The Long Spanish Goodbye

26.03.2024 - 17:03 / cntraveler.com

Salt goes well with salt. Cured fish, briny vermouth, jamón, sweat, sea—they complement tears, feeding each other with a soft sting. This occurred to me, floating on my back, off a cove in Mallorca. Tears slid from my eyes as the sea washed across my lips. X perched up on the rocks. He never had the urge to immediately fling his body into saltwater like I did, nor stay splashing about until the sun went low. My memories recall always waving to him ashore, vision blurry with waves and sun, beaming so he might see my joy.

After five years together, X and I had broken up less than 48 hours ago in New York. Somewhat opposites, we’d begun to diverge in ways that felt untenable, stifled within the roles we’d built for one another—his quietude to my chaos. I felt a growing urge to escape from my own life, to stretch time through too many drinks and nights that never ended. I’d get home later and later, until things began to really fracture.

He had planned to accompany me for a month of travel through Spain: spending June across Mallorca, Valencia, and Madrid. The plane tickets were nonrefundable and everything was booked. As we faced the realities of him moving out—what he’d take and what he’d leave from this home we’d built together—uprooting one more thing felt nearly impossible. So we went ahead with the trip as planned. One month. Three cities. The decisions you make with a punctured heart are hilarious like that.

Mallorca (above, the Torrent de Pareis beach) was one of the writer's stops.

Cap de Formentor on the east of Mallorca, an island which required long drives to navigate.

We began in Mallorca, a Balearic island of old, limestone villages, fringed with aquamarine inlets for swimming. Everything is spread out, meaning a car is necessary to explore. Our drives across the island felt equal parts endless and scarce, innumerable miles stretching out before us over —some of the last days we’d ever share. I’d glance over at his dark curls and his ski-slope nose, this face I thought I’d die beside.

Up and down Mallorca’s mountainous terrain, we played the artists of the country, letting Rosalía, Camarón de la Isla, C. Tangana, and Paco de Lucía wrap us in their rhythms and whispers. They filled the silence and said what I could not:

Este camino tuve que elegir / A cualquier precio hay que sobrevivir / Pero en las noches no puedo dormir / Viéndote sufrir / Porque tengo la culpa

(I had to choose this path / One must survive at any cost / but at night I can't sleep / seeing you suffer. / Because I'm to blame).

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

I still keep these artists close. Their sounds pull from the rich heritage of flamenco, a musical genre born of