05 — Sin pecado concebido

on conversations with angels and cinematic explorations of the self

May 02, 2022

Being abroad brings out something in us, doesn't it? The packing, the stress/anxiety/excitement of airports, the feeling of arriving at a place for the first time, the newness in unfamiliar faces. Even if just for a few days, there's something freeing in being somewhere else — it's the freedom of taking a risk while feeling safe knowing we'll be home soon. Time is suddenly on our side, and everything's possible for a while. I really love it.

I went to Madrid recently, and travelling is usually so inspiring that I thought I'd have a million stories to share. I don't. Don't get me wrong, I did great things, from eating & drinking to seeing loads of art (including some of Oskar Schlemmer's drawings — more on him in the previous letter). But there's only one thing I really feel like sharing.

There's a church in Madrid called Iglesia Corpus Christi that sits next to a convent — a cloistered convent — meaning the nuns took a vow to separate themselves from the affairs of the external world. They can't see or talk to anyone outside the convent, and we can't come in or visit either. But there's a bridge connecting us: biscuits.

On our walking tour, our guide Angel told us these nuns bake and sell amazing biscuits that anyone can buy. But how do you buy them if you can't contact them?

Well, you start by ringing the doorbell. Someone will answer and say something that my basic Spanish didn't allow me to understand. But Angel had prepared me for it and told me I should reply with 'sin pecado concebido'. After this, they open the door, and you walk into a small patio. There, you find a sign saying 'Torno'. Torno is a round table with partitions, inside a small hole in the wall. So what happens is you get there, and even though you don't see anyone, you have to ask for what you want (in my case, it was 'medio kilo de nevaditos'). You speak into a void, but then the table rotates, and a box of biscuits appears in front of you. You take it, replace it with money and rotate it back. And you're done. You don't see them. They don't talk to you. But you get your biscuits.

There's something thrilling in this. The whole idea of being let into a limbo where so much is possible. That small patio connects two worlds so parallel they would never touch otherwise. I'm not religious, and yet there's something very spiritual in this. It's an intersection/crossing/convergence of us&them through something as pure as selling biscuits.

This is all I wanted to share today: just the story of how I got some really good biscuits. The nuns are called Madres Jerónimas, and I would never know about them if it weren't for angel.

Books

I read a few books this month, but the highlight was probably that I picked up my kindle again. I go through periods where I forget about it because, no it is not the same as reading an actual book. But convenience made me do it so I got Ballard’s short stories on it and I’ve dived deep into those recently.

The Complete Short Stories by JG Ballard

I’ve mentioned this before in an IG post, but the reason I got these stories in the first place was that I wanted to read a particular one: Passport to Eternity. The opening line of this is probably my favourite opening ever and that captivated me to the point I memorised it. Now, I’ve decided to jump right in from the start and it became my travelling companion recently. It’s one of those you don’t want to end, so I’m reading it in between other books, but I can’t recommend it enough. It’s the perfect amount of bizarre and odd and eerie and weird. I want to take my time with it so there’s no timeframe for finishing it — I’m just enjoying it as I go.

Films

Solaris (1972) dir. Andrei Tarkovsky

I can’t stress this enough: watch this if you haven’t. Solaris is based on a novel by Stanislaw Lem where a psychologist is sent to a space station orbiting a planet called Solaris. He finds out that the planet is somehow intelligent and capable of creating things from memories and experiences. It could be a very simple sci-fi film, but its explorations of the self make it one of the most brilliant ones I’ve seen. From the thought experiences within to the thrill of interpreting these scenes, I’ve found it absolutely incredible.

That’s it bye

I started the month thinking I’d write something a bit more intellectual about the self and about the limbos we come across in life. In the end, it’s just me telling you about one of my vacation adventures that only faintly relates to my original intention. I believe in opening up through writing, and telling you about my own experiences seemed more honest. So here we are!

I hope you stick around and feel free to reach out on Twitter or on Instagram!