Lo que digo yo : cuentitos de la Costa del Sol

2011-06-03T02:39:00.001-07:00

NEW BLOG!

Changing area codes, changing URLS.

Follow me at:

http://riedelruminates.tumblr.com/

More of the same different stuff.

Last Day of School Horoscope.

2011-05-31T14:36:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm an ardent astrologist. I put more faith in my sign than a bottle of tylenol. I believe that cosmic forces are at work upon us and I'm sucker for those who dare claim they can interpret said forces. When I stumbled upon my horoscope for my last day of school, I thought, Spot On.

"It may be time to say good-bye to something that's been in your life for a very long time (too long, in fact). You're moving into an exciting new phase of life, and to make the journey all the more successful, you need to drop off some old baggage and lighten your load. Admit to yourself that you have limitations, and don't be embarrassed if you never reached that one thing you were working for. Let go of something that once inspired you, but is now only frustrating."

Farewell Los Llanos. Farewell students that never listened, that never cared, that never knew how hard I tried. Farewell to the students that loved me, that listened, that gave me hugs and hallway smiles. Farewell to the teachers who made small talk with me and my nervous spanish tongue, Farewell to the teachers who never gave me a chance. Farewell to the custodian ladies who gave me kind smiles when they kept finding me alone in the dark teacher's work room reading my books. Farewell to the secretary who still scares me. Farewell to the housekeeper man who always opened the gate for me. Farewell hot water heater who made me so many cups of tea. Farewell to the cave of a teacher's work room that hid me and my lesson planning sessions during canceled classes. Farewell to Alora and my long uphill trudge everymorning. Farewell to the men who sat and stared and watched my year go by on benches under trees. Farewell valley and farewell mountains. Farewell winds and sunshine. Farewell train station and cafe. Farewell afternoon espresso.

Farewell chapters I never taught. Farewell vocab I never had them memorize. Farewell games we played and gave up trying to play. Farewell books we read and books I tried to read to them. Farewell English as a foreign language.

Farewell to trying to make a difference. It's time to cut my losses and leave.

Maybe they'll notice the difference when I'm not there....

El Torcal

2011-05-30T14:30:00.000-07:00

It was like we entered another world.

Lush greens breaking through stone. Moss lovingly clining to rock. Flowers lounging on hillsides.

Places to climb, caves to explore, openings that took your breath away. No city streets, no cars, no cans, no bottles, no dog shit, no radios, no shops, no people...just the rock, the flowers, the bird song...

and the view at the end.

Be it the age of the stone, the secret birds singing us along, the gusts of wind that only knew mountain tops or the racing clouds that rolled through the rock formations, I'm not sure, but the grace and rich tranquilty of the place was so comforting. Solitude gained a vibrant hue and a profundity that I'd never allowed it before...it's when the Self is overpowered by something greater...like nature, that loneliness transcends into holiness.

Shall I spell it out for you? T-o-u-g-h L-o-v-e

2011-05-26T12:49:00.000-07:00

It was a face off.

He sat at one end of the table clenching his jaw, staring far beyond me, carried away in his anger, turning more red every second as he struggled to push tears out of his eyes and keep his breath inside.

I sat adjacent to him, drawing a long breath, waiting for the tears to tumble over the rim of his lids, a slight furl of impatience wrinkling my brow.

"Andres, what's wrong?"

Red and brimming.

"Andres, what's wrong?

Red and brimming.

"Andres, we are just studying spelling. It isn't that terrible."

Red and brimming.

"Andres, we're going to keep going whether or not you cry. It will be easier if you lose your bad attitude."

Overflow. Outcry.

"But why? Why today? Why not another day?"

"Because you have a spelling test. That's why. And there isn't another day, I come today, the test is tomorrow. So, come on." I exhale the tedium of the hour.

"But it's not fair!" he claims.

"Andres, do you know what tough love is?"

"No"

Sniffles as I wait for him to look at me.

"It means I make you do things that you don't like because I care about you. Do you understand?...Ok, next spelling word, 'impossible'."

Love and Light

2011-05-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

So much of life feels like it's out of my hands.

Which is odd because I've got my feet firmly planted on solid ground. I teach English in Malaga. But there's something hovering overhead that I can't reach...my heart.

It's in your hands.

2011-05-24T11:37:00.000-07:00

Bearing It.

2011-05-24T10:30:00.000-07:00

"Being alive begin to feel like an awful strain."

I came across this in "The Color Purple" my current english language indulgence and BAM it stopped my eyes in their course down the page. Alice Walker had put into words what I'd been feeling for so long. Strain. Stretched thin through time and space.

Memories anchoring me bike rides last summer, dances in years past, late nights and cups of tea in my apartment thesis writing with my roommate in May, family jokes, faces, smells, sounds, sights, and hugs...And then the future comes rearing its ambiguous head. Trips and travels suddenly coalescing. Job certainty and then job uncertainity. And then the present demanded attention. Lesson plans and students, professors and parties, beach time and down time. And lonely time.

Then the stifling vaccum of space is to be considered. Trying to keep connected through emails, blog posts and skype calls. Electronic love being sent around the world till I feel so burnt out staring at my computer screen knowing that this is the only face that I get to see day after day...The little of myself that I can keep together is sent piece by piece to the people I love so they keep remembering me and never forget the part of me that still loves them.

In bending to the situation,trying to practice gratitutde and humility, the strain of waiting for it all to come back together is building.

Waiting is the hardest part. I never meant for my life to be a count down.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY J!

2011-05-23T15:54:00.000-07:00

It's another wish sent with a "I'm there in spirit!" addendum.

But it's still honest, and I'm hoping that your newly graduated self is enjoying this newly inaugurated year of life, the new (terrifying?!) freedom of ADULTHOOD seperate from student life and I ardently wish that you've got friends nearby to toast your glass with. And let you eat all the vanilla icing off your cake ;)

I came across this splendid quote in "The Color Purple". It's my birthday dedication to you J. Celie is far far far from her little sister Nettie, but the distance has only pulled the heartstrings tighter.

"I think bout my sister Nettie. Thought so sharp it go through me like a pain. Somebody to run to. It seem to sweet to bear."

Making What Matters Matter

2011-05-19T15:58:00.000-07:00

"Do you have any idea how much it costs to fly from America to Malaga?"

Lock jaw silence.

"No? No one. As I thought. It is very expensive. Do you have any idea what Katie has sacrificed to be here and teach you? Do you know how much she has had to do? And you disrespect her. Well, in May she'll leave and you won't have anyone like her, a native speaker to teach you. You are so lucky and you don't even care."

The class melts in mortification.

"Do you think she came here for you all to treat her life like a game?"

The rhetorical question. The closing line.

"It's shameful Katie, I'm sorry. Carry on, they should listen now."

Ears ringing with the Director's chastisment of the worst class in the history of the world (4th B), I struggled to snap back into teaching mode. I had to pull the students out of their shell shocked numbness and beg them to continue with their "My Book of Matter".

And the irony of the topic tip toed to the forefront..Matter, everything around us. How marvelous that Carmen made me matter. I'd been there all along, but the students had never taken me as worth respecting.

Why is it that we always seem to realize what we had when we lose it?

[Is that why Carmen waited till the end of May to defend me?]

Cheese.

2011-05-19T15:47:00.000-07:00

I flash the cheese card and Gabriel swoons, bending back, rubbing his small hand in circles around his belly while his eyes close behind bright blue glasses frames and he screams, "Me encanta cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese". {I love cheeese!} I gasp for breath as I fall to pieces laughing at his dramatic spanglish response. I drop to the floor to pick up the flash cards that scattered after doubling over in guffaws while I try and yell to Gabriel, "Write the word on the board! Write the word on the board!" Shocked with electric urgency of the game and the points on the line, he spins on tiny toes and scratches "cheese" on the chalk board, beating his opponent. "Good!" I exclaim, "Point to team b" and Gabriel bursts into tuck jumps screaming "Toma! Toma! Toma!" ("yes" 'yes" yes"/ "take that!' take that!" And I can barely make it to the board to dash 1 point for team B. Wiping tears from my cheeks and the words from the board I turn back to the class and say, "Next!"

I've needed to cry for so long.

Noches En Blanco

2011-05-17T15:57:00.000-07:00

It was something the PTA would have pushed for. It's something every Mom in Malaga must have been behind. It was every nerds dream.

It was Las Noches en Blanco.

On Saturday, from 8pm until 3am on Sunday, ALL, yes, ALL of the museums in Malaga opened their doors for FREE, put on their own respective performances, and let the world wander through at their leisure. I stared at the multicolored spots of events on the map, in shock, like a person who'd just had their picture taken.

Start.

Plaza de la Constitucion. Live concert. Terrible Celtic rock.

Next.

Centro de Arte Contemporaneao, Alice in Wonderland like art.

Upstairs for Flamenco/Reggae Concert

Outside to

Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares. Live Flamenco/Verdiales dance.

Down the street to

An open air BBQ, with white lawn chairs and cheap plastic tables. And 1 euro vino de verano.

Still at the BBQ.

Wandered an alley to a carving of soap...it turned out to be a bull.

Off to a hostel to pick up a new friend.

Back to the BBQ. More 1 euro vino de verano.

Meet friends and wander back to Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares, but the dances are done.

So we wander back down the main street, miss out on the end of a jazz concert, head to local cafe, stare down the crappy DJ and munch on free gummy bears.

And sluggishly crawl home. So satisfied with Malaga. So full of creativity. So full of inspiration. So rejuvenated.

As I was walking home I saw a marvelous thing. My apartment is up a slight hill. A couple was zooming up the hill....in wheelchairs, only the girl had an electric chair and the boy had an oldfashioned, hand powered chair...and he was holding on for dear life to her arm rail, and she pulled him up the hill.

And I thought, why can't I do that? I can't seem to get where I want to go, so why don't I just grab on for the ride and let others help me on my way?

Each song, each painting, each dance, each photograph, each sculpture, was like another tug up the hill home, witnessing others making meaning out of life, in such beautiful ways, I couldn't help but feel that I'd be okay even though I wasn't done searching for my own life. There can be beauty in brokeness...maybe it's in the disparate pieces, in the unique cut of each experience, not in lamenting the broken whole.

My Fireflies

2011-05-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

"Un question mas" Antonio asks me, waving his pen in my face, as if to dash meaning out of his spanglish mess.

"Yes Antonio?"

"If I get you job, you stay?"

"------------" I paused...."You could get me a job? That would be very generous of you Antonio, you really are too kind...I don't know. I would still have to re-apply for a visa...."

"It's just that, I thought we'd have class together, 3, 4 year more...not only until June...without you, it isn't English."

I thumbed at the pages of the lesson book, I didn't want to look up. "I'm so sorry Antonio, I had to make a very hard decision...I don't like it, but right now, it is not possible for me to stay in Spain....I'm sorry....I hope you understand." I coughed, trying to smother the tightness in my throat that signaled impending tears.

"okay, okay... but I will still ask." he said.

I have 1 month left and what I thought would be a simple departure is already turning out to be a bit more complicated than I thought. The sweet moments, like when I give class to Antonio, my 50 year old doctor who says everything is 'chupa'o' (easy) and snaps his imaginary suspenders, are so few and far between that they float by like early summer fireflies, pulsating yellow light in the darkness that is my life here, as the forerunners of more bright spots, but as I remember from my childhood, the lights go out when you try and trap them in a jar. The trick is to let them pass by in their temporal beauty, to fixate on them and capture them is to extinguish them.

Which is why I had to cry a little and tell Antonio I wouldn't be coming back. He is a bright spot I have to let go, even though it is so tempting to chase after the joyful times and say I'll stay, when I know that it will just get dark again when the lights go out....

I give you back to yourself.

2011-05-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

Some days fall apart pieces at a time. You wake up late after 5 hours of restless sleep. You're all out of cereal because you ate it for dinner last night because you were too tired to cook. You barely make the train to work. You arrive drenched in sweat. Your school leaves on the field trip without you. The classes you go in search of to teach instead are canceled for standardized testing the principal forgot to tell you about. Your lesson plans are a wash. And the kids are still gypsy devils, you still don't understand the language, you still have to climb the mountain to work, your sneakers are still busted,....and you can feel yourself crumbling through it all. Sitting in the dust of a destroyed self you think, throw it all away, the day, the mood, the experience. Fuck it.

And then someone comes up and gives back to you a piece of your day. Suddenly with that one piece, you find that you can rebuild, you can pull yourself together and go on.

Mari-Carmen was that sly ally who snuck up and shocked me with kindness. It was the final hour of the day, I'd been bumped from a class again for testing, so I retreated to the teacher's conference room to see if I could get the internet working on 1 of our schools 2 computers. While I was finagling, in peeks a head. MariCarmen. She smiles awkwardly, like she's interrupting me and I beckon her in, saying it's a common room. MariCarmen is kind of new...she came a few months ago, as she still has yet to take her teacher exam, so she's on 'teacher in training' rotation, if you will, throughout Andalucia. MariCarmen, you should know, is the music teacher, very very Andalucian (ie has the thickest accent of ALL the teachers), is drop dead gorgeous and very commanding (ie. she can yell). Aka the typical intimidating Spanish woman.

I expected her to ignore me, as usual. But after a few moments of half hearted test grading she looks at me and says, "I just can't, I don't want to grade tests at all" I laugh and say, of course, look outside, it's beautiful, temptation to go is too powerful.

Then we had an hour conversation.

I've never had a conversation longer that 15 minutes with ANYONE in my school. I'm the odd foreigner, no matter how nice of a person I am, I'm the American. Off limits. Black listed if you will, humored, but rarely taken very seriously.

In the shock and awe of surviving the conversation (and subsequent walk out of school after the bell rang to town where we parted) I learned that MariCarmen was a friend I should have been quicker to make. She's only 24, terrified by teaching alone, is outrageously stressed by her students, is overwhelmed and unsure, lonely and eager to find a place in Los Llanos (our school). A mirror of myself.

I thought, maybe the catch phrase, "misery knows no company" isn't quite right, because I finally found a voice to laugh with over horror of the job. Oddly enough, in learning how unsure someone else was in their job, I got a jolt of confidence, as if to say, damn, if no one really knows how to go about this, then I'm just going to do what I can, expectations aside, ad-hoc it is.

[And it felt really good to know that the kids dis-respected a Spainard, not just me.]

We'll see if she talks to me again, but at least now I know that there's a scared 24 year old wandering the halls with me, hopefully I can give her back a piece of her broken experience or perhaps I'll just emphathize with her over our shifting terrain and the fault lines that threaten our sense of purpose.

I LOVE YOU MOM!

2011-05-08T09:28:00.000-07:00

To all the mothers in the world, and especially to my own dear madre, may you feel the rush of air on your face as the world bows to you today in honor of your sacrifice for and dedication to the creation of life. Your importance is innumerable and your name brings forth a fountain of adoration. Thank you for being the light and for bringing light into the world.

A mother, the greatest gift a child can have.

In celebration of your wondrousness, I share with you the bright faces of the blooming roses in the garden I wish I could give you. All mothers really are gardners, tending the fruits of the womb, cultivating innocent grace.

What is found when all is lost

2011-05-06T13:54:00.000-07:00

It was as if renagade waves, under the absent eye of the new moon, decided to spray their white heads further up shore, to rise above the shore line and inundate the city with dense fog, flooding the streeets, cloaking the shoulders of high rise apartment buildings, meandering the streets, chasing cars, hiding away the beach and ocean in its shadowy recesses. Stepping out into the street was like walking into a dream....

It was a thrilling effect...everywhere you went was a bit magical. You had to trust your instinct that there indeed was a crosswalk off in the distance and that at the end of the grey tunnel of fog there was a bus stop.

Would you understand if I said that in not being able to see much of anything I saw much more of everything? As I looked with a sharp eye at where I was going small details popped out that I'd glossed over before...the colors, the windows, the storefronts, the lights....Malaga was finally alluring. It was finally a city that I could handle, it invited me to explore, it didn't parade itself in flamboyance demanding my adoration or my departure. I must have been the only one that felt that way though. Everyone else muttered, "What a terrible cloud...can't see a thing...impossible to move...who did this....will never find my friend....how can the buses drive...will have a flight delay without a doubt."

I just grinned, staring out into the thick fog from my bus seat, loving that the city was blind.

Finally, a chance to wander through ambiguity, without getting lost.

No Encore Please

2011-05-06T04:24:00.000-07:00

Malaga sensationalizes the ephemeral. It is a city of Erasmus students studying abroad or working abroad for the first time. It is a city of retirees from the UK and Scandanavia who burn within 5 minutes of stepping out into the Mediterrean sun. It is a city of lucrative clubs and bars run by business savy night crawlers. It is a city of the beach , the ocean, the cocktail and the tan. Tourists flood the city and then retreat back to their cruise ships at the port. The turnover for people living in Malaga is about 1 year. You never know if the person you just met speaks English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch or Arabic. You never know if they just got here or if their on their final month countdown till they leave. Somehow, Malaga stays together and has remarkable success with such turblent demographic shifts.

Today a friend of Chris' came to visit for a few days and like another piece of the ephemeral puzzle of Malaga, he walked wide eyed through the streets I looked at everything with clear eyes, having dropped my rose colored glasses ages ago. We went to a basketball game and cheered as the shot clock counted down, grinning as our team won.

And we kept up with the touch and go lifestyle. Hopping groups of friends, locations, moods, and time. It's rejuvenating to have a new face with you on the bumpy ride, they remind you how you once felt, and give you secret comfort that you've lasted....and that you haven't been pulled into the machine of short lived pleasures. And if on a Saturday night you'd rather go wander the dollar stores looking for a new journal, you won't balk at the taunts that 'you're missing out on life' because you know that not all pleasures come poured in a cup or in a sexy get up. Some pleasures are a long time in coming, but the wait is worth it because they last. (some joys are waiting for you an ocean away. all you can do is wait)

So Malaga, entrance the newcomers, give them a good time, but leave me be, let me start to pull back, to wipe my hands of your thoughtless urgency and cheap persuasions, because I've seen you old, tired, shabby and unkept in daylight and by moonlight and I know your fickle promises are no good. I'm still here seated in the theater watching the performances, but the masks have come off and the act doesn't fool me anymore.

No encore, please.

Who do you remember?

2011-05-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

"Hola Guapo."
Hey there handsome.

"Hoy te toca con nosotros!"
Today you come to our class!

"Si, si, por la ultima hora, vendre yo"
You got it, I'm coming for the last rotation.

"Vale, adio"
Okay, bye.

Most days that's all Juanjo and I say to each other. Short and sweet. He reminds me without failure and without error when I teach English to his class. He is one of my darlings, curly brown hair, sleepy eyes and a soft smile.

He's also highly autistic and mentally challenged. He speaks no English, can barely read and write in Spanish. He's innocence itself. I'm not sure what he'll do in Spain, with no resources, no skills and the inability to interact socially. But despite his many challenges, his memory trumps that of all his classmates. And somehow I've been lucky enough to find a place in amongst his memories.

Juanjo, you remind me that remembering someone is so much more than simply not forgetting them.

thank you...

Engage in Vulnerability

2011-05-03T13:44:00.000-07:00

I believe that you get what you give. Which is why 4th grade A infuriates me. As a courteous example of someone who shows respect, professionalism and is academically inquisitive, I am constantly confounded by the extreme disrespect they show me. They pay me absolutely no heed. I feel like a farce forgotten as I write words on the board. I feel the eyes that don't look at me when I talk and the ears that don't hear me as I ask questions. I see them wandering the classroom, my demands for them to stay seated sliding off their backs. And so in my frustration, I tried a new tactic today. I had previously tried 'dis-engaging', admitting that if they didn't want to learn, I couldn't make them, but I care too much about my work to dis-engage, so today, I reached my breaking point, and instead of presenting the picture of perfection, I showed them how vulnerable they made me feel.

Vulnerability is terrifying.

Countless eyes stared at me in shameful awe as I stood shaking at the point of tears and begged them to answer me, "Why am I the only teacher who doesn't deserve respect?" Adrenaline took my tongue and I lashed out at them, "I walk by this class and I see you all working quietly, respecting your teacher, so I know that you all are capable of behaving, but I don't know why you treat me like I don't matter. I love Los Llanos, I love teaching, I love all my students, but this class...this class...I think, perhaps I'll tell Carmen that I don't want to come teach them anymore, and it will be their loss that they don't speak English. They are not worth my time. And that makes me sad, because I want you to learn. I'm sorry that I don't speak Spanish perfectly, but we are a team. I help you learn English and you help me speak Spanish. Did you ever think about that? I want to help you all, but I need your help first. Did you ever think about how I felt, ignored at the front of the class? I don't ask perfection, I don't ask fluency, I just as you to listen and respect my efforts. Or I'm going to drop this class."

[Silence]

"Any questions?"

Frozen faces, drained with color.

"think about what I said then. And now let's finish the worksheet."

Worksheet was finished...in silence...

My challenge for my last month here...engage.

Ravaged.

2011-05-02T15:26:00.000-07:00

Carried along by the blessed rush of stormy winds,
Racing from the echoes
the echoes of my own voice
to a rocky precipice
edging tumultous clarity.
Communing with swells
eyes closed for the splash of the spray
like a rock in the surf
victim to the beautiful violence,
of impact.
Forced into fortification,
there I am.
Withdrawing from numbness
to a vulnerability alive with
hope.

Eye of Your Storm

2011-05-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

Tired of crying, the clouds returned to moody sniffles, hiding puffy eyes in the grey cumulus nimbus overhead. Like a child tip toeing down the hall at night, I anxiously took to the street, glancing skyward to see when the mood might turn for the worse and drench me. Stretching my legs out in a vigorous step, my lungs clawed at the thick air, taking in as much of the angsty winds as they could. And my heart beat heavy with gratitude. Breathing deep, breathing fresh air blown in from a coming storm ignites the body. After a while of walking untouched by rains, my confidence climbed and I walked face open and smiling into the grey day.

A newfound friend joined me and we wandered off to the newly renovated Port. Wide eyed with wonder we sized up the boats lounging in the sloppy waves of the harbor. Circling back around we headed for the Contemporary Art Museum to wrinkle our brows at the new exhibit they'd put out on neon lights and Warhol. If Alice in Wonderland were to have a play room, then that's what this art exhibit would have looked like. Mind boggling ecleticism.

