.
Sometimes I
have to pull my Thor mask over my American face, and pick up my tinfoil hammer,
and let ‘em shake hands with that. But with my other hand I bless them. I bless
their busy, big hearts. Because I have one of those, too.
We’re all
still driving down Thunder Road, looking for the Dairy Queen.
We all
still have so much to learn, and maybe we should listen better, but it’s the
Sabbath Day on the Holy Way. We’re all on our way home.
Me, I’m the
honey bee, sailing on. It’s late, but I can make it if I run.
