Tag: Iowans in Barcelona

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mi amiga marianne

February 11, 2025. Barcelona, in the evening. A chime on my phone, I saw the link you see below and under it the words mi amiga marianne, then another chime: Hello Marianne. I listened to your rendition of the prelude, and first chapter of Lucy go see. It was a beautiful experience. Your writing is beautiful and powerful. You are a good writer… and a brave one! I shared the podcast with some friends…

I responded: Such good timing you have. I was writing when I heard your message come in. working on writing myself right, as I sometimes call it. Feeling down and writing, too, about writing, and all the time put into it and wondering if it mattered much–and then I saw this. Thank you very much. It means a lot and especially coming from you. Thank you so much too for sharing it. I’d so love to move this story further and wider into the world. A really big hug. I hope you are having a good start to your week.

As did she: The timing is not mine…probably🥰😅 Imagine….I read/listened to it early afternoon… and had to reflect a bit afterwards… powerful words… I shall buy the book. I thought you could try a public reading with your students…you do a superb job reading your novel… you are a good interpreter of “Lucy”… but personally I think they may not be ready for your honesty… and they may misuse the sacredness of it. I am afraid for you, but you know best… Am afraid of the superficial nature of some youth. On the other hand, you could help them tremendously… because of your experience and the healing over the years… you talk about it with great insight and wisdom.

The “it” my friend refers to is a sacred understanding of sexuality.

My friend is a sister of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word of Houston, Texas, and a pediatrician. We met in a nearby café in Barcelona soon after I moved into this neighborhood in the fall of 2023, and we struck up a conversation. Within it, I learned she had returned to Barcelona after more than two decades in the USA, to care for her mother, who was in her early nineties. It was remarkable to me that I, after returning to Barcelona after my years in Iowa with my mother during her last years of life, was meeting a Barcelona woman who had returned to her hometown to do the same, after living decades in Texas, and who was talking of a future return there. We talked about that and many things including spirituality, sanctuary, sacredness, swimming, and the themes of wound, eros, and voice that are prevalent in my work. (We have continued this conversation ever since.)

You probably guessed I am a nun, she said.

No, I said. Why would I?

My collar, she said, lifting her shawl. To me a lace collar, nothing more. My cross, she said, holding the pendant around her neck.

It’s pretty, I said.

You probably already have many friends, she said.

I’d love to yours, I said.

A few weeks later, she sent me an article she had written about vulnerability, wounds, and wisdom that I’d like to share with you:

https://issuu.com/joanofbark/docs/e_news_-nov_21_n_n_2

Our friendship continues to flourish, enrich, and reveal what can easily be seen as divine timing and connection.

I was grateful this week to be reminded through her that what means so much to me is worth doing, and it will continue to be surprising in its revelations. This is one of the stories of how it has moved and moves in the world.

Thanks for reading. May you marvel at your life, and this world.

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Strolling through Barcelona on my way to Iowa.

When I started my meander on this special day, I was unaware that Iowa would appear near the end of it. Roses on a balcony moved me first. As I mentioned before, Sant Jordi is a romantic Catalan holiday that celebrates love and Catalan literature. It is a combination of remembrances from different periods of history–for one part, it commemorates Sant Jordi slaying a dragon and offering his beloved a symbolic red rose from the bleeding belly of the beast, and for the other part, it celebrates a 19th century Renaissance of Catalan identity and culture. It’s marvelous to live in a city where people gift each other books every year on a day associated with romance and culture (almost two million books are expected to be sold), selecting them and also rose arrangements from vendors while strolling through the city’s wonder-filled streets, blocked for pedestrian traffic only. The symbolism of the day started, for me, in a private school up on the hill where I was being interviewed for a position to teach about books, writing, reading and speaking. I was then invited to see a special poetic performance and was witness to that wonder along with the prize-awarding to students in Sant Jordi writing competitions. I walked down the hill under ever-changing April skies, the scent of orange blossom filling the air, then made myself some lunch at home, with the plan to wander through the streets after. A friend from a village nearby called to say she was coming to town to see it all, too, and we met in the center of the city and had coffee at the café in the Hotel Pulitzer. While there I received a message offering me the teaching position. When my friend and I separated I headed for Paseo de Gracia because I wanted to see the Casa Battló decked out in roses for the day. Everywhere I looked there were smiling people, books, and roses. A helicopter whirred overhead and I imagined the view and wanted to be up there, too. As I was wondering if Laia Fabregas would be at the ONA bookstore (one of more than three-hundred bookstores in Barcelona) stall, I looked and there she was, signing books. So I stopped to buy her new award-winning book, El silenci dels astronauts, confident I would be able to understand the Catalan and when I did not, I would increase my vocabulary. Reading stories in other languages is an especially sweet way to learn them. I carried on strolling gently up the hill of Barcelona’s most luxurious boulevard, lined with modernist architectural masterpieces, cafés, restaurants, and high-end shops, marveling again and again at the quantity of readers and the grace of a culture that celebrates reading. I stopped to admire the Casa Battló with thousands of others. Then kept heading toward another favorite place, the magnificent Casa Fuster, and its Café Vienés, pausing along the way to look at books and roses. There was a Book of Mormon, in English, propped up outside in the window of the café. I called a sister in Iowa to mention this oddity and there was no answer. Then, I was drawn to the book stand of Males Herbes, a publisher who has published some of my favorite US and French authors in translation. I noted all the striking green covers of the books, some of Kurt Vonnegut’s among them, and commented on that to a friendly woman standing behind them. Then I saw one with the title AIOUA–I mouthed the vowels in Catalan–it sounds like IOWA. I stared at it for a while then turned it over and saw that it is about a woman who travels to and throughout Iowa in search of peace. I read the author’s name. Is Roser here now? I asked. That’s me, the woman I had already spoken to said in Spanish. I’m from Iowa, I answered in Spanish. Her eyebrows rapidly scaled her forehead as she said, Are you serious? She told me about driving around the state, her desire to return, and before long we were talking about the International Writing Program in Iowa City and other beloved places. Roser pointed to the photo of Strawberry Point on the cover, something I had overlooked when I fixated on the vowels, and I mentioned my parents talked to me about going there, and one of my brothers liked it. I kept to myself that these three people were now dead and I grieved them deeply. We spoke of getting together for drinks and a meal soon and as she signed my copy, she said we have to take a picture, and she kept marveling that on Sant Jordi in Barcelona, promoting her book AIOUA, she had met a real live Iowan who chose to live in Barcelona. I think we are less rare than people imagine yet it is true that I am the only Iowan I know here. I have made some marvelous Iowa-Barcelona connections in my life, other great stories to tell, and this was wonderful to add to the list. I can stop here, this is a perfect ending, I said after she wished me a wonderful rest of the festival of Sant Jordi. And then I wandered more, uplifted and connected. The Barcelona Film Festival was also happening so I saw a wonderful comedy. All afternoon I had been craving one of the many pastries I had seen, and after the movie noticed there was one golden yellow rose left at a nearby bakery. As I waited to be served, I saw a new friend passing by with a smile on her face and went out to call to her, Paz! I sang out (Paz translates as Peace. She is from Barcelona and lived in the US for about as long as I lived in Spain). She was too far down Calle Asturias, so I went back inside and called her. I’m on my way to meet my kids at the English bookshop then go somewhere to eat, she said. I felt a pang of envy. While feasting, a featured photo came up on my phone–there was my son, dressed as Sant Jordi for a school play on this day in 2006. My sister called from Iowa as I was walking home and I told her all about the perfect day. I just want to go home and go to bed now, I said. I imagine, she said. Just to make sure it stays perfect, right?