by Tim Anderson

Christmas Day,

Nothing like spending time around the family, but if it’s your girlfriend’s family and she happens to be Spanish, it’s something you’re unlikely to forget. Grandmothers regaling you with stories past, parents shouting out trying to keep everything together and little cousins running around the house asking quizzical questions on life and trying to get attention from everyone.

Well, at least, that’s what I was imagining they were saying. I didn’t really understand much more than the welcome, the rest a stream of words that seem to have fallen from a great height at great speed, hitting my ears with a similar level of comprehension to that I get from listening to recorded deep sea whale conversations.

From the moment we walk through the door, the barely 5 foot grandmother who is at the same level as my rib cage, looks up and, in voice that has seen many cañas and cigarettes, starts commenting to the others about my appearance. I smile hopeful that what she said was intended to be funny. I even chuckle along with the other voices in the house. Why am I laughing at all? I have no idea what she said about me. Maybe,  ”He has more hair in his nose than a gorilla on its back”, hahahaha. I -just- don’t -know…

So I sit waiting, a small glass of wine in my hand, that seems to be especially the right dimensions for a 4  foot grandma, and practice my smiling. The food arrives and it’s the perfect excuse to fill my mouth with something that won’t allow me to speak for the foreseeable future.

The conversation rages like a storm in the tropical wet season. Just when one person seems to be talking at the fastest rate possible, another steps in to better them, taking the tempo to something that sounds like fast forwarding through a tape on my old stereo. It has quasi-dimensions and I won’t be surprised if they’re  taken into some kind of warp speed black hole, sucked into the centre of the table with the rest of the paella.

I keep focused on my third helping, careful not to make eye contact with the others at the table, if only I could reach the stuffed calamares, I am sure I could get to the end of the dinner. I swallow my last drop of deep Rioja, or is that the Ribera de Duero? Good wine makers these Spanish; a real soother in these situations, when my heart stops….. Did I really hear my name then? Please no…. Pleeease!!  Everything is silent. I imagine for a second that maybe the black hole really existed and wonder how I can get down it quick smart. I slowly raise my gaze. Sixteen eyes glare back at me, awaiting a response. The quizzical buddha looks ready to strike, the parents sit patiently with a smile. I can see them thinking, “She told us he spoke Spanish reeeally well“. The small children, who still manage to speak better Spanish than me, even though they have only been on the planet in the time since my last haircut, stare wildeyed at me, wondering why I don’t respond.

My girlfriend looks sympathetically at me, and then repeats the question in my current 101 Spanish….. slowly….. I still don’t get it. I am dreaming I had another glass of red ready but I don’t. I’m stuck. “Si”, I squirm. Laughter all around.  A great clap on the back from my girlfriend’s brother who I am liking even more now. The conversation is diverted. It once again gathers momentum as if it had just stopped to get fuel and continue on.

My glass gets freshly topped allowing me to slide back into the observers whole, happy to see the Christmas family in full bloom. The Spanish are never short of conversation, I observe. The farewells are next and I mistakenly think that this means we are going. An hour later and after some more coffee I rise from my seat, widen my smile to show how much fun I had, and down the rest of my wine. I don’t remember how many that was. The closeness of the Spanish family is something to admire and love about them, they really make an effort with each other.

I look forward to taking my girlfriend home with me next year, although another round of this sort of celebration would be good as well.

by Peter Moore

Number Sixteen – Spoon: I Turn My Camera On

A little rushed today – so you’ll have to go without an explanation for this pretty little ditty: I Turn My Camera On, by a band named Spoon.

by Charlotte Smith

I’ve just finished reading the memoirs of Jean-Dominique Bauby, – The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, and I find myself not just incredibly moved and amused by his stories but strangely understanding of his incredible life change.

Borne out of very different circumstances Monsieur Bauby and I have thoughts and feelings in common. Both the author and I have a serious problem with communication.
For those of you who don’t know this book, you do now.
Jean-Dominique Bauby was the former editor of French Elle who suffered a massive stroke in 1995 that left him completely paralyzed a victim of ‘locked-in syndrome’- words that feel uncomfortably familiar to me.

At the age of 43, Bauby was imprisoned in his own body and left to communicate only with the use of his left eye and so he endeavoured to write his memoirs. He died just two days after their publication in 1996.
Now, I’m not suggesting that my situation is anywhere near as dramatic or difficult as the writers but I can certainly relate to the oppression and isolation that comes with a lack of access to those people around you and an inability to express yourself to the outside world.

The authors’ method of communication was arguably more limited than mine. For Bauby the alphabet was a series of eye winks which corresponded to the relevant letters, scribbled down by Baubys’ visitors to form the words, or at least fragments, of more or less intelligible sentences that the writer wished he could just say.
The process is not without fault as he explained…….”That is at least the theory, in reality all does not go well for some visitors”.
For very different reasons I can relate, I wish I could just say too – when acquaintances, and less often friends, (for obvious reasons) try to converse with me in Spanish I get different reactions, the more anal types try to finish my sentences and correct my constant grammatical errors while the less conscious (lazy) ones never correct anything I say leaving me to talk lots of rubbish until I finally exhaust myself, trip up on my words yet again and fall flat on my face.

And then there are of course those that just ignore me, they have conversations around me but not with me, even if I smile my really friendly smile and say, “¡Hola!”
These otherwise normal sociable moments can drop me in to a silent world which sometimes feels more oppressive and stressful than I could ever have imagined.

Monsieur Bauby you are my friend.

In the same way that the writer describes his very own cinema world I find myself imagining all sorts of weird and wonderful things in company having given up on my over interested expression that leaves me feeling compromised and vacant. Sunday lunch with my boyfriends’ family is a perfect example of this – I long for the day that I can have an effortless conversation with my boyfriends’ mother about nothing in particular; I daydream about us laughing out-loud together like I have with other in-laws before.

In my own diving bell I’m not sure if I’m really me anymore? I probably am? I think I used to be funny? Maybe I’m still funny?
Like Mr Bauby says, “Quite apart from the practical drawbacks, this inability to communicate is somewhat wearing”.

Not long ago I was asking for directions to the number 25 bus stop at Plaza Castilla, on my third attempt, and 20 minutes later, I finally managed to extract and translate enough information to get me where I needed to go. I boarded the bus, paid the relaxed driver, sat down, breathed properly and felt relieved and instantly proud of my own efforts.

It’s ironic how the pleasure/pain ratio usually manages to balance itself and sometimes tips in my favour freeing me like a butterfly for long enough to give me a taste for a life which is always challenging but more than that , it’s liberating. Jean D Bauby had the tenacity and humour to lift his own bell jar with a flicker of his eyelid which paved the way to a brilliant set of memoirs that freed him before his untimely death.

These days I can have lunch with my boyfriends’ family, yes, all 10 of them, without sweating my way through the first course, I can engage in small conversations with everyone, in particular my boyfriends’ mother, who I laughed out-loud with last Sunday. We were having lunch.