As I blow more snot and wipe the hot wet surface of my cheeks I hear Maybelle in the kitchen. She comes from Singapore, she is small, well tanned and somewhere in her mid sixties.  She’s lived here four weeks and speaks terrible Spanish. 

“Otcho saymanas,” she says in a high pitched Asian accent. 

And now the only thing that bursts from my mouth out this wooden window is laughter.  I can’t help it. 

“Si, ocho semanas,” repeats Encarni, the wild haired Spanish woman with a curvy spine and an opinion on everything.  God love her, for speaking so patiently with May, correcting her bad grammar and her horrendous pronunciation. 

And God love May, for up and moving to Spain from her only ever home of Singapore, with the sole intention of leaning Spanish. 

“If you want to learn it, you really just have to be surrounded by it,” she told me one day, as if my question itself of Why she had traversed Asia and Europe to learn a Latin language was more outlandish than the reason she’d done so.

Carmen de Las Fuentes 

c/ Isabel de la Real, 11

We are a crazy mix inhabiting this convent-turned-residential house, restored from the 18th century original building.  There’s American me, Sarah the kiwi, a British girl whose accent impedes any chance of her seeming humble, the Canadian Swede called Ky whom I’ve seen thrice and heard speak once and a half; there’s Adrianna and Andrea the young Spanish girls who do everything together and therefore are impossible to distinguish and there's Antony, the English as England white haired English teacher who for some reason insists on speaking to me in Spanish as he pulls pickles and onions from a jar in the kitchen, his store bought sandwich steaming in the microwave. 

Mercedes

And then there is Mercedes. Somehow my favorite, yet least liked.  She is the house mom, per se, she washes the sheets when residents leave and prepares contracts with newcomers. She’s no more than 5 feet tall, has heavy dark hair to her bum and scolds anyone and everyone for leaving things out of place. Her face is old and her brown eyes are big. Obviously was beautiful once, but now a sour mood and an aura of exhaustion kill any beauty she may have had. Mercedes opens a liter of cheap beer at lunch and finishes it by dinner. I often mimic her deep low voice and matter-of-fact way of speaking to make Sarah laugh. But the truth is that Mercedes infuriates me.  I look at her and all I see is a flame burnt out, a blackened flower, an inside turned to stone. What has happened to her? What things has she seen? She came from Ecuador nearly 20 years ago and shows no fondness for her old homeland nor for the new. No food, films, music, or conversation seem to ignite a flicker of emotion.  The only time I saw her half smile was when Sarah and I told her we were lesbians and therefore should get the couple discount given to new renters. 

Roof Top Procession

Mercedes is the first person I think of when I climb off the terrace and onto the shaky shingled roof.  My mind’s eye sees her standing at the window, glaring at me with her cat eyes and asking, in monotone, what the hell I think I am doing on the roof at sunset. Luckily she wasn’t home on Sunday.  On Sundays she visits her sister and on Sunday I spent all afternoon on the roof. 

            

      I climbed from terrace to roof to watch an unexpected religious procession.  I heard its music first, then smelled the incense that always accompanies.  Heavy drums.  Musty air.  I dash to the roof to see from where it comes, to find out where it's headed. Young uniformed men move up the street, carrying a bleeding Jesus on a cross. A marching band proceeds it and neighbors gather behind.  

The church next door is called Aurora and from my rooftop view I can see as the wooden doors under the stone arch open and the marching band slowly enters the church’s courtyard while well dressed Spanish families gather, mobiles clicking pictures of the Jesus figure and the young men hoisting his throne, young children tug on their parents’ pants and others ring small bells in their small hands.

The distant snow capped Sierra, glossed in pink sunlight, watches us all. The Alhambra is tinted golden,  and small green and red flags wave on its fortress's top.  Evening swallows swoop black against the sky, which changes now from blue to gold to orange. 

Children in the crowd look up to find a girl, roof perched in house clothes, watching them from up high. The band’s drummers’ sticks drones out behind the sound of the bells, which pierce and clang in the tall white tower. In the tall white tower they turn, around and around.  Until they stop.

