expat family

Drooping Blue Tents

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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

Trust the World

/ lovizmytrio / 3 Comments

Yes, I trust the world. Back home, I don’t lock my car, don’t even have a key to my house, and leave valuable items in plain view at my desk at school, anything from cases of Girl Scout cookies to my Smartphone. My general attitude about life is, most people can be trusted, and would rather not deal with the hassle of stealing. And overall, most people are good.

Constantly I’m admonished for this. “But what if…” fill in the blank with horror stories. It’s all I ever hear. Horror stories from personal experiences, media tales, and the like. “All it takes is one person,” I often hear. It’s true. All it takes is one person to be a shithead and steal my stuff, or to be psychotic and kidnap and murder a ten-year-old girl, but how many millions of us are there? I mean, BILLIONS? Do we need to constantly think that we will cross paths with these horror stories?

The ironic thing is, I have actually had things stolen from me. I had two bicycle tires stolen right off my bike when I was in high school. The bike was locked, but the tires weren’t. Right during the middle of the school day even! And our house in Denver, when I was fifteen, was broken into one night while we were gone, and many items were stolen, most importantly the charm bracelets whose charms my sister and I had collected each year at Christmas (such a bullshit thing to steal, not even worth much!). When I think back to both of those incidents in my life, things were not good for me or my family. We were having many problems, and sending out endless negative vibes.

So why do I still trust people? Why do I always think, It’s not going to happen to me? Because ever since I put that thought in my head, it doesn’t. I truly believe that there is some truth in positive thinking, sending thoughts out into the universe, and expecting that things are going to be OK, only to discover that… well, yes, they are going to be OK. I mean, look where I am! I had the rug pulled out from under me two weeks before the school year started in America, and I gave up the chance at a huge salary increase, full benefits, and living like kings in an apartment complex with a pool cheaper than our mortgage, to come to Spain for a salary that’s not even enough to pay for one person’s living expenses, let alone five. But here we are. I trusted in the world, and the world helped me out, giving me a salary comfortable enough for us to live on and enjoy this country.

But that’s not all. Due to the financial crisis, and perhaps the culture here, I have been forewarned by all about the epidemic of thievery. By more than a few people, I was forewarned to not even bring the bicycle, as it would surely be taken, my U-lock no match for the bolt cutters they would have here, that we wouldn’t even be able to leave the bike outside a store while we shopped!

As usual, I decided to go against the grain and bring it anyway (I was already breaking every other sane person’s rules anyway). I brought the bike, and I do lock it everywhere, but I consistently leave the helmet and saddlebag still attached. Everyone has told me to stop doing this, that these items will be stolen, but I just have to disagree.

I was planning on seeing gypsies everywhere I went. Not because I’ve seen a series of ridiculous movies, but because my Spaniards told me this is what I should expect, especially “in this region.” Well I don’t know what a gypsy even looks like, or how sneakily they can creep up and slit open your purse (again, others’ horror stories!), but the only time anyone in Cartagena has approached my Camelbak? It was on the street, yes. I was walking between tutoring appointments and a lady came up behind me and told me my backpack was partially unzipped, and she zipped it up for me!

See what I mean people?

But yesterday takes the cake. We have this little thing called a debit card with every penny of thousands of dollars we brought from America attached to it. I was being a responsible parent and went to the bank yesterday to DEPOSIT money into our account so we could pay the light bill (everything in Spain is completed via direct bank transfer). Well, I somehow forgot to retrieve my card from the ATM, and didn’t notice until about six hours later.

I know, I know… I can hear all the people screaming at me! “What if??”

But that’s just it. In almost the same moment that I noticed my card was missing, I noticed a voice mail on my phone. The lady in the bank had my card and was keeping it safe for me. Of course.

This is not luck. This is not a coincidence. While I have been surrounded by people I know always feeding me horror stories, I have managed to escape almost every tragic moment imaginable. No one has ever smashed a window in my car to take my purse, or steal the iPod I left sitting on the dash, with the keys to the car sitting right next to it (yes, I do that too). Yet these things seem to happen to everyone I know. Why? Because they’re so fucking afraid that they’re going to happen!

I really believe there is some truth to that. Yesterday, when I discovered my card was gone, I called Bruce and told him to check the account. Then I went on with my life and tutored a girl for an hour, not even thinking about it, and Bruce sent a text saying nothing was charged on the account, and did he want me to have him cancel the card? I told him not to. I wasn’t the least bit surprised. It was only a brief panic when I lost the card, not a “the world is ending now” crisis. I knew that everything would be OK, as always, because I trust the world, and the world trusts me, and my place here in it, no matter whose soil I place my trust in.

My Numbers Are Running Short

/ lovizmytrio / 3 Comments

Words are first on my list for things I needed to learn upon arriving in Spain. Yes, needing to know the words for everything I need to say, but more importantly, all the information I need to hear. This is what I thought I’d be learning in Spain, and I have. Who knew how big a role numbers would play?

