Birthday

I turned seventy-two this month. It’s weird being an age that seemed light-years away when I was thirty, forty, even fifty. But here I am. Seventy-two years can seem like a long time. It can also seem like not enough time. Nothing is promised us in this life, but I can still want. More time to live this life in Spain, a dream I never dreamed. More time to write, read, and discover people, places, and things. More time to be. I will take and make opportunities whenever I can.

On June 20, I had pre-birthday drinks with two lovely friends Diana and Fiona. A birthday sash descended over my shoulders from above courtesy of the excellent wine bar staff.

The next day, June 21, was my birthday, and James and I headed to Marbella for the weekend. Marbella is an hour’s drive from Málaga. If you continue east, you’ll hit Gibraltar, that little but strategic piece of land granted to Britain in perpetuity in a 1715 treaty, which Spain has rued for centuries. Marbella is quite resorty, draws an international crowd, and is home to many wealthy, beautiful, celebrity types. Not exactly our scene. But we had to be in Marbella for an appointment on the following Monday, so I figured why not spend my birthday weekend in a room with a view of the sea and easy access to the beach. It turned out to be magical.

There’s something about sun, sand, and sea air that takes over your mind and body, leaving you blissfully blank of thought and liquid of movement. Or maybe you’re just sweating so much that everything feels like water inside and out, fluid and atemporal. We brought our laptops but never opened them to work. I read but only in short spurts. It was as if my mind just wanted a lot of nothingness which I willingly granted, except at meals and when we spent a quiet hour or so in the shade in Parque de la Constitución when we talked about politics and the illegal seizure of immigrants, the illegal bombing of Iran, and the unconscionable support of genocide in Gaza. Even in paradise, wretchedness intrudes.

Yet we found pleasure and tranquility in the ceramic tile benches in Parque de Alameda, in the Dali sculpture reproductions in the Avenida del Mar, the cobblestone streets of the Centro Historico, and of course, the beach at any hour.

Long before Marbella became golf courses and seaside restaurants, luxury hotels and condos, there might have been Phoenicians. There were certainly Romans as there are ruins in the casco antiguo (old town) and then came the Visigoths. In the Middle Ages, there was Islamic rule until the fifteenth century when the Catholic monarchs assumed control. During the Spanish Civil War, anti-clerical violence in Marbella resulted in Italian Fascist-backed Nationalists capturing the city, which then became a haven for Nazis. Marbella’s ascendence from a small seaside town to the second most populous city in Málaga province and jet-setter destination began after the Second World War. Famous visitors and seasonal residents have included Osama Bin Laden and King Faud who traveled with his thousand-person entourage. Also, the Peruvian Nobelist in literature Mario Vargas Llosa. And speaking of literature…

Feria del Libro

Earlier this month I went to the Feria del Libro in Madrid, a two-week event in the Parque del Retiro featuring an overwhelming five hundred casetas (stalls) of books. I went with my friend Miguel, speaker of three languages, fan of noir, video game tester, and writer.  We didn’t cover the entire feria and we stopped several times for refreshment. I did realize my goal of getting my copy of La ridícula idea de no volver a verte signed by Rosa Montero.

My next goal was to buy a new book. Of course, I needed a bookseller to engage with me, to convince me that a particular book was a match for me given that I was using my love for reading as an avenue for advancing my Spanish. One bookseller suggested an anthology of microrelatos (flash fiction), which interested me, but it contained works by many established writers I was already familiar with. I wanted something by someone whose work was new to me. So, he handed me another book of microrelatos, this one by a single author, a woman, and I was immediately drawn to the cover and the title. Casa de Muñecas (Dollhouse) by Patricia Esteban Erlés. It contains illustrations that reflect the unsettling aspects of the stories—like a bathroom full of women trapped in the mirror, or a collection of assassinated Barbies. The back cover warns: Las casas de muñecas nos miran, se pasan la vida mirándonos. (Dollhouses are staring at us, they spend their lives looking at us.) Okay, so only daytime reading of this book.

And speaking of books…

Publication Date for Next Book

My new novel Ofelia and Norma will be published September 29, 2026 by Regal House Publishing. I’m hoping to schedule readings for next fall in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Maybe Chicago and an East Coast city?

Regal House encourages its authors to create videos to publicize their books. I’ve sat quietly with this thought for months, waiting for it to evolve past the thought stage. If you wait long enough, such things do finally move forward because you get used to the idea, you even think it might be fun and you ignore the real possibility that no one will watch and then you accept that possibility and decide it doesn’t matter, that it’s okay to make videos of yourself speaking into the void. If anything, maybe it’s an exercise in self-awareness. This is me, my face, my voice, existing. In cyberspace, yeah. But also, real life. And so here is my first foray into making videos for the new book and other things too. Simple. Neither bells nor whistles. Yet. On Instagram and TikTok as misdonnacolta.

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