Again the world is quiet. The birdless sky falls into one shade of blue.  Boys remove their sailor style caps, cameras return to their cases, the Jesus throne has been moved inside the building. Uniformed bearers are now de-robed and congregate with their proud parents and restless younger siblings.  Sunday sets and the weekend closes.  And I’ve won one more day on the rooftop, safe from Mercedes scolding, and once again reconnected with a moment.    

The New Neighborhood

In my new neighborhood it isn’t uncommon to hear acoustic flamenco guitar slipping through open windows.  It isn’t uncommon to feel your heartbeat steadily increase as you slowly climb the stone street hills, incense and loose leaf tea smells curl under your nose and the bright trinkets of the Arabian markets—tea cups and hookahs, stained glass lamps and rugs, color your vision.  It isn’t uncommon, either, to come across an open plaza with young people slack lining, drum beating, hair braiding, beer drinking, football kicking, the glorious 12^th century Alhambra in plain sight across the way, the astounding Sierra Nevada peak just behind.

view from the old place

Laura, Soraya y yo

            I’ve spent the long winter and first part of my Granadino year in the cheaper, shorter-commute-to-work, heated apartment of a working class neighborhood called La Chana.  I enjoyed a bedroom window view of the mountains, the romantic sleepy train passing just under it. I enjoyed the cultural experience of Spanish roommates, the incredible meals made by Soraya, the Spanish lingo lessons from Laura, also a feeling that I really grasped the Spanish language having two españolas en casa.  I’m happy to say now, as the spring sun comes out to play, I am eating breakfast on the weekends up on my new home’s terrace, overlooking the city, situated just across from the Alhambra.  The new neighborhood is called the Albayzin, the labyrinth neighborhood the Muslims occupied when Granada was a somewhat peaceful mixture of Jews, Christians and Muslims.  The vibe is hippy, the tourists are many and the old convent—turned temporary residential housing—has an interesting international array of comers and goers.  My favorites so far being:

Encarnación (which literally means the flesh of God) the curvy spined, loud gestured 30-something Spanish woman who always asks what you’re eating and never hesitates to tell you what’s on her mind. 

Mercedes—the hot/cold Ecuadorian housekeeper, seemingly half my size, with dark hair that reaches her rear.  She speaks in only single syllable words and moves as gracefully as water. 

            This new location is so amazing that it often doesn’t feel real.  I smile at the tourist who passes my door as I come home, starry eyed jealousy occupies his face as I turn the key.  Yes, I live here. 

            The country that seems magical to millions, the city that’s enchanted all who’ve come, the neighborhood full of silence, music, mystery all at once. 

           

 

If you don’t love where you live, I recommend you change it.    

la petite fille voyage a Paris

In the little café, bright colored fold out chairs, circular tables and mosaic décor on the inside walls, I shared a too-salty quiche with Sarah.  I watched a young chef in a restaurant across the way—in and out of the push swing door, top button of his white uniform undone, bring out the wind, then plates, then casual conversation to the tables outside.  How handsome he was, and for me so seemingly French with his square jaw line, soft brown thick curls and prominent nose.  I heard French all around me and it merely mixed in with the soft stringed music in the air. 

            We’ve watched too many films.  When reality is real, the French chef, the yellow quiche, the dainty French music, present themselves I am reminded of a film—this can’t be real, I think, it’s much too choreographed.  But it wasn’t.  Touristic, it was, But authentic, it was somehow that too.

            No wonder writers, dancers, musicians, painters, poets and chefs have all come to Paris.  Beauty and aesthetic waft along the grey river, over lamp covered bridges and through wrought iron terraces.  The City of Lights is everything they say it is, becoming even more magical at night and surely causing us to fall in Love.

            It has no particular smell, Paris.  Only moments of unconscious inhalation that bring sudden scents:  croissants!  doughnuts!  lemon sugar crepes! Much as the people in the city aren’t one specific kind but short or dark, redhead or thin, hairy or pale.  

           

            We only rushed once in Paris.  With evening boat ride tickets and 9 and an Eifel Tower climb at 7:30, we knew it’d be a close call, and after Sarah met 4 handsome Chileans at the top, I knew it’d be closer. 

            The quick rhythm clunk of my fancy boots hitting the golden illuminated stairs fell in unison with Sarah’s behind and we swung around each flight, gaining ever so closer to the wide base of the 7,300 ton most visited monument.

