Unrest

I think that writing in this now is entirely self-serving (wasn't it always?), but after watching a mini-documentary about Elsa Bar, there's no chance that I'll do any work or fall asleep in the next couple of hours.

I have never felt such aching nostalgia for a place as I do for Barcelona. If I remember correctly, I was fairly miserable this time last year. I hated Onix, I hated being treated like an outsider, but without warning, maybe at the trigger of a certain song or smell, I have been inundated by memories of Barcelona of which I no longer seem to have ownership. It's so difficult to remember exactly what it felt like to walk around Parc de la Ciutadella with my iPod, to wander through Ciutat Vella with Kevin and stop in at Caelum or Arc Café, to come home to dirty dishes and Stephanie, the love of my life. These things, and many others, are what I took for granted then and would do anything to reclaim now. I can't believe that that was me living on the Plaça del Diamant, spending nights in Velcro, watching Barça games in crowded bars, walking up to Montjuïc to El Polvorí. There's just too much to long for. It seems so unfair that what was once reality has turned into fiction, a dream, and that there is no return, for as each second passes, the future again arrives prematurely. I have only a weak grasp of what my life was a year ago, not because I don't remember, but because nothing about my present physical reality has anything to do with the life that I had in Barcelona.

I sometimes wonder if I would be happy if I went back. Would all of this anxiety, this late-night morriña, simply dissipate, or would my problems follow me, transplanted from one city to another? I guess that it's impossible to tell. Certain things that I loved last year -- people, circumstances -- wouldn't be there, and yet many would. I can't help reminding myself of how badly I wanted to go home during those first few months, though. Maybe I've changed since then. Maybe things that were so important then aren't things that I take too seriously anymore, and maybe things that I never valued before are the things that are keeping me up at night now.

Your increasingly long embraces

In 2 weeks, 2 days, I'm going to be leaving Barcelona, a landmark that I never imagined reaching when I arrived on August 30th. I remember that when I got on the plane to go to Buenos Aires, nervous as hell and having a million second thoughts, I mused that before I knew it I would be en route to Grand Rapids again, and then suddenly there I was, feigning an appreciation for Genesis as my cab driver took me from my host mother's apartment in Belgrano to my terminal at Ezeiza, blaring a Phil Collins live album the whole thirty minutes. 

The space of nine months, however, was too large of an expanse to have a contemplatable conclusion. I had simply leapt into an abyss, not sure if I would have enough money, not sure if I would even like Barcelona, not sure if I would make any friends. As usually happens, I was miserable until one day I was surprised to find myself in love, in love with my routine, in love with my friends, in love with my neighborhood, certainly not in love with my classes but absolutely head over heels upon imagining the prospect of having strong espresso afterward. 

And now I sort of feel the same way about returning to Chicago. It's something that I have to do, something that I'm anxious to do, and yet I don't know how everything will feel as I take my first steps into familiar territory that perhaps is not so familiar anymore, or at least won't be until I've had some time to adjust. 

This morning as I was having coffee, I started to think about how many of this city's peculiarities I've adopted as part of my day-to-day existence, most notably the slow pace. I think that it is this difference that has given me the most trouble. From the age of 14 I considered myself as busy as any adult, being shuttled from school to volunteering to tennis practice to play practice to home, always keeping the freezer stocked with Hot Pockets because I wasn't sure I would even have time to make a sandwich. In seven years things haven't changed much, and I think that I like the idea of being so busy that any chance to breathe is a sweet indulgence. It's a lifestyle that is often stressful and can push me into a state of existential crisis ("Why didn't I just major in Musicology?") every once in awhile, but remarkably it's always worked well for me, and having experienced a more relaxed pace I don't think I'd change it much.

I've always had the occasional impulse to escape to Denver to seek refuge in the Rockies, Illy coffee and my Mary Oliver poetry, but what is more constant is my fear of becoming complacent. I was alarmed last week when I updated my resume and found that I didn't have much to add, and it was perhaps this discovery that signaled my readiness to go home. I love Barcelona, at times to such an extent that as I walk down Cigne in Gràcia past my favorite cafés--that unspoiled corner of the world where people exist to drink coffee, read the newspaper and buy fresh produce--I almost feel like crying, devastated by the thought that I might never again drink espresso and read Mary McCarthy's Intellectual Memoirs in my favorite place to wake up in the morning. 

Still, there are times when I feel as if I'm, as one friend put it, floating in a sea of insubstantiality, content but not satisfied, with no way to climb, just drifting with the current. Even the cafè amb llet in this city relaxes me, and it sometimes seems as if the force that it takes me to get moving is tantamount to the effort required to pull a truck out of a muddy ditch. Evidently, it has never been my style to live as if I'm permanently on vacation, and even if I'm miserable in the Joseph Regenstein library at 3 AM there is a part of me that relishes that sort of masochism, for I know that in the end it will yield achievement, advancement, progress. After nine months I've realized how much I miss academia, and it is with this knowledge that my return to Chicago seems less daunting and more exhilarating. 

This morning, though, having coffee and a croissant after my haircut, all too happy that the bartender in the café had chosen to play without interruption the Kings of Convenience's Riot on an Empty Street (such a quiet and wonderful album), I started to tear up, upset that I would be leaving so soon but mostly tortured by the notion that nine months has been but a sliver of time. 

