family

The Clouds of a Crisis

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

the clouds move in
on our long walk across town,
the bike ride’s end
tagging along my subconscious

their cacophony emanates
through slick crosswalks
and cart-pulling passersby
as we make our way into
the theatre where they will become
the stage presences
they’ve only seen in pictures

after the show my colleague announces,
heavy accent and all,
It’s raining men,
and his prim-and-proper appearance,
his paisley umbrella,
fit in a warm spot
at the bottom of my heart

i teach one class (solo today),
the chart comparing schools
in Spain to America
too dense to ever fit
within the bounds of
a chalk-dust ridden
minuscule version of education

the rides home, back out,
home, back out, cause waves
of daily inconsistency that
pour out of the sky,
bearing down on the heaviness
of my home across the sea

my country sits divided
on a fence i cannot fathom,
these moments of
familiarity and love
bursting through
the clouds of a crisis
none of my countrymen can understand

in darkness,
on rain-slick tiled side streets,
i make my final pedal,
capture your words on the screen,
and wonder when we can
relinquish the rain

20121106-234012.jpg

Elevator Doors

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

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

20121104-192324.jpg

Benidorm

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

they swim all morning
cloudy day shopping after
our car abandoned

20121103-200233.jpg

First Spain Vacation

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

an eighteenth floor view
salty air, waves kissing beach
peaceful, well-earned sleep

20121103-115048.jpg

Trigo

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

wheat.
it’s my favorite Spanish word
learned in studies
to present the idea of hay
for Halloween

for me?
wheat beer,
an entire liter.
we walked across town
in search of the path
that would lead our girls
to a view of 2000 years of history

we were interrupted
by clients who thought
1.5 liters of beer
could never be enough

we walked across town,
our children in tow
and this is my Spain
as pure as anything,
the real beer,
the Pilsner to top it off,
and the warmth we swam an ocean for–
our kids’ words intermingled
like love in a basket

Trigo
wheat
it’s what makes us
who we are

Unpredictability

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

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

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

because i can’t say no
five weekdays i work past nine
predawn morn with my girls

A Vacation Day

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

small mountains pounded by wind
for a million more years
than our Rockies,
we listen to the persistent slap
of waves coming in,
smashing into slate,
bubbling up along the beach,
a Mediterranean breeze
no competition
for howling Fourteeners’ gales

just like in Colorado,
only shrubbery will grow here,
yet it persists
beneath a blistering sun
that has taken a vacation day,
just as we do now

instead, sprinkles of rain
mock our first steps,
and we discover fluffy carrascos
and giant yucca-like palm bushes,
a chaparral setting with
soil colorado, tinted red,
the roots of our state
along the shores of this sea

20121022-222935.jpg

20121022-222945.jpg

20121022-222954.jpg

20121022-223003.jpg

20121022-223013.jpg

20121022-223020.jpg

20121022-223029.jpg

20121022-223037.jpg

20121022-223045.jpg

20121022-223055.jpg

Drooping Blue Tents

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

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

/ lovizmytrio / 5 Comments

“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.