I found that when you're struggling with your own rhythm, it helps to simplify your goal and say, I will keep pace with this one friend. I will be present for them and with them. And so enough you find yourself pleasurably staring into fountains of golden tires in a room covered with pictures of caves thinking, I've descended into the cavern of something great. But really it's a superficial thing...it's the surface that matters. The effect of the art on the eye, on the mind, on the heart. It's seeing it and letting yourself see it.

And its seeing that you can breathe as you stare into your own blurry reflection in glass covered paintings on the wall as your chest rising and falling all....it helps when you can't stop looking inward for answers to come up for a breath and look around...and let people draw your attention to other things beside yourself.

You'll be there when you get back. Let the mind out of its cage and let it play amidst the possiblities on the walls, on the pedastals, on the floor, in the air, and when it comes back, it will find that the heart beats a bit stronger, having found its muscle and having been given the space to expand, and a strange contentment edges closer.

I always knew walks led to good things. I never thought they could take you to the eye of your own storm though.

I hold the key?

2011-04-30T15:34:00.000-07:00

I'm getting mentally cluttered. With classes being canceled and rainy days following one after another, I've got too much free time. I never got a handle on free time growing up in Northern Virginia. It was go to exhaustion, collapse, recover, repeat. So, copious free time tends to make me nervous. I get odd habits to pass the hours. I get small anxieties about missing out on life, on wasting perfectly good moments of productivity. And so with all the mental clutter, it's been harder than usual to see life for what it is. Or rather, its been harder to let the light in. I feel like I'm in the basement, scouting through old boxes of Katie and her memories, revisiting old neuroses, wondering about moments that almost happened, thinking about what will happen when I get back and spending an inordinate amount of time avoiding Malaga. I wish I were busier, then the whir of my ticking brain would clear out some of these dust bunnies and I might feel a bit lighter. But every writer (everyone) can understand the block.

It's not the block that bothers me...it's that I put it there.

Around it? Over it? Under it?

Through it?...maybe that's best. Work through it. Let the dust clear so I can breathe again.

And be in Malaga. Not trapped in Malaga and my mental prison.

The Doctor is In.

2011-04-29T14:46:00.000-07:00

A bit like a doctor that makes house calls on sick patients, I make house (or office)calls on the monolingual. Days like these make me feel like a one woman traveling carnival - the bilingual backpack toting, sneaker wearing Americana, who brings silly tongue twisters, colored markers to correct your homework and who'll tell it to you straight in the real English, not the silly British English of the school books. And even though grammar is a drag (unless you're a bit nerdy and you actually enjoy discussing the Saxon Genitive, ahem, guilty) each client requires a different approach. You can't use the same magic words for everyone to make them understand and the fun side of my traveling English gig is learning what that is for each student.

Jorge, the overscheduled family man engineer likes to write with expensive pens in a posh notebook and practice reading from his 'Modern Marvels in Architecture" book. He likes to start class late, end class early and really just talk about cool bridges and his kids. I stopped bringing the lesson book months ago....he's a social speaker who can't pronounce -ed endings. He's my decaffe latte, easy, slow going and relaxing student.

Antonio, the uber important doctor and director of the city hospital, who mumbles worse than rolling thunder, is trying at age 50 to learn English so he can talk with his patients. Only problem, he grew up speaking French and Andalusian Spanish. Whatever he doesn't add a "-th" to he drops the 's' off the end of and keeps telling me "Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday" all sound the same. The exact same. He's silly and likes to laugh. He needs English at a 1st grade level because he's overworked at the hospital 6 days a week, so he enjoys laughing at me trying to explain "Tuesday, Wednesday,Thursday" over and over again, as he snaps his imaginary suspenders in victory, having remembered the verb "to be". He's like cafe bon bon, strong espresso with sweetened condensed milk - an intense spurt, but so delightful even until the end because he's such a good heart.

The auditors are another story. It's a varying trio that shows up Friday afternoons for their company covered English class. Teresa, the girl with no boyfriend and few friends like to use our English class as a therapy session, spilling everything and edging everyone else out in the conversation. Fatima, the nervous speaker who would rather never speak in public, and just drink her waterbottle. Then there's David, the laid back manager, who speaks very well, and tries to crack (bad) jokes followed by an anxious laugh. David also cannot make eye contact. It's an odd bunch. We sit in a room the temperature of a winter sauna, sweating and fanning ourselves, trying to work through speaking activities without letting Teresa talk our ears off. They're like cafe con leche, not bad, but not quite the flavor you were going for.

And by 6:15, the back pack is packed, paycheck earned and I'm ready to put my feet up and sit by the ocean and listen to the ocean and watch the sea gulls float on the sea breeze in lazy circles by the port. Sometimes I wonder, how do I do it, 3 different classes...not literally, but psychologically...they are all beginners, which means I have the sensation of running my head into a wall over and over again, trying to help them understand and then trying to understand them. But I think I know...I'm just passing through. I ring the doorbell, face on. The alarm clock counts down to my finale and then I'm back out the door, leaving them with homework (or not). And so as much as I am drained by the drifting like aspect of my day, it's a secret blessing really, I join so many other lives in a humbling window of time. I'm brought in, I'm welcomed, I'm expected, I'm thought about, I'm worried about if I'm late, I'm given attention, I'm joked with, I'm questioned, and I'm wished well as I leave...and I'm sent with the kind words of "See you next week!"

Maybe they're not real friends, but they re-charge me all the same. It's true, I think, you get what you give...and even though they still might not know how to answer me when I ask "How have you been?" they stumble along with their answer and even more eagerly show off by asking, "How have you been Katie?" And they give me the chance to re-affirm that I'm okay.

Cleaning House.

2011-04-28T14:30:00.000-07:00

I'm being left behind.

In so many ways that one sentence sums up this year. I'm being left behind. In my head it is spun out in tangent anxieties, lonely walks and jaw clenching frustration during classes. But today, as I stood in my PJs watching my stylish roommate pack for his weekend trip, asking me if these shorts matched this shirt and if the hat worked with the brown shoes, I laughed and gave my best peanut gallery advice. He rolled his suitcase out the door and I put the kettle on. Tea time. My brooding time. I had the apartment all to myself....not really a blessing when you've got too much time to spend with just yourself already. So I cleaned. Throwing away the crumbs of our existence in the apartment. Dishes washed, floors mopped, counters wiped. chairs straightened, doors open letting the wind run through the fresh surfaces and the newly arranged space. And there I sat in an apartment that looked barely lived in, feeling the weight of my life barely lived. What could I use to scrub at the malaise I was feeling? Why couldn't I ball it up and put it in the trash?

And I thought as my toes curled over the iron rail of my balcony and I held my cup of tea, staring out into the bustling street, maybe I could just sleep away the coming month...maybe then I wouldn't be living the nightmare of being left behind by friends who got 'real' jobs and now have bank accounts and homes, by friends who went back to school and now have another diploma, by friends who still have bikes they can ride, by friends that got married, by friends that now have families, by friends that kept dancing salsa, by friends that get to be with other friends...
maybe I could dream away the month, and oh it's such a tempting fantasy, but no, no, no, a box came today, full of love and Peanut Butter flavored with bananas, reminding me that there are still people who want me to keep going and that there are still surprises to be discovered.

And a dear friend who refuses to let me sulk away in Spain reaches out and gives me a voice to say, "I will be good with my time here."

I will be good with my time here. As a memory that lives in your hearts, I will be good with my time there, so that when I reach you on the path we're walking, you'll know me by the life in my eyes and the light in my smile.

Cinderelley Cinderelley

2011-04-27T14:46:00.000-07:00

Miguel Angel leans over my armrest and whispers, a bit too loud, into my ear, "Was the magic real? Did the fairy godmother really turn the pumpkin into a carriage?" In the darkness of the theater I smile back at his question and nod my head vigorously answering him, "Of course! She's the fairy godmother, she knows all the secrets of magic. Only she knows how to make a pumpkin into a carriage, look!" And in the darkness his small glasses glinted back at me in shock and delight, "Really??" he contested. I just nod and said, "Yes, Miguel Angel. Magic is real." And he sat back into his seat, in awe of the English play Cinderella we had traveled into the city to see. The rest of the play a little hand tapped my shoulder, asking me, "What's happening now?" as the play was in English and it was meant to be a bilingual field trip for the elementary school children, to practice their listening and apply all that they had learned the month before of the play. And while the majority left joking, "Has entendido algo? No?! jaja, yo tampoco!" (Did you get anything? No? Haha! Me neither!) the innocence with which they approached the play was refreshing. Cinderella was greeted with their cries of "Guapa!" (Gorgeous!) and their steadfast belief in the Fairy Godmother's power reminded me that what's real needn't always be verifiable. They shouted "YES!" to every question the actors posed to the audience (as the play was interactive, meant to help them learn English) even if the question was "What is the name of the girl who lost her shoe?" (Cinderella). They were more interested in making noise and playing than in being right.

It was my first day back after being sick for the past 3 days and I honestly had wanted to stay in bed and not go, but I knew that we had prepared for weeks prior in the hopes that the kids might understand something when they went to see the play, so I had to go. And as I felt like mierda climbing the mini montana to my school I thought, maybe the buses broke down, maybe I'll get to go home...you know, doing the escapism thinking that seems to start up the minute we have to do something we'd rather not. But like a splash of cold water to the face in the morning, children have a way of waking you up to life. I board the bus at the end of the crowd and I'm greeted by shouts of "Seno!!! Where were you?? Sit here sit here, we saved you a seat!" And cramped stomache and all, I'm glowing and rising up out of the bus. Was it really just the other day I was lying in bed thinking no one cared....And so while the day was an odd mix of travel hassles, counting heads and losing backpacks, kids puking on the bus and secret deals of candy trading going on between bus seats, I can't tell you how big my smile was when my kids started singing along to the play, IN ENGLISH...those dumb songs that I felt so silly singing for them and then begging them to sing along....now they were screaming and singing along..."You can try, you can try, you can try" and I felt a guilty secret pride that my kids were singing along and no other class nor other school was able to do so.

The smiles, the hugs, the greetings and the unconditional love my kids show me get me through the day. But sometimes I need more than that to get through the week, and having them sing along in English was just what I needed. The smallest bit of validation that what I'm doing here in Spain might actually have a lasting effect...

I feel bad for not having more faith in them. But not so bad...they put me through the ringer whenever they can. But I'll never doubt their innocence...something I've missed in adults. As much as I want to hurry up their education and help them grow, I don't want to be the one to say, "Magic isn't real" when I saw it happen today...

There's a reason our bodies don't come with autopilot. TAKE CHARGE AND DRIVE YOUR DAY!!

2011-04-26T14:05:00.000-07:00

Somedays life has a familiar rhythm, but lately I've been stumbling to an itinerant beat, wishing for (oddly enough) dependable consistency. Teaching allows for a flexible schedule every day, or rather, it has an erratic schedule you have to react to (classes get canceled, kids are suddenly sick, you have to sub for another teacher..the copier breaks, etc)...and with all the school vacations Spain has, you can never get in a groove. Just last week I was in Sweden and Germany, and now I'm back in Spain, which is not to complain, god no, traveling is a blessing, but I think that humans are meant to settle, meant to have a place in a community. Traveling is only fun when you can go home. But coming back to Malaga, my heart didn't rise to the heights I had thought it would...and my welcome back wasn't helped by the virus I seem to have caught at some point during the return journey...all this rambling is to say that, in trying to make good use of my time, but how do we make good use of our time every day? What does that life look like? Feel like? What is it like to go to bed on a Monday night knowing that I made good use of my time?

....not sure, but I've got plenty of time to think about it as I'm stuck in bed most of the day. Funny, staying in bed and thinking about watching the world go by is food for thought...and worrisome as I watch my life go by, and the only progress made is eating a PB sandwich.

Too much practice in being presence when you're sick. Ready to buck the mentality and embrace the physicality of being alive and having a body that is on board with living!

May you be well, and as my dear friend Bets reminded me, make good use of your time.

(thanks Bets for giving me something to write on and think about)

Happy Easter!!

2011-04-24T13:51:00.000-07:00

A very happy easter to all those back home. Wishing I was there to munch on chocolate and dig through easter baskets and smell the sweet arrival of spring with you all...
thank you mama easter bunny for making a long distance trip via UPS to deliver my easter basket :)

A poem for my loves, by one of my favorites...

April
by: Amy Lowell (1874-1925)

A bird chirped at my window this morning,
And over the sky is drawn a light net-work of clouds.
Come,
Let us go out into the open,
For my heart leaps like a fish that is ready to spawn.

I will lie under the beech-trees,
Under the grey branches of the beech-trees,
In a blueness of little squills and crocuses.
I will lie among the little squills
And be delivered of this overcharge of beauty,
And that which is born shall be a joy to you
Who love me.

Hej! Sweden!

2011-04-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Thursday, April 14 - Saturday April 16

For as much of a homebody as I can be, I've got this terrible itch to move. It flairs every 3 weeks, coinciding with my week break here in Spain during Semana Santa (Holy Week...which means a week of KKK like dressed people doing processions around the city with huge Virgin Mary statues, vendors lining the streets selling candy and baked potatoes, and endless crowds mingling the main drag and spitting sunflower seeds at your feet). So I escaped the religious revival for Sweden and Germany.

My 'bosom buddy' from college, Leise had recently moved to Stockholm, Sweden to live with her boyfriend for a bit while she figured out her next move after teaching English for a year in Thailand. I decided to repay the favor of her visit to Malaga with a visit to Stockholm and I couldn't be more glad that I did. There's nothing like exploring a new city with a friendly local who just happens to also be your best friend. She knew exactly what I'd enjoy and so she backed in everything we could in the best 48 hours I've had since I arrived in Europe.

Arriving on the first sunny day Stockholm has seen in a while, I engulf Leise in a hug and we head off to her apartment to drop off my back pack. We then march out into the city, abandoning our coats for the brave spring warmth that joined us for our adventures. She took me to her favorite spot (and mine as well), the Culture House of Sweden, a 5 story building of artistic playfulness and intellectual daring. We wandered the collections, lounged in Dr.Seuss like libraries,
and sipped espresso in their hip to the max cafe overlooking the main square with brilliant windows that spanned the lenght of the wall so you had a clear view of everything. Our next stop was the Vasa Museum. A hilarious exhibition of the Vasa, a great Swedish vessel that sank after a 30 minute career.
It speaks to the Swedish sense of humor...honoring the greatest engineering failing of their day. Then...we high tailed it to the most amazing restaurant I've ever been to..Hermans.
It doesn't amaze you by name, but one step inside and you're in love. It's a vegetarian buffet. It had HUMMUS. I almost died. And Leise and David even reserved a table for us just to make sure I could eat a vegetarian meal with them.

Dave, the 'local' if you will, took us to a hot young hipster hangout, "Skybar" Yes, it sounds cheesy, but the view was worth the 8euro beer bought to get ritzy window seats.

Exhausted, we wandered back to their apartment and watched American History X with Swedish subtitles on TV. As silly as this sounds, I've missed just hanging out with friends. Sinking into the couch, I couldn't help but slip in a secret smile, I'd found that "I'm home" feeling again.

Day 2 in Sweden was just as busy...off to the Palace to see the nonchalant changing of the guards, wandering the old city,
sitting in cafes, peeking in old churches,
wandering through a dog park to an Ethnography Museum (another reason why I love Leise, she humors my nerdy side and happily goes with me to Ethnography musuems. a true friend).

And then, Leise took the cake. She, Dave and I went to the circus she had bought tickets for. If you ever get the chance, GO. It was breathtaking. The whole time I was on the edge of my seat, gasping, "Oh MY GOD!!" when my jaw wasn't hitting the floor. It was such a simple set up. 3 men, one pole, countless yoga balls, one floor, 1 trampoline and 2 small trampolines and countless odd props, like a palm tree, Elvis costumes, pieces of wood and tires. They were true comedic acrobats who choreographed their a routine to music that looked and felt so natural, as if they were simply bouncing around and creating the performance organically. For your youtube-ing pleasure, look up "Race Horse Company" the show is called "petit Mal". Be stunned.

After the show, breathless and eager to play, we went to the popular burger joint in Stockholm that on the menu lets you know how many carbon points you earn for eating a cow burger versus a veggie burger. And then I did something that I had never done before in all my teen years. I ate a (veggie) burger and fries and hung out with Leise and Dave. Maybe this seems like a moment I should just skim over, but it was envlivening to do something that so many of my friends had done during highschool and college, but I rarely/never did...eat burgers and hang out...it was fun..and weird...and I liked it. Not that anyone is normal or we had a normal night, but, it felt so right to do something so relaxing and unpresumptiously enjoyable. Later we met up with some of Dave's Swedish friends and listened to some Swedish punk at a local bar and they affirmed an inkling that'd been growing stronger...Sweden is cool.

Needless to say, I was bummed to leave the next morning. But, to call upon my favorite poet, "That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."
- Emily Dickinson

And so, with shaky breaths and tears I didn't want to fall I got on the bus to the airport, I sunk into the loving solitude of waving goodbye. It's so hard to move on and go on, to other places and other people, when the ones who mean so much only come with you in memory.

Si se puede!

2011-04-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

Sunday

Limits.

I learn to set limits, respect my limits and the limits of others. And then I push my limits. In so many small ways I like to push my limits. And slowly my tip toing on my limits has become a mad dash into no-man's land, wondering where the line was drawn to begin with. Wearing crazy earrings (I feel daring). Wearing a skirt. (I feel rather feminine). Biking across the USA (I'm stronger than I ever knew). Moving to Spain (what was I thinking?).

It is such a strange thing though...when we push our limits and when we go beyond our limits we feel defeated (I'm not meant to live thousand of miles away from my family, too lonely) or we feel liberated (I made it to California on a bike. By my own to 2 legs. Hell yeah). Which is why limits make me nervous. And so I constantly draw back from them, trying to force a crossing, trying to jump the gap, so my limits might never be realized, but rather, sit like dangerous mines, harmless as long as I find a way around them. This hasn't always worked....

But that emotional detour is not the point of my latest limit confrontation. Spain has been a mental, emotional, social and pyschological (overlapping categories?) challenge, and a very rigorous one to be honest. But physically, it has been constraining. I broke my foot in December, which rendered me a hobbler on crutches and I find that I'm so busy teaching, planning and commuting that I haven't had the chance to do physical that approaches biking the USA. But I began a slow comeback, I wanted to suffer physically, a little bit at least. I wanted something that would put me to the test. And I got it.

This Sunday I ran the Malaga Half Marathon. The bell went off at 10am and the Mediterrean sun was already high overhead, clocking the temperature at 80 degrees. And off we went, running faces to the sun. It was a brutal course - 11 km straight down the beach into the sunlight and 11 km back down the beach, running into gale force headwind. Delirious and nearing heat exhaustion as I ran by a sign telling me it was 31 degrees celcius, I decided I would finish. End of story. People began to pass me as I slowed down. I began to pass men that fell back, walking into the cruel headwinds. And I played the game of "I'm just running to the next stop light....the next stoplight...the next stoplight....the next sign..." until I finally got to "I'm just running till I cross that finish line." And I sprinted it. Legs wobbly with exhaustion but spirit sailing above my body, I sped up and ran the clock down. Satisfaction tempered by exhaustion makes for a healthy glow of pride and gratitude for having finished what I set out to do. Mingling amidst the other runners who had finished I felt strong and I felt very alone. I didn't remember any of them on the course, probably because they finished days before me, but also because running is such an independent sport. It's not a sad loneliness, but a very present loneliness I'd say. You feel all (and yes I mean ALL) the muscles in your body. You feel your lungs breathe. You taste the salt on your skin and you feel the burn starting to set in on your nose. And everyone else is feeling some sort of variation and they can't do anything about you or themselves. And that is what makes it so lonely. You must carry yourself mentally across the finish line. So while there is a comraderie amongst runners that have completed a race because they "did it" there is also a pervasive solitude present. When all you can do is breathe, there is no space for words. You feel your emotions, but you don't immediately emote them.

On the bus ride home, I kept saying "I did it" just to remember that I did indeed do it. That I still had it in me. I certainly didn't check anything off my to do list nor did I add to my resume, but mentally, I feel like Joan of Arc.

How humbling are the moments that make us decide if we are to be stronger than we previously thought? But how necessary and how empowering they are...

[ on a lighter note....2 km out, when it was the worst part of the race, hot as hell, brutal headwinds, an eldery man stepped out and yelled at a group of middle-aged men slowing down to my left, he said, "I know this is hard, but I'll tell you what's harder, being married to the same woman 64 years." That put us all to tears...and I secretly hoped that marriage wouldn't ever be so terrible]

Bifocal

2011-04-09T14:29:00.000-07:00

Saturday

There are days in my life that flow by in a tranquil rhythm. I never know when to expect them and I can never plan them. Like sand dollars on the shore, they fall at your feet if you wait long enough after the waves have passed.

Today was simple. Today was lovely. Like a drop of honey. Slowly sweet.

Michaella (a fellow profesora here) and I catch the morning bus to Nerja, a nearby beach town and from there catch the connecting bus to Frigiliana, one of the typical Andalusian white wash village towns nestled in the mountians. It is postcard worthy at everyturn and we easily peruse its streets in 2 hours. The far off sea, lounging beyond verdent rolling green hills tempts us back down, so we wait for the afternoon bus to carry us back to Nerja.

Nerja, being one of the usual tourist hot spots in the south of Spain boasts its fair share of cheap restaurants and typical beach shops selling bathing suits, towel, flip flops and kitschy souvenirs scribbled with the word "Nerja." But if you can crawl through the myriad of cheap deals and fast food, you reach the ocean and the aquamarine Mediterrean stares back at you with a gaping mouth. Large rocks, like the cookie crumbs of a long ago giant, sprinkle the beach, creating coves where small groups of people cluster in pockets of sand. Cliffs run right behind the beach, like a staunch hand, pushing the shore to sea, cupping the beach in sections and coves. It is Idyllic. Tramping by the cafes and restaurants on the overhang above the beach (called the Balcony of Europe) we high tail it down to the beach to snag a spot in the sun and soak it up. We scout out an open space between boulders and lay out, glistening in sunscreen.

