When I’m Sixtyfour....

It’s somewhat amazing that we used to sing the Beatles songs in 1964, many like.....“when I’m sixty four”.  When I look back now, it’s amazing that they were only together for 10 years and how much they accomplished as the fab four.  Now we’re all older, losing our hair, many years later, its been a long and winding road.  Think back to where we once belonged.

We’re basically talking about half a century, that’s  more than half a lifetime!  And what a long strange trip it’s been for all we 4 brothers and the 15 Quinces of our generations.   Michael. John.  Jim.   Brian. ........Sara. Colin. Fletcher. Matthew & Mathan. Kendra.  Laughlin.  Marley.  Rigil.  Charlena & C?    Now with many Grandchildren.....but no male Quinces yet!  What stories we can tell now.  What opinions we have on the state we are in.

We laughed about the Oldies, Wrinklies and Crumblies when we honeymooned in Spain 50 years ago, categorizing the people in Javea .   Now here we are among them with the diseases of old age creeping  up steadily.  Ashes of decendants have been deposited in the source of the oceans up rivers in Lake Superior and in the crucible of civilization itself at the top of Cuesta San Antonioq.  In our little town!  Ginger’s ashes were spread on the beach of Lake Michigan where she frolicked for 15 years

I’ve started writing a couple of articles.  I’ll share drafts as they come together.  But they bring out unexpected emotions, often tears.  We cleaned out the old chest in the garage where all the shattered scrapbooks were dumped.  Within it were a stack of the old Costa Blanca Times containing some of Mom’s articles.  I put them on the old naya and started reading them.   The one on Denia castle educated me on the Valenciano language history.  The one on Xativa castle inspired me to go there on my 64th birthday.

I increasingly see Charlene as a historian and writer, rather than mother.  I am saddened that I did not ask my mother more questions on her deathbed.  She was a writer, but why did she write?  Now that my grand kids are double digit in age, I realize that they have time to ask questions but likely don’t know what to ask.  They are twins, Ben and Mia, miethos in Spansh.  From the same womb of Sara Anne, but very different. I write for them.

The trip to Xativa was exceptional.  Driving though the old moorish valleys, over the mountainous portholes, lunch in Muro de Alcoy and a terrace at the Mont Sant Hotel.  Almost a spiritual experience.  We talked of the best places we’ve stayed.  Many Paradores but the last time we felt like this was our stays at the Hacienda del Cardenal in Toledo and walking on that history.

September 26, 2018. The Xativa Connections.....

Here I was in the bottom of a well.  Well, actually it was a two million liter (half million gallon) cistern carved out of a dolomite mountain about 900 years ago.  This huge vault was lined with bricks and rendered with cement.  It gets cleaned every 50 years or so and graffiti was seen scratched on it’s wet walls from a cleaning in 1830. 

We, Vaughn and I, had taken a trip up to  Xativa/jativa for my 64th birthday and at check in the receptionist, a woman named Arahis, from Cuba, told us that if we wanted to see the old cistern, she would be opening it at 1930.  It was worth the look and very special.  You see, we didn’t know much as this was really a spur of the moment trip and I had used Hotels.com to find us accommodation.  This hotel was highly rated with some good reviews and would do for the night.  I am now writing on the floor of my room, number 2, enlightened!

A few days earlier I was reading the magazine article about Jativa Castle written by my mother in 1986.  It’s cover looks like a turret from Guadalest Castle and cost 175 pesetas.  The Costa Blanca Times, October 1986, Volume 7.....”Focus on Spanish Living”.   Her article on the Jativa Castle inspired me to go see it and here I am waking up at’s foot and planning to explore the monument today.

The Mont Sant hotel has proven to be one of those very special places for us.  We keep comparing it to the Cardinel in Toledo.  There we could run our hands down walls built a thousand years ago and sit in the spot where the Cardinal would catch the sun in the winter, his subjects viewing him from down below.  This has that same flow, that spirituality.  The visit to Toledo, where Christians, Arabs and Jews mingled and mixed.

This place has very different views depending where you look.  So after a walk around the perimeter of the compound, the first for Vaughn and the second for me, we were milling around the odd reception area waiting for our tour guide.  She came out with two business men and their bags and said we should follow along as she showed them to their rooms”.  She spoke to them in Spanish explaining why we were invited and what we were going to see.  She bubbles with enthusiasm for this Aljibe Cistern and asks us to wait.

The hotel has quite a history shadowed by the castle to the south.  It should be one of the Paradores, places we love.  The first signs of urban habitation in what is now the town of Xàtiva date from the Bronze Age (800-700 BC).  Once again we find we are walking on history.

Xàtiva was a major town of Al-Ándalus during the Moorish period (800-1300 AD). Large parts of the surviving town walls date from this time. As the Caliphate was coming to an end, the Montsant Hotel was then a complex of buildings and gardens that served as the town’s centre of political power.

When King James I of Aragon conquered Xàtiva in the 13th century, the Montsant became the town’s royal palace, both for James himself and for his successors Peter II, Alphonse II and James II. It also served for several years as the palatine residence of the exiled Princess Eudoxia Laskarina of Byzantium. The large Aljibe reservoir, which was built during this first Christian period, is the vault we are waiting to see.

We were in a small courtyard decorated with some antique agricultural tools and ringed with odd citrus trees in plastic pots.  They obviously await their place on the grounds but I have never seen them before.  I scratch their skins and sniff...lemons shaped like a large potato?  .... nisporos?, but no, they are lime quats!  ..... a citrus that looks like brain coral.... all very interesting.  We find tags with names hard to read but know they are not your normal citrus.

As we wait, I notice a rectangular plate of steel nearby and pointing to it laugh to Vaughn that that’s where the cistern is.  She dismisses my joke.  Yup, Arahis shows back up and takes out a funny key that opens to a small opening and a steep set of stairs.  I had read that those who experience vertigo might not like this experience, but had not told Vaughn.  No reason to initiate anxiety!

The steep stairs down were carved into the rock and each has a second step added to the side to make the decent easier.  Water dripped in from recent rains.  We ended at the bottom on a floating platform amd marvelled at the whole of it.  Another slice of data entering the brain cells stimulating what is still alive.

We likely will keep QQ a while longer.  We have initiated the work necessary to fix problems with the property and sell it, but that should have been done previously anyway.  The neighbor, Julio just found out he pays the taxes on the land between the houses.  We found out years ago that the 1/2 lot  purchased long ago had never been registered.  The attorney we hired has hired an architect....it’s described as interesting and complicated.  Looks like another year to clean it up right.  We wonder, did Mom know?