ice cream without spoon
my restless night without you
her words bearing down
unexpected break
work finished, gift of a nap
words of love exchanged
Thanksgiving in Spain
PowerPoint some will follow
others, my words are lost
oven uninstalled
girls translate the missing parts
language their best tool
words keep me there late
every week a new story
culture coming through
four miles in mountains
sea-level city in view
small leg miracles
It is no small irony who appears at our door for Mythili’s birthday party. We had warned her beforehand of the possibility of no-shows, and I want to gulp back my inadequacy as a mother. I am not there, I hear myself saying, to chat with the mothers on the sidewalk as they smoke cigarettes and hover near their cars after leaving you at school, to ask, “Can your daughter come to my daughter’s birthday celebration?”
I wonder though, in all honesty, if my schedule didn’t bear down on me, if I had all the time in the world, if I’d even dare for a moment to participate in conversations whose language I barely understand.
So let me put it frankly. The only child who rang our bell appeared with her mother and younger sister, head wrapped in a scarf. No, not the mother, the this-must-be-a-Moor mother. The baby sister.
It wasn’t until hours later, when she stood in the quickly-darkening hallway, the same small girl in tow, that I remembered: this is the girl and the mother I saw disembarking the ambulance in the rain the other day, my frenzied walk home interrupted by the sudden heartbreak of a scarf-wrapped head on a child too young to know this kind of pain.
“Fatima’s sister doesn’t go to school, we don’t know why,” the girls tell me when I inquire about the girl’s age, whether the girl is in Riona’s class, selfishly thinking of my youngest who has the greatest difficulty making friends.
Of course she doesn’t go to school. Her mother, from Morocco, the one who doesn’t speak Spanish? The one who, upon a singular invitation by Isabella has sent her daughter daily to our door for my barely-speaks-Spanish daughter to help this poor girl with her Spanish science, religion, and art homework?
It is no small irony that she is the singular invitee who appears at our door for Mythili’s birthday party. An outcast, a Moor, a Muslim. The epitome of the pitiful look I encounter when I mention the name of the school my daughters attend. Never mind that the Moors settled this land hundreds of years before the Christians, that the glamorous palace people travel thousands of miles to see in Granada is actually of Muslim architecture, that the very name of this city I live in is a blend of Moroccan “Carto” and Latin “Nova.”
When her mother buzzes our bell to collect her child more than an hour after I suggested the ‘party’ would end, I want to speak to her. I want to pull the small child standing next to her into our apartment, to spew out a slur of welcoming words, to let her know that her daughters could appear here any day of the week, that we would welcome them faster than the public healthcare system they traveled across the sea to access, that we are not Christians, but have the heart of Christians.
But, as usual, as the hallway light, on its perfect timer of impatience, flashes from brighter-than-we-can-handle to complete darkness, all I can say is, “Pasa, pasa,” gesturing to our small hallway crammed with our grocery cart, a table, and my American, Chinese-made bicycle, as her daughter gathers her coat, puts on her shoes, and takes in hand the three balloons on Chinese-store sticks that my girls have portioned out for her.
They leave without a proper exchange of words. Without me thanking them to the fullest extent, without their ability to tell me what they wanted to say. A perfect summary of the past three months of my life.
breakfast tray in bed
craves the words more than the dolls
can’t believe she’s eight
wash, treat, cut, and style
nine euros, Spanish freedom
tangle-free curls bounce
café con leche
warm enough to sit outside
a gift of a date
Hello Kitty wrap
princess receives surprise gift
art set opens warmth
one hour together
my time with them so precious
color in our dreams
pedal click in, out
first forget purse, then helmet
next will lose my mind
home to hot shower
never mind the broken door
day is wrapped in love
bizcocho in bed
Spanish huelga on the streets
sunny ‘snow day’
a Spanish English morn
tapered by returning rain
girls bouncing off walls
i share your words,
i listen to happiness,
to discontent that carries
across the ocean.
but you, but i,
am interrupted
four days of clouds,
towels and pants
making hallway maneuvering unmanageable,
the sky breaks free
and we have ourselves a sunny day
we walk along our crowded street,
stop at the museum
that creeps Isabella out,
that brings out
your Byzantine God
(i take pictures of all but the mummy)
the store beckons
our grumbling stomachs
where we find cheap pastries
and German beer,
making everyone happy enough
for a quick bar stop
my girls play in trees,
scattering flowers along the
“aisle” of their wedding,
become petulant when
boys from their class arrive
and beg to play futbol
on their perfectly decorated locale
your words follow me through the day,
so long lost over weeks, months,
the venting disgruntlement,
the loving goodbye,
just as if i stood in that
hotel hallway holding your hand,
as if i weren’t here
hearing only the Spanish version
of everything i needed to say
sleeping in wasted
for a child who wouldn’t wake
weekend plan: homework
I ride home through day three of rain-soaked streets, a three hour gap of impertinent design in my impossible-to-manage schedule. Should I be enjoying this time, sifting through chapters of the book I’ve been trying to listen to for three months, with never enough time to complete it? Should I be watching television, feeding myself on Spanish versions of family board games or documentaries on subjects I can barely understand in English?