A young girl was playing by herself in the waves in front of us. Laughing and jumping in her floatie like I used to do when I was a child. And as I causually watched her tease the waves, the ocean grew big, eclipsing the present in a memory of when I was young and the sea was my playmate. But all I could say was, "I can't believe in 2 months I won't be here." And it surprised me, how change was still unfathomable, even as we deal with change everyday. I'd eventually fly home and leave Malaga, just as I'd left my floatie and wave jumping days long ago. And even though I just arrived in Nerja I found myself saying, "I don't know what I'll do without the ocean...." as if I carried a small hope that my playmate might never forget me, even though I'd left him behind years ago. And maybe it was just the heat that was making me oddly emotional, but at the same time, the day was a moment of beautiful presence. Sitting on a beach and listening to waves. And watching my childhood jump the waves, wondering when we lose the lightness of being young.

Before I realize it, it's approaching dusk, but the sun is no where near the horizon, but my body says, go home, seek cool darkness.

And as we arrive in Malaga, its an odd moment, joking, "Home sweet home," feeling dry and sunburned, slow and cankterous, much like Alice must have felt as she walked back through the mirror, leaving Wonderland behind.

Pulling Myself Together

2011-04-05T14:39:00.001-07:00

Day 129

Sunday

What is harder about the act of saying good bye...the person saying adieu or the person watching the other drive away as they are left behind? Frequently caught in the former position, as the college student driving to campus, or as the graduate hugging her family at the airport as she heads to her first real big girl job, I'm used to the final glance back and the quiet loneliness (as well as the revealing tears) that falls over you,weighing your aura with memory. But, in Spain, having friends visit me puts me in the position of being the one left behind....It happened when my family visited me, as I watched my dad and brother meander back to the hotel after walking me back to my apartment or when I watched Leise hustle through security at Malaga and scurry to her gate. The moments after being abandoned are hallow, you think, well, I guess back to the routine...grocery shopping, laundry, lesson plans....and you go about finding the scattered pieces of the quotidian you burst out of when everything changed and the joy of saying hello illuminated your far away life.

And the pieces seem so dull in the dust of yesterday, but you find that they work, and sometimes the pieces come together in a new way...and you realize a new perspective.

and in the silence of your room that still doesn't talk back, you think, maybe goodbye isn't a wave of surrender to loneliness, but a chance to pull myself together in a new way...to realize that my hands are capable of letting go and holding on simultaneously.

taking hold of the present, i find a coherence in my re-imagined and newly understood (and incessantly modified) Self.

today is was about a tangible, potential coherence...a ponytail.

first ponytail since aug.2010.

Just when you think you're alone...

2011-03-29T14:51:00.000-07:00

Day 128

Saturday

I must have angels keeping close watch over me.

It's Saturday, 10:30 am and after lingering at the security gate watching the memory of Leise walk away to catch her flight, I mosied out of the Malaga airport into the bitter sunshine to catch the metro back to my flat...to fall back into the old routine...or bed. Suddenly my phone jumps to life and it's my groovy Andalucian grandma, Antonita, calling to see if I could catch the earliest train out to Alora for her birthday BBQ that afternoon. My tears weren't sure whether they should keep falling for loneliess or for joy. Exlaiming "YES!" in everyway possible in Spanish I confirmed my eager attendance. Pausing for a moment after I hung up to check my emotions as they soared from their deep morning plunge, I stuck a smile on my face and marched into the Metro, 1 ticket for Alora, off to a party, not home to wash clothes, wash dishes, sweep floors, buy groceries or job hunt.

It's amazing how far compassion can go. I arrive at the party and Antonita, the birthday girl is busy preparing my vegetarian meal (the only vegetarian for 50 miles) and shooing me out of the kitchen and out onto the patio to sit down and relax. Across language and cultural differences, she loves me and so do her family and friends. All piqued interest in me, asking how I was, if I'd like more to drink, if I'd like to move into the shade so as to not burn my pale American skin. And then the beautiful orchestra of familial comraderie started up and played throughout the afternoon. Sly jokes and pranks breaking the raucous conversations roaming the lenghth of the table. Food and forks clinking on plates, bottles of wine being emptied and calls for more paella echoing in the heavy heat of the sun. And then like a slow motion retreat of coral into its bed, friends and family members leaned chairs back into the shade, sipping espresso and watching the pools of melted icecream float on their plates.

And eventually it felt right to stand and stretch and 'start to go.' Which really meant, they started to talk more and wrap up food to give away ( I got 2 boxes of cake shoved into my arms). As I was figuring out who to ask for a ride to the train station to wait for the last train out of Alora, Antonita's sister-in-law comes up to me and says that she and her husband will be going back to Malaga and they'd love to drive me back to the city. And so like a little duckling I pad behind her, smiling at my luck, as I give the salutory "hasta luego" besos to everyone ( a tradition I will miss very much in the USA...there's something so intimate about kissing everyone good bye...it's genuine and decisive).

Reaching Malaga, my new friends dropped me off, with another round of hugs and kisses and assurances that I was welcome whenever I wanted to stop by their apartment. Somehow I floated back to my apartment, even though I had no need to go home because all day I had manifested the belief that "home is where the heart is" and as far as I was concerned...my heart was still in Alora, with the people who only know how to love unconditionally.

The rest of the night took an unexpected turn. I got food poisoning from the omlette that was made especially for me....with wild, local esperragus and quail eggs from their very own quails. For such a great day, it certainly came with a terrible back lash. An iron claw of pain had my intestines in its grip and all I wanted to do was call mom and ask her to help me stop hurting...but sometimes the body reminds you that home may be where the heart is, but there can't be a disconnect between body and mind. 24 miserable hours later...I was able to nibble at the box of cake left in my fridge :)

Antonia (in the purple hat she crocheted all by herself), Me, and her husband, Antonio

my best friends.

My Own Tea House

2011-03-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

Day 127

Friday

Like a lazy backfloat, tea bags hover momentarily in the rising steam of boiling water and like a deep exhalation waft downward to the radiating globs of honey at the bottom of our mugs. Exhaustively re-steeped the tea bag gives its final breath of flavor, tinting the water a weak amber. Conversation lingers in the columns of steam. Socked feet hang on the ledge of chairs and chins rest in the cups of hands...wandering across tracks of memory and remembering late weeknights at college after coming home from the library, dreary from writing our theses, only to put on the water for tea, hoping for something to take the edge off our anxiety.

And we found ourselves, a year later, Pj clad, staring into mugs of weak tea, working through life, working out life, working up life, and wondering when to just let it be. I can't say Leise and I had any real revelations, but I finally had a feeling of being home...in friendship.

Not Much

2011-03-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

Day 126

Thursday

I clench and unclench my hands like a pulsing jelly fish. I curl over and unfurl flashing a face of pain. I point to my stomach in agony. Still the pharmacist looks back at my in a quizzical apathy through sunlight glinting glasses. “Te duele el estomago?” {Does your stomach hurt?} She yawns, after my enthralling charades of stomach cramps. “Yes, well no, my stomach doesn’t, but my friend's does. It’s called PMS cramps. I need Advil.” She looks even more confused by my answer. So there I am back mumbling ‘apretado’ (cramped) and pointing to my stomach, hoping to spark a synapse somewhere in her medical mind. None of my translations of ‘Advil’ into Spanish seem to register with her. So she decides to meander back into the vault of boxes and comes back sliding across the counter an anti acid medicine to me. I look at her incredulously. In all my drama did she not understand LOWER ABDOMEN? I have no medical degree but esophagus is as far from the uterus as Spain is from the USA. Fed up with her “I don’t give a shit at 10am” attitude I forcefully slid the antacid back and yell “UTERUS!” And to that she says, “Well how should I have known that? You said stomach, (which obviously means esophagus in Spain) so she goes back and brings out Ibiprofeno. Apparently because drugs are so cheap in Spain there’s an embarrassment tax they like to throw on the price of medicine, just for kicks. Slamming the door shut as I sprint out I chuckle, thinking, good thing she’s a pharmacist because if she were a doctor I can’t imagine what her bedside manner would be like considering her horrendous customer service at the counter.

Leise and I decide to chuck are grand plans for Nerja and instead lay low (well, she does, she naps in my bed and I paint my nails.). And it’s ok. Sometime company is a vacation in itself.

Eventually though she rallies and we catch the train for a touristy beach town, Benalmadena, where we happen upon a St. Patrick’s Day Festival held by the Irish Council of Benalmadena. Gawking at the Irish accents surrounding us we catch the end of an Irish Dance performance and the closing guitar performance. Green of all shades roams throughout the crowd. Clover green Cat-In-the-Hat—esque hats bop around, kitschy medals of having had a Guinness.

Before long the event wraps up and we cut out before we get pulled into a circle of lawn chairs and card games in the parking lot. Meandering down to the beach for dinner we grab a picture with the elusive Buddha statue and marvel at the farm animals that litter the local “Paloma Park.”

It’s funny looking back because if you were to ask me what we did all day, I’d say “Not much” and it’d be steeped in a satisfied grin. But so many other painful days I’ve tallied the happenings of a day and come to the sad conclusion that “Not much” happened.

Community has the power to create and sustain. Old friends, like the annual arrival of spring and warmth, restore the languid roots, stiff from a lonely winter, of the soul and encourage new blooms of new found friends.

Isn’t there a saying, “You are the light of my life” ….?

I’m looking at each one of you.

No hump hump day

2011-03-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

Day 125

Wednesday

Arming my visitor with a map blotchy with tourist hot spots circled in blue ink, a key to the apartment and a big hug for good luck, I set out for work while Leise set out to explore Malaga on her own. I can't say which of us was luckier... me at gypsy school or her, a non-spanish speaker in the belly of Spanish pride. All day at school I felt like the high strung mother goose, hoping that Andalucia would treat my friend nicely, that it wouldn't cause her to get lost in tiny alleys and that it wouldn't rain on her. Clocking out at 6pm I hurried home doing my best power walk with swinging back pack, pounding out my most up beat playlist on my ipod. Turns out my roommate had rendezvoused with Leise and had taken her on a quaint tour of the 'local highlights' (don't you love it when the important people in your life just mesh). It ended with me meeting them and sneaking into a hotel to ride it to the top and check out the view of Malaga at sunset...as well as surprise a cohort of naked men who had commadeered the pent house hot tub, presuming no one would want a roof top photo op on a Wednesday at 8pm....hehe. Strolling back into town we wandered to an old favorite of mine, a small back alley tapas bar, where we gazed through a glass window and pointed at things that looked oddly colorful and tested our luck with our spontaneous ordering. Like all food in Spain, it ended up being delicious, only tainted by the unwelcome visit of a one eyed dog who eyed me with his one eye and the gaping hole of his absent ocular. (almost causing a complete reguritation of tapas)...

Considering it was Hump Day, usually a hard day to get through before any sort of slide into the weekend could begin, today was a walk in the park.

sometimes life is very clear cut. life is good.

Thai-d Up Again in Friends

2011-03-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

Day 124

Tuesday

How is it that old friends can so easily slip into the freshly etched grooves of a new life path?

My 4th year roommate at UVA, Leise Hook, better known as the my fellow thesis fanatic, who I should have credited in my bibliography as a source of sanity/madness/joy/fear/frustration/caffeine addict partner in crime, had just finished up her year teaching English in Thailand and decided to do a swing through Europe and taste the foreign flavor for the first time. Tuesday after work I skipped to the airport to pick her up and had to hold back tears of joy when I saw my old bud. She knew all the right things to say, "haven't been waiting long...you look great...so glad to see you...no no, I'll carry my bag" and just as if we were meeting after class at UVA we talked the next 4 days to the ground.

I'd forgotten how good it felt to have someone waiting and wanting to see you. Someone to eat dinner with. Someone to walk home with. Someone to chat over cups of tea with. Old memories sweetened the reunion. Not that Leise knows me through and through or that I'm even worried about that, but she has a good feel about who "Katie" is and god it was awesome to laugh nostaglically with someone who loved me then and loves me now.

Andalucia softened its growl today, my new friend helped distract me from all the little troubles I'd been stuck staring down for the past week. Suddenly it was just laughter and smiles...stories of Thailand and a warm spring night.

It's hit me.

2011-03-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

Day 123

Angsty storm clouds fit the sour mood I woke up in. Monday, back to work, back to being on my own. No family visiting, no school holidays, just a wet commute to work.

Soaking in reality.

Tidal Wave

2011-03-13T14:46:00.000-07:00

Day 122

Day 94-121 : Sporadic Review to come

This blog goes out to JAR. The girl who thought writing an 8 page essay would be a breeze on a Sunday afternoon before driving back to UVA. That's a 4th year for you. Delirious on the high of her final semester, she loses all sense of time management, because the end is near, so who really cares, right JAR?

This vignette is for you.

Skirting the edge of darkened sand, recently baptized by the coming tides, my gaze falls side to side, water to sand, eyeing the encroaching waves and languidly scanning the carpet of seashells, wondering when I'll discover the gem of tranquilty I can pocket and put in my little cup of shells on my desk back in my flat. With my hobo sensiblity of beauty I pick at odd red rocks and swiggly edged shells, filling my peacoat with sponateous delights. Internal arguments flitter as I throw a shell back because it wasn't whole, it wasn't perfect. I'd already happily tossed bits and pieces of shells in my pocket, but now I was on the hunt for the queen conch. As much as I didn't want to admit that I wanted a perfect shell I did. And I combed the beach until I found it. And yes, I took it. And now it sits, heavily at the bottom of the pile of shells I have, a platform for the scraps of shells and colorful pebbles I was instantly enamored with. Hours later, I can't say I love it anymore than the others. But JAR, the vignette doesn't end here, with a search for perfection and the unsatisfying feeling of finding it. No, I was walking on the beach, with a military commander intensity gaze, eager to find more shells that I stopped listening to the ocean, that is until it reached out and snapped at my heel. Cursing my wet shoe, I shook the salt water off as I hopped up the bank, abandoning my guerilla hunt momentarily. When I took a moment to shut up the waves continued to rhythmically hush me. And then I realized I was watching an epiphany occur. Again and again. The wave rushes into the shore, like the light of an epiphany and then the white fringe runs up the shore and the water balances over the sand, fully exposed, drenching the shore in foreign water, just like the idea rising to the surface of consciousness, hitting your brain, stretching itself out in perfect clarity for a moment. Then the wave pulls back and in a grand rush, leaving a momentary silence, a breathless calm, like the flood of relief at the realization of a long coming epiphany. And just as the wave pulls back, so does the curtain of ignorance and you realize what you hadn't before. And then the wave comes back, just as little thoughts come and quake the mind, because like small eddies in the current, a trail of thoughts winds through the reservoir of new found realizations. An epiphany changes everything, like the wave shaping the shoreline.

The obvious epiphany : Procastination means shooting yourself in the foot. It hurts and little progress is made. (no this was not taken from the vignette JAR, this was just a 'no shit' epiphany for you, especially)

The subtle epiphany: Wholeness can be found in disparate pieces.
But now that you all have left me again, I'm back to grasping at a sense of self from memories of times when I a part of you all.

love you and miss you.

No White Flag Today

2011-02-22T12:42:00.000-08:00

Day 93

Tuesday

A day of little victories.

4th grade A listened…a little bit more. Only had to count down from 10 to cool down three times during class.

Successfully studied for a spelling test with a child that had just come from Judo class and had a chocolate milkshake on the way home. His mom’s apology before class, “I’m sorry, he’s out of control, but do what you can.” And so, with the level of difficulty akin to fly-fishing with your bare hands, we got hold of the vocabulary and his pencil and managed to get most of it in his memory. (Results to be seen Thursday after his spelling test).

One of those days where you say, “Ok, so this week really is going to happen. Monday wasn’t a fluke.” Gives you just enough challenges to make ya sweat, but cuts you enough slack that you actually believe you’re gonna make it.

The Pursuit of Happiness

2011-02-22T12:05:00.000-08:00

Day 92

Monday

Just when you think no one sees you the house lights turn on and the audience of your peers comes into view, having been there all along. The lights came on for me today when my roommate said, “I can’t tell if you’re happy. Are you?” The question froze me in place. Wrinkling my brow as I prepared to voice a response I thought how I always believed my roommate never took note of my moods, as I’d always been pretty even keel. And what’s more, I consider myself a very emotive person (my mother’s a therapist for god sake, when I feel an emotion I know how to express it effectively), so for my roommate to tell me he couldn’t tell if I was happy was shocking. And then what I said surprised me even more than his question, without thinking I blurted, “Well I’m not. I hate my job. I have zero job satisfaction and lack a sense of purpose entirely.” (Where did my social filter go?) He looked even more shocked, “You hate your job?” “Well of course, I don’t serve a purpose. I teach English to children that don’t even speak Castellano correctly. Their parents don’t care to help them, so my stupid games go to waste. But that’s only when the teacher decides to show up or Spain decides to have school, instead of a random holiday. I’m wasting my time here.” “But you’re living the life, you get long weekends, the beach is right there, there’s an awesome international community here, you can go out every night of the week, life’s cheap, the people are hot, the work is easy.” “Exactly. I don’t enjoy any of that. I didn’t come to Spain to party with beautiful rich kids fucking around on a study abroad trip. I mean, I go to the library for fun. Málaga and I have different interests at heart. I’m trying to make it a worthwhile experience, but it doesn’t seem like my efforts getting me anywhere.” And thus began the first real conversation my roommate and I have ever had. It didn’t end like an Oprah show with us crying and hugging each other, finally coming to know the other’s true self, he’s a guy after all and I’m a defensive clam about my feelings, so instead, it was a refreshing discussion about purpose and crisis. I can now say I trust my roommate.

His parting line, “Let’s work on doing the things that make you happy, okay?”

I don’t know that I believe in altruism, but a comment like that certainly gives me cause to want to believe.

Now how can I support YOU in your pursuit of happiness?

Because it tends to be a slow journey if you go at it alone...

Ronda

2011-02-21T13:33:00.000-08:00

British Hospitality, Andalucian Hostility

2011-02-21T13:25:00.000-08:00

Day 90 & 91

Saturday, Sunday

Like 8th graders on a Friday morning, we (the other English teachers and I) slink to the back of the bus and get into proper lounging form for the long bus ride to Ronda. As most group activities go, one person had an idea and everyone else jumped on board, our trip was no exception to this norm. A teacher had come across an adorable hostel in the mountains by Ronda and proposed that we sightsee Ronda by day on Saturday, grab a taxi out to the hostel Saturday night after watching the sunset in Ronda and then Sunday morning, hike back to Ronda and catch the afternoon bus home. The plan was perfect. And like lemmings we jumped.

Ronda, however, was not keen on accommodating our plans. We arrived in Ronda, where temperatures were easily high 30s/low 40s with gale force winds that tore through your coat, if not your face, having come from Málaga, the beachside town where it’s never dropped below 50 F. Calling Ronda ‘blustery’ lacks the vehemence that the wind threw at us, it was tortuously cold. But like poor travelers who’re hell bent on getting their monies worth of the experience we walked around and saw the sights and searched out lesser known sights, then stumbled upon sights that weren’t sights at all, that were just shady streets were normal people lived. And then we reached our breaking point. One can only put on a good face for so long…before it’s blown off by arctic blasts. So we ducked into a warm Chino (a dollar store) and all bought little arctic type wool hats and then commenced to café hop to escape the cold. 3 cafes and 2 glasses of wine later we called it quits, deciding that a sunset in Ronda was like a sunset in Malaga or in our hostel and we hailed the first cab we could find for our hostel.

And this is where the dream begins.

Our hostel was run by a Brit named Bots who smiled beneath a leathery face and loosely tied back pony-tail, like an undying relic of the Rolling Stones, who came to Spain about 15 years ago, fell in love with the coast and one crazy night up and bought a hostel and has been on the outskirts of Ronda ever since. And by the way, he’s a gourmet chef. While we defrosted by the fire he threw together the best paella I’ve ever eaten in my life (his secret, squeeze lime, not lemon over the dish). Dinner evolved into a dinner party and Bots regaled us with his travel tales (including going into the Cambodian jungle and smoking opium with a native tribe) as neighbors popped in and out, bringing a bottle of wine or a bag of dried fruit or left over Christmas candies. The conversation roared and the fire grew dim, and so passed one of the strangest nights of my life.

Crawling out of my bed the next morning, having nearly frozen to death I scrambled to put on every article of clothing I’d brought and then poked my head up to the loft to see how the day was forming for our hike to Ronda.

It was snowing.

Heavily.

Bots, like all hostel owners, had ears sharper than a porcupine quill and heard me taking some obligatory film of the epic snowstorm descending upon the mountainous region. He simply laughed and said, “You all certainly chose the right weekend for a hike. This is the only place in Spain where it’s snowing right now.” I’m not sure what our group did to deserve such a karmic backlash, but some pagan deity certainly was reeking revenge upon us. We decided to eat breakfast and let the weather clear up a bit and then decide if the hike was do-able. But upon reviewing the map with Bots (who had previously assured us it would be an enjoyable 3 hour hike) he said he actually hadn’t done it in 5 years and wasn’t sure if they’d put up fences to keep cows in and hikers out. And what’s more, the cloud cover hung so low the peaks of mountains were invisible, so as we stood out on the loft roof, Bots tried to point to the 2 mountains we’d have to pass between to come around to Ronda, but couldn’t identify where they were hidden. So, the hike was scrapped for another day. But since our group moved with the speed of a sedated sloth, we missed the 1pm bus and had to wait 3 hours for the 4pm bus. What else to do but play Scrabble (in English with a group of Americans, 1 Spaniard, 1 Brit).

In the end, I can’t say I hold Ronda in any special place in my heart, like every other tourist in Spain does. She was a brutal old bird, determined to make us suffer. But I’m happily filing away the memory in the file of stories that are more enjoyable told in retrospect than lived in the present.

Really, SNOW??? It’s the Costa del SOL (SUN!).

How the Fling got Force

2011-02-21T13:18:00.000-08:00

Day 89

Friday

Emanating from the burgeoning and blooming folds of friendships conversations foment. Inklings echo with intention given fruition by reciprocity. Heads nod in agreement and a plan is made.

Ronda.

Tomorrow.

*Ronda is a small city in Andalucia

Gringos

2011-02-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

Day 88

Thursday

The Mediterranean Diet has received its share of face time in the world. People rave about its health benefits, how it pulls from local ecosystems, and its cooking methods. But some days you just want to throw the olives and the olive oil out the window and eat chana masala or chow mein Or a taco.

