The spirit of Andalucía

After watching a typical tourist flamenco show, I found myself wandering around Triana, the neighborhood where flamenco’s heart beats in Sevilla.  I Googled other spots to check out and came across a flamenco bar.

Yes, a flamenco bar!  It had amazing reviews, but wasn’t too crowded.  At first.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I love flamenco music and I didn’t see any dancers on stage.

Instead, I saw a man playing guitar and singing.  And then two people from the audience simply got up and danced flamenco in front of him.

Then, a group of hot presumably straight guys next to me started requesting songs.  And then the guitarist gave the guitar to the hottest guy in the group, who then serenaded the bar with his friend.

It was part flamenco show, part karaoke, part sing-a-long – everyone was singing in the bar!

Flamenco has been a part of my life ever since I visited Spain as a teenager.  My Spanish host family in eighth grade gave me my first flamenco CD – “Mahareta” by Siempre Así.  It’s light, popular flamenco and so much fun.

One of my favorite songs on the CD is “Para volver a volver”.  It means “to return, to return”.  And it’s a song that resonates with me.  Since visiting Spain in eighth grade, I’ve been back another seven times.  I’ve spent more time there than anywhere besides the U.S. and Israel.

When I first heard that song, I was in a rough situation.  I had an abusive father waiting for me in the U.S.  There was constant fighting, shouting, and manipulation at home.  Going to Spain was a welcome escape and did nothing short of change my life.  It helped me fall in love with Spanish, with languages, with travel.  Ever since I first visited, I’ve been wanting “to return, to return”.  And that’s exactly what I’ve done – and never been disappointed.

So I decided to request the song from the guitarist.  I figured, like in the States, that he’d perform – that he’d sing it for me.  And he did start to sing the chorus and everyone joined in, until he lowered the volume of his voice and guitar and looked straight at me as he asked me to sing the verses!

There I was, decades after I first fell in love with flamenco, singing to a now-full bar of Spaniards my love song for Spain.  A place that has always given me such joy and let my spirit sing.

After I sang each verse, people applauded.  And it’s not because I’m a professional singer.  It’s because that’s Andalucía’s vibe.  It’s a place where instead of internalizing our problems and anxieties, we sing them loudly and proudly – laughing, crying, sometimes at the same time.

Andaluces do the opposite of many Americans, at least in Washington, D.C. where I’m from.  Andaluces externalize their emotions- good, bad, and ugly.

Several days later I took a flamenco dance lesson, in which my teacher taught me that the relationship between the singer and the dancer is a dialogue – each has to make space for the other and take turns “speaking” through music or their dance moves.

That dialogue is something sorely missing in the U.S. right now.  Coming back to D.C. after the life-changing and emotionally-open Andalucía has been hard.  People in my hometown are suffering – countless have lost jobs including dear friends.  And I can see people on all sides retreating to their ideological cocoons instead of engaging in the difficult work of back-and-forth conversation.  This obviously includes the President, who could use a flamenco lesson about dialogue and taking turns speaking.

First, it needs to be said that my hearts go out to everyone suffering right now, including my friends who have lost their jobs.  Everyone has a right to feel pain, sadness, and anxiety as we face an uncertain future.

What I would encourage us all to do is to learn from the spirit of Andalucía.  It’s a place, as one cab driver laughed and told me, “where nobody has money but everyone is happy”.  That’s not to suggest we should never stress about paying bills, but rather that we should remember that there are more important things in life.

As people on different sides of the political spectrum get angrier, rather than bottling it up inside and passive-aggressively attacking friends and relatives who disagree, maybe they should “flamenco” the situation.  Don’t sit and watch the show.  Join in like I did.  Request your song and get up there and sing.  Sing through the words in your heart and share it with those you love and maybe even those you don’t.  In a way that garners empathy and respect.

Maybe it won’t work.  Maybe our country is beyond dialogue.  But if Andalucía can live through a civil war, a dictatorship, centuries of conquest and reconquest, and poverty and still find room for joy – maybe we can give something new a try.

Para volver a volver.  To return, to return. I’ll keep returning to Spain for inspiration, hope, and a smile on my face no matter what I’m facing.