Let me begin with a small criticism of my back-asswards (as Bruce would say) country, who still believes the imperial system for numbering everything is the way to go. What are you thinking, America? You should just spend the one billion dollars or whatever it is you think it will cost, repaint the signs, republish the textbooks, and convert! Can we please begin to admit that the metric system is superior, that Centigrade makes more sense than Fahrenheit, and that a 24-hour clock is actually a much more logical way to arrange meeting times?

So I haven’t only had to learn that calamares muy fresco, when spoken proudly by a waitress as their premiere menu item, actually means squid with the head still on and the ink sac still intact, so when you cut into it everything is coated in black goo that adds to the slimy appeal (this isn’t my beautifully ringed calamari!), I’ve had to learn that 1.6 kilometers equals a mile, that one kilogram is equivalent to two pounds, that 14,000 feet (when trying to explain Colorado’s famous Fourteeners) equals 4267 meters, that 16:30 is 4:30 p.m., that 1.50€ for a liter of gas is equivalent 6€ for a gallon, that every time I spend 1€ it’s like spending $1.30, and that 38 degrees is TOO DAMN HOT.

Oh, and the buildings? The ones I put into my maps program which was working perfectly on Google Maps Application on my iPhone and now works like shit since I stupidly upgraded to iOS version FUCK OFF, I’M NOT IN ALICANTE? Their numbers are mysteriously etched in glass above doorways along streets whose names I have mostly memorized, because without my amazing Google Maps (how I miss you!), I would never know the names of the streets–there are random signs posted on buildings of proud owners who once spent the money, buildings not updated for years to the extent that I have had three, yes three, hometown Spaniards step out of cars or ask as they’re walking, “Can you tell me which street this is?” (I would like to add that the Spanish vocabulary for this question is well within my realm, and thanks to an accurate map program and a somewhat photographic memory, I have been able to respond appropriately all three times).

Now that I know how to navigate the complex systems of communication that exists between continents, I think, perhaps, it is time for me to learn what Spanish TV is all about… but wait… it’s 22:43, and the kilometers between here and where I need to be are heavier than a kilo of plums, the only fruit whose 0.99€/kilo price will fit into our limited basket of needs. My numbers, like my words, are running short.

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.

My Paper Highway

/ lovizmytrio / 1 Comment

This is not a paper trail. This is a paper mountain, a paper highway. A dragon, perhaps? (Or would its fiery breath burn everything to useless cinders)? From gathering paperwork for five beginning in May (remember this one? One of Five) and ending on one last string of hope with printed boarding passes, I have thought many times, the paper trail ends today. It ends with the visa in the mail. No, with the printouts of hotel and car rental reservations. Oh wait! The bank account setup, phone contract, and lease agreement. But… you mean, I need a foreigners’ social security number? And my husband too? AND my three girls (EVERYTHING x5)?

I even put a Facebook post, a month ago: DONE with Spanish paperwork! So proud! Until… the light bill. The employment paperwork, more trips to the bank, the ayuntamiento, more forms to print, make copies of, mail (it got to the point, with the shitty Spanish hours of 9-2 for everything, that we gave up and bought our own fucking printer).

Bruce said to me today, “No more paperwork for years!” I almost laughed in his face. “Are you forgetting that in eight months I have to renew my teaching license, get a new job, find an apartment, sign up for a new cell phone plan…” the list goes on.

This is the year of my yellow-brick-road of paperwork, the sheets the bricks leading me to the compilation of my dreams, the carpe diem of my life… My paper highway, like a long tail trailing behind me, is all a matter of moments traded for filling out forms to sunning on the Mediterranean, to seeing Picasso’s art in person, to visiting Roman ruins.

I think I’m done, I’m really done! (Oh wait… I have to vote? To print, complete, scan, email…?)

After a Year in Spain…

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My teeth will be coffee stained. There is no remorse for this, no trip to the dentist, one of the few medical services wholly uncovered, whose riches I see once a week in the mid-city mansion where I tutor three students and transverse to the third story of their home.

I’ll be fluent. Mostly anyway, enough to pick up on street conversations, meal requests, payment inquiries, everything related to school. Everything that I will need to know.

I will wake up each day and be ever so grateful for the socialistic society that provides us with a computer, texts, projectors, document cameras, copies, and everything else we could possibly need to function as educators.

I will only be me, the person you know so well, just slightly different. I might confuse this store for the microcosm of Spanish society, or forget that everything’s open relentlessly, or remember that I can hop in a car and drive across the country on a whim and a prayer.

Yes, a whim and a prayer… the same two words that carried my family 5000 miles, penniless and filled with hope, to become the people we would be after a year in Spain.

Home

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

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

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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

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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.

A New Set of Notes

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i find myself tiring
of the songs filling my playlist–
they are either too much a reminder of home
or not enough.
i ache to fill my ears
with a new set of notes

if only the shortening
still-hot days
of this endless summer
could sing me a new song,
one that will remind me of home
and make me at home,
all with the same
melancholic melody