One night as we were wandering around some small alleys in the city we stumbled upon a small taco restaurant owned by an Argentine woman. While we doubted her ability to cook up a true Mexican enchilada or Salvadoranean pupusa, our palettes craved anything that didn’t come as a tapas. And while Taco Bell could compete with what we ate, I’ve never relished salsa nor guacamole so much in my life. How could something written in Spanish be so very different from the food we’d known to be Spanish?

And yes, tequila should only go with Mexican.

All hail the immigrants of Spain!

The Sound of Innocence

2011-02-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Day 87

Wednesday

Why I love working with children:

I’m standing at the sink of the women’s locker room washing my hands. There is a woman in a robe next to me putting on her face. Between us floats the faint voice of a small boy. It grows louder at a chorus only he knows and it warbles as he forgets words of the song. The woman and I make eye contact in the mirror and the song draws a smile out of us both. Being the only ones in the locker room we both know the voice belongs to her son. Rolling her eyes she sweetly calls, “¿Alejandro, te estas cambiando o te lo has olvidado?” (Alexander, are you changing or have you forgotten?) We both chuckle as he coos back “¡Sííííí!” (yessss), knowing he’s still playing with his swim goggles, while crooning, naked.

Now that's just awkward

2011-02-10T11:11:00.001-08:00

Day 86

Tuesday

Life is awkward. Like the pain in my groin. How does one pull their groin? In everyday life people normally don’t move in ways that inflict stress on the groin muscle. It’s in an awkward area. It’s a small muscle. But somehow I managed to pull my groin. So there I go walking normally through school and then one half degree pivot of my left leg and shooting pain runs through my groin and straight into my face, catching my breath and clenching my jaw. I’m sure anyone watching me would have thought I was having a convulsion they way I tensed up. But the next step follows, deep exhalation, pain free, each step a tender guess as to when the pain will flare.

But, there’s nothing like having the teacher who broke her knee 2 months ago (and had a FULL, full leg cast, yes from toe to groin..haha…for 2 months) and had been on bed rest, followed by time scooting around her piso in a wheelchair, eventually scrambling the streets in crutches (the tortuous contraptions the Spanish have invented instead of using the remarkably pain free American crutches) until she could scramble so well as to hop around school. And today was her first day back. And she couldn’t have been happier. And it really didn’t leave me any room to complain about my groin. Pulled groin vs. broken knee in full leg cast….

So as I grimaced as I crossed my legs to sit down at her welcome back party I thought, it’s just a groin. Now it’s time for cake. At least the Spanish know how to party hard enough to make you forget the hard times for a bit…

Beating The Day

2011-02-04T15:29:00.001-08:00

Day 85

Monday

For anyone that commutes before the sun comes up, we’re of a special breed. Stealing across the countryside in the carriage of the train, eyes drowsy with sleep stare out big black windows reflecting more of the interior than revealing the exterior world. And so more often than not during my twilight commute to work I’m watching a reel of myself deciding to wake up…and winning or failing. But I will say this about commuting before the sunrise, by the time I arrive at school and the sun has come up I feel like a secret agent, with secret credibility, having sojourned through the birth of the day. And I’m ready to get the day going. Usually. Having committed to the day by getting up so early I geared to be uber productive.

But then I go to class and the teacher says that I can teach what ever I had planned, and she returns to scanning Facebook. I take a second to stare quizzically at the back of her head, wondering, “What am I doing here?” (Or rather, what is she doing here??) And all I can do is muster the energy to forge on with a lesson, more or less created ad hoc. Like a bell curve graph my level of success rises and falls between classes and within classes. You never can be sure when the climax or when the tipping point will hit.

After school I have my private classes, which I’ve come to treasure. Today it was just me and Natalia. She a bright student (reminds me of myself as a child really) (that was me being facetious) and learns English rapidly. Without the competitive arrogance of the other student (who is albeit adorable) Natalia and I sped through animals and foods and what she likes to do. It was the most productive hour of the 12 I had already been awake for.

It’s funny, as I was walking home I thought, what did I really do today? I was awake for long enough to do quite a bit…but…today I…

And I return again to Annie Dillard, “How we spend our days is of course how we spend our lives.”

Finding the Right Angle

2011-02-04T12:26:00.001-08:00

Day 84

Sunday

Finding perspective. A deep breath day.

Chaotic Tranquility

2011-02-04T12:13:00.000-08:00

Day 83

Saturday

Today I felt like the kid who hadn’t quite put her goggles on and her little brother went ahead and pushed her into the pool. It was a rough start. Late wake up. Faulty coordination of time zones led to a 2 hour nap waiting for a Skype date with a far away friend, unsure if I was really early or really late. And the internet connection didn’t help clear much up when we did connect. A swim at the pool did little to wake me up; rather it made me long for back floats in the sun on a lazy river.

It was one of the days when you trip walking up the stairs. But really despite the mess I was perpetually caught in, I didn’t have to yell at any of my students. Maybe that’s why I was all over the place – my energy is so used to being focused and pointed that when I’m faced with a pleasant sunny day, I fall to pieces…

Need to work on that.

The Distance to Intimacy

2011-02-03T14:11:00.000-08:00

Day 82

Friday

Standing amidst the hub of imbibers and conversers I let my eyes tip toe about the kitchen, out to the hall way where the crowd of people poured out into the living room, and on into my roommate’s bedroom. Ringing with English our apartment held the echoes of majority of the English professors living in Malaga. A small party had suddenly grown into a gathering of all English speakers in the 10 mile range. All the conversations followed similar routes…”1st year teaching…..I work in ___......just graduated from…….next year…..?? Yeah, Spain is great. Different, but great.” And as we repeated the ritual of making a stranger a friend I was struck by the great wealth of potential friends encircling me rather tightly. Where had all these people been all those lonely afternoons I walked by myself? Only the promise of English and alcohol had brought them out of the woodwork.

With each new face, I forgot another name. With each new story I heard, my own became shorter and more concise. And slowly a strange thing began to happen. Instead of eagerly wishing to meet everyone and befriend them all I wanted them to leave. I wanted my apartment empty again. It was not that anyone was terribly awful, they all were nice people, but they weren’t MY people.

It was the back breaking work of building a new community that threw me into a funk. I realized just how special my intimate friends were and how fragile their relationship really was. And I marveled at the work I had already done to create close friends….and amidst all the other things I was dealing with, I just couldn’t muster the energy to make new friends of the same caliber. How could I? I would never dance salsa with these people day after day for 4 years. I would never bike across the country with these people. I would never be caught at 3am in the library writing a thesis with these people. I was just drinking and talking. And the superficiality, the artificiality disgusted me.

Maybe it was just because it was 3am and I had been up since 6am for work, but I was in a fickle, nostalgic mood. Granted, I stuck it out and did my best “I want to be your friend!” façade till the floor cleared out and I could breathe deep again. But all I really wanted to do was call up my old friends and say, “You are so very special to me! I am so grateful to have you (and to have had you) in my life! Thank you for loving me! And thank you for the time that fostered our friendship”

I hope your heart hears this message; it’s torn open my heart and made me a humble admirer of the grace of old friendships.

I love you and I am so grateful for you. The time we’ve shared is a gift I will forever be repaying.

And what a generous gift - to love another person, unconditionally.

I don't love you enough to pick your nose, but you get the idea. Intimacy. That's what I'm talking about.

Feel It

2011-02-03T04:49:00.000-08:00

Day 81

Thursday

Surprises are always around the corner, if you go exploring you’ll find them. Who knew, there is a weekly flamenco show 1 street over at a local bar?? Crowding in with the other Malaguenos and visiting tourists sipping strong dark wine we waited for the troupe to take to the diminutive stage. Like striking black stallions the dancers paraded through the crowd up to the front, the guitarist and the singer following in the space of their grand entrance. Picking out tragic melodies the guitarist began to entice the dancers to stomp out their dramatic story, twirling hands drew the attention of the audience upwards until a stamp of the foot plummeted our gaze to the floor and in the quiet pause that followed eyes floated back to the face of the dancer who was channeling another world full of strong emotions that played across her face and caused her chest to rise in the exertion of the movements. Like a call and response, the man and the woman took turns moving about the floor to a rhythm they felt deeply, so deeply they needed no choreography, just the sound of the guitar and the voice of the singer to guide their bodies. Flamenco is an intense experience. It leaves your spirit quiet, overwhelmed by the experience. It leaves you wanting to ask “why? Why such pain in the face of the dancer, in the voice of the singer, in the melody of the guitar?” but those dark eyes don’t let you in, rather hands twirl and spin to distract you from the face, the skirt flies and you’ve been deceived by the drama.

Flamenco serves as a suitable metaphor for my time here in Spain. There’s a rhythm to life here that I haven’t been quick to pick up on and I’ve been too timid to make a big show of my own feelings, of my own experiences. But to dance you have to feel it. Really truly profoundly feel it.

Loving Kindness

2011-01-28T11:11:00.000-08:00

Day 80

Wednesday

“Did you see the new boy?” Arabella asked me mid-worksheet in the middle of practicing the short ‘o’ sound.

“No! I didn’t know there was a new boy.” I replied.

“Well, there is, in 6th grade B and all the girls are all over him. And he’s goth.” She haughtily informed me.

“Really? Goth? Wow.” I said before she cut in,

“Yes, he’s from Barcelona.”

“And do you like him?’ I inquired.

“Oh well, I don’t know, he’s goth.” (And Arabella is a sweet British 6th grader).

And that was that. I knew that there was a strange energy in the school today. Everyone was unusually chatty and excited. There was a new boy. All my little country bumpkin kids couldn’t believe they’d got a classmate from the big city, Barça.

Heading off to 6th grade B right after I was excited to meet the new student, as I’ve always felt an unusual affinity for Barcelona. I didn’t even have to try and find him. The minute I walked in I could spot him. Sporting a fashion hair cut, with a huge swath of hair swept across his baby face hiding rebellious brown eyes. I quickly found out as almost all of the girls tried to introduce him at once that his name was Antonio. I laughed and welcomed him to class, knowing that we’d get nothing done. 11 pairs of eyes were locked in on that poor boy, all smitten. And I could only chuckle to myself as I asked them to open their activity books to correct their homework; I so easily remembered how it felt to have a new kid at school, such excitement at having the quotidian social network thrown askew. But I got a funny new perspective as a teacher this time around. No longer was my main concern his degree of cute-ness, but rather, would he make my hour in English hellish or amicable. To my great luck he spoke little English, which made him gun-shy about speaking up or acting out. Which meant the rest of the class was a bit more inclined to be productive.

Trading the new boy for the slow boy I went to 4th grade where there is the most endearing boy, Juanfro, who is slightly autistic and mentally challenged (is that is the going P.C term?) in Spain they integrate all of the children, so the special needs children are seated next to the valedictorian, regardless of their learning styles or inability to follow the material. And so Juanfro is seated in the front row, with a daydreamer smile painted on his face as he rocks, waiting for someone to notice him and direct him to an activity. And so today, while the class was taking a test, Juanfro, who never takes the tests, was pulled up to the teacher’s desk so Gema could show him his coloring activity. The scene that followed almost made me cry. A quick preface – most of the special needs children are treated terribly, mocked by their classmates and berated by their teachers.

Gema had sketched a popular cartoon character and had written down the colors his different body parts were to be colored in English. As she was reviewing the cartoon, in such a gentle manner, sweetly asking, “Juanfro, look at his big ears. What color are his ears?” And he would tap the page, caressing the ears, begging the tickle to recall the secret color of the ears. Gema had written the word ‘red’ in the ears and she asked him again, “Juanfro, look at his big ears (and she touches his ears) what color are his ears? What color is red?” And behind Gema sits Sapo, a small boy who’s more interested in Gema and Juanfro than the test. He waves a red crayon to help Juanfro guess what red means. Juanfro catches the signal wave and giggles “Rojo! (red)” “Good Juanfro, good! The ears are red, rojo. Now look at his big feet, what color are his feet?” And again Sapo waves a bright blue crayon and Juanfro eagerly shouts “Blue!” “Yes Juanfro yes! Blue! Now look at his hands, what color are his hands?” A yellow crayon hails his attention floating over Gema’s head and Juanfro jumps up, “yellow!” And Gema is elated, “Yes very very good! Yellow!” By now more eyes have departed from the test page and wandered up the scene at the front of the class, stifled giggles peppered the room as Sapo waved the crayon for Juanfro. Teacher’s say they have eyes in the back of their head, so I’m sure Gema knew Sapo was acting as a secret aide, but she let it be and let Juanfro light up with joy at guessing all the colors and Sapo just smiled and nodded his head in encouragement. I was filled with so much hope in humanity in that moment. I said that I believe in the age of innocence, and I do, but more than that, I believe in the constancy of kindness. It’s in all my students; I just love when it rises to the occasion. And what’s more, it was the random act of kindness that made me melt. Isn’t it true, the unexpected, unsolicited, freely given kindness of another is the most precious gift one can receive. Organic grace is one of the small miracles of sociality.

Loving kindness….how to put that in a lesson plan?

Spanning the Spectrum

2011-01-27T06:17:00.001-08:00

Day 79

Tuesday

I believe in the age of innocence. It is 1st grade. They’re so adorable to the point that even if they have mis-behaved they’re so darn cute your mean face just melts away the minute their big eyes widen in fear of punishment. And they love freely and extravagantly. It was the class hug I received when I peeked into 1st grade A at 10am for English that made me a believer in the age of innocence. One smile and one “Seño! (teacher)” gleefully screeched aroused the room and before my grin stretched ear to ear I was wrapped by little arms in an enormous group hug that was more like a leg hug because the short darlings really didn’t reach higher than my hips. And so of course we had fun in class. They told me about their toys, completely forgetting we had learned about toys before the break. Regardless of their reversion to monolinguism I was in a good mood, we played games and I assume they re-learned something.

4th grade was a different story. I don’t believe in hating anything, that is simply wasted energy. So I won’t say I hate 4th grade B, but rather say, what a wonderful challenge they are presenting me with. Dare I say that they are IMPOSSIBLE to teach, yes I do. Having failed to hold their attention as I tried to teach them science English I decided to scrap the science game plan for an impromptu lesson on RESPECT. As we waited in the hall for the monitor to open the door to 4th grade B the students told me “perdon” (sorry) for being so rude before break when I walked out of the classroom for the principal and said I refused to continue teaching the class on my own because of their vile behavior. I was hoping their apologies meant they had changed for the better…but alas, change is slow. Very slow. Still carrying a chip on my shoulder towards them I had my ice queen face on and walked into the classroom and wrote in huge letters on the board ‘RESPECT.’ And waited for them to remember I was the teacher and they were the students. The principal had kindly sent an aide to sit in the class with me (instead of coming herself as she should). I began to ask them what they thought respect meant and for the next hour we struggled through defining respect, discussing who we respect and why. Then I assigned them homework (big mistake). I asked them to write a 2 page essay on Respect. As if I were a full moon, the pack of wolves that was the class began to howl at me, ‘2 pages? 2 pages?” unable to believe that I would dare ask that much of them. Still pissed as hell at them I said, “If one more person asks me if it is really 2 pages, I will double it to 4 pages.” And told them to begin immediately. As expected, they didn’t begin. They roamed the class, they taunted classmates, they laughed loudly and they all asked to go to the bathroom. In between my demands for silence I laughed with the aide sitting with me, she noted, “they really haven’t realized why they’re learning about respect, have they?” “No, no, they still don’t get it” I said, disappointed. 12:59:59 I shouted that I wanted the homework next week and I fled, 1 hour done.

I wonder if I could get an ex-Marine to come be my aide, I think he’d be rather effective in disciplinary techniques and teaching respect.

; )

Wha-Bam.

2011-01-27T05:43:00.000-08:00

Day 78

Monday

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF.

Pair that long sound with a subtle shake of the head and you’ve summed up my Monday. The process of getting back into the groove is almost as hard as getting the groove in the first place. With no sun to tempt you out of bed at 6am motivation really becomes a matter of intrinsic capability. Can you will yourself to get up? Luckily I wasn’t the only one out of whack. The rest of my school and my students were also a bit stiff. Over the break the internet in our school broke down, the heat we’d wished they’d put in never came (not that it ever will), and all the students forgot English and the basic act of sitting still. So it’s 9am and I’m staring out at a sea of second graders bundled up like delicate glassware to be shipped on horse and cart across a gravel road. Once stripped down to their stylish little sweaters and gym pants the day began, or rather, the story telling began. I had forgotten the urgency with which a child must tell their teacher about all they did and all the gifts they received for Christmas. It was odd to be on the receiving end of the stories; I had forgotten how important the act of re-telling was. And it made me wonder what I chose to tell my colleges and my friends about my break and what I heard when they spoke to me about their vacations. With my colleagues there was a lot of “oh, nothing special. Had a nice dinner with the family. Opened gifts, really the usual.” But with children everything was intensely hyperbolic. The got the COOLEST video game or the most AWESOME legos or the PRETTIEST doll. When do adults lose that high octane energy for life? Why was dinner not STUPENDOUS? Why did we not think the break was MAGICAL? And if we do think these things, why don’t we say it?

And why worry about getting back into the groove when being out of the groove was STELLAR?

I thought it appropriate to show the town plaque, 2 horses battling in mid-air. The normal need not always be normal.

Now I see why it's the Costa del Sol

2011-01-27T05:21:00.001-08:00

Day 77

Sunday

Wondrous winter sunlight.

Mental Funk

2011-01-25T14:16:00.000-08:00

Cotidian malaise
makes opaque
the light of
being alive.
Until the minds eye
looks inside-
sharp with longing
for release
and breathes
out
- Let Be -
till slowly
the fog condenses
and the clouds fall as rain
and the water feeds the fountain
of the spirit
flowing with a
rejuvenated passion.

.......

My apologies for being away for so long, thank you to everyone who checked in, eager for updates and found none. Mental Funk of 2011 is subsiding and my words are slowly being coaxed back out into the world by a gentle urgency of hope for happiness in a place full of faces earning my trust and moments begging for intimate laughter.

What nerve.

2011-01-18T13:36:00.000-08:00

Day 76

Saturday

January 8, 2011 Katie Riedel wears a t-shirt while walking around Malaga.

And walks barefoot on the beach.

Slowly coming back to (another) life.

T.G.I.F

2011-01-17T13:40:00.000-08:00

Day 75

Friday

Spain may poke fun at me, Spain may prod at my patience, Spain may push me to my wit’s ends, but it can’t deport me. I’m officially a legal short term resident. TGIF has taken on a new meaning – Thank God I’m on File. And apparently I’m a student. (The ever quick study of life shall I say, ha!)

The actual moment of obtaining my legality was less momentous than I had hoped for. After tromping through a rain storm (having overslept and turned off my alarm) I ran for the Comiseria (Police HQ) like a bat out of hell. One should never show up late to life. But as no one, no one, leaves their homes in the rain, I was the only one in the ‘extranjero’ (foreigner) line, which allowed me to simply waltz into the office (a waltz which normally played out to the tune of 2 grueling hours), flash my passport (which was of course taunted, ‘que joven!” (Whoa, look how young you were!) “yes yes I know. Yes, those are braces on my teeth. Yes, I did grow up, thank you.) and a little card was pulled out of a file and subsequently stuffed into my wallet. I can’t say I feel much different, even though I get a distinct pleasure asking for the ‘student’ discount at places. And getting it when I flash my student ID.

The rest of the day passed in that swirly mess of jet lag semi consciousness. I meandered thorough the market, so relieved to be back in the farmer’s market and out of Giant/Costco/Wal-Mart. But the rain sent my spirit back inside, back to bed. Jet lag ravishes me. I don’t even have the energy to be a bump on a log.

I wonder when the day will come when I can use my frequent flyer miles not to upgrade to first class, but to upgrade to a jet lag free arrival.

Volver

2011-01-15T04:17:00.001-08:00

Day 74

Thursday

I have NEVER enjoyed any flight I have ever taken. I have always suffered looking out above the sea of clouds in great anxiety that we might plummet back down through them to Earth. I am one of those people who simply hate to fly.

But there is ONE exception - my flight I took back to Malaga. I flew business class and I’ve never been treated better. This one shining moment of peace, relaxation and delight amidst the countless nail biters is all due to the best uncle in the world- UNCLE SCOTTY D!

THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH UNCLE SCOTT! I AM FOREVER INDEBTED TO YOU!! BEST. FLIGHT. EVER. EVER. EVER.

It was an overwhelming experience of luxury; I was ill prepared to soak it all up. The flight attendant showed me to my seat and as I was about to climb into the mammoth couch they had assigned me she asked if she couldn’t hang up my coat for me. I paused, I didn’t even know they had closets on planes, “No, but thank you, I think I’ll hang on to it for now.” (You never know when you’ll need to get up and go. Best to keep your things close, right?) Not being able to take my coat the attendant brought me a glass, yes a glass of water. Lounging back into my seat I was swimming in extra space. What I shall describe next passed in a dream like manner, with the most wonderful friend seated next to me, Mike, the auditor who calls the world his home because he travels 90% of the year. Complimentary blankets warmed us; headphones connected us to a storehouse of videos and music while complimentary toiletries kept us fresh. Warmed nuts were placed ‘bed’side for our munching enjoyment, until the first course was served on plates, real live plates. Not having much of an appetite for the odd Italian tasting green bean and pinto bean salad like entrée I tried to give the tray back to the flight attendant when she came back around and she looked at me with great concern, “Are you not going to have your hot plate ma’am’?” “Oh dear, I get a hot plate?” I retorted. “Of course, you didn’t think that little thing is all we would give you? Hahaha” “Well, with companies cutting budgets, I wasn’t sure, I was about to dig into the PB sandwiches I packed just in case. Haha” She just shook her head and laughed and took away my plate, advising me to keep my tray. She traded the icky vegetables for a delightful Indian meal of cous cous and malasaa and an eggplant dish. And it tasted like real food. After dessert of ice-cream drizzled with coffee liqueur they came around with tea. And more importantly my dear attendant came by to show me how to fully extend my seat so I could sleep. Yes I actually slept on a flight. Didn’t know anyone actually could. I felt like I was at some odd sleep over, chatting with Mike about prostitution and the CPA exam, with intermittent marathon sessions of The Office. Nearing landing I was given a friendly reminder that I had a 20 minute window to use the restroom and freshen up, only to find breakfast awaiting me when I returned. People say you can’t buy happiness, well, I tell you what, maybe not, but you sure can buy Princess Treatment. Landing in Zurich I gave myself a pat on the back for resisting the urge to curl up in fetal position on the floor, the swarthy space of floor in front of my seat.

