Although I’ve been living abroad now for 15 months, I’ve been marking time rather than engaging with the experience.  It’s not easy to admit this, because then I’m dangerously dipping a toe in the waters of wasted time.  And I don’t want to carry that druge-like perspective.

The dirt beneath my desk where I write told me everything about what has been and what could be.  Who needs signs from heaven when it can be had at ground-level?  As I was sweeping up one afternoon, furiously whisking the grit into a dust pan, I paused to examine it.  And what I saw was nothing special.  The usual grit.  Tracked in from the usual sources which extend to about a 2 kilometer radius of the house we’re renting.  That’s it.  That’s not much.

This may be my only chance to live abroad, and I don’t know the lifespan of this opportunity.  I’ve decided to pfaff less and get into the swing of my life far more.  Some would call this “being more present”.   As much as I hate that term and it’s ick-factor, it applies.

My a-ha has helped to shape a new plan for the next 10 months.  We’ll be on the move again come sometime in September:  Cordoba, Seville, Cadiz, Marbella, Morrocco.  Maybe a long weekend in the Algarve, if we can squeeze it in.  Then we’ll spend a few days in Barcelona before taking an overnight ferry to Italy, landing at either Genoa, Livorno or Civitavecchia.  And then we’ll pass the rest of the autumn, the winter, and at least part of the spring tracking all manner of dirt into various rented accommodations that stretch from Milan to Sicily.

It’s both exciting and scary to contemplate this kind of lifestyle, because I’m a homebody by nature.  I love to be “at home”, snug in my nest.  But for a while I’m going to decamp and un-snug to let myself experience a less nested and a more winged life.

I love it when something ordinary becomes a means to a more illuminated end.  For me, it was dirt.  But what about you?  When has the ho-hum served up a humdinger?  Do tell.

Yesterday (Sunday) concluded Moraira’s annual Moors and Christians festival, a weeklong celebration that involved the firing of blunderbusses, dramatically narrated battle re-enactments (the Moors seize the castle, the Christians seize it back), fireworks, and live music that kicked off at midnight and didn’t stop until 5 AM for three nights straight.

Not sure of the storyline behind the festival because the program in English just lists the times of various events, and all of the narration was in Spanish.  However, a little deductive reasoning suggests that the Moors showed up -uninvited – and snagged the castle.  The Christians regained the castle and sent the Moors packing.  Barbary pirates regularly menaced the coastline, but not necessarily the same time as the Moors.  Somehow Amazons or warrior-like women factor into the equation, but perhaps for more modern reasons.  Maybe they’re there to be the leggy, breast-plated,  befeathered eye-candy in the costume parade that caps the festival.

For the parade the various filàs (tradition-preservation groups) who once a year get to play with blunderbusses, storm the castle, maraud the beach, and wear costumes embellished with metal doodads and feathers march in a single-line and lockstep.

Most of the filaes were followed by a marching band, reed-slim girls with clarinets and young men hammering away at  big drums that scared the bejeezus out of our dog.

We watched the parade for about 90 minutes/two beers, and then wandered off to get a pizza.

The town looked splendid, and the parade people were very nice about posing with tourists for photos.  Our stay in Moraira will likely end in a couple months, so we decided going to the festival was an important chapterette in this phase of things, something to help us feel like our time here has been spent in the midst of the place and not on its outskirts. Plus, we were entertained by pirates hamming it up in the street.  And amazons looking very sharp but smily as they carried sharp sticks.

The fireworks display pretty much shattered Rufus’ nerves, but he recovered when a nice Danish man fussed over him and gave him treats.  Salami slices appear to work wonders on a trembly dog.

While walking home we espied a brass ensemble gathered in the park near Aneto.  It was 11:30 PM, and they were just getting started.

At week four of the dog photos I get to answer one person’s offline question as to the value of posting said photos, as in what is exactly is there to brag about?

Nice, France, October 2008

Well…he’s ventured to more places than some people.  He’s sniffed the air and left his calling card in Nice and Narbonne, Carcassone and Cognac, Gruissan and Granada, Bilbao and Bordeaux, Arles and Ajaccio, Bray and Barcelona, Guernika and Glendalough.  That’s just a short sample.  He’s crossed the Norman Foster bridge at Milhau by car, Paris by Metro, both the Irish Sea and the Mediterranean by boat, and the Atlantic by plane.   How many (American) dogs can say they’ve peed their way down the Ramblas (thank you), romped through the park of the Alhambra, chased cats on the citadel of Calvi?  And, the adventure is far from over.

We’re proud of our traveling dog.

This week Rufus is in Madrid.  Then Toledo.

On a worrisome side note we keep weaving “Holy Toledo!” into as many sentences as possible, even when it weary, oh so weary, of it.  It’s kind of like when you can’t stop yourself from humming The Girl From Ipanema even though you hate hate the song and don’t even know the words.  Sad, so sad.

While sorting through the photos for this Wednesdays Rufus-Wall-Photo (and yeah, it’s not actually getting posted until Thursday – ooops), I realized that a lot of our photos show off the dog but not the place in which our dog is being shown.{forehead slap}

Take last Wednesday’s photo for example, I claimed it was northern Spain, and I’m sure it is.  But you have to take my word for it.  The rock in the background could be southern Spain or New Hampshire and who’s to tell?

Many of the photos I’m archiving in this series will be of the “Trust me” variety.  Such as today’s.  But at least I finally got a clue…at least on the photography side of things.

Another photo from our Rufus On The Wall collection, coming every Wednesday unless a) I forget (like…ahem…last Wednesday)  or b) I run out of photos.

Rufus putting on his regal face, somewhere between Biarritz, France and Bilbao, Spain.