they swim all morning
cloudy day shopping after
our car abandoned
Benidorm
they swim all morning
cloudy day shopping after
our car abandoned
daughters
Unpredictability
You can’t predict this. That your day will begin before dawn and end later than most people in America would consider working. Hell, in Spain, too, though they sure as hell don’t mind hiring me to work that late!
There was no way of knowing, before I came here, how much homework my daughters would have. How intimidating and complex it could be, while I sit with my translate app ready to look up the English version of words like slither, spinal, and homonym. How much time this would take out of the exceedingly brief time I have with them each day. How I could lose sleep over how early I need to set the alarm, because what if Mythili fails her science test or Riona doesn’t have a chance to read aloud to me or Isabella can’t retell the story of Jesus saving all and bringing his followers to the kingdom of heaven when she’s never heard these stories in English to compare them to??
This isn’t my singular problem. I have come up with a new theory (yet again) about Spain. Since I spend most of my day not with my family but with Spaniards, I hear all kinds of stories and details about their culture. Students commonly spend 4-5 hours a night completing homework, and parents often take classes themselves, for professional development, French, English, you name it. Not because they’re looking forward to a salary increase, mind you. Because they want to learn. Week nights are essential to their incremental increase of knowledge.
Studying and working so intensely, especially between the days of Monday through Thursday, are as much a part of this culture as sacred meal times, siesta, and family-only weekends. Yes, they may live for vacations, but they work their asses off in between times so that they can enjoy them!
So when I had a few clients tonight mention to me that next Thursday is (yet another) fiesta, and “will you be working?” I almost answered no. But I’m just too damn American. I want to say, “You do realize that if I don’t work, I don’t get paid, right? And that I have a family?” But I just tell them, “Yes, I’m working,” to which they respond with, “OK… well it is a holiday, so we’ll call you next Wednesday to let you know if we’re taking a trip or not.”
It’s almost laughable! I can’t imagine planning a trip the day before I take it! Just like I can’t imagine allowing Isabella to put off her religion homework till Sunday night, or letting Mythili get by with just a 7 on her lengua exam (that will never happen again!), or allowing Riona to skip out on circling all the letters her teacher wants her to focus on enunciating this week (though this is not required).
I couldn’t have predicted how complicated our lives would be here. The impossibility of presumptions that I could have made, most of which would have been untrue, would have made a long tail that followed me across the sea and would have been chopped slowly away with each new day. Fortunately, I was too busy giving up my previous life one heartbreak at a time before boarding that plane, so I didn’t have any time to predict anything at all. And that is why I am still able to set my alarm for the exact right minute and suck the marrow out of every brief moment of life that does not involve a frenzied cycle across town, trying to explain an overly-litigate society to Spaniards whose schools don’t have proper fire alarms, or translating food wheels for a seven-year-old. Instead, I can look forward to next week’s fiesta in Benidorm, a trip I planned weeks ago, have already booked and paid for, and beats out all predictions–impossible to make–about how intensely I would love my vacations!!
The Sun Rises at 8
because i can’t say no
five weekdays i work past nine
predawn morn with my girls
Drooping Blue Tents
we have a car
but are now so accustomed
to walking
that it sits in front of our building
we move across town,
the streets as familiar
as the smiles on their faces.
we order beer, wine,
and a baklava-like mirengue-topped
pastry that tastes like s’mores
and is gobbled up in two minutes
they stand in front of the circus sign
and we make our way across the bridge,
Reina Victoria in our back pocket,
coupons ready
for the first time we witness
the financial crisis
that weighs heavily on
the drooping blue tents,
kids as young as five performing,
throwing in camels, pythons,
and even Monster High,
holding up a sign at the end,
¡Viva El Circo!
while two-thirds of the seats
are vacuous reminders
of where people are
on a Saturday night
best. circus. ever.
is what my girls say,
never complaining once
about the long walk home
but all i can hear,
all i can see
as we move along rain-washed sidewalks,
their tiles as slippery as death,
is the American song,
“Unbreak My Heart”
whose Spanish rendition
and brightly-lit acrobatic act
brought tears to my eyes
the words
though they didn’t belong
the seats
though mostly empty
trampled out the desperation
that sits unspotlighted
in the back of every
slightly drooping circus tent
Costs
“Why must you work every night?” Mythili asks, her ever-proper English bleeding through, even in Spain. “So we have money to buy food and go to fun places on the weekends,” I reply as quickly and brightly as I can manage, wondering the same thing, her words tugging my heart in every direction. “Oh yes, because we wasted 55€ on gas that one weekend?”
