Being Here in Andalusia – the apt and delightful name for last week's session in Cortijo Romero – was sheer bliss. Most of the group has gone now, no longer singing I believe I can fly while dancing in the pool but actually doing so, heading back to UK debris and political post-mortems, leaving only six of us to meet the oncoming group. Strange how much you can miss people after only a week, still glimpsing their smiles everywhere… the laughter of last night’s cabaret seems still plangent in the air. Hazel Carey, our amazing & incomparable group leader, left early in a taxi, her tap-dance razzle dazzle still glittering in the full moon sky.
And what, apart from dance, song, yoga, and creative play, does being here mean?
No riots, no rain, only the fireworks of fiesta
and a solidity of sunshine. We cut it in slabs,
munch it all day, garnished with mountain herbs.
We write wish-lists of beautiful aspirations,
wanting almost to hide in this light,
so luminous are we, basking, floating on water,
watching dark shadows and the rustling fronds of the palms.