Here I sit, finding solace in the words I write. On Monday, I did something unfathomable–I missed a class!! This is pretty much one of the greatest fears of my life: to not show up to work, to be absent, tardy, or incompetent at what I do. How could I have missed yet another change to my schedule? I had iPhone calendar ready, in hand on Monday morning, and it promised me that I didn’t have to return to school that day.
The old saying, every day is a new day, has a new meaning for me in this space I fit myself into. I am, perhaps more than anyone I know, a person whose life is embedded with routines. There is a reason I love teaching, and it’s not just reaching out to students and summers off. It is the consistency of the same routine day in and day out, both in the schedules of my classes and the way that I set up a classroom–begin first with a warmup, engage the students, write things out for them under the document camera, cycle through the room to check for understanding, call on students who may not know the answer and pry it out of them. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Also: rising at 4:18 each day. My solitary breakfasts of checking on my University of Phoenix classes, sipping hot tea, and making some smart-ass comment on Facebook. Then pulling on layers of cycling gear, packing up my saddlebag, and enjoying that ride across town, where I could change clothes and keep my bike inside my pod, its seat, helmet, and chains protected from the evils of nature and society. Seeing the same familiar faces of colleagues, chatting about the stupid Broncos game or asking me what would work best for this lesson today. Going to the same six classes, planning for the next day, then cycling home, to arrive at the same time as my daughters, and to be able to enjoy every moment of their fit-pitching, homework-groaning, shower-whining fights, their I-love-yous, hugs, and snuggling up on the couch at bed time reading stories. Bed time for me two hours later, after writing, reading, chatting with friends, relaxing in my recliner and piling high mint chocolate chip ice cream to top off the simplicity of my everyday life.
It’s so funny how the mundane routine of life could be desirable. On top of everything else I have had to adjust to in Spain, I think my schedule will bear down on me more than the words I think I’ll never learn, the cultural nuances I’ll miss, and the absence of adequate teaching tools (chalk dust is embedded in my fingerprints). While I only work twelve hours a week at the school, the times vary each day, and are constantly being switched around, cancelled, or augmented. No matter how many times I’ve copied the printed calendar into my iPhone, I can guarantee I’ve missed at least one change. I never quite know if I will see my girls off to school or be able to meet them at the last siren. And at the school? I attend twelve different classes every week, have to work with seven different teachers, have no time to plan anything in advance with any of them, and must walk into each classroom not knowing a single name of any student (all of whom are together all day, sit next to their best friends, and have been in the same class together for years). So when the teachers step out or simply do not care about classroom management? I can’t call out José or Patricia and tell them, in words they will understand, to be respectful and pay attention. I am just a substitute to them, swirling around in a world of chaos.
And to top off the inconsistency of that, my tutoring schedule varies with such extremes that I have become the worst clockwatcher of all time. I even bought a watch!! Working five to six hours every evening, with random gaps between, I have actually had to make a calendar for Bruce to know when to fix dinner every night (there are some things I will NOT let go, and one is dinner with my family). I have to rush between tutoring appointments to the extent that it is no longer possible to walk; I must carry my bike up and down the six flights of stairs all day and all night long. I rush between four or five clients a day, trying to plan activities for preschoolers, fifty-year-old men, mostly-fluent adults, and apathetic teenagers.
When I arrive home some time between 9:30 and 9:45 each night, I wish I could stay up late, relax, watch a movie and know that I can sleep in the next day. But I can’t. I have to rise before dawn each morning to work with the girls on their homework, learning the Spanish words I will never need to use, such as the parts of a snail, the inner ear, or synonyms.
How is it that I am only working forty hours a week? It feels like sixty. The loneliness of such an oppressive schedule chokes me, as I can never talk to anyone back home during the week, since they are all just rising right when I begin my second cycle of work. Here in Spain, every day is a new day, literally. I never know just where I need to be, whose class I might lose control over, or exactly the right materials to bring with me as I pedal across town. All I can hope is that I will learn to adjust to this as I have adjusted to everything else that I have flipped upside down during the past six months of my life.
with humidity-ridden relentless curls
popping out all over my head,
a blue bathing suit and haphazard sarong,
i stand ashamed in the crowded elevator
they wait for me below,
our words carved in the sand
inside a heart as haphazard as me
we stop on level ten,
and in the moment of waiting
for silver doors to re-close,
i see his whole family:
girls dressed to the nines
in their Sunday best,
older mother in wheelchair,
he in tie and collared shirt
it is too crowded for them,
but not for the words he hands
over to me like pieces of gold
bonito, he begins,
and looking down at my Crocs,
i’m sure he is mistaken.
que has hecho, es muy bonito,
(the ever-formal verbiage of Castellano)
and in that singular moment
between when the doors
have opened and closed,
i manage a mental translation,
remember our words in the sand
(WE MISS YOU),
and hand him back a timid Gracias
what you have made,
he tells me,
is very beautiful.
and i can’t decide
if it is his words or mine
that mean more to me
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