Yes, Mythili, my maker of details, my memorizer of moments filled with groaning parents and frantic disappointment, where a simple trip to the beach cost more than I earn in a day (gas, tolls, parking, ice cream… we didn’t even buy real food!).
I am making this work, is what I want to say. I have to work every night because I am determined to make this work. I want to see this country, I want you to experience it, and we cannot stay if I don’t work, we cannot take a weekend in Barcelona, drive to Portugal at Christmas, or go to the Spanish circus if I don’t work.
Instead I gather her up in my arms and hold back the tears that have been absent for weeks (a miracle! After months of ever-present pain and ever-ready tears, it’s been weeks since I have felt them on my cheeks). One day you will understand, I almost say, but I know she won’t. She will be like me, thinking back on my childhood, wishing I had more time with my always-working parents. And she’ll remember these long evenings without her mother and wonder why I brought us here.
Just like me, cycling across town, entering one Spanish home after another where children scream at me, where people cancel on me whenever they see fit, cutting my paycheck for the week but leaving me with random gaps of time that I can’t quite fill, I will look back, I just might look back, and wonder why I brought us here.
But she can’t hear these doubts that sit like acrid lemon juice on the tip of my tongue. Instead, I breathe in the smell of her hair, whisper, “I love you,” and ask her to make an amazing plan for our weekend, no matter what it might cost. After all, it has already cost us enough.
Beach Love
three girls on the beach
a small photo for camera
forever in heart
Home
It’s been six weeks. They’ve had some bitter arguments, teary-eyed, face-slapping, pinching arguments. They’ve fought over toys, bread, milk. They’ve had fleeting comments about one place, friend, family member, or taste that they miss from back home.
But they have not once said, “I wish we didn’t come.”
Instead they have filled their time with: week one–decorating their rooms with paper torn from one of the notebooks we brought, colored pencils from Wal-mart, drawing pictures of flowers, pretty little girls, rainbows, and taping them up all over the white walls. Week two–preparing for school and getting their feet ready to walk miles in a day, gushing about the beauty of the harbor, trying out different kinds of foods, commenting on all the similarities and differences between this country and theirs. Week three–adjusting to school, crying a bit, laughing a bit, bragging over short hours, casual clothes, a variety of subjects that they’ve never experienced before. Week four–perfecting their hideouts in the park, being chased after by boys and girls, loving the festival’s parade, carnival, and ginormous cotton candies. Week five–wanting only uniforms to conform, they asked for nothing else, not more money, a desire to own a car, be free, to speak better Spanish. Week six–curling in their rooms with books in the iPad, playing games with Zoobles and the cars they spent six euros on today, blowing bubbles and living in a world that is completely different from home, a world in which they are completely at home.
How I love my girls. How amazing they are, to come here, to do this with me, and never for one moment think this is not where we should be. They are my strength, my dream, my hope for wherever we go in this life.
Direct Translation
I set my alarm for just after 8. It is almost laughable. 8!! I used to get up at 4:16. It is surreal to me now, not even in the realm of possibility. I need to finish grading these papers on Saturday morning (the real morning, not the Spaniard version) before we pick up our “free” weekend car.
The girls pop out of their rooms just after 9 (how I love these Persian blinds that block out all light). I am not finished yet, and they meander in and out of the living room eating Nutella-ridden bread, crumbs dripping onto the couch we’ll never be able to vacuum. Such a simple idea, isn’t it? A vacuum?
