Playa, Piscina, y Comida en Cullera

From the windows and terrace in our apartment on the 13th floor in Cullera, Spain, we can see the Mediterranean Sea spreading across the horizon. We sleep to its tide reaching and receding. We wake to the sun rising above it around seven o'clock, lighting the greyish sky with yellow and orange hues. We watch its surface glisten in the sun for the entire day, bathers lining its shore with colorful umbrellas, children hanging on to inflated unicorns and crocodiles, wind surfers drifting across. We watch the yellow moon ascend black sky, lining the sea with its light. We sleep, wake, and breathe its daily embrace.

I have an unusual history with this town. The first time I came here was with my parents and brother in the late 1980's. During that trip, we stayed mostly in Cullera but also rented a car and visited Valencia, Toledo, and Madrid. This was a unique experience for our family because prior to that, we had only traveled to places to visit family: the Philippines, Texas, California, Florida, and New Jersey of course. In Spain, we had no family and no familiarity. Fortunately, we all spoke Spanish. The Colombian couple who lived in our home and helped take care of my brother and me only spoke Spanish, so it was the third language spoken in our house aside from English and Tagalog. Knowing the language helped us with daily life. But aside from that, we did not have any prior experiences that connected us to the country. The culture, landscape, and history were very new to us.

As time went on, Spain became a place that my family often visited, so we became more and more familiar with it. In the late 90's, my father, Leonidez, bought this apartment we are currently staying in (without my mother's consent, but that is another story); from then on, this became his second home. But why did he choose this place? Why not some place in the Philippines? Or some place
closer to our home in Queens, along the Long Island or Jersey shore? Perhaps because a two-bedroom along the beach here is a fifth of the cost of a comparable apartment close to home. Property in the Philippines is much cheaper but much further away. And it seemed like he did not identify with his native land.

Having property in Spain helped him actualize his fantasy. From as far as I can remember, my father was obsessed with being Spanish. So enamored was he with being from Spain that he unlawfully changed his name from Galang, a Pilipino name with roots in Pampanga and Bulacan, to Galan, a Spanish last name; he confused the DMV and US passport office by unofficially changing his name on all of his documents. Along with this, he invented a fictional past in which his parents were Spaniards and he grew up in Madrid before moving to the Philippines. He constantly told people this lie; this angered and disturbed me, and made me wonder why he denied being Filipino. Was he so  ashamed? Did he grow up thinking that being Spanish was superior to being Filipino? Was he simply brainwashed by this colonized mentality?

The sliver of truth to his fictional past is that like most Filipinos, he has a mix of Spanish, indigenous, and either Chinese, Indo, Malay ancestry due to colonization and patterns of migration. Culture in the Philippines is clearly influenced by Spain; this is seen in names, foods, religion, and Tagalog words. Yet my father was extreme in denying his ethnic roots and appropriating the language and culture of the colonizers. I cannot fully understand what influenced him to shame his roots, but regardless, this country did become part of his identity, and thus mine. Being here now is an extension of his fabricated past; his love of this particular place has extended into my and my family's lives though we have disposed of his false pretenses. Though some of my ancestors were likely Spanish, I do not identify as such; I am proud of my Filipino and American heritage and do not hold any grudges against Spain for having colonized the Philippines for around three hundred years. Instead, I have embraced this country, its culture and its language simply as an interested itinerant.

People can identify with whatever culture and country they want to; our ancestry or place of birth  should not limit who we are nor where we live. We should be more open to embracing various cultures, not simply the ones we are born into or settle in. While my father was very narrow-minded, and while I often criticized him for his false identity, I am beginning to see that his multinational existence exemplifies an ideal global citizen. Though we should acknowledge our past, we should not be tethered to it. If there are some countries we want to inhabit due to an inherent passion or desire, we should be able to do so. If only this choice were available to more people in the world.