Needless to say the connecting flight from Zurich to Malaga was more a kin to the transport of cattle in a compact truck.

Landing in Malaga and just walking out…and knowing where to walk out to was surreal. A remarkably more positive experience than my first landing. I laughed as I walked by the Info Desk, don’t need a map this time.

I walked back into Malaga, back into the city with odd store hours and wild night life and dead pig legs hanging everywhere, and took a hard hit by some jet lag.

Attempting to fight off the tiger like attack of exhaustion I took a forced march jaunt along the beach. My senses too dulled with desire to sleep, I half heartedly took in the sunshine, the beach, the ocean and the breeze. On the return trip back to my bed a small yellow butterfly popped into view and floated over my right shoulder up to the palm trees chirping with parrots. And in the moment the exhaustion fell from my face and a smile appeared what a small miracle with grace greater than its passing size. (A telltale sign of the rising vernal crescendo?)

And with that I slept for 13 hours straight.

ciao malaga

2011-01-10T14:49:00.000-08:00

Day 73

Wednesday

home.

The Affront

2011-01-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

Day 72

Tuesday

The sound of my alarm certainly does not motivate me to get out of bed, but neither does the sound of rain. Especially a thunderstorm at 6am. Why do I want to fight my toothbrush, my bed hair, my wardrobe, and the weather? I really don’t. But I get up anyways and trudge out the door, zipped up tight, walking fast. By the time I reach the train station the rain has subsided and I had the rare opportunity to see a thunderstorm passing onward while another storm grumbled from behind, flanking the dark clouds from the far right. Delightful, the changing of the guards. Not daring to disappoint, the next round is just as nasty as the last, but thankfully I’m watching the drops wisp off the windows of the high speed train, only able to enjoy its drenching upon dis-embarkment. Álora is a mystical pueblo. It is in the mountains so it is either very cold or very hot. The bizarre location is boasts in the mountains, yet near the sea gives it variable temperatures. When the rain stopped an odd fog rose from the ground, almost like a hovering cloud of humidity. It made me wonder if the clouds were too tired to rise any higher, content to pool around the tops of mountains or if the mountains pushed out such proud chests to pierce the puffs of rippling white. Didn’t matter which really, the view stopped the reel of negativity going off in your mind about wet shoes, wet pants, wet jacket and a long day of work ahead. But then again, it would be my last day of work. Tomorrow morning I’d fly home 

Soak me through and through Málaga, but you can’t hold on to me.

When I say America, You say....Bob Esponja?

2011-01-10T14:25:00.000-08:00

Day 71

Monday

Here in Spain, I’ve found that some cultural icons will never translate, but what is even more curious to me are the icons that do. Sponge Bob, Hannah Montana, Michael Jackson, Kanye,McDonalds, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts and Disney are wildly popular. Their faces stare at me from the t-shirts of my students, peek out of pencil pouches, spin by on backpacks, and even hover over me on umbrellas. But when I tried and explain the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer my students who hadn’t already tuned me out only shook their head in confusion, “But why wouldn’t the other reindeer let Rudolph play?” Clearly we haven’t covered the chapter on diversity and equality. So during the ‘arts and crafts’ activity with a holiday spin to it I had the kids make Rudolph, and despite my entreaty to give him a bright red nose, they all colored reindeer with green faces and purple noses, brown faces and brown noses, yellow faces and brown noses, but rarely a red nose. They didn’t seem too hooked on tradition. Which fascinated me because I was glued to the TV screen watching old Rudolph re-runs or I was having a blast singing songs about Rudolph at school. The other teachers patted me on the back and said it was a good idea and as I stared at the wall at the back of the classroom sighing with a frown because they didn’t look at all like my example nor like the real Rudolph. Part of me (my terribly cynical side) just wanted to laugh, thinking “Well Katie, you certainly got in the diversity education you thought they were missing. Look at all those colorful reindeer. Not a single one looks like another.”

Later that night, during my private tutoring session I thought I’d give Rudolph another go with my rather bright 5 year olds. Turns out only one of them decided to show up, so Natalia and I had a lovely time coloring in reindeer, Santa and Christmas trees. She didn’t care much for Rudolph either; she just wanted to chat about what she was getting for Christmas. We had some nice girl talk, granted all of the English was done on my part and all the Spanish on her part, not quite what they’re paying me to do, but at 6pm on a Monday night, you shoot the moon and ask the boss to call you out on it because you’re done.

I love how the kids ruffle my best laid plans and my ‘wondrous’ activity crashes and burns while my back up warm up is a hit. I won’t give up on those untranslatable icons yet though. Especially when my experience of the English language is tied to those icons, when I grew up talking about Rudolph and his ostracization (granted as a 7yr old I probably said ‘his loneliness and the bully reindeer’) but really, my memories of English are rich with the cultural spread of the land. And I keep thinking, they’d like English so much better if only they could play with English speaking children. What they’d learn! I’m afraid my dialect is one of nostalgia, lost in abstract context and rumination, lacking the lightness and spontaneity of youthful discovery.

Stacato

2011-01-08T13:58:00.000-08:00

Day 70

Sunday

I’ll never know what synapse goes off in our brains that tells us we need to wake up NOW and makes us shoot up in bed, like a mouse trap somehow set off. 10:27am. My brain fires and I’m awake. At some point at 8am I turned off my alarm, through some power of unconscious manipulation of my cell phone. Rubbing my eyes that weren’t quite ready to snap open quite as fast as they did, I cock my head and ask, “Really, really, really Spain?! A marching band on a Sunday morning?” The ruckus I had been quite certain was the featured background tune of my slumbering dreams was in fact a live marching band procession cruising down my street to the Teatro I live next to. Peeling back my doors, always anxious that someone might see me in my slovenly PJs, not quite up to par for public viewing, I peek out over my terrace, and marching along in an endless line for visual and auditory verification are all of the marching bands of Malaga, happily tooting or pounding away. Deciding it best to get some contacts in to really make sense of what was going on I head to the bathroom. Suddenly I see the central light to the apartment building shine through our exhaust window of sorts, which can only mean one thing; Sandy is on her way up. Chris and I had said that one of our friend’s moms could stay in Chris’s room since he’d left early and she’d be visiting her daughter for Christmas. Now when our friend had said her mom would be coming on Sunday I just assumed she meant Sunday afternoon…but apparently Sandy meant Sunday morning. Holy Hell. I got on some real person clothes right quick and tried to look awake and cheery to meet them. Damn bed head hair gave me away. And plus mom’s always know if you’ve just woken up. And they read straight through lies anyways.

While Sandy settled in I decided to head out for a quick walk to let her chat with her daughter and get the schedule of the day set. So I popped out and sat around watching the marching bands, anxiously smoothing down the damn cowlicks of my stupid short hair. After a period I thought would be polite I wandered back up, and found poor Sandy passed out with jet lag. I decided this would be a great match. The lady likes to nap.

Later when she did wake up, it was remarkable fun to chat with her about her impressions of Spain. Living with a guy is fine (actually preferable at times less drama, less emotions, easy decision makers, less fights) but I miss that ‘girl talk time.’ And so Sandy and I got into it. She popped open a Diet Coke and made me promise to not tell her daughter she was drinking it while I burned my tongue on some green tea a la half a honey bottle. God it was good to have a girl around. I’m a chatty Cathy by nature, so I was such a relief to my chatter box personality to have someone to talk with. But she didn’t last long; jet lag does that to a person. Gives them zombie like energy levels. They peak at odd hours (like 1pm-4pm) then crash for 13 hours straight. And so my new flat mate and I struck up an odd albeit, but lovely relationship of sleeping and talking, with our preferred beverages in hand.

Procrastinators Don't Always Lose.

2011-01-07T13:04:00.001-08:00

Day 69

Saturday

Having racked up 23 years as a professional procrastinator I should have seen this coming. Its 9:24am on Saturday and at 9:30 I have to teach an English class. I thought I’d be sneaky and just play “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” from Netflix via my laptop. Having already set up my Netflix account and checking to be sure the movie was there I went to bed feeling confident about my plans. Well, right before I was supposed to leave I decided to go ahead and load the video so all I had to do was press play when I got there. Didn’t quite work out. Netflix doesn’t air movies overseas. 6 minutes till class starts I madly google Christmas movies. Disney’s ‘A Christmas Carol’ is the only kid friendly flick I can find. Running through the rain, only to have to back track and get my rent, because after all I am tutoring my landlord’s kid I arrive 15 minutes late. My landlord laughed and said she thought I’d partied too hard the night before and overslept. Handing over the rent money I assured her that my daily 6:30am alarm for school during the week had pretty much cured me from ever sleeping past 9am.

As I began to head to the playroom where I hold the lesson my landlord let me know that her youngest was sick with the flu and then led me to her to just say hi (and prove how sick she was??). All the while I’m thinking, thank you, thank you so much Mrs. Landlord, for bringing me into your home with a sick child. If you get me sick before I go home, and I can’t fly because I’m in bed with the flu, there’s going to be words.

I really didn’t have to worry about the failure of Netflix because the kid’s English was good enough that the actually understood the movie, ergo, they couldn’t pay attention to it, nor stay seated for 5 straight minutes. At their request we powered down the movie and just made snowflakes for an hour, while chatting about what they were going to for Christmas and 3 Kings.

And as I said goodbye, I smiled saying, “I’ll see you next year, I’m going home to my country!”

The Office Christmas Party

2011-01-07T12:36:00.000-08:00

Day 68

Friday

Incredulous. That was the face I wore all day. I wished I had Dorothy’s ruby red slippers, not because I wanted to go home, I just wanted to click my heels together and know whether I was dreaming or in reality. Even if the day was real, I wonder how I was lucky enough to join such a fantastical reality.

In Spain, just like in America, the Friday before Winter Break is scrapped, teachers put in movies, kids play games, recess stretches out into the late afternoon and rules melt away as the heaters pump holiday warmth through the building. Spain likes to celebrate the futility of education during the holidays a bit differently. And boy did I feel like a kid at Christmas.

Those plushy buses with lean back seats and TV screens to dull the eyes during a long ride pulled up to Los Llanos (my school) at 9:30 am and the general chaos of children, like a bundle of thread unspun itself, lines of classes filing into the 5 buses. Descending from the mountains we head for the nearest city, with the only shopping mall in a 30 mile radius. Propping my knees up on the seat ahead of me like I did all those years ago as a bus-riding student, it felt odd to be the authority figure, I didn’t have my best friend next to me to chat with, I couldn’t really read my book, nor could I just zone out and stare out the window. Rather, I was in the back, patrolling the rows with my stern gaze, hollering the driver to stop when poor Albert puked 10 minutes in the ride (the roads are ridiculously curvy, but still, 10 minutes into the ride is way too soon for anyone to puke). I’m sure dear old Antonio felt sorry for me, dealing with pukers and girls passing around illegal chewing gum, so he wandered back to sit with me on one of his tours. A local to Álora, he knew the country side well. He pointed out to the mountains and said he imagined Northern California must look something like Álora, only without Hollywood. I laughed and said that I was actually just reminiscing about my summer in Northern California and all the verdant green countryside, Álora had made me surprisingly nostalgic. He then got a devious smile and asked me what I thought the names of the mountains were. I shook my head, clueless. He said, “Acha.” And proceeded to tell me how the mountains used to be used as posts to send messages in the form of smoke signals to neighboring pueblos in the case of an emergency. I told him that didn’t sound so different from the American Indians in my country and to my great surprise he knew all the different tribes, their respective locales and customs. And so, Antonio and I chatted amicably the whole way to the shopping center in Coin, the gentle old professor who knew the history of the world, only pausing occasionally to teach the bus full of 5th and 6th graders new songs to sing. Riding through the valleys of Álora, ringing with the voices of the youth of Spain, while smiling at the stories of the oldest professor, I recalled Edie Turner (one of my most life changing Anthro professors) and knew that she’d see the communitas in it all, and tell me that I was part of that communitas, finally.

Arriving in Coin, we shuttled lines of energetic kids to the movie theater to see the latest Narnia. It was quite a field trip, all expenses paid into the theater, including a popcorn and soda. Which in retrospect might have been a bad idea for 80+ children. We overran the theater, not only taking all the seats, but with our voices, our trash and our visits to the bathroom during the film. None of the teachers were really excited about seeing Narnia, they were just glad that it counted as a work day when all they did was say “yes, you may go to the bathroom” and sit quietly in the dark. Sitting next to my new best friends, Antonio and Antonia (the oldest professors in the school, both who will retire at the end of the year; funny side note – Antonia is trying to set me up with her youngest (32yrs old, ahem) son who is a fireman, who just can’t seem to find the right girl, hahaha), Narnia was a metaphorically appropriate movie for the moment. Recognizing the end of childhood and moving into adulthood, saying goodbyes, and guarding memories. I certainly didn’t cry, but it made me a bit more pensive then most kids movies do. I soon lost all pensiveness because upon arriving back at the school at 2:15pm, the annual Teacher’s Christmas party began. And I was completely unprepared for what ensued. And I loved it.

Catching a ride with one of the bi-lingual teachers (my pseudo-mom/girl who’s got my back in Spain) Meri, we went to a local bar to hang out with the other professors until the principals got off work at 3:30pm for lunch. The owner of the local organic farm (who supplies our school with food for lunch) was at the bar and more or less acted as the host of the party. Buying everyone his organic wine and rounds of local beer, we chatted and drank. (Note- while I encourage everyone to eat organic, I do NOT encourage the imbibing of organic wine. It is loathsome. It acts more as a vomit inducing liquid than happy hour fun). Not having adjusted to Spanish time (and not being interested in adjusting for that matter) I was starving by 3pm and drunk off some eco-friendly wine that tasted like fermented laundry detergent. Meri, ever prudent, had fanta, while encouraging me to have another class of a local wine. By the time I had turned 5 shades more red than a blushing bride, the group decided to head to the restaurant where the Christmas Party Luncheon would be held. Meri and I waltzed in (I say waltz because we indeed did waltz, not sure I could have walked a straight line if an officer asked me) and the principal (who’s being paid to be nice to me, I know it) reaches out to greet me with besos and hands me a glass of beer. Great. Just what I need. And when are you allowed to say no to your boss? Meri sticks with me, bless her heart, knowing I’m already out of place because of the language and about an age gap of at least 15 years, so we chat with the gym teacher about an incident that happened the other day. He and Meri were laughing and by the time I understood what they were talking about, I was too stunned to add anything to the conversation, besides a few moments of brighter blushing and nervous laughter. Apparently the other day one of the girls had started her period during recess and her best friend had screamed out that she was dying and was bleeding to death. The poor girl thought she had internal bleeding and was about to keel over. So the gym teacher (obviously a male) rushed her inside, while assuring her that she was not dying, rather she was very much alive, and that Meri, her teacher would explain everything. I remember standing in the restaurant and having this exact thought “I’m drinking beer, in Spain, and talking about menstruation with the gym teacher. What the fuck?” But being tipsy already, it didn’t seem too outlandish. After the mandatory meet and greet time period was up we all sat around a Harry Potter style table, extending the length of the restaurant and began “La Comida” (the meal).

To start, olives, roasted almonds, chips, bread, and wine. (And water at my request).
Followed by a plate of Iberian Ham. (Polite smile and wave of the hand, amidst whispers of ‘she’s a vegetarian, yes, vegetarian, only eats salad.’)
Followed by a platter of cheese (at the request of the (most ironically) vegetarian professor next to me.)
Followed by a head of lettuce split four ways, like a star, swirling in olive oil and vinegar, dashed with cloves of garlic and pimiento. (Being the vegetarian, I was offered by everyone if I’d like their salad because they didn’t want it. After eating 3 people’s salad I had to joke that even a veg. could get sick of lettuce)
Followed by a rice, shrimp, pimiento dish, wearing a cape of red sauce (didn’t touch this, smelled fishy)
Followed by deep friend eggplant drizzled in honey. (Despite the deep fry yuckiness, it was delightful; my taste buds did not expect to like this.)
Followed by a HUGE plate of revuelto (like a scrambled eggs with mixed veggies thrown in with veggies on the side). (I had to ask them to put this in a doggy bag for me, which they literally threw in a bag haha, because NO ONE takes home leftovers, because I was stuffed by the time the main course of revuelto came. Note-everyone else at some sort of filet/steak/ham/chicken/fish platter)
Followed by dessert…a cornucopia of cakes and flans and ice-cream.
Followed by café (espresso or cappuccino)
Followed by a liqueur chuppito (a shot)
Followed by a round of water
Followed by a chuppito
Followed by smoking (not me).
Followed by the obligatory last minute café.
Followed by a farewell chupito.

All through this mayhem there was singing, talking, screaming, changing of seats, sharing of food, laughing uncontrollably and demanding of more wine. I had never been to a Christmas party of this caliber. And the whole time I was seated by the professor that taught the 3 year olds (who as he said, didn’t like beer, but yes, he was still a man.) and Meri. Hilarious juxtaposition, to be seated with the most conservative sober Spaniards of all, while la Vida Espanola raged around us. 7 hours after this all began Meri drove me home at 9:15pm. Before I get out of her car though she hands me a gift which makes me beam. She bought me a pair of magnificent earrings (big and dangly, apparently my style is pretty easy to take note of) along with a card that said, Dear Katie, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! All the best, Meri (hilarious in light of the fact that that was the message I had all my students write in their own xmas cards they gave out to their classmates). Full of food, merriment and FRIENDSHIP, I wandered back to my piso, delightfully tired.

Then at 10:15pm I get a call from my boss who tells me that all the professors decided to ditch Álora and head into the city and I should join them at the bar they had flocked to. And so I joined my colleagues and my boss for dancing and drinks. Nervous as hell at first, never having partied with my superiors, but soon let loose when one of my favorite teachers, Janire bought me a drink and had me stand with her because she had just had major surgery and couldn’t walk. I loosened up even more when she tried to dance by putting one crutch overhead and knocked the decorative surfboard off the wall onto all our colleagues dancing.

I couldn’t imagine any of this happening in the USA. Even though I gripe about Spain, it is so invested in creating and sustaining community and I have a great respect for that. Especially because it has invited me to be part of that community. The human spirit is alive and well in Spain. And it looks to you.

Validation.

2010-12-20T13:54:00.001-08:00

Day 67

Thursday

Sometimes one good thing happens during the day and because it is so good it seems like it is the only thing that happened. Thursday was all about and only about the box from Mom. Having skyped with me in one of my more morose moments after the breaking of the foot incident she took pity on her eldest (and undoubtedly favorite) child and had my cousins who just so happened to be spending the weekend with them draw me some feel better pictures. Moms seem to have a special way of knowing just what will make you smile and forgot the bad parts of life. Ripping into the box I saw my Birkenstocks sticking out. Not that it was warm enough to wear them, but it was so good to be reminded of my tree-hugger ways, being stuck in a city of divas. Then came snowflakes decorated with smiles by Carter and Ellie and wonderfully colored out side of the lines pictures of Mickey Mouse and other more original works that we shall just call ‘abstract.’ Besides the holistic dark chocolate my mom even threw in some deliciously lip smacking good cookies. I know that the rest of the day was slow and lonely. But the box with the card covered in a picture of the Northern Lights was the best re-charge I’ve had in a while. Like Pandora’s box erupting with reminders of those who love me and are thinking of me I let the warmth flow out and out and out and up into my heart till I was so light with joy that I floated above the bad memories of the week, of the loneliness I was trudging through and the city I couldn’t seem to befriend. I only wish I could have boxed up all that joy and marked the box return to sender so my family could know just how much I love them and feel my gratitude as intensely I as wish they could.

My day didn’t need to be any more special than it already was, but as I was on my way out of my landlord’s house after tutoring her children, she caught my arm and said, “I want you to know, Andres’ teacher called a parent/teacher meeting 2 weeks early to discuss Andres’ participation in class [here I take a HUGE gulp]. She said that he is finally talking in class in English and has stopped being very quiet and speaking only in Spanish. I told the teacher that he has a new American tutor and even though she speaks with a different accent, she is helping him. The teacher agreed, you are making him more confident.” Thank god my Spanish isn’t fluent because I was at a loss for how to gush my overwhelming joy and thanks. I managed to mutter how glad I was to hear that Andres was participating and that what I really hope to teach my students is how to be confident in another language, regardless of their level and to always be motivated to try. I also added something about how smart her son was; really he has a knack for languages and all things that moms like to hear. :)

I had forgotten how wonderful it is to be validated myself. As a teacher, you tend to focus on validating your students, but when it comes back around to you, it certainly puts a smile on your face. Because as I often tell my students, I already know English, it’s YOU that needs to practice and learn it. So let’s go! (And I meanwhile need to practice being the teacher.)

The Sharpening of Teeth

2010-12-20T13:42:00.000-08:00

Day 66

Wednesday

Wednesdays tend to have a special flair to them. I spend most of the day with one of my favorite teachers, Meri. As a Libra, I seek balance and Meri is a perfect counterpart to my personality and teaching style. I hesitate to say that she is my opposite, I think that’s too dark of a picture to paint her in, but she certainly has a different way about her. She is the teacher who types up the outline for the day and prints 2 copies, 1 for her desk and 1 for me, in case I didn’t get the email on Sunday about the week’s schedule. She keeps her books separated in individual cases, following the activity book to the T. Class runs smoothly, always, like a mom who’s been braiding her daughter’s hair for years on end, Meri hardly sweats about the task at hand, pulling in the students and demanding their coherent and controlled participation, weaving dialogue, writing and listening into a beautifully done class. She hands me her perfectly cut cards and I get to act them out, she hands me the sentences the kids must know and I turn them into a game between teams. That’s how we work. Like a mullet. She’s all business and I’m all fun. But together, we make a rather presentable team.

