The Long Spanish Goodbye

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Salt goes well with salt. Cured fish, salty vermouth, ham, sweat, sea: they complement the tears, feeding each other with a gentle sting. This occurred to me, floating face up, in front of a cove in Majorca. Tears slipped from my eyes as the sea bathed my lips. X perched on the rocks. She never felt the need to immediately throw his body into the salt water like I did, or stay splashing around until the sun went down. My memories always remember greeting him on land, with his vision blurred by the waves and the sun, radiant so he could see my joy.

After five years together, X and I had broken up less than 48 hours ago in NY. Somewhat opposite, we had begun to diverge in ways that seemed unsustainable, stifled within the roles we had constructed for each other: their stillness in the face of my chaos. I felt a growing need to escape from my own life, to stretch out time through too many drinks and nights that never ended. I came home later and later, until things started to really fracture.

He planned to accompany me for a month of travel through Spain: spend June in Mallorca, Valencia and Madrid. The plane tickets were non-refundable and everything was booked. When we faced the reality of her move—what it would take and what it would leave behind from this house we'd built together—uprooting one more thing seemed nearly impossible. So we went ahead with the trip as planned. One month. Three cities. The decisions you make with a pierced heart are that hilarious.

We start in Mallorca, a Balearic island of ancient limestone villages, lined with aquamarine coves for swimming. Everything is spread out, meaning a car is necessary to explore. Our trips across the island felt equal parts endless and sparse, countless miles stretching out before us, some of the last days we would share. I looked at his dark curls and his ski nose, that face I thought I would die next to.

Up and down Mallorca's mountainous terrain, we perform the country's artists, letting Rosalía, Camarón de la Isla, C.Tangana, and Paco de Lucía envelop us in their rhythms and whispers. They filled the silence and said what I couldn't:

The story continues

I had to choose this path / At any price you have to survive / But at night I can't sleep / Seeing you suffer / Because it's my fault

(I had to choose this path / You have to survive at any price / but at night I can't sleep / seeing her suffer. / Because it's my fault).

—"La Culpa (feat. Canelita)" by C. Tangana, Omar Montes, Daviles de Novelda, Canelita

I still keep these artists close. Its sounds come from the rich heritage of Flemishmusical genre born from the gypsies (gypsy people) who came to Iberian Peninsula. Historically persecuted, they expressed their pain and pleasure through song, with a strong influence of improvisation similar to American jazz. They would dialogue with each other through elements such as sing (singing), toque (guitar), dancing (dance), and palms (applause). Apparently, when there are no words, we all turn to music.

The days began to blend together as we shared beds, toothpaste, and bottles of water. We existed outside of time, united by the measures of the old world: the ringing of church bells and the tilted golden hours, the headaches. sunscreen pressed from the palm towards the back.

In the second week we were in Valencia. On long walks through the city's narrow streets, I took photos in dark windows framed by candy-colored tiles, the durable earthenware historically used to protect facades from the erosion of salt air. The incongruity of it all was anesthetizing. An American in a summer dress, walking through Europe and approaching the end. The day after our return to the United States, X packed up her things and moved out. By chance, he had gotten a new job that required him to move to another state. A clean break, you could say.

I began to notice the faces of other women, immortalized in the ornate museums of Spain: a girl by Francisco Pons Arnau biting into a peach with an unwavering gaze. A figure in a surreal Dalí landscape, arm raised, piercing the strange atmosphere of the scene like a needle. A Sorolla aristocrat with proud obsidian eyes in somber lace, leaning toward a tangle of scarlet roses.

These women, through so many snapshots of life, seemed to assure me that I was in a snapshot of my own. Each sat before a scene in all its edges and colors, from hyperreal to surreal, and walked on. I discovered the second Mona Lisa, in the Prado in Madrid, painted by Da Vinci's apprentice and alleged lover. A woman she thought she knew, who lived a completely different life. I stared at her gaze, complicit in her, and she smiled back at me, with the tranquility and mischief that 500 years on earth will grant. Here, I thought, as tourists walked past me, was proof of simultaneous truths. Like hating a trip whose end you fear. Like mourning someone who is still alive.

The interesting thing about disengagement is how the association can continue to exist. Nothing demands this like foreign soil. We always work well as a team when we travel. In fact, it was X who helped me control my fear of flying. The moments of camaraderie that stand out the most for me on our trip are to an eerily empty cove called Puerto des Canonge Beach. Me, translating posters and museum menus with my mediocre Spanish so you can understand art and food. Us adding spots to a shared Google Maps with equal tenderness. Or him, exhausted, but staying by my side in a club I wanted to explore to write an article, to keep unwanted advances at bay. We sway in the pink light of the Valencia sand. Ice Factory (a former ice factory), drinking local beer like sleepy anthropologists. The image of him carrying my suitcases up the stairs of our Airbnb—sweaty and obedient—will haunt me, sweetly, until I am old and gray.

One morning we took a hike through the Tramuntana mountain range of Mallorca, to the Galatzó peak, the highest in the northwest mountain range. It's a stunning climb, over sun-bleached limestone rocks and amidst fragrant foliage, with the Mediterranean shimmering miles away. Since its heyday, the world has never seemed so vast. The sun's rays burst through the wisps of cloud, gilding everything in bright, sparkling light: cobalt water, white cliffs, kelly green moss. There was nothing to do but take in the panorama of nature's divine, our sweat drying in the wind. X took a photo of me that day. It's still one of my favorite photos of myself. It reminds me of how the world, in its most unexpected moments, can take your breath away.

As our nights abroad dwindled, I would slide my hand over the sheets and touch my pinky finger with his, watching his chest rise and fall as he slept. More eye salt. Our last dinner together was at Corral de la Moreríaan old and emblematic flamenco restaurant and stage in Madrid. We dined on tender lamb chops and cold glasses of herbs, a Spanish liqueur flavored with anise. And then the show began. The lights went out. TO singer She came out singing a cappella, a crystal clear cry that spilled across the room like sea water. Next: bowed guitar notes, reverberating with pain. Finally, a woman dressed in red, barefoot. Much more salt from her eyes. Not for us, not for our last night together. By the curvature of her arms, the rustling trail of her dress, the color of that silk, like a bleeding woman. She then picked up her skirts and started dancing.

Originally appeared in Condé Nast Traveler