I am glad that my family has also been influenced by my father's unique relationship with Spain.  The is our third time traveling here together.  The last time we came to Cullera was the summer of 2015; we came with my father. He was weak then, limping and thin, needing a wheelchair to get through the airport. Nonetheless, he was fairly independent, able to go to the supermarket and church on his own. He was content, relaxed; his often virulent and prejudiced comments were more subdued, the conflicts and tumult of his home life remained distant. His demeanor was more tolerable when here. And the five of us existed in relative harmony. He enjoyed spending time with his only grandchildren; we had delightful dinners on the terrace, at times walked along the boardwalk in the evenings.

Now, a year and a half after his death, this apartment continues to symbolize my father. Memories of him often wash up along the shores of the present. Our first  meal of paella de mariscos was an homage to him. We shared positive memories and qualities we liked about him; how he loved to sit on the terrace with his shirt off, rubbing his feet against the low wall at the edge of the terrace, how he liked to share his junk food of soda, magdalenas, and papas fritas. People who I speak to who knew him remark upon what a generous and kind person he was, always bringing presents and befriending the locals. They were saddened by the news of his fallecimiento.

Despite all of the differences and frustrations I had with my father, I am grateful that he introduced me to this place and that it represents a  safe and shared space where he and I can exist peacefully together. I appreciate every moment that my family and I have here, swimming in the dolphin pool, lounging at the beach a few hundred feet away, frequenting el horno, Supercarn, Paella Kiss, the local fruterias, and going on nearby excursions my father never did such as hiking to the Castillo or visiting El Museo de la Pirata Dragut. Aside from enjoying the lifestyle and landscape of this place, we are enriching our lives. My children are being challenged by their inability to understand or speak Spanish; the experience encourages them to learn this and other languages. My husband and I contintue to acquire new vocabulary and learn to better express ourselves. Together, we learn to navigate around unfamiliar territory.

While this is the last time my family and I will stay in Cullera since we are selling the apartment, it will always be a part of our conscious existences, essential chapters in our family history. And while we will miss this place, we will use the loss as an opportunity to travel to other countries, explore and experience new cultures. But for just a few more days, my kids will have churros for breakfast, we will have our comida and descanso during siesta, and I will continue writing on this terrace with a view of el mar Mediterráneo, feeling the breeze cool my suntanned skin.

  


                

His and Her Stories

From Black Spring by Henry Miller:

"One passes imperceptibly from one scene, one age, one life to another. Suddenly, walking down a street, be it real or be it a dream, one realizes for the first time that the years have flown, that all this has passed forever and will live on only in memory; and then the memory turns inward with a strange, clutching brilliance and one goes over these scenes and incidents perpetually, in dream and reverie, while walking a street, while lying with a woman, while reading a book, while talking to a stranger... suddenly, but always with terrific insistence, rise up like ghosts and permeate every fiber of one's being" (9).


From Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

"When you think about it, stories have this way of running together like raindrops in a pond. Each is born from the clouds separate, but once they have come together, there is no way to tell them apart" (60 of 663). 



From An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

"Much of life is timing and circumstance, I see that now. Roy came into my life at the time when I needed a man like him. Would I have galloped into this love affair if I had never left Atlanta? I don't know. But how you feel love and understand love are two different things" (138).


These are stories of bodies and memories, of where bodies walk or lie with others or in solitude.

What I valued in Miller's story was the body in relation to physical spaces, particularly New York City and Paris. Reading Black Spring, I could inhabit these spaces in the body of a masculine, often chauvinistic narrator. I found myself mesmerized by his cinematic descriptions of places and characters, but often resisted the condescending way he spoke of his wife and other women.

Carmen Maria Machado's stories were similar in their poetic language and solipsistic characters. Both stories had moments of raw intimacy and eroticism. While Machado's ultrafeminine focus was refreshing, I was not engaged in the narration. Her stories had ghostly presences.

Jones' book was a different experience: I was consumed with interest and absorbed in the narrative. Though I resisted the characters at times, there were many layers of complexity to unpack in this book that show how our relationships are affected by society, family, and individual expectations.