Since childhood, I have spent summers in Barriosuso, Spain; a little village of no more than fifteen or twenty houses. Here, a farmhouse (lived in for three centuries by my father's family) sits in a valley where animals graze, and where wheat, fruit and almond trees grow. Surrounded by mountains still bearing the carved tombs of the 15th Century Moors, you can sit out in a field and listen for secrets as the north wind blows. In the farmhouse, the room I sleep in has a bed that once belonged to my aunt, and to my great-grandmother before her. A crucifix above the bed, the window of the room opens to a balcony where honey bees work furiously, their maddening buzz rising to a crescendo that awakens the sleepers inside every morning. The view from the balcony leads to a honey shack in the distance, the place I used to hide when I needed a place by myself. If nowhere else in the world, this valley, and this hallowed ramshackle house with its peeling walls and sighing floorboards, is the place I belong.
Text and photos by guest contributor Ann Marie Peña
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