Following classes with Meri I run off to my private lessons with my 5 year olds. And more often than not I wish I could bring Meri with me. She is blessed with the ability to stare a child into submission and silence a room with the sharp point of a word. I tend to smile too much and my Spanish isn’t sharp enough to quiet anyone, it rather elicits raised eyebrows. Sergio today decided to counsel me on my teaching tactics. He began by asking me in Spanish, after I had given them their homework, if I speak Spanish. I looked at him puzzled and replied in Spanish, “Ummm Sergio, you’ve known me for a month. And you’ve heard me speak quite a bit of Spanish. Besides, what language am I speaking now?” He didn’t seem to mind my rebuke and said, “I think you should learn Spanish before you teach us English.” I laughed and said “You’re just upset I gave you homework. But seriously, remember buddy, you, me and Natalia are a team, we’re learning from each other. I’m here in Spain to learn your language and teach you mine. So next week, how about you are nicer to me? Okay?” I like to think his eye roll and head shake meant yes. I’m always put off my insults coming from 5 year olds. I never know what to do with them. They’re always (for the most part) innocent comments, really just being honest, but I much rather prefer how the adults humor my grammar mistakes and nod like they understand me even though I’ve just said, “I’m sorry I’m late. I forgot you to carry you all the money of the rent.”

And I laugh now thinking what Meri might have said to Sergio and his snide comment. She probably would have said, “Sergio if you cannot say that to me in English I do not have time to listen to your charade. Raise your hand and use the appropriate language and I will in turn respond to you. If I find it worthy of a response.”

She knows the art of cutting into someone, not actually cutting them down, but like a punch to the gut that winds you because it came out of nowhere, Meri makes you think about what you did and what you’re about to do. What a powerful gift that is, to be able to motivate another to fully consider their actions.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be as good as Meri, but I’m not too worried. Being her opposite, I prefer another route. I encourage my students to act with the best of intentions, with an open heart and in loving kindness. Like little Buddhas having reached nirvana, they can only do good. And speak beautiful English.

I (in this moment) L O V E (with all my heart) Y O U .

2010-12-19T13:34:00.000-08:00

Day 65

Tuesday

Fickle.

That’s the only word that fits. Children are fickle.

I walk into 1st grade A and the little munchkins are studiously seated in their desks, feigning serious work. I close the door behind me and all heads look up. Then little feet are pushing little chairs back and little legs are standing up and a little crowd is gathering around me in a mosh pit hug. Grabbing no higher than my hips the children scream “HELLO Seño!!” They say people in love have a special glow, but people who are loved have a special glow as well. I was blushing a furious red and laughing, while patting heads and giving all the children a good morning welcome. Silly new teacher me thinks that this is a good sign, they’ll want to do English today. But something occurs between the time they stop hugging me and returning to their seats that makes them oblivious to my directions, disinterested in my lesson and over active, running around the classroom. Within 20 minutes the special hug has worn off and I’m almost hoarse from yelling over them to please be quiet and color their Christmas cards quietly. And then they come up and say they don’t know what else to color or that their hand is tired of coloring. Pulling a smile out of my back pocket I instruct them to the board where I’ve drawn copious examples of winter scenes and encourage them to make their hands stronger, just try coloring softly. But within 5 minutes I know the activity has gone kaput. They’re not interested and they’re not interested in my making them interested.

By the end of the day I’ve gotten savvier to the ways of the wicked youngsters. I’m the fun teacher. I bring games and silly dances. The other teachers bring worksheets and tests. So when 3rd grade A starts to chant, “no te vayas no te vayas!” (don’t go! Don’t go!) after one of the teacher says that I will be leaving for the USA and this will be my last class, I laugh and wish they meant it in earnest (I like to think they did), but back the teacher up when she tells them to hush, no matter if I stay or go, they can’t chant all class long, they’re going to have the test today. I laugh when their chant melts away into an “awwww, no no no” admonishing the test.

And as I walk down to the train station after school I keep thinking, what have I done to earn the love of the children? And then I think, how is it that children love so quickly, so freely, so rashly and so suddenly? I stand by my assertion that children are fickle, but when they’re certain they love you, they show you.

In a show of my own, open hearted fickleness, I love you. May these words warm your hearts and may the sentiment wrap around you like the hug I send to you now!

My Own Great Expectations.

2010-12-19T13:02:00.001-08:00

Day 64

Monday

Not even the moonlight dared tread the weathered concrete, timidly awaiting the tardy approach of the sun at 7am. Beating the sun to the day, I was out to catch the early train, having eagerly awaited Monday morning for the past week and a half, desperate to work. I anxiously checked and re-checked the time, to make sure I wasn’t late, but also to make sure I wasn’t too early. As eager as I might have been to get to work, I wasn’t willing to get to the train station an hour early; sleep would take priority in that case. Monday morning commutes are always a bit disconcerting to my circadian rhythm. Not because it’s Monday morning per se, but because I wake up and its dark, I take the train through the dark countryside, knowing cities on the hill sides only by the blanketed constellation it alights in cascading patterns over the undulating land, and I arrive in Álora, and walk to school in the dark, when it is easily almost 8:30am. I have a slight feeling of excitement as I journey, as if I were a spy, out before the world knew my mission, on a secret operation. No one is at the school either. I’m 30 minutes early, much too early for any one else to arrive. They’ll all come in about 30 minutes, just in time for school to start in 30 minutes. I break out Dickens, “Great Expectations” and get ready for the day to get itself in gear.

But nothing goes like I’d thought it would. Even doing the most simple of activities took an irritatingly complicated turn. The students, clearly one track minded, couldn’t understand the letters I wrote on the board, unable to decipher my code of “Merry Christmas” Asking them what was confusing a student ran to the board and pointed to my ‘r’. “What letter is that?” they asked. Wrinkling my brow in disappointment and earnest exasperation I said, “an ‘r’” Of course. The teacher scurried up and said I had to write the ‘r’ as a cursive ‘r’ otherwise they wouldn’t know what letter it was. Pausing to breathe and discompose my face of disbelief, I chuckled and said, “Ok. But do you mean to tell me that they haven’t understood what I’ve written for the past 2 and half months?? And as well, how do they get along reading anything printed, last I checked my ‘r’ looked remarkably similar to the ‘r’ in books, newspapers and anything printed off a computer. Perhaps we should make this a learning moment and leave my ‘r’s so they’ll learn what ‘American’ writing looks like?” the teacher probably didn’t understand anything I had said because in my building irritation, my rhythm sped up and I was running through my words like a baseball shattering a window pane. Then a pause settled in between the gaze between me and the teacher and the audience of curious 1st graders. And then the teacher said, “Perhaps it is best that you write the ‘r’ as cursive.” I laughed and erased the message and wrote it in capital letters.

Escaping to a different type of crowd later that night, some friends and I went to the anniversary celebration of a local club. The waitresses wandered the crowd carrying plates of finger food, cheese, ham things, tiny bocadillos, small flans and small PB sandwiches. We toasted champagne that seemed to be hemorrhaging grenadine and celebrated my flat mate’s last night in Malaga before he left to go home for the holiday break. Proudly parading his self declared “swooping v-neck” sweater, I could only laugh at his fashion forwardness and the faux-glamour of the club. What a Monday, such great expectations…

~

2010-12-18T13:01:00.000-08:00

Day 63

Sunday

Some days are lonely.
Some days you are alone.
But some days you don’t notice the space surrounding the solitary “I”
Some days you are the only one floating in the pool.
Some days you are the only one on the bench reading.
Some days you are the only one walking the Rose Garden.
Some days you are the only one on the terrace watching the sunset.
Some days you flow through life, through the spaces and places of life, embodiment is forgotten.
Some days you slip out of the “I”
Some days you leave behind the crutches

And on those days without form, without structure, without support from the ‘you’ or the world or crutches…you fly.

Freedom is found in the breath, finally free of its burden.

Beauty is in the small moments--- the snowflake and the wink

2010-12-16T11:35:00.000-08:00

Day 62

Saturday

Never having been a 10 year old Spanish child myself, not even in past lives, I rarely have a good feeling on what games will be a hit and what ones will be a miss. Usually I’m off. But I wagered that every child would love to cut out snowflakes. When is snow not enchanting? Finally hit the target. My landlord had asked me to start teaching her children English on Saturday mornings as well as Thursday evenings, which I gladly acquiesced to, willing to do most anything for 15 euro at this stage of great poverty in my life. The minute I opened up my hacked to pieces folded up sheet and revealed the snowflake I had cut, the children were hooked. I couldn’t fold the paper fast enough for them to cut. We made a blizzard of paper snow in the room, taping it to the walls of their playroom, imagining it to be a winter wonderland. As I left, the mother stopped me and said, it’s wonderful that you can come Saturday mornings because today was the first day the cleaning lady was able to clean the house without the kids driving her up the freshly dusted wall. Because the cleaning lady works faster without the kids bothering her, I end up paying her less!! I laughed and nodded thinking, darn it, moms are so much smarter than we give them credit for.

Heading to the grocery store with my freshly pocketed 15 euro I was on a mission to buy us toilet paper before everything closed on Sunday and we were stuck till Monday. As I got in line to check out, wishing for a nap, the man behind me spoke up to the cashier who had begun to ring me up. He said, ‘she’ll pay for all my things.’ The Cashier, confused at first, quickly caught on, and laughed and said, ‘does she know this?” and the old man waved off the question saying, of course of course, she said she wanted to! And I laughed and said, well, whether or not I want to, it looks like you have more than 15 euro worth of food. I’m too young to be buying nice things like you! And then I joked, I think that this men meant to say, HE”D be covering my things. This got the old man chuckling and said, what’s wrong with the youth these days! Not willing to help the elderly.” I grabbed my bag of toilet paper and laughed, waving as I said bye, and he said, next week, next week, maybe you’ll be richer then??

I’m always eagerly anticipating the next way an angel will appear to me…be it in a 5 year old making snowflakes with me or Poppop coming up and teasing me. Hope you all feel my presence because I think about you more often than you know. Sending you my loving energy!

“Little by little one walks far”

2010-12-16T11:29:00.000-08:00

Day 61

Friday

“Hija! Cuando te vi en esta calle, pensaba pobrecita, ella no sabe nadar. Entonces, cuando te vi pa’lla pensó, ella es campeona!! Venga hija, venga!”

It’s nice to still be able to surprise people.

Standing dripping wet, an old man with a grin as wide as the pool was deep had tapped my arm, wanting to speak with me. I thought, oh geez, great, did I accidentally take his lane? Did I take his floaty toy? Did I not properly exit the pool? What harassment would I endure?? Instead he shook his head, flabbergasted and then sputtered, with wet lips and wisps of grey spraying me with drops of freshly chlorinated water as his head tossed in amazement, said, “My girl, when I saw you in this lane, I thought, poor girl, she doesn’t know how to swim. But then, when I saw you over there in that lane, I thought, wow, she’s a champion, well done!” I just laughed as he hobbled off right and I hobbled off left, saying that I liked to change up my routine when I could. Aqua jogging has become my new favorite hobby. I snap a big ole green float around my waist and bob up and down the lane, mimicking the fastest racers, pretending to round the last 100 meters as I came down the lane, flying in slow motion. Going in slow motion in the lane where it was a 50/50 chance whether the person next to you had either a full set of teeth or full head of hair (never both). I’d bounce off the wall to circle back down the lane while the wrinkled, not from water, but from life, bodies, held on for dear life, catching their wise old breaths. Being the anomoly of activity in the lane, I suppose I looked odd. It certainly earned me smiles from the old ladies and men, being so chipper in the slow lane. But it also gave me a wonderful hidden vantage point from which to watch the rest of the aquatic drama. No one bothers to look at the slow lane; they all know we swim slowly. No use watching, they rarely make progress. So I could do my slow motion laps while watching the clearly apathetic to her job life guard instead flirt with the boy who clearly comes to the pool not to swim laps but to drown in her love struck gaze. They chat, he swims a lap. Maybe 2. She selects the best fins and brings them over to him. He says something funny and she blushes as red as the cross on her shirt. She sits down, he swims a lap. They chat. And I look around to see how many people have drowned. None yet. I wouldn’t like anyone to drown, but I would like to spitefully point out to her that she should earn her pay and spend her hours staring down her little lover. The rest of us would like some attention too. You never can tell when a cramp will hit and you’re out of luck. But I don’t worry; I’m in the slow lane, with a floaty around my waist. Safe in my invisibility. But then later, tiring of my incognito slowness, I meander under lane divisions and swim a few laps, daring my foot to start hurting in zero pressure water. And I’m good, but after using crutches for the past week my arms are aching and beg me to relax into a gentle back float. I acquiesce because I know someone has to crutch it home and these arms are about to mutiny.

And then I with about the grace of a fish walking on land, get out of the pool and am stopped by the grandfather who calls me his campeona. And just as I surprised him, he surprised me. What gentle kindness. And you better believe the arms of a campeona were able to crutch home. It’s nice when people remind you of the strength you forgot you had all along…

A Peruvian proverb:

Little by little, one goes far.

Full Circle

2010-12-14T12:20:00.000-08:00

Day 60

Thursday

Some days have a short and (bitterly un-)sweet sentiment. Today was one of those days.

Fuck this.

A false flash of hope had me thinking I didn’t need crutches, and then my foot screamed in pain, denying any ability to walk. Back to hobbling around, now at least in new sneakers, hypothetically more supportive, but the promise of feeling like I’m walking on clouds must have been just for the shoes on display. I felt like a leaden bob, hopping up and down with each right foot, left foot and 2 crutches; right foot, left foot and 2 crutches, etc…hands smarting from holding onto the only thing keeping me going. Arms clawing at my shoulders, begging me to stop this insane march.

But sometimes life has a beautiful way of coming full circle. Here I was, stuck in Spain, perfectly miserable at my unfulfilling teaching position and hobbling through cobblestone and high heeled beauties, shrinking deeper and deeper into the shell of myself, hung between metal poles clicking in my hands, having been brought here because of the children who needed to learn English. They gave me a ticket here and led me to the very place where I would be most miserable. Then I went to teach English to my land lord’s children and I hobbled out a rejuvenated soul. Those darn kids made me smile, made me laugh and dared me to marvel at their innocence and sincerity. And so the very thing I found myself cursing is the only thing that keeps me going. I hurry home to look up new games we can play and plan for our next class, noting that we need to practice “Rock, Paper, Scissors” more because they keep forgetting to use scissors.

And as I write this, thinking about coming full circle I think about T.S. Eliot…

We shall never cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

Am I coming back to myself, having explored the multiplicity of ways of being and the ceaseless sunshine of a child’s smiles? Am I coming back having explored adulthood to know my inner child? I’m not sure, but this slightly smiley feeling I’m snuggling with in my thick sweater and cup of tea has me thinking I just might be…

MUCHA MIERDA!!

2010-12-14T12:05:00.000-08:00

To all the college/ grad school kids out there, nose to the grindstone, MUCHA MIERDA! Sure, google that and it'll say, "Much Shit" which is a direct translation, yes, but in CONTEXT in SPAIN it means GOOD LUCK!

Kick some finals butt!

At the disjunct of language

2010-12-14T12:04:00.001-08:00

Day 59

Wednesday

My work week has been undercut by two conveniently placed national holidays and a precious (and Crisis-inducing) tradition of ‘puente’ (if a holiday falls on a Thursday or a Tuesday, the day in between the holiday and the weekend is subsumed into the holiday and the Puente creates a 3 day weekend. So a holiday on Monday bridged over to the holiday on Wednesday. And so, in honor of being injured and out of work, I went to see Harry Potter, in Castellano, which is like reading Emily Dickinson in Russian. It just cannot be translated. We all go to see Harry Potter because we want to hear Ron’s adorable whining accent and Hermione’s high pitched squeals of intellectual delight and swoon over the newly grownup Harry horcrux broodings. It didn’t begin well when I couldn’t stop laughing at the supposedly morbidly serious opening scene, in fits over the terrible job at dubbing, mainly evident because the shot was so close to the actor you could read his lips, mouthing the English words, while a Castellano translation spoke over the man’s empty sound. Luckily I’m an HP fan for life and have already the series, at least once, and so it made little difference that I couldn’t listen 5 minutes without giggling, I knew what had happened, what was happening, what would happen and what, according to the book, should happen.

And lordy, why did I have to cry real tears at the end? Some things carry weight in any language, why are there some emotions we can never escape, that we can never keep at bay because they are above language itself? I’m not sure, but I do know that the best part of the movie was the end, when all was silent. No English, no Castellano, just humanity.

The Grinches of Spain Hearts' Swell...Por Fin

2010-12-13T12:30:00.000-08:00

Day 58

Tuesday

In previous posts I’ve noted a lack of courteous kindness from Spaniards. I’ve realized why I’ve never seen it before, at least until today that is. I was never deserving of it. As a regular extranjera, I’m just bumbling along, no sympathy, no kindness needed. But the minute I’m the meek extranjera navigating crowds of people, narrow sidewalks and wobbly cobblestone streets the rare compassionate Spaniard rises to the occasion and fate smiles upon me. Heading out for a jaunt in the late morning the delivery men were still out on their rounds, dropping off produce to restaurants, bread to cafes and milk to heladerias. As I rounded the corner a kindly delivery man with his cart just recently emptied of its contents beckoned to me to hop on, promising me that he’ll carry me where ever I needed to go. That makes me blush and chuckle; I’m not used to having anyone notice me on the street.

Still all smiley by the time I reach the market I decide it’s worth it to pay a little bit extra and go to the more expensive vendor because she’s an old and gloriously wrinkled dame who greets me as “mi Reina” (my queen) and asks me what I’d like, telling me stories about all the vegetables around her and what a good decision it is to buy a kilo of plums before I’m really even sure I like plums. Giving me my change she wishes me a beautiful day and to get better. And I hobble off out of the chaos, happy to have been a grandchild again.

Eventually though the happiness wears off and your arms get really sore from crutches and the blisters on your hands start to scream. And soon I turn into a begrudging bitch who curses the mobility of others under her breath. That’s right old woman with a cane, pass me going up hill, that’s fine cyclist, I wasn’t interested in crossing the street in one piece, no worries children, please run through my legs and get tangled in my crutches, please please don’t hold that door open for me, I’ll just slam my body into it to open it. And then, there I stand on one foot in my sour puss mood about to fall into the pool to do my beloved aqua jogging, I look down to ask the man if he doesn’t mind splitting the lane with me and my green buoyed self and he smiles and enthusiastically says, “Venga! Venga! Hombre, claro!” (Come on in, come on in! Dude, of course!) And he waves the nub of his arm at me to hop in before he starts off again on another lap. And I’m slammed with a reality check. A one armed man is swimming laps around me, happily, and I’ve got an attitude about some crutches wearing me out. Lacking grace, but full of humility I tumbled into the pool and began a hodgepodge jog, embarrassed to my toes for being so ungrateful for the mobility I still had. So, just as I did on Bike and Build when I promised myself I’d never complain again about head winds because at least I still had a body full of life to face the winds, I promised to never complain about my crutch-status. And I’ll tell you what, a few endorphins, long awaited, and made that promise pretty easy to keep the rest of the day.

Later that night, being at home more often than not lately, I had the chance to witness a daily ritual more intensely than ever before. From my terrace I have the great luck to see the tallest tower of the Cathedral. It’s a majestic presence rising above the horizon of stucco roofs and cable dishes. Its beauty is undeniable during the day, but at night its beauty is jaw dropping. It’s tawny bricks are alit with an antique orange glow that makes it seem as if a fire were alit inside, shimmering off the dusty bricks in an arrogant display of splendor. Being so close I not only see the Cathedral, but I also hear it. Every hour, on the hour. And every half hour on the half hour. But at 6pm, for some reason unbeknownst to me, it chimes all of its bells, not just its usual solitary bell, every 15 minutes. So at 6, 6:15, 6:30 and 7pm, the city is held captive by a 4 minute concert of chiming. Stepping out onto my terrace at 6:30, curious as to whether time had begun to fly and it was really 9pm, because of the third chime, I stared out over the houses to the Cathedral and stared in horror at the chiming of the bells. I felt as if I was staring at a crucified body shaking in spasms of death. The bells rolled over themselves, again and again, flipping upside down, like eyes rolling back into the head of the Cathedral, sounding an eerie chorus of bells, rising and falling. Dark purple storm clouds nestled in close to see what was a matter. Ominously framed by dark masses, the tall orange tower with bells rolling back and back and back was a terrifying scene, only to occur again at 6:45 and again at 7pm. By then I could look no more. It was the strangest experience to stand and watch the bells roar inside the darkly lit tower, I felt like an auspicious stranger, spying on a secret event, not able to look away, but not wanting to be caught looking any longer. The grotesque beauty of it all held me in awe.

Theatrically Business Savvy

2010-12-12T12:41:00.000-08:00

Day 57

Monday

It’s a National Holiday, again, in Spain. Everyone and their dog is at home cooking up a 3 hour lunch and taking a 4 hour siesta. The only one out working is the beloved Traffic Light Juggler. Watching him I think that Spain would do well to learn a lesson from him.

He conveniently works at the traffic light I have to pass by on my way back from the beach after watching the sunset, so whenever I head to the beach before dusk, I’m guaranteed a short performance on my way back. I was tickled to see him today especially because he’s getting smarter. Not better, just smarter. He still drops the pins after 2 rounds, but now he’s got GLOW IN THE DARK pins. Smarty pants has now extended his working hours. The darkness no longer a curtain falling on his shoddy show, but an invitation for eccentric adaptation. Maybe Spain should take note, ADAPT, CHANGE, FIND A WAY TO MAKE IT WORK. Ahem you’re in CRISIS. I don’t recommend more ‘puentes’ between holidays and weekends. I don’t recommend the siesta closing of stores from 2-5pm. I don’t recommend charging 30euro for a t-shirt. I recommend glow in the dark pins.

Funny thing is, the juggler man never asks for money. He doesn’t bring a hat that he leaves out on the street, he doesn’t beg at the cars. He just juggles.

Extranjero Communitas

2010-12-12T11:28:00.001-08:00

Day 56

Sunday

Just to test the limits of the logical I decided to go for a hobble before it started to rain. Desperation to leave my flat drove me out. Making it to the beach I felt safe that the rain clouds were just brooding hens, guarding the wealth of rain beneath their plumes, not ready to let rain fall any time soon. But like the cocky rooster I was wrong and paid the price for my strut. Having to admit to myself that I in fact was not so dexterous as to be able to use two arms for two crutches and juggle an umbrella with my invisible third arm, I trekked on in the rain. I think that if Miserable were to have a poster child, in that moment I took the crown. The saddest little Paddington Bear, hobbling along in a soggy yellow pea coat dragging the bum foot along for the aquatic slog back home. And then through the rain I hear, “Katie? Katie?! What happened?” (In English, which made it weirder because I had to think, who do I know here that speaks English??). And it was Shay, another Language Assistant who I had met at a Halloween Dinner Party she had hosted. We were what I’d call casual acquaintances, but being fellow English speakers in a foreign country completely out of place, casual acquaintances is code for secret allies. Hurrying over to me with her out of town boyfriend she popped her umbrella over my head and asked me what happened to cause me to be on crutches. So I related the supremely embarrassing story of slipping on marble steps in wet flip flops. The wonderful soul that she is asked what she could do to help, immediately asking me if she could go grocery shopping for me, at least. And then offered to get me a cab home. All the while I felt a secret stab of guilt for having thought it not worth it to find American friends because I was in Spain after all, I should be searching out Spanish friends…and here she comes gracing me with kindness.

