after the statue
they crave more about Colón
whose gesture marks dreams
Historical Dreams
after the statue
they crave more about Colón
whose gesture marks dreams
motherhood
Almost a Thousand
A thousand posts in three years. I’m almost there. So funny; I started this blog after seeing that Julie and Julia movie. Probably a hundred other people did too. I always wanted to be a writer. Things weren’t looking good in my school district. I thought, perhaps… but now it seems ridiculous. For one thing, unlike the girl in the movie, I couldn’t think of a consistent theme. I didn’t want to write every post about my primary passions: parenting, cycling, baking, education, or travel. I didn’t want to limit myself, and so I just wrote about my day, as I always have, from the time when I was young and kept a journal. The blog became more to me than just a way to possibly make a living someday–you know, all those crazy stories you read about someone making it big in seven months, their site filled with advertisements and their schedule filling up with book tours and talk show appearances.
But I realized, quite a while back, that none of those things would be me anyway. I want to write what I want to write–not geared specifically towards a mother, a teacher, a lover. And I don’t want ads, publishers, or talk show hosts to influence that choice. That would defeat the entire purpose of this blog for me, which is therapy.
Sometimes people ask me how I have time every day to write a post. It’s quite simple, really. I make it a priority in my life, and it becomes as routine as brushing my teeth, kissing my girls goodnight, or heading to work. It is so easy to say, “I don’t have to do that.” On the other hand, it is just as easy to say, “I can do that, and I will.”
Yes, my philosophy of life can pretty much be summed up by The Little Engine that Could. Why not? Those simple children’s stories that we all love and remember really have the key to success for most any society anywhere.
So here I am, almost at the end of year three, and almost at a thousand posts. I certainly never thought, when I decided to start this blog, that I would be writing my thousandth post across the sea, in a small Spanish town along the Mediterranean, where I hear the heavily emphasized tongue of Castellano more often than my own. But dreams have a way of making their way into your life, just like a daily blog post.
All you have to do is think you can. And you will. 🙂
The View from My Window
The view from my window is not quite the beauty I imagined, years ago. It didn’t come with a famous creative writing disclaimer: “This isn’t good enough!” It is streaked with bits of cloud and greasy rain that clings to the single panes in a mockery of winter.
Red tile roofs? Can I have me some Spanish red tile roofs? If I squint, and look several blocks down from my level three piso, I can see a few, scattered just as intermittently as the palm trees in this on-the-fringe, immigrant-ridden neighborhood.
Instead? Run-down row homes, cracked walls along a courtyard aching for maintenance, its sad sprouts of wishing-to-flower plants drooping like withered beans in the midst of a seasonal downpour that they were not prepared to encounter. The street bleeds with life from the early hours of the morning, first with traffic on this central artery leading to downtown, and then earlier in the morning with partyers who linger like plaque along the corner capillaries, trying to sober up after visiting the nightclub down the block. Painted-white aluminum Persian blinds block out most of the windows in my view, their attempt to trap in warmth and keep out the evils of a steady rain as pathetic as a surrender flag held up by a villain still holding a knife, ready to strike.
The inner courtyard speaks a slightly different story. Yes, the rain has reached here too, but with a different set of fingertips. It drips from the metal clothes racks, the nylon lines, and soaks through freshly-washed laundry, its pungent smell, aching of wet sidewalks and age, present on t-shirts and pants when, hours later, we will lay them out in front of the tiny space heater, homemade dryer number two, to force them wearable. But the courtyard itself? It sings with craving-for-rain plants from our neighbors below, with the chirping of caged birds who share stories with our whistles, with the clinking of plates from the sacred three-p.m. meal.
The view from my window in this small city in Spain is not what I thought it would be. There are no waves, no clear vistas of mountain peaks, no perfectly clipped palms to remind me that I live in paradise. So it is when we imagine our dreams, too perfect for their reality upon accomplishment. But as I rise this morning to rewash our rain-soaked sheets, to sit under layers of blankets with my hoodie on, my hot Macbook keeping my legs warm, my youngest popping out of her bedroom to share my covers, the clouds retreat, a quilt of gray tinged with the pink perfection of a late-morning sunrise, and I know, despite the tainted view, that this is still my home.
I Damn Well Know I Can Do It Again!
I’m old. That is pretty much my realization at this point of my year in Spain. I was thinking about my horrific schedule, and reading about all the employees who had to work on Black Friday, and even Thanksgiving this year (GAG!!), and then I started chiming in about my movie theatre days, when I never knew my schedule from week to week, always had to work holidays, and had no benefits. Thinking about this brought my mind around to college in general, where my schedule obviously changed from one semester to the next, with classes on varying days and hours with irritating middle-of-the-day breaks.
Only then, those breaks weren’t irritating. I used them to catch up on homework, chat with friends, or go home to see Bruce on his days off.
I rode home today during my intermittently-interrupted “three-hour” break (with a tutoring session scheduled smack dab in the middle), and of course I had to work during my free time on my University of Phoenix class, part-time job number three.
