Love at Lila’s House

He handed me the yellow piece and picked up the green for himself.  We smiled as the pieces found their place and I realized I may have found mine.

It was a sunny blue hour of the morning, I had taken the bus from my hostel for 15 minutes down the road to Cala Major in Mallorca, Spain.  Hopped off at the stop to where the beach was behind me and a sandstone fortress with a lookout at the top was in front of me.  I took a right and made my way following the maps I had pulled up on my phone. The cool breeze brushed my legs and pulled goosebumps like a magnet with it.  Not a soul surrounded me on the street, just some cars flying by each way every 30 seconds.  I take a left at a split in the road to see a square black sign on a bike with “Lila’s House” written in chalk.  I slowly walked up to the counter that held homemade baked goods and I knew that banana bread had been what I was missing.  Behind the counter hid a woman who couldn’t have been taller than 5 feet with fair skin that I mistook for a young girl, she turned out to be one of the owners.  I looked further down to where my eyes met a 5-year-old bright ocean-eyed curly brown-haired boy who nervously broke eye contact.  While I was quite confused by the dynamic of the heartwarming place I had picked out online the night before, I was excited to be in a family-run establishment.

I asked if I could take a seat nervously because with the 9 tables set up in a grid, only one old elderly woman was sitting there who looked to be the owner's friend.  The curly brown-haired mid-30-year-old man came out from the back to assure me with a smile that they were open and I could sit anywhere I liked.

“Welcome! I’m very excited that you are here!” he said animatedly as he showed me how to scan the menu.  I felt at ease and excited to be filled with home-cooked food, just in Spain. 

The QR code was not working on my phone so he had offered to pull it up on his phone.  We shared some laughs as he realized that the QR code didn’t work at all.  Unsure of what to do he explained to me some of the things on the menu, thankfully I had looked at the menu before and for the most part knew what I wanted so we were able to work it out quickly.

He came back with my coffee and asked where I was from and in return, I asked where he was from.  “I lived on other side of the island but I met my wife at Cala Major right over there.  So after dating and marrying we chose to open a cafe here! And this is our little one Borja.”  Borja was playing a wooden shapes puzzle where each piece was a different color of the rainbow sitting on a bench at a shorter wooden table just behind me.

My heart warmed to see how happy Emi was to talk to me about the cafe and his picture-perfect little family.  I didn’t want him to stop as he was quite literally explaining my dream life.

“We opened just last year.  We love to make friends here and make food and coffee for them!  We also have yoga classes, my wife Lupa leads them!” He gestures his arm in her direction and she responds with a smiley wave. 

I waved and continued to talk to him about his and his family’s life.  He was speaking English extremely well which had been hard to come by during my trip.  I asked him how he got so good at English and he responded saying, “I took class online because I wanted to learn very much.  So now, I teach little Borja too!  We want him to know both.” Borja paid no attention to his name being brought up and stuck his attention to his puzzle.  

I was amazed by his personal goal of learning another language on his own.  He continued, “See here in Mallorca there are a lot of tourists, and many like you, speak English and here we want everyone to be welcome and be friends.  I want to be able to talk to you and become friends, you know!”  We shared a laugh and suddenly I didn’t feel alone on my first solo trip.  

After my food came out, still the only one at the cafe, he asked if he and Borja could come sit with me to eat.  Of course, I loved the company so they each brought over a piece of banana bread, Borja’s covered in icing, and sat down.  We talked and laughed and the sun began to warm the cafe with not only heat but with light as more than half of it was outside.  I got to ask about what he recommends I should do or see here he replied with “Our yoga class!”  We laughed again and we figured out that sadly, there wasn’t a class in the next two days I was here.

“This island is beautiful, the people if you meet them are beautiful.  There is so much love on the island that I think should be everywhere.  I think you go explore, adventure anywhere you go and you will have an amazing time.  We have water, mountains, trees, animals, boats, food, coffee,” he raised his coffee to cheers with me.  “But serious, my favorite is love.  We have love.  So take it and share it.”

He unintentionally was making me a little emotional but all I could feel was gratitude and happiness that I came across this cafe.  Borja then after his pastry was scarfed down brought over his puzzle and looked at me with a deep gaze as if to ask me to play the puzzle with him.

Piece by piece we smiled and laughed until I realized that this is the love this family and this business sought to share.  Emi was right, Mallorca has love.