A Religious Experience

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

Oscar Wilde

Yesterday was Tuesday, the day of the open air market in Nerja. Everyone comes out for it, the young and the old, the natives and the tourists. Picture a combination of mall, flea market, vegetable stand and Starbucks under the bright blue sky close to the shores of the Mediterranean and you’ll get a slight idea of what it’s like.

For the first time since our arrival, Jeremy and I decide to pursue different activities for the day. This must be a measure of the confidence we’ve acquired since getting here. We each feel at least minimally able to demonstrate proficiency (independently!) in handling whatever this strange culture and language with throw at us. Up until now, we’ve gotten by on the “two Gringo heads are better than one” method of communication. Today, however, he is off to snap photographs and hike in the mountains and I am content to amble off to the market. I luxuriate in the reality that for the next few hours, I will have to answer to no one, my cell phone will not ring (I’ve left it in the States), no one here knows me. I don’t have contracts to send, dust bunnies to chase, or anywhere I need to be. No one needs me at the present moment and that, for the short run, is just fine by me. What the heck—maybe I’ll even mosey instead of my usual aerobic pace and then stop for a pastry at Anahi, the wonderful little coffee shop whose terrace overlooks the sea.

Indeed, I am more confident now as I find the market with no problem. Was it just last week I wandered the streets following anyone who was walking purposefully, thinking surely they must be headed for the weekly event? I buy some pajamas for my girls, a pink suede wallet for myself. I bypass the cashews at the nut stand, where last week I indulged, telling myself they were for Jeremy, but truth to tell I ate more than he did! I finger a cashmere sweater—think of my oldest daughter, Beth and then decide no, it’s not really her. The booth vendor tries to interest me in a genuine fox fur jacket, but I shudder and move on. I’ll pass on the dead animals. I smile at the hosiery displayed on provocatively bent mannequin legs all hung in a row. My Alyssa would scream with laughter if she saw that so I stop to take a picture to send her. I cover the market from beginning to end in a little over an hour and I am saturated. I need no more time on my own and begin to wish that I hadn’t been so expansive with my idea to spend the entire day separate from my honey.

I continue along the cobblestone streets of whitewashed houses and storefronts, trying to decipher the occasional word or phrase that I am able to comprehend. I can pinpoint the stereotypes now. The native Spaniards, who consider this their winter are bundled up in jackets in spite of the temps in the high 50’s. The ever-optimistic tourists come dressed in shorts and sandals—they are on vacation, damn it, it must be shorts weather. Nerja is home to many British retirees and I can now spot them at a glance as well. I am wandering around in my jeans and University of Colorado sweatshirt and I see no one dressed as I am—Americans don’t seem to be as predominant here as the Northern Europeans are. I long to hear some English words that are in my own accent, but am pretty certain that won't happen until I either see Jeremy or call one of my kids. To compensate for my brief bout of homesickness, I begin to anticipate my pastry. It is afternoon now and I am ready for a sugar fix. Chocolate heals all!

On my way past the town square, I pass by the Catholic church and pop in to check it out. I was raised Catholic, educated by Sisters of Mercy, baptized, confirmed—the whole nine yards—but we’ve long since gone our separate ways—the Pope's followers and I—split due to irreconcilable differences--and we travel in different circles. I marvel at the beauty of the architecture and the statues—the Italians, Portuguese and Spaniards all “do” Catholicism so lavishly! I slip into one of the pews. This is the world of my youth. No matter how “spiritual but not religious” I’ve become, no matter how much I might differ in values and ideology from this institution, these are the sounds, sights and smells of my childhood. The creak of the kneeler being lowered, the clack of rosary beads against the wooden benches, the smell of incense, the familiar words of the mass, the ornate tabernacle, the stained glass. Thousands of miles away from my home, the ritual is the same. The outstretched arms, the sorrowful Virgin, the crucifix, the stations of the cross are no longer a part of my devoutness, but they are an integral part of of my past and for that, I am grateful. I pause to remember all the other things in my life for which I am grateful, light a candle in memory of my devoutly Catholic father and go back out into the courtyard.

I walk home, forgetting about my pastry, for I have been fortified in other ways.