But it occurred to me, when I was telling the students in Spain about Black Friday, when I was reminiscing those glorious movie theatre days when I got “promoted” to assistant manager and all the employees called in on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, leaving us three managers standing with lines out the door because everyone in America had to see The Green Mile rather than having a conversation with their family members on a sacred holiday, that I have done this before.
And I can do it again.
Sure, stack on the responsibility of caring for three children… but I can do this. I can piece together three part-time jobs to somewhat fill in the gaps of a severely minimal salary. I did it before, worked my way through college, not a penny of debt trailing behind me, and I can damn well do it again.
However, when I was trying to say to Bruce tonight, “That wasn’t that long ago… I mean, I just did that!” I realized that it was thirteen-fifteen years ago… man I’m old. This is why all the other auxiliares are twenty, why they don’t blink for a moment when they pile on extra tutoring sessions or weave their way between parties and bars. They are young, with raw desire for what the world can still offer them, the inconvenience of an erratic schedule just that… an inconvenience.
But as I sat at home this afternoon, thinking, Wow, if my school actually had functioning Internet, I could just stay there and do this Phoenix work, I cut myself short. I came home to Bruce who fixed tea for my aching throat, piled high scrambled eggs with sour cream and salsa, Spanish bread on the side, just exactly how I like them, and my legs were still burning from my quick uphill ride, a few extra miles of back-and-forth commuting tucked under my belt, and I knew, I just knew, I had reached a turning point.
I’ve done it before, and even if I am as old as a bat, I damn well know I can do it again!
My Perspective of Thanksgiving, 2012
For the month of November, I have been watching as many of my Facebook friends have posted daily things in their life that they are grateful for (their family, their memories, their ability to communicate with people from all over the world), all leading up to my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. Why is this my favorite holiday? The most obvious reasons, of course: I love homemade meals, baked goods, and the idea of a celebration being based on gratitude. But most importantly, despite the dark ghost of Black Friday that hovers over this holiday like an evil villain of consumerism, I love the fact that Thanksgiving, in my opinion, is the only holiday in America that is NOT influenced by capitalism. Unlike Halloween (I learned this year, upon making a Halloween PowerPoint for my students in Spain, that the average American spends $72.50 on Halloween items, totaling $5 billion!), Fourth of July, or just about any other holiday where special decorations, clothing, or fireworks flood the stores, Thanksgiving is happily neglected by consumerism due to the impending need for stores to stock up on Christmas hopes (yes, if you thought Halloween was bad, we spend $704, or $50 billion, on Christmas!!!).
But I digress. I, like most of my friends, do see the true importance of Thanksgiving, the root of the word. Regardless of the shady, inaccurate history of this first American holiday, the ability to express the gratitude that we often forget in our day-to-day lives is not lost on me as Thanksgiving approaches.
This year, living abroad, I am more grateful than ever for what I have in my life. Coming to Spain meant sacrificing more than I ever imagined when, one year ago at about this time, I made the decision for us to take this journey. Giving up our home, the most perfect job I’d ever (and probably will ever) have, having to say goodbye to friends who we may not see much of ever again (as our return to the US will depend on where I find work), and being away from our family has been much more difficult than I could have fathomed as I dreamed of learning Spanish, traveling through Europe, and finally fulfilling a lifelong dream.
I woke early this morning, well before my alarm, before the busy street that runs along our apartment filled with the sounds of weekday traffic. I came into the hallway and started to work on the computer while I ate my breakfast, and soon I heard my two youngest daughters rise and quietly begin playing an imaginary game with the 6€ set of cars they bought with their Ratoncito Pérez (the Spanish version of the Tooth Fairy) money at the Chinese store. The sound of their voices creating characters, witnessing love and abandonment, Riona’s small chirps of laughter and Mythili’s authoritative recommendations about car placement and car-jargon dialogue, filled me with warmth.
Coming to Spain, for my girls, meant giving up nearly every toy they owned, nearly all of their books, and making do with what we could fit into their suitcases or afford to purchase upon arrival, which hasn’t been much. Just like I have learned a new perspective about everything related to culture, education, and language, they have learned a new perspective about how to play.
So this Thanksgiving, which is just a regular working day for me where I present my Thanksgiving PowerPoint to Spanish students who know little about the holiday, where I will spend my evening pedaling across town from house to house earning every euro I will need to buy food to put on our table, I am grateful for perspective. The perspective that would be the same had I stayed home, and which has changed exponentially with this experience. The perspective that allows me to be ever so grateful for what my country provides to its citizens while at the same time taking pleasure in the simplicity and family orientation of the Spanish culture. The perspective that gratitude, whether read in faraway posts or spread through heartstrings on a quiet Cartagenian morning, can follow me wherever I go, can be a part of who I am, and can make giving thanks on this day that much more meaningful.
Our Daily Words
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
It Is No Small Irony
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.
Mythili’s Eighth
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
Huelga de la Lluvia
bizcocho in bed
Spanish huelga on the streets
sunny ‘snow day’
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!!
Step Write Up 