Medieval market
roasted chestnuts across sea
an old song in Spain
Phoenician remains
three thousand years of progress
thank you for the words
canceled opening
rediscovering downtown
magic Roman port
paperwork finished
official Spain resident
now a paycheck please
¿quieres jugar?
words on wings float through playground
somehow lost on girls
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
I walked four miles today. That seems to be the average, if I’m not cycling to save time (certainly not for any velocity or muscle improvement, always having to weave through crowds on sidewalks or stop at a crosswalk to let pedestrians pass). More importantly, my girls walked over two miles, mostly between ten and eleven at night, from the crowded downtown area where we stopped to take pictures of the city hall and the giant flag of Spain, where we tried sardines and anchovies and lamb chops, where we celebrated our new-found freedom of me having gainful employment, where I carried my grandmother’s spirit at the back of every thought.
Classic poses to match the classic architecture.
My girls’ faces in the picture? Classic. More classic to me than the Roman architecture so proudly lit up behind us. The center of downtown feels like the true Europe to me. Reminds me of Italy, where I visited when I was fourteen, so anxious to see my grandmother’s homeland. I wish I had been able to go with her on one of her trips to visit her relatives. I think about these things now as I stop to take a picture of the Virgin Mary on my walk through downtown early this morning, as I look at all the families doting on their children here, so openly affectionate. I feel embraced by the warmth of the culture here, so at home with who I am as I walk down these streets.
I can’t pinpoint exactly what it is that led me to this point in my life. The easiest culprit would be the Spaniards who stayed with us for a year in our home, their exuberance for life so contagious that none of my friends could get enough of them, that their absence left a hollow mark in the shadows of our house.
But it’s so much deeper than that. What leads one to follow impossible dreams, to sacrifice almost everything in order to fulfill them? I think about these things as I take snapshots of this enchanted place, as my girls jump in joy at coming across a playground with a bouncy seesaw well into the night, as they see friends walking down the street when all Americans would be in bed by this hour. I think about my experiences as a child, my journeys to Europe, my grandmother, the Spanish exchange student who lived with us for a summer… everything comes together in my mind as I take a little walk, as I become a part of a new Old World.
Today I left my girls in the park with Daddy, ready to ride across town (it’s only a mile) so I could put up flyers advertising my English tutoring. The park was new to us still, a dirt ground, a paseo of palm trees, bougainvillea, and hibiscus bushes intermittently spread among playground equipment. It was empty, totally empty, at 3:30 in the afternoon. The Spanish siesta is NOT a myth.
I pedaled across the ghost town of my city, seeing only a few cars. All the garage doors and persianas were closed up, waiting for tomorrow or the five o-clock hour. Only a few cafés were open and bustling with activity. I rode through the neighborhood adjacent to the harbor, at a slow pace as I still found myself mesmerized by all the shops, cafés, and architectural varieties. I managed to find fifteen poles/phone boxes to tape up my flyers, and came across the small park with the lorikeets that was close to one of the first apartments we looked at. Everything here, I realized, is becoming familiar to me. Soon I will know all the street names in my neighborhood, the major interchanges in other areas, and all the bus numbers we could possibly take to get across town. I won’t have to question which roundabout to turn left at, or which direction La Plaza de España is.
And while it is a relief, a burden lifted, at the familiarity of it all, there is also a sense of loss. Of fear. Eleven days into this new adventure, this almost still feels like a vacation. Yes, the four months of hell and paperwork beforehand kind of tainted the vacation feeling, but once we arrived, we’ve been eating tapas, spending the day at the beach, meandering around mesmerized by the warmth of the Spaniards, the intricacies of their city planning, and taking everything in with new eyes.
But tomorrow? Reality sets in for sure as the girls have their first day of school in their new country. Soon I’ll be working part-time and filling in the extra hours with tutoring sessions, and I will be traveling all over our city. And it will be ours, to keep, for a year.
So why am I afraid? Feel like I am losing something? Because I fear that with the newness wearing off, the vacation-like feeling disappearing, I won’t be so enthralled. I will be irritated with the deserted park at three, the dinner I don’t want to wait till nine to have, the cafés we can never afford to visit. And it might be just us. No family. No friends. Just the five of us, the girls getting into fights as they’re trapped in the apartment alone playing with the same old ten toys we lugged across the ocean, Bruce and I, trying to manage a lifestyle in a country neither of us are familiar with or accustomed to, the language barrier a thick wall that sometimes feels insurmountable.
It’s scary, isn’t it? Strange, unreal, many words creep up into my pedals as I take in the salty air, as the breeze from the Mediterranean pushes me up hill beside the Roman Theatre, as I come across a park, a roundabout, a beautiful view I haven’t seen until this moment. Am I crazy for choosing this, for putting my family in this situation? I’ve asked myself that thousands of times in the past months, and the only answer I can come up with, as we make ourselves at home, is that we’ll never know. There is no going back from the choices we’ve made. I will have to pedal further, see new sights, take in a different view, perhaps, to keep the adrenaline of the past couple of weeks burning in my blood, making me grateful for this amazing place, this amazing experience that I know in my heart we were meant to have.
Step Write Up 