Andalusia is a diva: it knows that it is loved, sought after and imagined
This is a love letter doomed to failure, like any love letter that is written from excessive love. It is a failure because it is anxious, it wants to cover everything and say everything and a good love letter should be, like that mythical advice for life that Enrique Morente gave to his daughter, Estrella, “short and flamenco”. Everything important should be like this. This unsuccessful letter, moreover, is written by someone who does not pronounce the final s's; so, You can't talk about objective love, but who wants objective love?
Writing a love letter to Andalusia is easy: you just have to talk about Frederick, always free and happy; of picasso and how the art of the 20th century exploded; of Velazquez, that before the man from Malaga had already dynamited Western painting forever; of The Alhambra and the evenings of him; of Donana and theirs, which are like those of Kenya (or vice versa); of Cordova and the Mosque; of Cabo de Gata and the clear water...
Cabo de Gata, its sunsets and the color of its water
But that letter would not only be easy, it would be boring and that word is a sin in Andalusia; is not consented. In that same letter we could have put together pairs of words: Cádiz and millenary, Alhambra and sunsets, Seville and enchantment, but that would be a lazy letter and Andalusia is pure creativity, which is the opposite of laziness.
Andalusia is a diva: it knows that it is loved, sought after and imagined. She has received many love letters, but this is ours, and we are many people.
This place has such a strong and unique cultural identity He doesn't even bother to point it out. Needless. His self-esteem is in its place, well secured. Who wouldn't feel that way when they have a beach with Roman ruins, espetos, gurumelos and Ángel León, the Alhambra and the houses of Campo Baeza, when they have Las Setas and Las Alpujarras, Bambino, Martirio and Califato 3x4, they have the seas of olive trees and the Triana bridge, it has Medina Azahara and Cruz y Ortiz, it has its own emperors, Adriano and his cousin Trajano, it has surfing and it has Úbeda and Baeza, they are so elegant.
Andalusia also has dozens of fairs and some with capital letters
Andalusia also has dozens of fairs and some with capital letters; the virgin and secret Sierra de Huelva, which is our Tuscany and our Provence; to brave women, such as María Zambrano, Lola Flores and Victoria Kent; the Mosque and its forest of arches; and it has the Carnivals, those of Cádiz, which ones are they going to be. It has the ultramarine aftertaste and the Arab attachment to the shade, the aroma of rose and cumin, it has, it has, it has... Stop. Let's stop here, we're getting corny. How easy it is to do it by writing a love letter and how little Andalusia deserves it, which has not been cheesy in a single one of its thousands of years of history.
A love letter to Andalusia is a letter that smells like summer. That's how it is. There, even if it's winter, it's always summer, because Andalusia is like New York, it is too much like our fantasies about it and when we think of Cádiz, Seville or Almería we think of sun, galbana and watermelon, the perfect fruit.
This is a land of blue summer and white towns
This is a land of blue summer and white towns, from a siesta at the wrong time with sand between the toes, from breakfasts with hot pots or syringes, from a village house that, blessed Arab heritage, stays cool by knowing two or three tricks, from the many gazpacho recipes that, in the end, they are just one, of grilled sardines after the waves (here there are waves), of summer cinema on a whitewashed screen, of Jaén farmhouses in which the Guadalquivir sounds in the background, of walks in the shade through the Jewish quarters, of reliefs in the patios and in the halls, of afternoons by the pool in La Donaira, in the Alfonso XIII or in the town of our grandparents, nights in town squares that are Roman forums. The Andalusian summer is a Latin, Mediterranean and African summer, it is a summer of the past and of the future: it is the perfect summer.
This letter had to be short and flamenco and we have already packed. Every love letter, even the most anxious one like this one, has to end. You don't have to tell Andalusia how beautiful it is: she knows it. You have to celebrate her and thank her for everything. It is obligatory to learn from his play between lightness and depth, from his wonderful sense of drama, from his fantasy and from his chaotic order and ordered chaos, from his breakfasts with muffins and ham and of his joy, which is revolutionary.
You don't have to tell Andalusia how beautiful it is: she knows it. You have to celebrate her and thank her for everything