The first time I properly noticed Carnaval was the day I realised my internal clock was wrong. I thought I had rhythm because I had spent years counting beats and cues. I thought I could feel when it was time to come in. Then I stood in the centre of Cádiz on a Saturday morning and discovered that “everyone else” already knew the tempo and I was late for everything.
Carnaval is not one thing. It is many things layered on top of each other. It is a chirigota that has finished its verse but not its argument, followed by a ronda that is still warming up. It is percussion that sounds like it is having a conversation with the tiles under your feet. The street becomes a score of overlapping patterns and the crowd moves like a single organism with all the subtlety of a drummer who has been practising for years.
At home, we tried to bring some of that organised chaos into our daily routine. I thought that meant practicing more. Liz thought it meant setting timers so meals were ready at decent hours. It turned out that rhythm at home is actually about structure, and structure at home is about the tools you use. When we installed a few gadgets to help with reminders and routines it made a real difference. That is how we came across Clearly Automated whose smart home solutions felt like adding an extra pair of ears to the house. Not in a Big Brother way, but in a way that makes sure we know when the coffee is done and the oven has cooled, which matters if you want to practise, cook, and rest without stepping on each other’s metronome.
Carnaval shows you how different bodies follow different metres. The drummer in the square is not listening to the flute player. They are both listening to something else. It is the same with us. I am keyed into half beats and syncopation. Liz is keyed into the cadence of the morning espresso and the hum of the street. The house listens too, in the sense that it creaks along with whatever we do. We have an old floorboard that sounds like a snare on every second step. It keeps its own time.
Walking through the carnival crowd I kept trying to place accents where there were none. I looked foolish. I tapped my foot and the person next to me tapped theirs differently. Some people bobbed, some swayed, some had no visible connection to sound at all yet they were still “in it” in a way I was not. It was humbling and fascinating.
That day I realised that rhythm is not just about timing and counting but about shared memory. A chirigota knows its call and response because the town taught it that way. A ronda swings because it has practised with every old guitar in the neighbourhood. I have scars on my fingers from years with brass and woodwind. None of that prepared me for the human rhythm of this city.
I tried to bring back what I saw and heard into our routine. Not the literal beats. Not the volume. Just the idea that timing can be something you feel with your whole body and not something you measure only in bars. Now we move through mornings with that in mind. I set up reminders that feel like subtle cues rather than strict alarms. Liz greets each hour with a smile because she knows it has a purpose. The house accommodates all of it with its quirks and sighs.
Carnaval will come again. I will stand in the middle of it. I will listen and I will learn, and maybe one day I will stop trying to impose my own internal metronome on a city that dances by memory, by crowd, by rhythm that is shared and lived rather than counted. Until then I practice patience. And I listen.
