Alone in Andalucia
Given enough time, any cosy hotel room becomes a prison cell, total freedom a desert. The reverse is also true. It's all perspective, and perspective shifts.
Neither the yearn to roam and the need to be home can never be a panacea for people like us.
Having liberated myself from work and social connections, I find myself wandering the streets below the Alcazaba, staring into the eyes of passers bye like a lunatic, looking for the spark of human connection, to strike up conversation with one of the digital nomadique or a fellow traveller or somesuch.
And yet I am tired. Tiredness pervades, the psychic tension holds me, I am not relaxing effectively, so says my Calvinistic soul. Emotionally trapped in a non-andalucian pace of life, the life may have adopted me, but I have not yet adopted it. This I think to myself as I rapidly pass throngs of local people enjoying a relaxed pace of life.
Yes, stress. Despite the R&R of dragging well over my alotted travel allowance of luggage half way across the heart of the Spanish coast, strangely, has not rested me. "I am not yet relaxed, I am still tense", I repeat to myself, expecting the switch to flip with no effort on my part to change it. (The only place I have seen wiring that shoddy, I thought, was my Opa's old house, and the diabetes got to him before the wiring could.)
So yes, effort. Sure. A spa visit was in order.
El Hammam, the authentic turkish bath, in the heart of Malága. On arrival, a single use g-string, a gown and a tour of the dry hot slabs and the moist hot air, enclosed in dimness and calm. A veritable virionic breeding ground, but one which my fellow bathers accepted: our need for relaxation was greater than our fear of repercussion.
So we prostrate ourselves to the fates, and more literally, on the hot marble slabs and steps, surrounded by running water, breathing steam deeply in the dim light, eyes closed and lost within our inner selves as the hammam did its best to sweat out as much of our physical angst, and moisture, as possible, presumably a attempt to gain even more moisture for itself.
A brief traditional massage was part of the deal. Eyes closed, face down on the slab, warm water and oils poured unseen over me, as she got to work undoing my physical knots while I addressed the mental, to work the hard pressure vessel encasing my concerns and expectations. Not as simple or direct as to puncture a hole, but to work the whole thing, soften it like kneading hard bread dough, allowing the slow release of my nerves to join the steamy aura of the calm of the hammam.
"With the physical and the mental stress addressed, the spiritual should fall into place", my last thought as my neck finally sank down and I allowed the muscles to relax.
One hour later, I was back outside, refreshed and ready to poison the well anew.