Then, later that night when I went back out for a hobble after the rain subsided and I had dried up like a Caucasian raisin I ran into the owner of a local café that serves me the same cheap Mercadona brand tea that I buy for myself at my flat. He is a German German if you know what I mean. He walks with stout legs and his chest stuck out as if his spine were the back bone of the letter B and he stood for Burly. We met at the Spanish birthday party BBQ and became friends, as foreigners seem to do when not in their mother country. We had a delightful exchange that made me laugh as I crutched home afterwards. An American girl was talking in Spanish to a German man. In Spain. Glorious. And knowing what it is to be alone and on your own he as well immediately offered to “do what I needed to do” roughly translated. In his darling Spanish, which is still after 6 years living here rather rudimentary, continued to ask me if I had people to “do my things for me” saying he would be the person to do my things for me if I had no person to do my things for me. I’m going to assume he meant, grocery shopping, but I loved his unsure phrase, ‘your things.” Assuring him that I would get by and thanking him profusely I began to depart when he said, “You come to my café. We sit you down and put your foot up and you are not bothered. Yes, yes, That is good.” I just laughed and said that would be wonderful.

And after all that, I think about my anthropology teacher, the marvelous old soul, Edie Turner and her theory of Communitas. The theory that investigates what creates, sustains, and develops community. And I know she’s smile at the communitas of foreigners watching out for each other in a country that tells you to go buy your own crutches.

The Rumination of (My) Darkness

2010-12-12T10:58:00.000-08:00

Day 55

Saturday

Slowing down is not my M.O. Considering I thought the perfect way to celebrate my graduation from the grips of UVA was to bike across the country and build homes, I can’t say I’m handling the pace of life on crutches with the grace I wish I could muster. So much for my concern about where I would go and what I would do during my weeklong vacation, the hobbling situation seems to have resolved that quite nicely. Trip to the grocery store, 2 hours. Walk to the beach (not including walking along the beach) 1.5 hours. Etc. So I have the lovely opportunity to fill my time traveling from place to place. I won’t keep up the Debbie Downer attitude because that doesn’t encourage me to get out of bed everyday, knowing a whole lot of hobbling awaits me. Rather, here I’ll glorify the tortoise. Life in slow motion. We’ve made a movement to support Slow Food, why not support Slow Life.

Broken tiles. White and red. In an alternating checkered pattern. The middle row is loose. That is what I’ve been tripping over all the late mornings I hustle to work on the main street to the train.

Parrots hide in the palm trees on the beach. I’ve always run by the palm trees, never loitering long enough to actually hear their song. But on one of my many breathers on my beach walk they serenaded me, while I unclenched my hands from the silly stilts.

Aqua jogging. Heavy pendulum limbs swing in alternating calibration, moving slower than time. Racing through my void of suspended motion and mechanical movement I see rampant glances between the life guard and a young boy, flying faster than a heart beat. Watching love happen again and again and again at each sight.

The allure of the slow life…when your own motion falls away, other bodies take on captivating brilliance, when your own light dims, the light of others falls in stark relief on your path. More than light and more than bodies traverse your void, furtive glances, exhalations of exhaustion, the bite of a nervous lip and the song of a hidden bird jump out at you from your dark center. And life takes on a day dream like quality. The dormant body housing the circus of the mind and the intrusion of fantasy sparked by life experience.

Thank you for shining the illuminating warmth of love and compassion on me :)

A Holistic Haiku

2010-12-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

Day 54

(Re) learning patience,
Through the arduous presence
Of embodiment.

Beyond the big picture...

2010-12-09T07:45:00.000-08:00

Day 53
Thursday

LIFE.

With only 4 letters and 1 syllable you wouldn’t think it could be such a heavy thing. But lately I find that when I use the word I get caught in a grim Big Picture with that somber syllable beating a solemn echo. In the silence between the sounds come hasty fatalistic conclusions composed by a mind panicking by this new rhythm. Life used to be l i g h t and up beat, Katie bouncing through life loving the daily dance. But a change in mobility, an addition of metallic limbs and the music stops. Walking with crutches in a city is a challenge I hope no one else has to experience. Especially a tourist hot spot. The tiny streets (at times with wonderfully uneven cobble stone) allow for few people, much less people walking with 2 crutches. But just when I’m deafened by the depressing change little voices break in and remind me to be light.

I can’t say technology and I have a very chummy relationship. My father can attest to our tumultuous relationship over the years (problems with Wifi more fickle than a picky eater, dropping my ipod in the toilet, managing to cause my phone to freeze and the occasional apocolyptic computer crash). BUT for all the grudges I hold against all things electronic, it finally cut me some slack and became an endearing enabler. I had the pleasure of skyping with my little cousins, Carter and Ellie just after they woke up. I was chatting with the parentals when little voices chirped up in the background, “Good morning Uncle Rob” and my parents spun around to see two little onsie clad munchkins sleepy eyed and messy bed-headed. Following my parents cue they wished me a “Good morning Katie woo!” Carter proceeded to regale me with a piano concert featuring Jingle Bells and a dance accompaniment by his little sister. I can’t say the rest of the day I had much reason to smile but that little moment kept me smile hours later.

And it reminded me to celebrate my luck in being so loved. While I’d have plenty of time to sulk about a broken foot, I also had the chance to be a witness to innocence and grace. What a rare opportunity. So fighting off the bad moods I’m smiling, knowing that I am so blessed in endless small ways.

Why YES, it indeed DOES hurt when you viciously poke me there.

2010-12-06T15:38:00.000-08:00

Day 52

Wednesday

Some how December snuck up on me. By my calculations November never actually flew by, but like a leaf turning colors overnight it suddenly was a new month. And with the new season came new problems.

Before 6th grade A the teacher pulled me aside to warn me of the new student joining the school. She cautioned me to keep my distance because the girl was reputed to be violent. I nodded in a worried manner and we went on with class, the girl raising no trouble. (Probably because we pulled in an extra aid just to monitor the class). Afterwards during the break the teacher disclosed more details about the violent new student. Apparently at her last school she had poisoned the water of her classmates and teacher with bleach. (And I thought, Jesus Christ, I’m just the assistant teacher, I don’t want to die doing this job!!!! My benefits aren’t good enough to cover fatal injuries.) Quite a ripple in the day.

Sneaking through rain drops I scampered off to teacher my darling 5 year olds English after school. Natalia, the angel and the smart one, as always was on point, lecturing Sergio on all that he had missed by being absent on Monday. Sergio, the blond bad boy, took little of her chatter, mocking both Natalia and I, only blushing when I put him on the spot and demanded that if he had so much to say he might as well sing the English Alphabet for us if he wanted to be dramatic. He got to G and mumbled sounds looking at his feet like they might pick up the tune and carry on for his failing tongue.

Earlier I had the opportunity to air my complaints with the Spanish bureaucracy, specifically the Office of the Foreigner and the Police HQ. I figured, hell, I haven’t visited the hospital, let’s go see how the ER works, and see if it’s worse than in the USA. A funny little pain had popped up in my left foot since I fell off my stairs at my flat (if you didn’t know, wet flip flops on marble steps do NOT have traction. Yes you will slip, and no you can’t just walk carefully). So a week later that little pain was making me sweat with pain. Hobbling over to the ER at 8pm the man at the front desk said to me that it was a private clinic and not just anyone could ask to see a doctor (such people skills, I’m sure he must have years of experience in the public sector). “Ya, yo sé” (uh, yeah, I know) I glibly responded and whipped out my insurance card that was my golden ticket into the clinic. He smirked and took my card and my information and gave me a number, which I’m sure he shuffled to the VERY BOTTOM of the list and told me to go wait in the waiting room and listen for my number. Grrrrrrreat. The thing about being in pain is it makes any amount of time seem like a lifetime. 2.5 hours later I was sure it was 6am and they’d forgotten about me. But no, as they called me back to the Doctor’s office (1 of 4 doctors there for consultation) I saw the minute hand hanging languidly at 30 after 10pm. I slumped into the chair at the doctor’s desk while she gabbed on the phone about a little girl who accidentally swallowed all her mom’s hypertension pills (so much for privacy, eh?) and had to come to the hospital to make her throw it all up. When the doctor hung up she looked up at me through heavily eye lined eyes (purple) and said, “dime” (tell me!) Stuttering the response I had been crafting for the past 2 hours I told her how my foot was killing me and I feared a broken bone. She gave it a quick look over and said, “Hmm, swollen. Are you pregnant? No, good, let’s do an x-ray.” She pulled a wheel chair around, told me to sit and tossed my backpack into my lap as I grabbed my boot off the chair before she wheeled me out to the x-ray room. Left like an old woman in the retirement home I dawdled in the x-ray room waiting for the technician to come (really a finely run machine this hospital is). When the tech came she took a moment to say hi to her dad and little brother who had just randomly decided to stop by after dinner at 10:45pm to say hi. Then she told me to sit on the table, put my foot on the x-ray film and bam bam took two pictures before I had time to holler at her, ARE YOU CRAZY??? YOU JUST ZAPPED ME WITH A ZILLION PARTICLES OF RADIATION!! FORGET ABOUT A BROKEN FOOT, NOW I’M GOING TO DIE OF RADIATION POISONING!! YOU NEED TO BE BEHIND A WALL TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND I NEED ONE OF THOSE RADIATION REPELLANT GUARDS WE HAVE IN THE USA! DID YOU REALLY JUST DO THAT? Yes she did. And wheeled me back out to the waiting room, rolling me into a chair and then turning me so my back faced the TV and I enjoyed the entrancing view of the beige wall instead. What tact those hospital people have. So 20 minutes later the doc after having apparently seriously considering my x-rays decided it wasn’t broken, but might break if I wasn’t careful. She had an old man do a pretty shoddy job of wrapping my foot and gave me this advice: take ibuprofen, don’t take the wrap off for a week, and don’t walk on it. And go buy crutches. With that she wheeled me out to the waiting room with a fat wrapped foot that wouldn’t fit into my boot and asked who I came with. “Soy sola” (I’m alone) I snapped, peeved at my long night and incompetent care. She looked at me like I was crazy asking, “How will you get home?” I told her I’ve managed on my own for the past 2 months, I’m sure I’ll figure something out for 1 more night. Last I checked taxis ran all night. That hurdle really isn’t so big and bad as you might think Doc. So dropping me at the door with a wrapped foot and my boot in hand, I hopped out into the night, flailing my thumb at the row of taxis while another finger was itching to jump up and let the hospital know what I really thought of it. But it was midnight and I was too tired to put up a fight. I decided the next time I go to the hospital I’ll make sure to have a bleeding gash so they’d take me immediately and get me set. No more 4 hour waits and hodge podge wrap jobs.

Seems life wanted to throw me a curve ball. Well, I’m up to bat and I might strike out, but I’ll see the game to its end.

(As I write this retrospectively, I had no idea what I was in for).

Wishing you mobility and wholeness.

And radiation free days.

Lighting of the Lawn?? Try Lighting of Malaga.

2010-12-05T15:06:00.000-08:00

59 more minutes to go...

2010-12-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

Day 51

Tuesday

Kanye West is not someone I would call a good speaker. Too many public slip ups and outbursts to be respected. But he has one song, while granted it is a riff off of a cliché saying, that you can bop your head to in affirmation of the truth he raps. The title escapes me but the line is “that don’t kill me can only make me stronger.” This sentiment can arguably be applied to any situation in life, but I’d like to apply it to 4th grade A Science Class. It’s the joy of my week, to open up a 4th grade science book, staring down the head teacher busy on her iphone in the back of the classroom, and ask the English incompetent students to join me in a rousing good time of bi-lingual education. Last week we drew plants and talked about the photosynthesis cycle, which was awesome! Me scrambling to pronounce for the first time concepts like carbon dioxide, mitochondria, glucose and photosynthesis in Spanish and then writing the English words on the board while the class went haywire, taking it upon themselves to do their best at ignoring me. Needless to say I couldn’t wait for 1pm to roll around on Tuesday to dance this dance with them again. Facing the facts that the class couldn’t speak baby English, I concluded it useless to carry on talking about concepts such as photosynthesis when I couldn’t say the words in Spanish and they rolled their eyes at my English. Back to the basics. General health. I mean I went allllllll the way back. La salud. Alright kids, this is the body. Let’s talk about what good health is. Baby concepts in baby language. And somehow we scraped by and talked about good health, they were supposed to learn about heart rate and how it corresponds to general health, but the only thing I’m sure they’ll take away from my lesson was how they got to jog in class for 1 minute. It might have been counter-intuitive to get the already chronically ADD class even more riled up by jogging in class, but anyone that understands the concept “fill up the time” will nod in understanding, a 1 minute jog can easily be turned into a 5 minute activity. You have to explain they will jog in place for 1 minute. Then you must demonstrate jogging in place. Then you have them stand. Then you say go. Then you say stop after 5 seconds when they’ve already forgotten what jogging IN PLACE means and have begun to do shuttle races across the room colliding into desks. Then you must yell and have them sit down, which takes time because they are scattered like marbles. Then you must yell and jog in place and ask repeatedly what is not understood by IN PLACE. Then you must demonstrate jogging that is NOT IN PLACE so they can more clearly see their mistake. It’s complicated you know. Then you must say stand. And wait for the serious pause to settle in so they know you mean business. Then you say go. And you wait 1 minute (or more if you feel like realllly filling time :) and then you say stop and have them sit down, but that takes time because of course they take jogging in place to really mean run around the class room like a mad bee is on your tail. Once they are done laughing at the mundane activity and how crazy it was to (gasp!) jog IN CLASS you yell more and more and then try and coalesce it into a learning moment and have them count their pulse. But you don’t dare use your own as an example because it’s so high it might indicate high cholesterol or hypertension or just chronic fed-up-ness with Spanish children. Hopefully they’ve copied down the chart and the vocab from the board (as you stated to upstart Israel who demanded to know if they had to do the ‘copying thing again’ “Why yes Israel, we are doing the copying thing again because you still seemed to not have mastered it. I thought it best to give you more practice. I invite you to copy what I’ve written on the board, I promise I’m not here to just waste your time with a silly language like English). And if there’s time, but there never is, you end with your cute little conclusion that ties it all together and drives home the important point- GOOD HEALTH. (Now stop eating all that disgusting ham and start eating your vegetables).

Good riddance.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!!

2010-12-05T04:49:00.000-08:00

Correction to the title and intro and closing of the last post, it was supposed to read: HAPPY HAPPY HAPPPPPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDPA!!
[sorry it's late as well, I need a new Editorial team it seems]

The Galloping Gimmies

2010-12-04T12:36:00.001-08:00

Day 50

Monday

Sometimes I reckon the weather in Malaga to be a privileged child, raising a fit when winter weather nudges the warm weather aside for colder, darker days. And so it’s Monday and Malaga doesn’t like the “frigid” 50 degree weather and so it brings out its rain clouds and tears into the land with sheets of rain. I’m no longer hostile to the abrupt turn of the weather as I was before. I’ve come to appreciate how efficient the rain makes me. I walk where I need to go, I don’t worry about impulse shopping or procrastinating window shopping, I’m all business when it’s wet.

It seems that only 50% of my students share this sentiment of rainy day efficiency because in all of my classes at least 10 students were absent (and the biggest class I teach is 22). Any teacher with a day of experience would have thrown in the chalk and declared it a movie day, not wanting to have to re-teach the day’s lesson to all the clearly un-intrinsically motivated pupils. But as my school does not have central heating, it obviously does not have TVs in every classroom, so I teach.

On my walk home I laughed at the new crosswalk light they’ve put in by the Corte Ingles in an attempt to control rampant pedestrian traffic. It’s a friendly little green teenage boy with baggy pants and hunchbacked swagger who is schlepping it in place. When pedestrians should be wary that the time is almost up for them to cross the schlep becomes a frantic spasm, the green boy becomes a strobe light of panic. I laugh and wait for one more round just so I can remember how I should look right before I get hit by an impatient car.

But all this matters little because in Spain the ONLY thing of importance began at 9pm. The Madrid Real vs. Barcelona Fútbol game. The other American teachers and I went to one of the clubs that had been converted into a game viewing bar of sorts to check out the big deal. I held strong to my Barca ties, the newest member of the team being David Villa, my heart throb of Valencia’s futbol team when I was studying there. My roommate, ever my opposite was beaming in his Madrid jersey, confidant that he’d be patting me on the back saying how Barca tried its best, but couldn’t muster enough to beat the best team in the world. 2 hours and 5 goals later I was laughing at my roommate asking if he wanted me to wait for him while he changed out of his jersey in the bathroom before we went out in public. It was a rousing game, with even better headlines the next day, chronicling the trouncing of Madrid by Barca.

And I wonder- why is football or baseball America’s pastime?? I can’t say I agree with Spain on anything, but that futbol is the superior sport I’ll fall in line behind.

Looking at you kid

2010-12-03T13:00:00.001-08:00

Day 49

Sunday

Stores close on Sundays so that the workers might have a day to spend with their family. Which means Sunday is the prime day for people watching. The pool of pedestrians you can blatantly stare at almost doubles. Balloon vendors camp out in the middle of the main drag. Christmas vendors line the street selling knick knacks and odds and ends to decorate with. Street performers here their clashing coins in pockets and flock to Calle Larios to exploit the spectators with young children. Tarot card readers set up tables with the promise of a good fortune (without foreseeing their own poor business profit) and jewelry designers twiddle away at earrings and bracelets to add to their mildly creative display arrayed on blankets lining the street. The icecream shop has a savvy business owner who’s decided to buck tradition to beat the crisis, his doors are thrown open and draw children in with parents at the end of their desperate pull. It’s one of those magical sunny days that make you smile before you even realize that you’re smiling. There isn’t a bench open because everyone is soaking up the perfect day. I stroll up Calle Larios having spent a fair amount of time people watching at the beach and ocean meditating myself, and I pass by the Viking street performer who I see every day on my walk home from class. And he winks at me. And I find my smile exploding across my face. He knows I know the charade. Just another day at work for him, but he’s caught me at my favorite game- staring at the world through the kaleidoscope of my imagination.

Two Takes on Tradition

2010-12-03T12:39:00.000-08:00

Day 48

Saturday

Even the rain clouds love the Costa del Sol so much they want to come back. But this morning, finally waking up feeling like the ‘old Katie’ I have a “let’s give ‘em hell” attitude. It will not be rainy and miserable on the first day I feel like a human after being sick. Laughing at the rain drops as they started to fall I just zip up my jacket and run into the gale strength head winds and let my smile wick the water away. There’s something insanely energizing about running in the rain. Every part of your body is on high alert and every step another adventure- dodging puddles, leaping crevices, and ducking beneath dry overhangs. I don’t care if people stare because I’m running or because I’m smiling as I run in the rain. It feels so good to move.

Later that day I head off to a birthday party BBQ. Can’t say I really knew the invitee really well, but I sure as hell was interested in what a Spanish BBQ might look like. So I tromped off into the torrential rains, getting my usual lost and adding significant time to my expected arrival time, but it doesn’t matter, my arriving 2 hours late was right on time, it’s Spain, half the party was still on its way. Since it was raining the BBQ had moved inside the flat, the kitchen now the hangout area, with a small grill sizzling 4 chorizos at a time. People picked at bread and pounded cheap beer while they awaited their chorizos. I can’t say I really followed much of the conversation because they we’re all Information Technology or Robotics majors at the University. I caught some fascinating tidbits about reconfiguring heaters and jokes about electrons and mis-wiring something or another, but did the required smile, laugh and nod at appropriate moments, feigning both interest and comprehension.

Venturing on to more socially awkward moments I went to an American Thanksgiving Dinner hosted by some other English teachers in Malaga. Being too poor for a turkey we had chicken and being too poor we had pasta. Everyone else brought some other version of poor man’s food (white bread, whipped mashed potatoes from a box, sliced veggies, salad, etc.) Luckily one of the girls there is quite handy in the kitchen and whipped up some meeeeeeeean sweet potato casserole and pumpkin pie. She saved the dinner as most of the money was channeled into buy equally cheap wine. We chatted casually in English, laughing about the expected cultural differences, raving about the sweet potatoes, and I like to think reveling in the miraculous ambience- relaxed and enjoyable. A rare combination in Spain for a foreigner. While it wasn’t like any turkey day dinner I’ve ever had I was so grateful for it in its unique way. It made me think of other times when people wore warm smiles and laughed freely. The group was from all over the USA but we all knew how to do Thanksgiving and what a blessing to finally be in the company of people whose mannerisms you could read and anticipate and take part in a ritual you knew by heart. Sure, I’ll always stand by my affirmation that the new and the foreign is alluring, but mmhhh there is something about the familiarity of tradition that brings a deep contentment to your face and sits deep in your soul.

I said that I was grateful for the middle road with all its bumps and mundane stretches, but I’m more grateful for all of who you bring that road to life, who take part in the little routines, the rituals, the traditions and who are such a blessing in my life, granting me the miracle of knowing what it is to love and be loved.

I AM GRATEFUL FOR YOU.

Even though you’re always here with me, I still miss you.

What did I just agree to exactly?

2010-12-02T14:43:00.000-08:00

Day 47

Friday.

Inching back into life I don’t say TGIF! But rather, MehIF. No longer wiped out from walking down my stairs I can officially resume my status as human being, but with limited productivity. I get a shower in (score) and a stellar walk on the beach.

The big news happened when my landlord decided to stop by (only after she swears she calls me, funny thing though, my phone must screen her calls for me because they never appear). She asks me if I’m free on Thursday afternoons. Of course I think the worst immediately. We broke something. I didn’t pay the right amount. We’re going to be kicked out. No, no, what she says is even more intense. She wants me to teach her son English. And promises to pay big bucks. My ears chirp up at the sound of money deals being made and my tongue walks out to greet them before I’ve had time to properly process it all. I say YES YES YES. Only afterwards do I have buyer’s regret. Land lord’s son. LANDLORD! What if I mess up? What if I teach something wrong? What if her son hates me? Who knows what she’ll do to the electric bill if I don’t do a good job teaching her son.

