Day 13 – Ibiza
The Wave
The wave just keeps carrying us forward, forward into Tomorrow, into the Future that is Now.
Pilu and I landed on Ibiza two weeks ago tomorrow. We landed, drove off the ferry at 7 am, on a cold, grey morning. We exited the port, and without the feeling to stay in Eivissa-town, hit the road. We drove some twenty minutes to another pueblito, found a room in the Spanish early morning, and slept all day.
The next, we rose to cloudless skies, warmth, and festivities in the street. We packed the car up and drove off into the process of the next 10 days, crisscrossing the island, sleeping in the car mostly, occasionally (and mostly to shower) in hostals, and oh, the life of the Gypsie (more suited to some than to others)! We began to explore the island, it’s cities, it’s naturaleza, all the time looking for a place to live, and we just kept coming up empty. Both of us, thinking everything was gonna be so easy easy, and here we couldn’t find a rock to turn over and call home. Truth to tell, it was discouraging and took its toll on us both.
It wore on us, more than anything the not-knowing, not knowing if we had made a mistake coming here, not knowing how to start, not knowing if the island wanted us or not. Everything seemed to be passing through our fingers, nothing to hold onto, as closed and shuttered as all the shops we passed on the street.
And then, just as suddenly, the clouds parted and revealed the sun behind. After a morning of phoning various possible leads on a place to live, we had an appointment with a guy at 6 pm at the port in Eivissa. At this point we were both still wanting a house out in the country somewhere, not too far, but not in the city, and especially not in Eivissa, which to both of us seemed to personify the heart of the tourist-madness of the island, something we hoped to avoid. But anyway, we met with this guy; he showed us a room in an apartment right on the port, right in the middle – the room ok, the space so-so.
But he too has a room in his house, and he invites us to come and check it out. He has a daughter of 9 and had been thinking of looking for a woman who might also be able to take care of her at times, but not a couple. Anyway, he invites us to check it out, saying it’s like practically a house in the country. I’m not understanding every word he says, but Pilu is, and both our ears perk up at this. We go check out the house, Pilu driving the Toledito (her little red car), and Jose (his name) sees how we’ve been living gypsy style in the car and this seems to endear us to him, as he has a gypsy’s heart himself he tells us.
He guides us a few streets away, up a hill, onto a road high enough that we can see the old walled city easily in the not-so distance, and the city below, but the road itself has no shops, just houses and flats, and is kind of isolated, reserved. We enter through the gate, marked ‘Veinty tres’, and stepping into the house . . . it was like finally being in the rooms I had been dreaming about for a long time, unbeknownst to me. Sabes? It’s perfect, all designed and decorated by his hands, small and intimate and colorful, and seems to call to me from some distant past that is also my future.
We take him back down to the port in the car, talking more and more animatedly. Pilu (who’s doing all the talking) makes an offer to Jose, to let us the room. He stops and thinks about it, and then offers (of all things) that we pay less, to which we of course agree, and all of a sudden, we’re part of a family.
Since then, it’s like we stepped through a time portal, a doorway in time and space, and everywhere we look doors have started opening. I don’t feel capaz to paint the whole picture right now, all the gorgeous details, but they’re all pointing in one direction, and that is that Eivissa wants us here, has called us here, and we are inclined to bow our heads and offer our thanks.
At night, staring out the bedroom window at all the lights of Eivissa-town, it’s like we sit like kings on a mountaintop, at a reserve from the madness, able to watch it all in peace ourselves. But then, back on the street, we’re 5 minutes by foot and down stairs from both the sea on one side and the heart of the city on the other. Forgive my French, but we are in the very puta of Eivissa, in a small house with a vista unrivaled by any other techo around us, all hand made with love. I still find myself rebounding out of disbelief into reality, at all these petals of all these flowers opening around me.
In other words, Mandala and Pilu and Eivissa are getting along swimmingly!!
We have arrived . . . in Eivissa, in the Future, in Today. Orale!!!!
