Climbing a mountain like ascending a staircase

We are rugged and awesome. Day by day we tread mountain paths fit for goats, with goats, to pluck olives and almonds, and provide animals with acorns, which will in turn provide them with life. There is so little water here that we don't bother to flush the toilet, we wash it down manually with the dark, cumulonimbus water which pours freely into our changing, chosen receptacles from the open pipe of the washing machine. We knife and devour prickly pears straight from the cactus and drink water we bottle ourselves from the stream at the top of the tallest mountain around.

Yes, we are awesome because of this, and more. Goats may tread this land and feed on it even when there is no grazing––on bark and twigs and such––but only we can claw out the rugged earth and conform its rocks to our stone walls. While mastering these things, a piece of clothing may rebel against us; it may say, "Nay! Let us not be put to such a test!" But when it agrees with a stick or stone that they should meet and tear, we subdue the troublesome clothing with thread and make it one piece again.

Actually, the earth was already cut for us, but the stones were heavy enough that we could only pile them with much gusto and manliness, the three of us, Ryan, Ian, and myself being the only human males on the farm, the women off somewhere else. When cigarettes are smoked here, though not by Ryan or me, they are only hand-rolled, and my forearms ache with a day's worth of hefting stones and mixing concrete.

To contribute to our hardcore awesomeness at this farm, we know Merav, a traveling Israeli who, like us, left making goats' cheese to come to Spain. In her case, she worked with troubled kids, teaching them simple life principles through agricultural labor and the stewardship of animals. In philosophy, she wants to be like Zorba the Greek, and though the book has topped my reading list for a while, I have not read it. She tells me about how Zorba worked random jobs, did random things, and kept life simple, enjoying every little moment along the way. As she speaks of Zorba, one can detect that, in her life, she would love to marry a man like Zorba and live in a mud-and-stone house that they built. Simple.

In many ways our lot is like the Old West. We are isolated, at least from the city; waterless to the extent that we took our first showers yesterday, after five days, and wear the same dirty, durable jeans; we live among scrub brush and hardy, centuries-old olive trees. When Ian and Sally moved here from England, there was no water at all, forcing them to construct a network of wells. They carved the road out of rock to get to our house from the main road, and when someone comes toward us, our doorbell is a pack of dogs, whose ears and bodies perk up with attention to what we cannot hear.

Now they have electricity, and even receive internet for free after allowing the company to use their land, if needed, to provide better access. But if you turn your back on the house, and block out the clicking hum of the power lines, then it would not be so surprising to see revolutionary pistoleros coming down the road, or perhaps a group of marching pikemen in their bright, feudal tunics, their regality suggesting that the local lord had a money, influence, and a penchant for fashion.