The Round One
Almodôvar takes its name from the Arabic al-Mudawwar, meaning The Round One. I see no obvious traces of this or other, previous pasts, nor signs of its etymology. I can only wonder at what the settlement and its surroundings once looked like, forever on the fringes of imperial consciousness. Today, late-modern buildings––typical of the then Iberian peninsula and its corresponding colonies––create hap-hazard streets as they line up shoulder-to-shoulder to usher any pedestrian or automobile towards the mother of all churches, the igreja matriz. Atop a great sprawl of grey stone steps, the regular base is composed of oversized cuboid blocks which, stacked full height in each corner of the edifice and either side of the giant doors, send the middle and upper sections over and above the surrounding village-town. Only the cellular communications tower with its skeletal scaffold-like red-and-white frame is taller. The crowning white-washed belfry hosts bells which still mark each daytime hour and half-hour and then, on unpredictable days, chime out a full round, relaxed in time, somewhere after around half-eight in the morning and half-eight in the evening. From an as-yet-unknown location, a siren replaces the knell at 1pm every day. A call to siesta? A daily test? For what? By the time I see someone to ask, the cacophonous foghorn has faded into forgetfulness and so I remain unprepared for the day it is not a false alarm. With shops and offices shut from one until two or half-two it's not normally a time to be away from home. Dog walks invariably fall a comfortable distance either side of these dead hours through which I work or eat some lunch.
Times have changed and daily routines have started to mark out my Mondays to Fridays once again. First came work, albeit on shifting days of the week, but taking up an entire day when it strikes. Soon after, yoga practice, Tuesdays to Thursdays, facilitated online. A weekday without words finds administrative tasks and drifting between the rooms of the ever-more comfortable house. It's about time. The farm and crumbly farmhouse fade into a distant and remote idea. Harry fears the van's potential with him at the wheel so does not pay them visits. He has yet to mount Monty. The gusty turbulence that often blew through the times in Bernardos have given in to a stagnant breeze as these familiar patterns of a life I left behind return. I tell myself it is a phase, a new stretch of time; in the round, our time in Almodôvar. It's about time.