Perdon!

Perdon!

We called as we flew down, faster and faster, loving the rush of the hurry, the feeling of importance—we’ve got a boat to catch!

            

And we did catch the boat.  We sat by a Scottish five year old and her red headed mother.  We went under gilded bridges and sighted teenagers drinking on the cement shores. 

            It’s no wonder they call it The City of Love, for there’s never a lack of seemingly happy couples—kissing on bridges, holding hands on the promenade, gazing at one another over a small table in a café.  In other moments we’ve asked how to attribute the magic, how to explain its existence —Was it my youth? The people? The place?  This time yes.  Paris, the city itself, is magical.  It’s not buzzing like New York City, or loud and alive like late night Madrid in July, nor is it friendly and cozy like the pubs and people that make Dublin.  It’s elegant.  Refined.  Existing both in the big and in the details.  A grandiose woman, over 600 years old, tall and stunning, and forever knowing so.  She doesn’t offer you her wild nights, to touch her breasts, but merely just to see, to absorb all she is with our eyes, which of course, is enough. 

A Day Well Spent

     There is one more day in January and today feels ever so much like a Sunday than the sunny Monday that it is.  Yesterday has been one of my best Granada days. I spent it skiing with friends Maria, Carlos, and Jose.  Maria is the sister of Antonio, whom I nannied for over the summer, so I feel already close to her and her family.
     The snow was perfect, light white fluffy powder which sent me softly down the slopes.  The sun came out and warmed our backs while the wind chapped our faces.  I skied well and remembered the days growing up at Mount Rose--my young fun parents, the days in college ditching out on class, drinking bottled beer in the lodge with boys I could eventually fall for.  There isn't really a much better way to spend the day, is there?  Outdoors and active, with people you love, you enjoy, you laugh with. Days like yesterday make it worth it.  Work hard to play hard.  Ignoring the ego's lazy pleas:  it's cold! it's expensive! this jacket's not warm enough! You can't put a price on a day well spent, the rush of speeding down the mountain, singing and shouting, revving your own engine, all by yourself.  The moments descending exist for you, your world, your own rhythm, moments you need not share with anyone, for you will ride back to the top accompanied, laughing, talking-- agreeing that the weather has been agreeable.
     Ten thousand feet above the world, where trees don't grow. A distant view of Morocco, the strait that leads there, another land to explore.


     But for now it's a cold beer in the sun, a foil wrapped sandwich, chapstick and sunscreen, and the clear reflecting hunger for more. More up, more down, more days well spent.

Sunless Sky.

When the occasional light beams down from a small opening in the heavy autumn clouds, it lands on the trees’ leaves in a graceful way that gives an entirely new meaning to my definition of color.

And in my quiet conversation lessons on long afternoons, I only feel tense and cold, wet from a hurried walk in the rain. 

“Do you like the color Y-E-L-L-O-W?”

“Yes, I like yellow.”

How simple and plain, boring and eventually ugly the colors that fall from my mouth seem. And what is yellow then, when I see her from my bedroom window, dancing on determined leaves, setting fire to Oak trees, bringing a sensation of heat in the autumn chill? Is she the same yellow from the I Spy game in Felisa’s darkened living room? A covered pillow sitting on a faded white couch?  Clearly the answer is no. Spoken she is yellow and seen she is golden. Vibrant. Radiant.  And how am I supposed to teach the feeling of sun kissed in this weather—when it only comes out de vez en cuando, when I’m all alone standing at the glass.

Fall rainstorms indicate nature’s retreat.  The cold edges its way in, the wind scurries me indoors.  This rain is not an awakening nor a renewal, no spring blossoms are budding nor are green grasses reaching up from the earth.  This is a shower before sleep, an outdoor housecleaning before the long still nap of winter.

Unfortunate also, that the November rain has moved in before I’ve received my first human paycheck and in causation will remain puddle jumping in my second-hand purple velour flats.  But patience is a virtue, and so, I’m learning, is frugality, so I shall wait another human week before making a low fashion, nature resistant boot purchase.  And that issue could’ve been easily averted if the the fake leather boots—brown paint peeling—I found on a park bench, while on a run, last Sunday, weren’t 1.5 sizes too big and ridiculously floppy in the toe.