My world back home is seven hours away from waking, and I put sloppy grades on a few last papers for the job they pay me next to nothing for while they send emails about their latest advertising campaign and take money from the federal government to finance loans for students who will neither graduate nor pay them back, but that’s OK. Thank you, Phoenix, for funding the 54€ in gas, the uniforms that cost more than they’re worth at Corte Inglés, the place that wouldn’t take my American credit card when everywhere else it works just fine? The store that doesn’t have adjustable waist bands for my too-skinny girls, that doesn’t offer hangers but includes a post office, a ferreteria, a price that doubles for the same exact brand, same exact fucking skirt, so be sure you’re paying attention or you’ll get screwed? Oh… yes. THIS must be the store my Spaniards were talking about when they said clothes were expensive in Spain. I mean, Pepe Jeans and DKNY for toddlers???
But I digress. What is the point of this post? Ahh, yes. My suitcase. My bicycle. The items I paid a pretty penny for, the things I brought from America that I either regret or am forever thankful for. (Duh, the bike is on the forever thankful for list).
Why did I bring soap? Sweaters? Endless pairs of pants? Will I ever see anything but summer? We spent the day in our “free” car at the beach on October 6th!! Am I ever going to pull onto my legs the seven pairs of pants, the fall-to-the-floor skirts, the winter coat whose presence in my wardrobe is nothing but a harsh reminder of the snow in Denver that people keep posting about today?
Why did I not bring what I would need? Books for my girls. My LCD projector. My electric teapot. A driver’s license that works anywhere in the world? (oops… impossible) And today? Monistat.
To tag onto my realm of reality, yesterday’s post: Wal-mart, I miss you. Your $5.97 price for a three-day cure, your place on the shelf in the pharmacy section (holy fuck, I almost started typing that with an F! Spanglish is destroying my mind!!)
But no. It’s OK, I can do this. I can walk the two blocks to the Farmacia, green cross flashing almost every hour of the day (not Sunday, nor between 3-6, of course!!). I have iPhone translator ready! Am prepared to look for what it tells me. The phrase is memorized before I enter the tiny store, where I’m inundated with condoms, sex creams, and baby bottles, multivitamins for toddlers, all in the same section, of course. After a quick review of the this-is-no-Walgreens store, I face the facts: it’s going up to the counter or suffering weeks with an uncomfortable itch.
Wow. This blog is getting brutal.
It’s so simple, really! The phrase! Levadura crema anti hongos. She is young, just out of college, in her pretty white coat.”For your feet, or for your body?”
Shit. I’m screwed. There’s a possibility she thinks I have Athlete’s Foot. “Body!” I almost shout. (Do we need to specify which part?) She goes to the back and emerges with a small box of cream. Begins to announce the topical use on all parts of the body, and I hold my hand up. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is it. I need… I don’t know how to say it.” Some fast fingers later, Mr. iPhone translator fucks me over again. Is there no word for yeast in Spanish???
I type in yeast infection and all I get is a translation that basically says, infection of the cream to cure the infection?? I show her the screen, feeling sheepish. (It is only hours later, examining the Spanish directions for the cream, that I remember the Latin root, Candidas. Yay for etymology that doesn’t come through in moments of trepidation!). “Su traducción…” she begins, and, as I do as an ESL teacher, as I do every day in Spain, I think of a simpler way to say it. I type in vaginal infection, and… of course!! It comes right up, a direct translation, same fucking words and all??? “Infección vaginal?” Wow.
A grin on her face as she examines the screen I hold up in front of her, she pops in and out of the back, and I have two weeks of torture in front of me, no sex, no simple cure, no pulling off the shelf in Wal-mart my one night stand, my freedom handed over in less than six dollars. But at least I can say that I faced my fear, walked into the pharmacy, and translated all my doubts via iPhone into the everyday reality of my life. I am lost in translation, out for the count, ready to cash in my chips for all I didn’t pack, all the money I have taken advantage of for so long, that is now poured into the Spanish economy like blood bringing new life to a newborn, one I hold within my arms and nurse as I think of a new beginning to my life in this home that is my home and not my home.
What I Miss
There are things I miss so fiercely that my heart aches. A good long, cold and isolated bike ride, breath steaming out of my lungs, coming across the deer along the fence, the perfect mountain view tinted by rays of morning sun, everything just coming into the dawn of a new day. My mornings, solitude and strength building me up for whatever I might face, knowing that I could face the world after that ride.
