13 Jun An Andorra Solstice: Summer’s Sun
Andorra Solstice: Summer’s Sun
An anecdote on a day filled with wild energy and the break of Summer’s first sun.
The drums beat on with a wild energy, vibrating through our chests and ribs, sending the people pulsing down, down, down the winding cobblestone arteries of the mountain town. It is well after dinner time, but the sun still illuminates the wildflowers and skeletal ski lifts that slice through the landscape. With garments of crimson and black and muscles flexed with energy, the drummers lead the flow to the main plaza before the Sant Pere del Pas de la Casa. Balanced on adulthood’s edge, they engage the young and old alike as we follow their rhythmic motions. Crouching down. Exploding upwards. We are swept away in this steady pounding, these tidbits of laughter and conversation in Catalan. Then quiet. We shuffle to make room for others on the large stone steps and marvel – at our surroundings and at our luck for clumsily stumbling upon the wrinkles of history like an old carpet in need of stretching.
Not two hours before, our taxi had picked us up from the Hotel du Puymorens on the France-Andorra border. We left our new friends behind – the kind Belgian man whose gray hair and small, muscular frame was overshadowed by his backpack, and the French cycling quartet who asked for a photo avec les quatres blondes. The taxi slowly climbed up the winding mountain roads, leaving behind four beer steins with remnants of foam on the small patio table. Andorra is classified as a microstate. Securely tucked between its larger, more popular neighbors, Spain and France, it is the 16th smallest country in the world. We are staying in El Pas de la Casa, roughly translated to “the pass of the house” (this, due to the fact that only a single shepherd’s hut overlooked the mountain pass until the early 1900s). I try to imagine what this would have looked like as we zig-zag upwards past cows and ski lifts and brightly colored buildings towards our home for the next few days, a nearly vacant ski lodge.
Later, in the darkness, the world bursts into flames. Everything is red and blue sparks, white-hot, green and burning. Two men juggle torches, shedding light on the crescent symbol hanging just to the side of the cross, illuminating a centuries-old story that is both completely foreign and instinctive as my eyes race to take it all in. Flames arch overhead as the men become vessels for ancestors past, a role they have played for years. They make up for their lack of dialogue with their deliberate movement and the way they dance alongside the flames, their bearded faces tight with concentration. It is as if I am peering through some doorway that has been left open just a crack, and I begin to ruminate on this sliver of scene. Whatever it may be, there is some universality, some familiarity that I find in this tiny town between the mountains on this continent so far away from my own home. The performance ends and the bonfire is lit, ready to burn throughout the night.
Summer Solstice festivals in the Pyrenees make UNESCO’s list of “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” I’ve learned. Communities come together to gather the necessary firewood for their bonfires and torches. The progression of orange down the mountainside brings with it the shift from adolescence to adulthood. But, like the flames, the celebrations take many shapes. Some seek to bring about life regeneration or fertility or warmer weather, some display gratitude to the gods for prosperous harvests, still others seek to purify the land and protect themselves from evil spirits. Perhaps for some, it is simply a vestigial trait of a culture their ancestors claimed. Whatever purpose, the outcome is the same. Social ties are strengthened, and despite the liminal quality of such a celebration, there is a deep sense of belonging to this night, to the flames, to the beating drums.
We are on a precipice, our backs chilled by the night air at this altitude, our faces uncomfortably warm from the blaze. The crowd circulates from the steps to the tables that have been quietly assembled to the side. Women wielding silver spatulas guard trays of cake and cups of honey-colored liquid. We shuffle along with the other witnesses to receive this food and drink as a testament to our presence here together, connected through shared understanding or circumstance.
I’ve licked the remnants of the cake from my fingers and one of us is throwing what once was a paper cup of anise-flavored liqueur into a trash can. By now, every drop of sun has finally been wrung from the sky. The darkness settles as we move away from the center of the town. A family is hunched around something, shoulder to shoulder and framed by the red swing set, murmuring to each other. They separate and we see the object of their focus: a paper lantern, pale yellow with wire veins to hold its shape. The youngest of the family, a young girl, toddles forward to toss it into the air, and hands reach in to provide assistance. The lantern floats lazily along before scraping along the cobblestone like a whisper and coming to a halt. There are a few laughs, and though the words are unfamiliar to my ears, I can imagine they are something along the lines of let’s try again, then. At last, the lantern lifts steadily, and we cheer with them from the other side of the empty street. We turn to continue our walk, all grins and sugary breath, full stomachs and smoky clothes.
The sun set long ago, but the bonfire burns on somewhere down in the square. Some shepherd, I’m sure, looks upon it all – the town tucked in the mountain pass, squeezed between two countries, and us stumbling in past his hut, drawn to the flames. The wind shifts, and with a gentle exhale the lantern rises up between the buildings and is lost.
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