I think it’s safe to say that the return to our every day normal lives was a bit of a task for most of us. Quite a few of us texted back and forth in our What’s App group in those first few days back home, comparing notes on our experience of the trip and the “re-entry”.

I said that I felt like my soul just busted open, in ways, as a result of this trip. And that there were life lessons in it in going forward.

We saw a large spectrum of flamenco music and dance – from very traditional to true boundary and genre expanding flamenco. What stood out to me most, was the level of passion I witnessed in the performances we saw.

I turned to one of my fellow travelers, who was sitting beside me after one of them – of one of Spain’s most acclaimed flamenco troupes – at the Jerez Flamenco Festival – and asked “Where does all this passion come from?” It was an unabashed, deep passion – sung out, stomped out so loudly (in a good way) into the world – through voices, through bodies, feet and hands.

After I asked that question, I said to him, “I know that it resides in me, too. It’s in my blood, in my DNA (read more about that in a later post).

And it wasn’t just in large theaters. We stopped into a little cafe in Jerez for lunch, where there was a small stage flamenco performance. The pictures in this post are from that cafe. We all loved it, but I don’t think anyone enjoyed it more than the waiter who just couldn’t contain himself from the sidelines and jumped on the little stage, too. (See the video below) This is what it’s like to be truly immersed in a culture, I thought.

And I saw the passion in Pepa, our translator – Barcelona born, and now a New Orleanian preaching the gospel of flamenco in that city.

I said to Ned, our fearless leader and curator of this tour, in our post-trip chat, that a lesson for me to ponder was how to bring more of that passion into my life.

The Flamenco Festival performance the night before the first above mentioned performance, was also one of those true boundary pushing – perhaps the most -performances. I felt the same thrill and awe that I did as a very young woman – and very young dancer – of seeing the Martha Graham and Alvin Ailey companies perform for the first time – full Broadway production values and all. It’s a gift to still be able to be thrilled in that way in what I’ve come to refer to as the “fourth quarter”.

There was the classical guitar performance at the Romate winery in Jerez – home of sherry, as well as flamenco – on a Sunday morning ending our private tour and tasting, the night after those flamenco concerts, that felt like a Sunday going to church meeting. (Again – more about that in a later post.)

So – the gift and lesson – more passion for life, and brought to our life, in this “fourth quarter”.

All of the wonderful flamenco photos are courtesy of fellow traveler, Marty Lipp.