Hello everyone!
Another new weekend to enjoy and once again another challenge that inspires us to write and share, thanks to the engagement topics suggested by 
Fire brings to our memory unique and unrepeatable moments, so it seems in view of what many of us might think. We could recount some experience of a night around a fire, of a fun barbecue with friends, and other similar experiences. Unfortunately, the fires that are now burning the green north of Spain, the Asturias area, also comes to mind, really sad, and I hope that all this misfortune ends soon, but that is another topic.
From sadness we go to joy and originality. Because I associate outdoors fire with other types of experiences, very typical around here. Because I live in a land that loves fire, and almost as a purifying ritual during the most festive big week, the streets are filled with fire. Las Fallas (de Valencia).
I already told you something a couple of weeks ago, in another post, in which I showed some of the many colored cardboard monuments that decorated the streets of many towns in the province for a few days (from March 14 to 19), and special from the capital. Each "falla" (monument) evokes a lot, they are messages, ironies and satires made of endearing dolls, and under a shining sun we visit them and entertain ourselves with each one. All different and beautiful, but we know that on the 19th (Patron Saint Joseph) they are all burned, only some of the dolls will be pardoned and saved from burning. Of the rest, only ashes will remain until next year.
Here is that previous post: A festive Weekend Experience: the Fallas Festival and an open-air museum!
But I stopped there, I didn't share anything about the end of the festival, so this is the moment, as if it were a second part: all is burned!
10 pm arrives at night and the small ones begin to burn, and at 11 pm the winner, and at 12 am at midnight all the big ones, more than 300 enormous monuments begin to burn in the streets, while the ash flies and you can hear the crackling of the fire along with the hymn. A moment in which we look at the flames as they pave the way to renewal, to burn all the bad that ironically appeared represented in all those figures. In the past, old furniture that was going to be thrown away was simply used. Everything old is thrown away and burned, spring arrives and with it renewal and novelty. So year after year.
And every year that moment in March is unique and special, it begins to smell of burning, and of gunpowder, because firecrackers and fireworks accompany the popular ritual. The party is coming to an end, after days of great joy, color, partying, sun and fatigue too. It is an intense party.
After the intensity of the fire, people crowd around, after days of a lot of noise, drink, music and noise, now remain silent. There are those who feel sorry, some even cry, for those days that go away like black smoke into the sky, but those of us who live this burning moment every year know it, everything will come back again, and everything will burn again. Fire as part of the cycle of life where all is renovated, and here as well as part of the festival, of our memories and experiences.