Nothing like a little anxiety to get the system up and running though.

I am grateful for...normalcy.

2010-12-02T14:33:00.000-08:00

Day 46

Thursday

Being a cup half full kinda girl it was the best timing possible that I got the flu full force Wednesday night, so I could be bedridden all Thursday. Having no big family dinner to attend, no one to see, nothing to cook and no country to celebrate the day with, it really wasn’t too troublesome to only want to eat crackers and drink liters of soup. Wasn’t missing much more than I would if I felt tip top.

Another perk of being ill is taking Spanish medicine. After the snappy pharmacist freaked on me for not knowing the word ‘mucus’ in Spanish (really though, when does that word come up in Spanish 1/2/or 3 partner conversations during the final exam?? No we don’t practice asking, “What does your mucus look like?” Back off white coat drug dealer, ok?) I walked out smiling because I had a bag of meds for only 5euro. It’s always interesting to encounter a new way of doing something you’ve done a different way all your life. Give me Dayquil and I know what to do. Bottle or pills, easy as pie. But opening the box of Spanish medicine I’m confronted by oddly shaped packets and I don’t know exactly what to do with them or how to take them. Bending to logic, I read the directions, oohhh, put in water. Duh. A magic elixir. The minute it passes down my throat I feel a subtle burst of energy; even though I’m still convinced I’m drinking Tang. But the placebo effect has been proven to work. I can’t wait till 6 hours passes and I can drink another packet.

It’s one of those lazy days when you’re too tired from doing nothing to do something. But it allows plenty of time for a longing to feel normal again to set in. sitting as miserable as mold on a bag of week old bread, I’m a bump on the bench watching the sunset thinking of all the times I griped about the ‘problems’ with normal. How stupid of me. I guess it’s appropriate to reflect on this day and to give thanks for the middle road. It’s wonderful when we zoom up on those miraculous highs of life, but really it’s the moments spent clawing to get back to that middle path that give the ‘nothing to write home about days’ their glory. And oh how I wished I felt normal.

I’d feel odd wishing you all the most normal of days, but in context of this piece I hope you’ll understand what I really mean.

May to day be nothing special and may that be wonderful.

(What if the quotidian were that satisfying?)

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!
[¡Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias!]

I didn't know this benefit came with the package (Catching your students' illnesses).

2010-11-30T12:32:00.000-08:00

Day 45

Wednesday

It’s been awhile since I mentioned the hills of Alora. My calves tell me it’s time to revisit that theme. I’m sure that some with weaker constitutions think Lombardi St. in San Francisco is steep. That’s cute. After they’re done ‘climbing’ that flat, I encourage them to come to Alora for some hills. The streets are so steep that bending down to crawl up the roads wouldn’t draw any attention; I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone doing it yet, you’re bent over so far already, might as well throw your hands into the equation. I’m glad I don’t live there not just because it’s a pain in the butt to make a vertical hike to go visit a neighbor and repel down the street to go home afterwards, but because my calves would be jacked if I made that walk everyday. Growing up I was lucky to have such great friends and such outspoken strangers on hand to remind me of “Whoa! Look how big your calves are!” Yes, thank you, I’m quite well aware. They ARE my legs. I tend to see them every time I put my pants on. And yes, yes, I run. Yes, I bike. If it weren’t for such honest and spontaneous reminders I might just forget, which would really do wonders for my self-esteem. Because no you idiot, I don’t do calf raises everyday to ‘tone them.’ go away. Well after walking down hill my legs are on fire, bracing for each step, preventing a huge slide downwards on my ass.

Despite my best efforts I did have a huge downfall. Not on the hills of Alora unfortunately. The flu came around back and drop kicked me. I was out like a light the minute I finished teaching class.

And there is no worse feeling than sitting on a bench a long way from home knowing you don’t have anyone to call to take you home and help get you to bed. It was a sad shuffle in the rain back to my igloo. Luckily exhaustion tends to make involuntary decisions for you before you can argue. Passing out on my bed was what my body wanted to do, so I had my earliest bed time since my first day in Spain (when I fell asleep at 8pm because of jet leg).

So much for my Spartan immune system. And my kilo of oranges. Where’d all that vitamin C go to??

And back to noticing odd peculiarities. A woman passed me today walking her dog. She was walking her dog. As in the dog was not walking. It sat in a child’s carriage. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that defeats the whole purpose of walking the dog.

Glad my germs are far away, quarantined in my room, hoping you all are happy and HEALTHY!

Good news...the turkey I made with my kids is done! (The plume of tail feathers is made of their hands, that they traced, colored, and wrote what they are thankful for).

No drugs allowed on school property...but Jesus?

2010-11-30T12:31:00.001-08:00

Day 44

Tuesday

Some mornings I’m sure I wake up in a different body than I went to sleep in. This morning I wondered who switched me for a sickly body. That sleepy head fog didn’t clear as I took the train to work because it was a sinus headache, settling in like the San Francisco fog, there for sometime. And that itchy throat started raising some racket of its own, clawing coughs every now and then. And my nose seemed to have forgotten itself, and more importantly its crucial purpose; it rather fancied being a leaky faucet today. And just to make sure I didn’t smile away my sick status with the sunny weather, rain clouds barged in to make me blue. Who really wants to feel better when the weather just makes you want to go to bed?

Being sick puts you into a silly mood. You notice odd little peculiarities and you miss the big obvious road signs (like the green light to cross the street until you’re pushed from behind to go). I walk into my school and right by a huge nativity scene without taking note. I literally have to detour to get around it. Vooomp. Doesn't register. But when I come down to the teacher’s lounge during a rainy indoor recess day I stop and stare. Another teacher approaches my bewildered face and asks if I had ever seen a Nativity Scene before. I say, well, obviously, I’m from America; it’s called the Bible Belt. I tell her I’m just wondering why it’s in the school. (Because after all, Zapatero (prez of Spain) told the Pope when he came to give the inauguatory mass at La Sagrada Familia (the most beautiful basilica ever in Barcelona) he quite bluntly told the Pope that he was welcome to visit, but would do well to remember that Spain is a NON-DEMONINATIONAL country, no longer officially catholic, and all the while hundreds of gay couples participated in a protest outside of the Sagrada Familia, with an encore of all the couples kissing.) So this is why I wondered about the Nativity Scene. So soon, in a public school, that’s not allowed to be Christian? Her response, “Well, it’s Christmas.” (Ergo it’s okay.) hmmmmmm…..

Sidestepping Christmas in class we’ve been talking about Thanksgiving. Attempting to teach the kids a bit more thoroughly than Pocahontas might. It’s hilarious; more classes are disgusted by the idea of stuffing and green beans. Oh cultural differences.

It’s a misty day as I walk home…walk to bed. Some days just need to be over with the minute they begin.

Love you all dearly. Off to dream about when I see you again.

The Rose Garden

2010-11-25T05:15:00.001-08:00

Malaga at Dusk....soak it up

2010-11-25T05:10:00.001-08:00

Alora, what a view...

2010-11-25T05:05:00.000-08:00

What is the only thing with a more powerful kick than Chuck Norris? A Dunkin Coffee Double Shot Espresso

2010-11-25T05:01:00.001-08:00

Make that a double shot actually.

2010-11-23T10:59:00.000-08:00

Day 43

Monday

It’s nice knowing that even the people who can’t afford to have an “it’s a Monday morning” Monday morning have them. It’s 7:14am. I’m sitting on a chair on the train and we have not departed. Something is wrong. I wish it were the fact that I’m on a train at that hour, but alas no, that’s what’s right. The official schedule mandates that we depart Malaga Centro at 7:10am. Here we are, zooming off to nowhere at 7:14am. And then a small man in a black coat I could have sworn I saw smoking a cigarette above ground by the tunnel entrance dashes by me into the driver’s car and we hear a rushed, “Tren con destino Álora” (Train going to Álora) resound through the speakers. And off we go. Delightful. The poor train, tethered to Spanish time, even if it is ready to go, just like me.

Once I’m in Álora I have a delightful time noticing small town quirks as I walk to my school. For anyone that has a small child that walks to school or has seen an elementary school 10 minutes before the school day begins knows very well the role of the Crossing Guard. In America the Crossing Guard has a bit of an inflated idea about their position (granted they are keeping our children safe, of great importance yes, but come on, the blinky lights are already making the drivers go 25 mph. you could be blind, hit a child and still stop before you even began to roll over his baby toe.). The American Crossing Guard dashes out into traffic, usually adorned with a vest of blinding vibrancy, so as to shock drivers into stopping. The more elite have a whistle which they use to signal the children to commence crossing the street. And the culmination of their post is their body movement; they have mastered the erect scarecrow stance. Both arms outstretched, as if they were holding up walls on either side, feet outspread like a power ranger ready to defend an attack, with their head pivoting left right left right left right, eyeing any indication of an inching car. And finally the encore, the wave to the cars. Once the children have safely reached the other side, the Crossing Guard exits the crosswalk with a vigorous hand wave to the presumably ignorant cars to commence driving if it wasn’t obvious that it is clear. The Spanish crossing guards could learn a thing or two from the American Crossing Guards. I’ll tell you why. As I waited in a group of Spanish students to cross the street to go to school I marveled at the guards LACK of performance. A half hearted glance to the right, and he steps out into the street. Steps out. As in 1 step. He puts his right hand out, like he were swatting at hip height grass and nods his head ever so slightly for the kids to walk, which was needless because half of them are so reckless to assume cars just stop at the drop of a dime for them, so they just go, and before even half the group is across the Guard is back to his side, leaning against his car. And he probably gets paid a pretty penny for that lackadaisical effort. As I trudged on I wanted to say, “Look, it’s too bad that you find your work so emasculating. But it’s your job. My kids may make me insane, but I’d rather be yelling at them in class than crying over them at their funeral. Do your damn job. And get a brighter vest. Navy blue draws no attention. And no I don’t care if you don’t think florescent yellow isn’t a becoming color on you.”

The rest of the day proceeded with more Turkey Day talks, more disgusted faces when I tell them about green beans. And even more disbelief when I tell them we eat dinner at 6pm. I have 8 year olds telling me they eat dinner at 8, 9 or 10 pm. And they say I’m crazy for a 6pm dinner. Why eat at 10 pm and go to bed at 10:30pm?? I have this crazy idea that food is FUEL for the body, and that the body needs fuel to survive. Don’t feed me right before I go to bed, I can pass out just fine on my own. But hell yes, feed me before I go for a run or try and do my homework. Again, point Katie for living on her own.

It’s 3:30pm and I’m off the train and off to the bus station to catch a ride out to teach English in another town at 5pm. But I’m dragging. And I mean dragging. It’s like the 10 am and 4 pm slump are hitting me at once. So I reach into my back pocket and pull out the precious 1.10 Euros that I save for emergencies. And I step up to Dunkin’ Coffee (NO, not Dunkin’ Donuts, even though they have those, this is Dunkin’ Coffee) and ask for an espresso. Double shot. Understanding the bags under my eyes and big backpack lugging me down the coffee lady hands me 2 sugar packets instead of one as I go. And I’m off. Whooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooosssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. And I keep going through English class through salsa class through checking emails and right on through till 1am when I can’t fall asleep even though my body is whipped. Damn you double shot, you did well, you did too well.

I spy with my little eye, something....

2010-11-21T12:23:00.000-08:00

Day 42

Shoes, chandeliers, cds, tapes, books, shower heads, money, tea pots, cups, vases, telephones, cell phones, jewelry, nails, screws, hammers, bolts, nuts, crow bar, paintings, pictures, blankets, curtains, high heels, moon shoes, dresses, t-shirts, hats, sunglasses, batteries. All scattered on blankets like a photo shoot for the “I SPY” book. I’m back, I couldn’t resist. It’s Sunday afternoon at the market by the futbol stadium. Despite my roommate’s adamant assertion that it is a dirty market I rather love it. I don’t presume myself to be dirty nor dirty in taste, but I love the abrupt pace and the outspoken nature. I also am drawn by the desperate nature of the market. Everyone’s livelihood is on the line. They must sell their goods. If not…..well…..

It’s my chance to see those people living in Spain who actually vie for my attention, who don’t have a stick up their ass because I don’t speak their language perfectly or I’m not the most beautiful thing to grace this Earth. At the market there is only one language, money. And the vendors aren’t really speaking to me, they’re hollering at my pocket, inviting my wallet to come out and open up. But I don’t mind, I don’t bring any money for that reason. I’ve got a weak spot for impulse buys. And an ever sorer spot for buyer’s regret. :)

It’s not just the vendors’ interaction with me that I get a rise out of but witnessing the interaction between the vendors. Like old neighbors talking over the fence, they yell, ‘give me 5 euro to make change” or “buy me a water” or ‘watch my daughter, I’ll be back soon!” or “how much you sell today?” market talk is loud and quick. It’s curt and to the point. Attention spans run short; words must fly across the stream of people before the recipient’s attention is lost. I’m sure the yelling is endearing, even if it does sound harsh and corrosive to my sensitive American ears. I don’t think I’d like to have a stand and spend all my day selling odds and ends, but I do think I would really like to be part of that world for a short while. I wonder, where did they find these things? Professional dumpster diving? A sweet deal from a supplier? Stock piling Christmas gifts through the years? How….???

By about 2pm the market begins to wind down and people start to pack their unsold goods into bags and boxes, shoving them into the trunks and aisles of mini-vans to be carried home and hopefully sold another day at another market. So I wander away, laughing at the couple selling potions of tea infusions to cure ‘pain of the bones’, ‘obesity,’ ‘broken heart’, and ‘stomach aches.’ I’m pretty sure it’s all chamomile tea, to make the buyer just calm down and breathe. Then all their troubles dissipate.

I head for a loop on the beach while the sun is still high overhead; trying to soak up all the warmth I can before heading back to my igloo apartment. The frigid winds that roam the high altitudes at the tops of buildings seems to infiltrate every crack in my doors and windows, seeking me out, wondering why I’ve left my wandering for another day. But today I’m at the beach. Enjoying the sunshine and the silence. Sundays in Spain are magical. While Spain claims to be predominantly catholic, it really has booted the institution for the most part keeping only 2 crucial parts of the faith. They keep the holidays holy (i.e. A week long Easter celebration called Semana Santa) and they regard Sunday as a day of rest. And by rest I mean cessation of all activity. I mean, Sunday is the day of great and widespread sluggardness. While it drives me mad some days that EVERY STORE iN SPAIN IS CLOSED, every store, seriously EVERY STORE, I love the tranquility that is put out to air instead of noisy people. I can actually hear the rolling waves hitting the beach; I’m not bothered by the rush of cars. I can hear the squawk of the parrots in the palm trees; loud music from the bars doesn’t drown them out. And I can hear myself think, I’m not distracted by noisy tourists on the beach. It’s wonderful.

This evening I found myself with time to watch the sunset from atop the Alcazaba (the Muslim fortress behind our apartment). And as I watched the sun lean back over the mountains I thought, I’ve always wanted the time of day to just watch the sunset. And now I have it. What a blessing. And so I lingered a bit longer, as if I expected an encore. But really I was just trying to ingrain the moment in my memory so if I ever thought to complain about my free time, I could remember the gift in it. It was a glorious sunset. The perfect dénouement to an emotionally vexing couple of days. Deep breathing seems to come more natural in the dark. And so walking down the path from the top of the Alcazaba deep breaths carried me step by step all the way back to my apartment where I tried to make peace with the clock, the world, the people, and my purpose. And beg the cold draft to leave me be.

What a change...

2010-11-20T13:22:00.000-08:00

Day 41

Father and son. Father and son. Father and daughter. Mother and daughter. Mother and son. I’m walking on the beach on Saturday morning and I’m passed by parents and children again and again as they ride their bikes in the morning sunshine. Passing by the playground a dad is pushing his daughter gently as she screams getting higher and higher. A mom is helping her son unwrap a candy bar and a grandma sits on the bench watching just like me. What I notice is not how many pairs I pass, but what the children have done to transform their parents. They’re no longer the woman who cut me in line at the market, they’re no longer the policeman telling me they’re closed for siesta and can’t help me get a residence card, and they’re no longer the motorbike riders that honk at me for taking too long to cross the street. They’re tender, caring, loving and dare I say patient. For as much as I gripe about the people of Spain, I’m enamored by the family vignettes I pass by on my walks. A man opens a door and I edge by to see him reach in to unbuckle his sleeping daughter from her car seat, cooing softly to her as he holds her against his chest. The parents are love itself. And I wonder if this person was there all along. They have remarkable tenderness, such sweet and encouraging remarks, and the attentiveness of unconditional compassion. I can’t begrudge them for favoring their own because my heart is already melting at seeing their interactions. If they can’t direct such love towards me I’m glad the children are receiving it all. Lord knows they save NONE of it for foreigners.

But some parents aren’t so wonderful. They partake in quite a popular form of child cruelty. I call it the matching outfit. And they do it across genders occasionally. And they seem to have a silent competition for dressing their children in the ugliest dress possible. Each family tries to beat the next. Look, all my children are in blue and white paisley, with bows bigger than their heads. Yes, even my son. But look , they match! It’s terrible. I don’t understand this trend at all. Little military lines of children holding hands, connecting the same dress across three little bodies, follow their parents through the park, parading their match-i-ness. And I can only furl my brow and purse my lips in disgust.

Not being a parent myself, I wonder if the secret of loving a child so tenderly comes with the instruction manual when they’re born. I venture to say that unconditional love is something found universally and that comforts me. But what is it about seeing your own child running towards you that gives parents that special smile the rest of the world can only wonder about.

I hope someone is gazing upon YOU lovingly.

You'd look hotter in a helmet.

2010-11-20T13:03:00.001-08:00

Day 40

I’ve come up with a new theory. And I think I’m right. The trash men are in conspiracy with the homeless. Now my proof.

7:30 Am. I’m making my mad dash to the train. Looking down into the dried out river bed that has been washed clean in cement it lounges dirty, smell, and trash ridden. As I continue to the entrance that has been constructed to let trash trucks down into the river I see the troublesome pair of trucks again. The trash men park the trucks under the bridge and then chat. I never actually see them collect any trash. I see them drive down, park and wait. They wear the uniform, which keeps anyone from peering suspiciously down at them. But they park under the bridge in the part of the river that is what I’ve come to call The Campground because the local homeless folk set up tents, card board boxes and such and sleep.

Later that day. The trucks are still there. The trash is still there. The homeless are still there. Okay, so either they’re homeless too or they’re babysitters. I wonder if the homeless people have struck a deal with them, they have the trucks watch their Campground while they go beg the streets. The evidence of their lack of work is scattered through the city, pouring out of trashcans and stinking up the river. But somehow they are bothered by the stench or the bottles that fly up as cars run over them. They just keep camping out under the bridge.

Later that night. Before it gets dark, probably at 5pm, the trucks drive up out of the river. Trash left behind. And they go home. Driving past all the trash on the streets and all the trash in the dumpsters.

I wonder if they’re hiring. I’d even intern.

Not that it’s particularly hard to beat the Spanish system because it’s too lazy and inefficient to care, but they’ve certainly mastered the art of being paid to do NOTHING.

And I really need to rant for a second. IDIOT BIKERS IN MALAGA. What is up with this new fashion statement you all are taking part in? Why would you put your helmet on the front of your handle bars like a large hood ornament? Why not put it on your head so that when you’re hit by a car that is driven by a driver who is smoking and less concerned with the road than with how much of their cigarette is left, you don’t fly over your handle bars, and consequently your helmet and land on your head, the whole while looking at the damn helmet you could have put on your head and could have saved your life. That’s right, if you wore the helmet I couldn’t see just how gorgeous you are. Is the phrase ‘hat-hair’ even in the Spanish vocabulary?? I think not. And another note. IDIOT BIKERS WHO DON’T WEAR HELMETS- I know you don’t want to ride in the street with the insane taxis, but you cannot just ride all over the sidewalk where we walkers are walking. It’s a sideWALK..WALK.WALK. And if you do decide to hop on with us WALKErS, please at least try and grunt if you can’t actually say on your left instead of just clipping me and thinking I’ll learn my lesson for walking on the sidewalk that way. You’re right, I’ll learn. I think I’ll just start clothes-lining you helmet-less fools. See how you like an elbow to the Adams apple, eh???

Ooo Look at that one! And that one!

2010-11-19T13:58:00.001-08:00

Day 39

I window shop for people. Being too poor to actually enjoy the torturous temptation of window shopping I peruse people on the street. After all, when I’ve nothing better to do, I walk. The only other ones who know what I’m up to are the old men on the benches. They see me staring from the corner of my eye and they stare right back. I secretly like our stare-downs. They don’t make any sort of smirk like the rest of Spain, but it’s more an act of mutual acknowledgement of each other’s turf. I don’t linger long in the rose garden, that’s for the 3 musketeers. I don’t sit in the park by the fountain, that’s the old white hair guys spot. I certainly don’t plop down on the bench at the beginning of the main drag. That’s for the old buds in loafers. Most of the Spanish are too busy to notice us people watchers, tourists are hopefully oblivious, and the homeless are wary of us, not wanting us to distract their potential audience. But when I spot a gem I let my gaze lock on and lock in. I notice what they’re wearing, the way they walk, wonder where they’re coming from, why they thought a rat tail was sexy, how cold they must be in just a mini skirt, how bad their feet must hurt in the 6 inch heels and how much fun they’re about to have with the group of friends around them.

Heading back home from the park I wait for the little green walk man to let me know its ‘safe’ to cross. After hearing that 75% of deaths at cross walks occur when the pedestrian is in the right, I’m quite a bit more wary about those fickle cars. Lucky I do because on my right a mini car screeches to a stop and a boy easily only 15 years old with braces bounces with excitement in his seat while his mom is paralyzed with the universal face of fear and the ubiquitous white knuckles bracing the dashboard. She says something quick to him and I hear the emergency break snap on. It’s hilarious to think that the Spanish teach their children to drive cars. I can promise that I’ll never jaywalk. Ever. But it was comically comforting to see the terror on the mother’s face. It reminded me so much of home :)

peace & love. woosie, who's really not loving the whole winter at the beach idea. it's cold!