My recliner. Chosen by me, ridiculed for being too large, but so thick, soft, a perfect armrest I once used to nurse all my babies, it leaned back perfectly, laptop in lap, movie on screen, book in hand, the perfect piece of furniture for every situation.
My Hyundai. Not the car itself, its junky no-lights-on-interior nothing to brag about. Just the freedom it provided, piling the kids in on our latest adventure, trekking across town to the museum, the zoo, the reservoir… how I miss the ability to go anywhere, anytime, for them to share that freedom with me, to be able to explore the world without limitations of bus schedules, car rental fees, and finances.
The telephone. Being able to pick it up and call my friends, my parents, my sister, anyone, without having to worry about an eight-hour time difference, without thinking, what a fucking shitty day, I need to talk, and knowing that I can’t talk to anyone, any time, about all the things in life I need to talk about. That it really is just us, the five of us, and we have to figure out a way to be everything for each other in every moment, whether it’s my girls’ fierce insistence on me spending my last dollar on school uniforms I can’t afford because they already stand out enough, and they need to fit in, or Bruce hating his inability to communicate anything, or me running into one problem after another with the principal (what IS it with me and principals???).
Wal-mart. God, I never thought I’d say that. Wal-mart, I miss you! I know I cursed you every time I walked in, ridiculed your inability to keep items in stock, criticized your exploitation of Chinese products, your destruction of the natural environment. But I wish you were here to save me when I can’t find a decent store to buy what my girls need, to be open when I need to print out a bus ticket or make copies for lessons, to take back all my items without a receipt!! TO BE OPEN ALL THE TIME!! Even Sundays!
Microbrews. I don’t think any description needs to follow the smooth taste of a home-brewed Hefeweizen straight out of the tap from Dry Dock.
My oven!! AN oven. No homemade pizzas. No baking chicken or potatoes. No broiling steak. But above all and everything, never a chance, for a whole year, to make a single batch of brownies. I can almost feel the melted chips sticking to my tongue, the tiny crumbs at the bottom of the pan pinched between my fingers, the smell that filled the house for hours…
Again, my words, my beautiful words. Trapped here in this blog, lost to everyone here who thinks I’m just some stupid American who’s timid and speechless. Oh, how I miss my words.
He Perdido Mis Palabras
And do you know what I hate the most? I am a wordsmith. OK, maybe not the most amazing worker of words the world has ever seen, but I can say what I need to say, and what anyone else might be thinking as well, in a way that is genuine, that people can understand.
Do you know how difficult it is to go through each day and NOT be able to say what you want to say? To barely understand what those around you say in order to come up with an appropriate response? I am no longer witty. I am no longer audacious. I am just an ignorant fuck who sounds like a bumbling idiot.
If you were me, if you were the one whose parents and teachers told her at age eight, “You have a gift for words, you should be a writer,” do you know how difficult each waking moment would be? To know that your words were gone, stripped, tossed away? That your children’s words, the social butterfly oldest’s especially, the one who finds a friend in every circumstance, but has fear and anxiety now due to her language barrier, are all taken away??
And I ask myself, why am I here? Why have I demeaned myself to this extent that I will sit here crying for hours because my principal hates me so much that he told the department head that I deserved to be on my own, to travel to Murcia alone and figure out how to do my job because I have been so COLD to him???
I have met him twice, briefly, and I didn’t say much. I don’t talk much here. I am not myself. And now I am hated for not being myself, just like I am hated in other places for using my mouth too fucking much.
Why would I do this? Why would I turn down a viable job with a decent salary to become a teacher assistant in a foreign country where I CLEARLY don’t fit in, where the language burns my tongue, limits my every movement, where we are paupers with kids in a shitty school, where I have pulled myself ten notches down from my earned position in life?
The irony of it all: to learn a language. To find a new set of words, a new way of describing the world, to take on and imbed the words somewhere deep down, plant them in my soul for the hope of a different, better, view of this world.
Por favor. Ayúdame. He perdido mis palabras!
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