Daily Life

To my surprise, I have found life in Spain similar to life in the U.S. I am surprised to discover this (I am walking to the supermarket to buy pescadillo and raisins for dinner), and I am, perhaps, pleased.

What I mean by this: life has routines. It´s only a matter of finding them or of making them. I don´t go somewhere new every day; I´m here to live, and that means establishment and familiar faces and routines. Life in Europe isn´t one big sightseeing party, but rather, a growing comfort in different surroundings.

The kid at the photocopy shop knows me. He´s perhaps my age, with dark hair he´s growing mullet-life in the back as the fashion is, and he works every day. I´m beginning to taste a good paëlla from a bad. And I can accurately predict the routes of the four buses I take: the 628, the 625, the 625A, and the 656. The first two take me to the edge of Madrid, to Moncloa, where I catch the metro. Usually I take the yellow line (linea tres), or the brown (linea cuatro) or the light blue (linea uno), and sometimes the grey (linea seis).

Why is this important, these numbers and colors and routes?

Because this knowledge was not won easily. Because this huge part of my routine was at first overwhelming and frustrating. Because I learned through experience that the 625A bus does not go to Madrid even though I need it to, and that if I do not get off the train at Las Rozas, I will be stuck on a deserted concrete pad in a field called Tres Cantos. I can recite all the metro stops on the yellow line from Moncloa to Sol (the radius of the city from the NW corner to the center) only because I sometimes took the wrong metro and sometimes the right metro, and was once stuck at 2.00 AM when the metro closed. This new knowledge, then, is part of my new routine.

My old routine was comprised of gas stations, soup lunches, Riggs spelling rules, oil changes, Sunday dinners with my family, coffee on the front porch. This new routine is comprised of cold mornings at the bus stop, beggars in the metro, walks to the photocopy shop, classes taught in an office that smells of fresh bread every morning, and Friday noons at my favorite café. Sometimes, walks to the supermarket to buy carne pecade de terner (ground beef) or to the churreria (a churro is a pastry that you dip in hot chocolate). Sometimes, hot tea on the brick patio in the warm south sunshine, where I can hear birds and the buses, and watch the trees turning faintly green.

Are there differences then? But of course.
The section of books at the library that I can actually read is sadly small. I read newspaper articles badly. I rely on strawberry jam for my sugar intake, and on CNN for my English intake. Lunch at 3.00 and dinner at 10.00 feels odd. And I still can´t pronounce the word ¨churreria.

A list of accomplishments

Every interaction in Spanish, even the shortest conversation, is a success, and achievement, a fiesta. Forget mere speech: every bus caught and every new action is an accomplishment.

For example: walking into the Caja Madrid Bank. The lobby is a tiny glass-walled room with lockers on the left. Step forward through two sliding panels with a blue arros on one, and wait for the panels to close. I am in a one-person elevator-like glass box, and a machine on the left scans my clothes and bag. If a woman´s recorded voices comes on saying ... I don´t know what. Here my accomplishments fail me. If so, step back into the lobby to leave the offending object, usually a coat, in a locker. If not, step forward through another pair of sliding panels into the bank itself. The same process is repeated when leaving, only on the other side of the scanner.

Once inside, the banker and I piece our languages together to answer my questions about opening an account and transferring money. We each speak slowly and repeat and laugh. She apologies for being older and not knowing English, but it´s ok. Two accomplishments.

A third success comes in the papeleria, the paper-and-pencils store where I ask for a photocopier and understand her directions to the copying shop. A fourth accomplishment when I ask for and receive three copies, although I struggle to understand the price. It costs ¨cince,¨ pronounced ¨keen-thay¨ following the Spanish rules of pronunciation. Fifteen cents. I count out the nickels and lay them on the counter with a sharp sound, snapping their edges against the wood.

As I trudge uphill through the alley toward 37 Antigona, where I live, I think of what I should have told the banker: Comprendo tu pero no puedo contestar en aspañol. Accomplishment #6.

484 Hours, 21 Days, 3 Weeks

Today marks three weeks that I stepped onto the plane in Denver; after two layovers and 26 hours by the clock, I stepped off in Madrid. As my boss Jake tells me, I´m a spounge at this point, soaking in everything because everything is still new. Any reflections? Yes, and this one is perhaps the biggest SuperSoaker in my life right now: the language.

Slowly, ever so gradually, I am learning how to communicate. I can ask, albeit in broken Spanish, whether the lottery kiosk has stamps. (They don´t, only the tobacco kiosks do.) I can give directions to the metro stop Opera. And I can ask the busdriver if his route goes to the Las Matas train station. In the early morning, however, as I wait for the 625A bus, I do not have an answer for the boy who asks ¨¿Tiene cines?¨

Later, I ask my class what this means. As usual, with the few Spanish questions I bring them, it does not make sense. I thought perhaps the kid was asking for a cigarette, but the sentence that I remember means ¨Do you have cinemas?¨ The last sentence I brought them was a headline for racing dogs: ¨a precioso de oro.¨ When translated, this means ¨at/for precious of gold.¨

On the train, I open ¨Que!¨, the most liberal of the three papers shoved at every morning commuter at every train station. I scan the short entertainment clips. Heath´s body was buried in Australia, Britney´s back in rehab, and Lindsey would prefer to go out at night with her friends than join Britney. Hmmm, I guess they print trash in Spanish news too.

Later, with the help of the Bantam New College Dictionary, I puzzle out other articles. The check on apartments has closed 40% of real estate. The politician Gallardón wants ´to bury´ 12,000 cars in Madrid. The French are not allowed to attack their trucks. ¿¿Que??

The village turned suburb

The village of Pozuelo does have a soul, and I am determined to ferret it out, mixing caution with curiosity, as a child who ventures where he knows he might not be welcome. The soul of the town lives in the tiny things: moss growing between paving stones in an alley; crooked shutters opening to an iron-fenced balcony; the chipped stucco along the corner of a yellowed building; the great, old ivy along a wall of white stones; winding lines of stone walks that lead from one neighborhood to another. These stones were here long before the marching rows of brown brick houses.

Sometimes, there is a sudden un-hiding of the soul. Perhaps an open gate, and then I am in the back alley of a music school. Moss grows along the stones here too, to the edge of the iron-wound windows. A single tree along the left. From a curtained window on my right comes the sound of piano etudes, and then the chaos of both hands pressed flat on the keyboard. Farther on, the sound of a violin. There is a posted notice about a concert series at the Museo de la Reina Sofia, which I have just missed. I wonder how the great composers sound through the lens of a Spanish soul, until I ruefully remember that they are foreign voices even in my native country.

Another treasure: an open door to an apartment building. The building is shaped like a crooked figure eight, and harbors two tiny courtyards among its rooms. Both are open to the sky, and weeds and potted plants alike lift their heads to the drizzling rain. The hallways here are in poor repair, despite the new layer of shiny brown paint on the windowsills of the second floor. The blue walls are chipped, the marble steps worn, the banister spindles approaching rust. The wide wooden doors are losing their varnish in patches, and hold only a knob in their center; like most doors here, a key is needed to turn the lock and open them. The place is dirty, and the only light comes from the windows onto the courtyards. On the way out, I read the paper labels on the rusting mailboxes: Jesus, Sergio, Maria Carmen.

To Grandpa

Happy birthday! I wish I were on the other side of the ocean, celebrating with you and your lovely wife. We´re all thankful for the years God has given you, and pray for many more. Love you!