YO ESTUDIABA EN EL COLEGIO BLAT. APRENDÍ A SUMAR Y RESTAR DEBAJO DE UN ALGARROBO

Yo estudiaba en el colegio Blat, una cooperativa con fines pedagógicos alternativos, ubicada a pocos metros de la discoteca Amnesia. Aprendí a sumar y restar debajo de un algarrobo, colaboré en la construcción de nuestro campo de fútbol “con nuestras manos”, hice barro y participé en las asambleas donde discutíamos, pacífica y democráticamente, sobre los temas que nos preocupaban. Mientras tanto, nos íbamos encontrando por el camino a cada vez más jóvenes, cadavéricos y descompuestos por los tragos y los estragos, que salían de la discoteca fundada por Escohotado.

Asistimos a las primeras manifestaciones ecologistas de la democracia en la isla –“Ses Salines, Parc Natural!”– y repartimos con alborozo los primeros panfletos políticos –“Isidor, senador”–. En Vila algunas tardes subía a la redacción de UC, el semanario progresista y combativo donde todos hablaban y fumaban a la vez y, se decía, la

“shared fund”, and from the kitchen my aunt would sometimes call me to join her and make conversation. We would listen to the radio, since, naturally, they refused to have television, and every other day, on those hellish inclines, the yellow 2 CV would get a flat tyre.

The grownups went naked on the rocks (something they called “el despelote”), while we were completely embarrassed. No way in hell would we take off our bathing suits. We loved going to the beach, especially in the late afternoon. We’d jump over the waves while Francesc dreamt up the poem that he later wrote, inspired by us, amb records que no se si els tindran mai [“with memories that I don’t know they’ll ever have”].

I studied at Blat, a coop school with a focus on alternative education, located just metres away from the discotheque Amnesia. I learned to add and subtract under a carob tree, I helped to build our football field “with our own bare hands”, I made clay and I took part in meetings where we peacefully and democratically discussed the issues that concerned us. In the meanwhile, we began to run into more and more young people along the road, cadaverous and demolished by drink and disorder, as they left the discotheque founded by Escohotado.

We attended democracy’s first environmentalist demonstrations on the island—”Ses Salines, Natural Park!”— and we joyfully handed out the first political pamphlets— ”Isidor, senador” [“Isidor for senator”]. Some afternoons in the town, I would go up to the editorial office of UC, the weekly progressive and activist paper, where everyone would smoke única que trabajaba era Pilar Bonet. A veces se pasaba por ahí Concha García Campoy, la Concha. Mi padrastro y sus amigos bebían cervezas en Sa Murada. Todo era política y humo para ellos, airados, concienciados, ecologistas y marxistas; luego estaban los que vivían en las comunas, más jóvenes, hedonistas y lisérgicos. Y en el último eslabón, claro, nos situábamos los niños, tratando siempre de no molestar en el mundo de unos mayores que no eran tan mayores y aprendiendo, a marchas forzadas, a ser todo lo responsables que no lo fueron ellos. and talk all at once, and where it was said that the only one who actually did any work was Pilar Bonet. Sometimes Concha García Campoy, “la Concha”, as she was known, would drop by. My stepfather and his friends would drink beer at Sa Murada. For them, everything was politics and smoke. They were angry, politically aware ecologists and Marxists. Then there were those who lived in the communes, who were younger, hedonistic and into psychedelics. And at the bottom link of the chain, of course, were us, the children, always trying not to disrupt the world of the grown-ups who were not so grown-up, while we learned, very quickly, to be every bit as responsible as they were not.

Para escribir no hace falta vivir grandes aventuras, basta haber sido niño, decía Flannery O’Connor. Nosotros lo fuimos en una Ibiza virginal y auténtica, y creedme que aquella infancia fue una pequeña pero gran aventura llena de vida.

Siempre que vuelvo a la isla la humedad se me impregna en la piel nada más pisarla. Luego cierro los ojos, como cuando estaba en mi despacho, y veo a mi madre y a mi tía Berna riéndose de todo y de nada, mientras, a lo lejos, dos niños rubios viven ese exceso de vida que, acaso, no sea más que lo que la infancia debería ser.

Porque la infancia tendría que ser, siempre, excesiva.

“To write you don’t need to live great adventures, it’s enough to have been a child”, said Flannery O’Connor. We were in a pristine and authentic Ibiza, and believe me, that childhood was a small but great adventure full of life.

Whenever I return to the island, the dampness pervades my skin the moment I set foot on it. Then I close my eyes, as I did when I was in my office, and I see my mother and my aunt Berna laughing about everything and nothing, while, in the distance, two blond children live that excess of life that may be just what childhood should be.

Because childhood should always be excessive.