April comes to an end. I leave her in the mountains of Cantabria, not stopping to look behind as I board my flight back to London. There is no point in keeping the memories of the past needled into my skin. She existed, I lived her and I loved her, but she can drift away to join all the other April’s I’ve had, and let me go home with shoulders lighter than they have ever been.
At the time of writing a section of this month’s newsletter, I was sitting on a balcony in La Serna, listening to a cockerel screech and someone’s abuela do the same. It was not known to me that at the birth of the month I would be ending my April learning about the similarities between cock and chicken in Spanish, and that asking for ‘polla’ could land me in a somewhat interesting position. Especially since one night, herders from the mountains had finally come back down to society, shouting and singing about how they hadn’t seen a woman in months. What must it be like, to be up in the mountains for months at an end, udders galore yet not a breast in sight? I have always imagined a Brokeback Mountain situation, though if Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were in the mountains of Cantabria, I would’ve hiked up there faster than you can say Rioja.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Nightfruit to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.