Spanish Noise and Therapies

It is not a criticism – but an observation. I am not the first foreigner in these parts to comment on this particular characteristic of the Spanish.

Noise. Spaniards do not know the meaning of quiet. I don’t think there is any such thing either as a shy Spaniard. Even the children are completely relaxed about talking to strangers almost as equals. They do not lower their eyes and hide behind their mothers – well perhaps at times very briefly as they size up a strange foreigner who does not speak Spanish very well and is called something strange like Mary. Mary Poppins is a point of reference I am pleased to note, as that is one of my favourite films of all time. But generally they are quite happy to speak to anyone about all and sundry even showing off their counting skills – however limited.

Why do I mention all this now? Well, this morning I had to go for my first physiotherapy session at a Spanish clinic.

It is funny because I have been agonizing over what to write about this week. Feeling quite blocked really as I have not been in the least bit creative lately. My illnesses and social life seem to have taken over. In my case it is really true that I have to suffer a bit in order to be creative – albeit mentally rather than physically. When I am lonely and introspective I have all these ideas for images and themes. I am rather happy and contented at the moment as I have found myself to have a circle of friends! I feel that for a solitary individual this is a very strange state of affairs. I have lived my life very much as a loner always but now people call me up and call to see me or invite me out or round for meals or drinks. What on earth is going on? Maybe it is part of being in Spain – a much more gregarious place than anywhere else I have lived.

But that is a digression –

There I was agonizing over my non-materialising blog when all of a sudden I found myself invited to what was, in my eyes, the most bizarre group physiotherapy session that I could ever imagine. Obviously it is normal in Spain as no one else there seemed remotely concerned with the strange events that unfolded before my ‘Irish’ eyes.

I have never been to a physiotherapist before so actually I have nothing to judge my assumptions on, but I always presumed that the sessions were done in a small consulting room on a one to one basis. Here I walked into this madhouse where one or two older ladies were rolling large objects backwards and forwards on a table, a man was sitting under some contraption that obviously warmed or vibrated his shoulder. Another woman was lying on a couch having her hand manipulated by the physiotherapist and another lady was sitting under a sun or heat lamp. There was also what seemed to be a totally healthy woman with two children – a small baby and a delightful little girl who was trying to show off her aforementioned counting skills 1,2,4,6,11, 8…etc.

Of course all these people were talking, all the time and all at the same time. Laughing with and talking to the children and holding other conversations between each other. In the midst of this reigned the Physiotherapist – a lovely young woman, named Ana, completely at ease with the situation, although every so often she did say a general shhhh! To get everyone to pipe down a bit so that she could introduce the next exercise to one or other of her clients.

Especially for me it was a little difficult to say the least. I am certain that on a one to one session I would have understood every word she said to me as she spoke clearly and slowly to me, but under the circumstances and the loud and boisterous background noise, I had the greatest difficulty even focusing my attention on her, let alone understanding. Still she actually did speak English too, for which I was heartily grateful. So I did follow and do the exercises and therapies that she presented to me. And then I sat under the sonic wave machine which gave me a deep muscle massage – I am not sure it is quite what I was expecting, as I was expecting something that will dissolve the calcium deposit in my shoulder, but perhaps that does. What do I know? Anyway I am certain she knows what she is doing and time will tell. Oddly I am not experiencing any extra pain and perhaps even some slight more movement than previously in my bad shoulder – so I can only assume that the treatment, however bizarre the ambience, is working already.

Regarding deep thought. No, none. I spent the time trying to understand and follow some of the conversations that were taking place around me. I find it completely frustrating that I understand so many of the words perfectly clearly as single words, but there is something about the way a foreign language is put together that means that, in my own head at least, most of them remain as isolated words and are not hanging together to make any extra sense to me – they are obviously more than the sum of their parts. I can only sigh and hope that it will all start to hang together for me soon.

Maybe I just need to start yelling like a Spaniard and it will suddenly fall into place.

The photo? I thought it vaguely resembled the group therapy session of this morning. It is of me and my brother and one of my sisters showing an alternative to normal sitting. Why sit the right way up when you can sit upside down!

Moth

Another busy day.