Evident from the plunge in my livelihood these past weeks (attributed also to my being out of caffeine free tea and embarrassingly in need of a haircut) is my dependence on the sun.  Before the autumn hour change, I struggled to choke back the desire of wailing out in sadness, in protest of the counter-human and completely unnatural timetable of 8 a.m. class.

The moon is still out!

At least now, after last week’s “Fall back”, I watch the light slowly change as I walk and can teach first period with a wee bit of natural light joining us in the educational facility’s fluorescence. 

But now it’s the rain, soft light but dark clouds, and I’m often cold and always bootless, barely fitting underneath my see-through pink plastic child size umbrella.  I arrive to school with wet feet, wet sleeves, and a moist backpack. 

I’m just not ready for the sun’s seasonal farewell. 

Stay here!

I need you!

The confusion about life, this place, and this place in my life (not to mention the displeasure of speaking at an ice melting speed with crystal clear pronunciation all day) dissipates, just a bit, when the sun decides to shine.  For those who live in Seattle, for the Irish folks consoling in the pubs as well, I salute you, for this wet sad sunless sky is surely life sucking.

But at least my umbrella came with a plastic red whistle attached, so I can screech at all the kids to get to class when the recess bell rings.  

Keep Tahoe Blue

The stillness of a summer ended invites the quiet parts of you to sit.

The lake is sapphire blue and flat out until the forever of the snow sprinkled mountains stop the water’s reach.  A few young people visit on the driftwood beach and in the clear teal of the shallow water, their happy dogs alongside. Occasional boats speed across, but the silent rhythmic sight of couples kayaking is the most enjoyable to take in.

Trees suspend against a perfect blue sky as if wind never existed.  I’d like to go on a sail boat, to find a new appreciate for the wind and feel what it truly means when they compare the water to glass. 

The stillness of a summer ended invites the quiet parts of you to sit.

A paddle boarder passes. It feels Native American to me.  It’s quiet, solitary, and presence demanding, quite an authoritative way of transportation across the lake. 

Dogs could swim forever. Could we?  Children can play on the beach for days. How long could adults stay content?

This blue bodied lake has provided serenity and swimming for humans since before we knew we were so. 

I point across the lake to Mount Tallac—which presides over Desolation Wilderness, in the great state of California.

“I’ve climbed that.” I can say.

Upon arriving to Hidden Beach I sought out the easily recalled structure made of driftwood, like a bony camel all different shades of beige. 

“I’ve made love under that.”

The log cabin we had our cheerleader sleep over in, a wood plank pier I jumped off after midnight, 16 and a half years old, dizzy with drunkenness.  No wonder we love it, this lake holds our memories, dreams, and young secrets in its pine tree bottom profundity, its Ice Age rocks, and the long alligator snout looking islet that sticks out into the water.

Pack a cooler but don’t bring a radio.

Swim, lay out,

and hope for a beer induced nap.

Stop at T’s on the way home,

roll down the windows as you drive.

And Keep Tahoe Blue.

Mantenga Tahoe Azul.  

New thoughts from the New home

FAMILY!

Today I met another American. Her name is Kate and she is an energetic and athletic stay-at-home mom here in Tres Cantos, a suburb of Madrid.  When I asked her how she got here she told me she met her husband one month into starting her masters…..that was 13 years ago….and well, you know the rest.  She jogs every morning after dropping her children off at CEIP Carmen Iglesias, the same primary school where I take Luis everyday.  To speak so casually and quickly, hearing the relaxed American accent, pleased me.  Kate gave me some advice that pleased me as well. 

“Stay close to your family,” she said. Having her mom on the East Coast of the US and her brothers on the West, isn’t easy, and I imagine (making it back usually just once a year) having a family and living in Spain gets lonely.  Kate lit up when she told me that she’ll be going home this Friday to see her mother in New Hampshire.  She’s so excited she says she isn’t sleeping, that every morning is one day closer to getting home.

Later I am eating my delicious organic whole grain oats oatmeal at the glass table, looking out onto the view of Madrid mountains, which are just beyond the neighboring Holiday Inn Express. I am overcome by the emotion of love and family that is waiting for me in Reno.  Spain is my home for now, but I know eventually I will settle down stateside. Not being quick cover distance away from my childhood friends? Raising children without the frequent presence of my own mother? Not watching my nieces and nephews grow up? This would be too difficult, too far, too separate from what I see my life as. 

