The Procession of the Holy Ice Cream

Creepy Ice Cream

A precipitous ice cream stop in today's Camino a Ítaca. In Spain, often calendar dates have more sway and are more important than what is actually happening out on the streets. Click over to read the originally published article in Spanish in el HOY or read the English translation below. (PDF en castellano abajo)

The queue trailed out the ice cream shop, past a rather villainous looking statue of an ice cream cone, down the pedestrian street and into the square. Short sleeves and the odd tourist in shorts rubbed shoulders with puffer vests and jackets in the narrow lane. The relative coolness of the shade contrasted sharply with the sun’s warm glare that shone down on those sheltering under a shock of blooming trees at the far end of the line.

I was passing the crowd, when a little girl around four years old ran up to her mother with her jacket tied around her waist, and repeatedly pleaded, “Mommy, can I have an ice cream!” The entreating mother conferred with her eyes with the father in his puffer jacket across the crowd. “An ice cream!” he exclaimed, somewhat heedless of the growing queue and much to the dismay of the little girl, “whoever heard of having an ice cream in March?!”

His categorical response was reflected in the mirrored shutters of the closed up ice cream shop on the opposite side of the street. A casualty who also thought it was too early to be serving vanilla, chocolate and strawberry frozen treats.

I’ve always been intrigued by the near obsessive attention and importance placed on dates here in Spain, regardless of what is actually happening outside your window. The calendar year revolves more around saints and oracular processes like the shamanistic way of determining when Semana Santa falls, rather than the actual temperature. Even if spring thermometers creep into the thirties, it takes a brave nonconformist to break out the sandals before the socially acceptable time. Social conventions that are becoming even more atavistic with global warming and the earlier onsets of spring.

But the most incomprehensible date is the opening of the swimming pools.

The month of May can be scorching but the relief of a swimming pool remains a distant reality for most due to some arbitrary date set in the town hall.

It reminds me of an anecdote a friend of mine told me that happened while he was living in another country with deeply ingrained traditions, Japan.

In the land of the rising sun, like here, the swimming season doesn’t open until late June. That year, the month of May was unseasonably hot and he lived in a town in the north that had a wonderful lake. One day he could stand it no longer and decided to go for a swim.

In the heat of the afternoon, he went down to the lake, dove in and started to swim. While he was swimming a small crowd began to gather on the shore, astounded at what they were seeing. As this rather large, heavily bearded Caucasian man emerged from the waters, a noticeable gasp arose from the crowd.

Realizing the faux pas he had made, he opted to salute the gathering. “Fear not, despite my appearance am not a ghost and am simply a man who could not take the heat any longer.”

If the heat continues to rise in the coming weeks, I too may feel forced to commit a similar indiscretion. That, or at least my toes will.