No time to despair
It's time to do culture
Greetings from Cornudella de Montsant,
I am typing from the Renaixença cafe in the center of town, a hot tea and a carrot cake on the table.
A dozen old men play cards at the tables next to me. A climber sits at the bar. Cheesy Spanish music videos play on the flat-screen TV on the wall. Outside, a light drizzle casts the town in a gray light. The reservoir that feeds the town water is filling. The cliffs where I climb are wet.
This is now my home in Spain. There is a bed tucked into a tiny room where I can sleep well at the end of long work days. There is hot water in the shower, a toilet, and a two-burner camp stove on a countertop in the next room. A hammock hangs next to the stove and a butane space heater fires up if I need to take the edge off the cold.
Aside from those few spare comforts, my property here is down to the bones. Crumbling concrete and plaster on four levels and a pile of rubble in the back terrace. Open floor plans waiting to be filled by my labor and dreams.
I intend to post a lot of renovation updates as work proceeds—many of these will be just for my paid subscribers. You might say I’m doubling down on Substack that way. I view it as a way to signal my own commitment, not only to the kind of work I want to be doing, but away from other distractions.
I’m not ignoring what just happened in the U.S., land of my birth. I’m processing.
The main thing I want to say about it was already said better by Toni Morrison, so with all respect, I offer this before getting into my own thoughts. From an essay a few years before her death:
There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.
The whole thing is worth a read.
And now, after the jump, a few thoughts.