LEAVING BAZA

     “I can’t keep doing this.”

That was the thought I repeated over and over to myself on the bus ride from Baza to Madrid, on the first day of June.  I was exhausted and overwhelmed, so many goodbyes in so few days.  I can’t keep starting a new life, putting down roots, and then pulling them out each time I leave a place.  The irony of it I guess is that the goodbyes weren’t goodbyes, no adios but more like hasta lluego, see you later, as I am returning to Granada in the Fall.  But when your students present you with an engraved silver ring and bracelet; a bouquet of flowers; pictures, posters and cards; dance performances; and the teachers applaud you and hug you, giving you a specialized plaque, it isn’t too easy to not cry.  Rebecca and I made the rounds—the fruit shops, the Irish pub, the stores and the bars, all the places we’d made friends this year.  I felt so loved and grateful in that last week, saying so many thank yous, giving so many besos.

     The most difficult of course was the ending of the era of Rebecca and I in the Avenida de Almanzora flat, 2^nd floor, apartment B.  We avoided the goodbye until the last minute, when Rebecca stood on the balcony and called to me in my bedroom, still taking the last postcards off my wall,

 “There’s a cab outside Jen Bell.”

     My sunglasses had more use that week than all of last summer, and I put them on again as Beca helped me carry everything down the marble stairs. When we embraced in the street, both red as tomatoes, I could feel her shaking with tears too. I’ve never had a friend like her, a roommate, a companion, a partner in crime.  We grew to understand each other, to care for each other, to have the chats over cups of tea, to walk to the shops not buying anything at all, to buy each other’s favorite groceries.  And although we’ll be only an hour apart next year, there is still nothing so sad as the passing of things.

Welcome to Suburbia

     Seeing as I have already visited a strip mall, the sister store to Home Depot, and ate a backyard barbeque Sunday dinner, you’d think I’d feel even more at home here in Tres Cantos.  But the transition from the old, Arabic influenced slow moving South seeped into my bones deeper than I thought and the first weeks in suburbia haven’t been a cake walk.

     The good thing is that I knew coming into it that adjusting to life as a nanny, living in someone else’s house, carrying for young children, would take time.  I am seeing that after two weeks, it has taken a little longer than I expected.  For the kids, the parents, and for me.  It’s a new job so getting used to each other, learning the routine, the rhythm, the way of the household, learning how to best operate with the children, where I fit in the puzzle is all part of the adjustment.  I would venture to say my change of lifestyle here has been more difficult than the move to Spain all together.  Moving abroad, term papers, relationships—I am now thinking that taking care of kids is perhaps the hardest thing I’ve ever done (and if you have kids I reckon you are laughing a little here). When I told my mother this (her support here has been phenomenal) her response struck me, and for some strange reason, I found it encouraging.

“Having children is the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”

     You think you are so mature, so ready to take on the world and then you deal with kids.  In two weeks I’ve learned mounds about myself, for example:  I’m not ready to have kids! My freedom is still too sweet and sacred! When Luis (4) and Ana (3) have tantrums, I must try my hardest to not fall apart as well. The screaming and crying, the carrying on, it is exhausting and depleting and I can’t continue to ride the emotional roller coaster with them.  Children are much smarter than we give them credit for, they are ultimate boundary pushers and master manipulators….it’s all a game, but I am still learning how to win.  And to win the right way. 

     Luckily I have mornings free, where I walk the long loop of the suburban park and return to the empty apartment to make a calm lunch.  The kids are opening up to me more everyday and now that the heat has begun, we’ll spend our evenings at the pool.  Francesca and Martha, good friends from home, live in Madrid, so my weekends take me away from this life and into a yoga, breathing, ayurvedic living in the bohemian city center. 

     We are always learning, always growing, adjusting, moving and shifting with the changes around us. When I asked myself this morning what changed, why life is becoming better, why my constant crying has ceased and I feel this on the upward, I realize it isn’t the things that are changing, it is me. After the weary period of transition it isn’t too difficult to come out in one piece. But then again, there’s always another temper tantrum.