My Spanish lessons are coming on a treat after i got hold of some new audio lessons for my Ipod. I will not try to dazzle you with my fluency in Spanish - because I am far from that, but the exciting thing about these new tapes is that they use real Spanish speakers - the other one I had - which is great in its own way - does not. At this stage I have some rudiments of the language but i really need to tap into the rhythms of Spanish as it is spoken and come to terms with the fact that real Spanish speakers do not speak slowly and clearly for you, but rattle off the words and run them together. Even at that I will still have to come to grips with the dialect spoken in Malaga, which is even less distinct, or so I am told.

So now I start the day with my bicycle ride - out to the Mostvatnet to cycle round the lake. Then it is back home for a pot of coffee and my first half hour of Spanish. I like to do it in small modules as I find my concentration starts to wane after a short time. In the evening when I take my brisk walk around the harbour I plug into the Ipod again and do my second lesson of the day. I did an extra half hour at lunchtime today with the reader, but am not sure that i will do that every day - you cover a lot of ground with that part in a short space of time so probably once or twice a week will suffice for that.

You see we only have four months left before we head out to Spain for good so I need to be regimented now. That is a deadline and i thrive on deadlines!

Obviously I then went on to finish off this drawing of Vic with that darned moth again. This one did not go so well for me - but I think I pulled it round in the end. I had to do a lot more drawing so it has become darker and denser. It is interesting learning more and more about the materials that I am currently using and getting the hang of how to use them to create the effect that i wish to achieve. Even at that there are going to be days that things will not go right for me, but those are the joys.

I actually finished another drawing today too. I will save that for you tomorrow. But you see I have been productive.

So you see how important a deadline is for me - my end of sojourn exhibition is planned for the end of November so that is less than three months away now and I still have a multitude to do!

Changing the subject slightly. There is another really cool thing that has happened to me in the last month or two. I have begun to read again. When I was a child I grew up in a very bookish family. My parents were always reading as were my brother and two sisters - I was a bit slower to pick up the book. In fact I was very slow learning how to read. I did not get the hang of it until i was 9. My mother was beside herself with worry about it. She tried me with glasses and i think it was whispered that i was a bit slow, you know, they call it a learning disability in these trendy times. And I think in fact it was - but not in the sense that I was backward. i remember just not thinking that it was very important to be able to read. Add to that the fact that I had and still have a bit of a problem conceptualising things. I can reason it out a bit better now, but when i was little i just liked looking at clouds and feathers and things - and buying umbrellas of course.

Anyway then I did read quite a lot of children's books that we had in the house - all the classics, A little Princess, Charlotte's web, Green Smoke, Five children and It etc and I absolutely adored all of the books by Alan Garner. Of course i loved the big books of fairytales that we had: The brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson and the Russian Fairy tales (which book I still possess). In fact i probably did read quite a lot unbeknownst to myself. i graduated on to Agatha Christie of naturally - very enjoyable.

In my mid teens and twenties i was a really avid reader. I read everything and after moving to Ireland frequented the mobile library that came to the village every Thursday. I had my son in tow then and we spent many a happy hour picking out books to bring home. I remember being addicted to Thomas Hardy in those days and Oscar Wilde - but he was an ongoing love affair really.

Then I suddenly stopped - probably at around 30 years of age. I think my brain just died. I was a wife and mother and working at rotten jobs and i was just plain tired too. I tried to read a book every so often but found it very hard to concentrate.

When i went to college I only read textbooks for essays and so forth and that continued as I embarked on my lecturing career. I almost had an aversion to books at that point - i wanted to do other things than stick my nose in a book in my free time.

So years have gone by and now I am 49 and finally living a life again of some regularity that does not involve constant studying and homework and I really am not a great watcher of television, but you need to have some entertainment in the evening - so i borrowed a book from the library. And i read it. And then I borrowed another and read that one too. And suddenly I have read lots of books and I think of myself as a reader again. i have not trouble concentrating and if i get a book that does not enthrall me from the first few pages i just put it on the reject pile and take it back to the library unread.

It is wonderful! such a wonderful feeling of going into other worlds again and losing myself in other people's lives. One thing i will say though is that I have forgotten which are the good books to get out and I have been reading rather a lot of books with very miserable stories which do not seem to have a proper ending (but that might be a modern trend). I find that most unsatisfactory, but will probably get better at it again. I like books about people with problems, but I like them to solve them and learn something on the way. I must say I do like a happy ending but am not averse to a good cry on the way.

Oh dear I have gone on. Probably because I did not blog yesterday and so had everything all bottled up inside. Well the genie is out of the bottle now so I can leave you and go for a quick walk and a Spanish lesson - although it will be in the rain :-(