Autor:    Enrique Arroyo Villegas

PAPERS OF MALLORCA - MY HOUSE

The marés with which my house was built is nothing more than limestone that was formed in the Quaternary within the sea; Composed of sand and fossils —although it is difficult to find them inside—, which were joined in a platform that came to the surface when God withdrew the waters, or some marine being dedicated himself to it.

It is so soft, this marés, that it is cut with a saw. It is of various gold colors.

And the Mediterranean lived like this, each place with its stones and its quarries.

I know artists who speak with the marés; they say that it is a living stone, which protects from humidity and temperature in different seasons.

Sometimes cold, sometimes hot, the marés; that´s why when I caress the internal portals of my house I know that my mark is left there, and the heat or cold of my hand.

I seek the meaning of my coexistence with the marés; and I realize that my hands are going through the thousand exploits of Ulysses, through the caves of Triton, through the caresses of the sirens.

And in that stone, I recognize the thousands of years of my life in the Universe.

I imagine that more than once you have stopped to caress the old wood of a friar table or the handle of a hoe or ax; they are pieces of living nature, far from new materials, from plastic, from steel. If you haven´t, try it, the wood where old monks deposited their plates will tell you stories; you just have to learn to listen to them.

Rabindranath Tagore said that the ax asked the tree for the handle, and the tree gave it; they recognize each other.

Thanks to the sea —which allowed the fossils of living animals to be deposited on its bed—, modern man was able to build with the marés houses and cathedrals to give thanks to his known God.

I humbly thank the master masons who built this house where I live, surrounding it with golden sands, from the ancient mysteries where man did not yet know man. And I do it every day, as if it were a ritual, with good morning and good night, typical of the relationship between friends.