The force of destiny

I've just gotten home from the movies--The Reader this time. The silence of my apartment is delicately broken by Grieg's "I Love You," and now footsteps, maybe Robert or Paul, and my loud and clumsy typing. It was raining when I got out of the movie, like it has been all day, but I felt like it should be raining after a film like that. I'm feeling very somber because of it. 

It's quiet for a Saturday night. I walked down Carrer de l'Or and passed la Plaça del Diamant and saw that there was no one there, probably because of the dreary weather. I love the walk back from Verdi Park--past la Plaça de la Virreina and then la Plaça del Diamant until I can see where my little block is born, out of the intersection where there's a bookstore, a falafel place and a music bar called Calexico. The sequence never gets old. I walked up the stairs of my apartment and felt a big calm, something that I was able to maintain until I entered the chaos of my room. There's papers scattered everywhere, clothes hung over the furniture, post-its stuck on the walls, dishes on the bookcase. I ought to study but I'd rather just clean up the clutter. At least make the bed.

If I hadn't heard Catalan coming back from the theater I might have forgotten where I was. Sitting in my room listening to classical music I've created a similar effect of placelessness, if I'm bold enough to make up my own word. It's just got me feeling so odd that I'm going back to Chicago in two months, and I'm not sure I've done everything I've wanted to do, and I don't know if it ever would have been possible, anyway. But there's so much more to see. 

Everything began quite simply, laying on a bed in the Hotel Ayre, just arrived from North America, making a first phone call from the hotel phone to a friend in Valencia, thinking I can't believe it. Somehow, seven months have passed and all I have left as concrete evidence of that initial uncertainty, nervousness, excitement is the comb that I took from the hotel bathroom. The logo has faded completely. It was a purple 'a' on a clear comb but now it's just a clear comb. I guess that people have made metaphors out of these kinds of things before. 

Caprese extra

Tonight was my third meal in La Piadina, a hidden treasure in Gràcia off of Plaça de la Virreina that serves Italian flatbread filled with cheeses, meats, vegetables--in short, all of the ingredients that constitute one of my greatest pleasures, especially at 10 PM. I wish that I had a photo, because I'm left flustered when I attempt to describe the feel of the place. 

In any case, it turns out that I don't have much to write, because it seems that it was an almost entirely perfect night--piadinas, walking around in Gràcia, having tea and baklawa, and enjoying the company of some of my closest friends. It's always easier for me to complain on this thing, anyway.

What I wanted to say, though, was that I heard "Mad World" playing in La Piadina for the second time. It's a sad song, but it's also very comforting, mixed in with a montage of memories from high school. As it was playing, I realized how much I'm going to miss this place in three months. Despite the stress, the culture shock, the uncertainty, I've never been so consistently at ease, sipping tea with pine nuts in a Syrian restaurant or laughing too hard at Raïm and completely relishing the warm presence of the people who make me forget whatever unpleasant experiences I've had here. Grand Rapids, Chicago, Buenos Aires, and now Barcelona--it's more or less true that life is a succession of people saying goodbye. 

I still have three months, though, and I think that things will only continue to get better. (Re: The Beatles--I won't apologize.)

A parade, a perturbation

I am sitting in my room during the awkward gap between my afternoon classes. It is a time that should be reserved for studying at the library, and yet I have returned home to hang up my washed linens and write about my day, a day which began with loud drumming and the smell of horse manure--the tell-tale signs of a parade below my living room window. Inevitably, I was the unappreciative foreigner who had to clumsily navigate my way through crowds of schoolchildren and enthusiastic neighbors, unable to stop and admire the band because I had a train to catch. My shoes are still sticky from the countless pieces of hard candy that fell victim to the soles of my sneakers. I wanted to pick some up for the road, but then I saw what the horses had left behind and remembered that it was quite unsanitary to be eating candy that had been thrown onto the streets.

I had a práctica in my class at the Autonomous University today. The assigned reading was in English, something that often happens in International Relations courses. I had read the text three times and highlighted in multiple colors, which I thought would guarantee a star performance during the in-class discussion. All of my thoughts about the text, though, had been formulated in English, and by the time I mentally translated them into a statement that would sound half articulate in Spanish, the professor had moved onto the next question. I felt useless and defeated, having done so much work beforehand and, when the moment of truth came, having decided not to participate. 

There is something about speaking up in this class, though, that makes my heart race and my face turn red. It's not so much the language issue anymore (aside from my translation challenges today). The class is given in Spanish, a language that I have few problems speaking after living here for 6 months. Catalan presents more difficulties, but I use it enough to have at least a shaky confidence in my communication abilities. To be honest, it's the students sitting all around me who comprise the principal cause of my intimidation. I don't see the same kind of respect for strange accents and misplaced or mispronounced words that I've enjoyed in some other classes. It's mostly my imagination, I'll admit, but the complete contempt for the Polish professor who leads the Friday class makes the thought of opening my mouth and incorrectly conjugating a verb absolutely terrifying. It's an entirely separate issue that my country is often the subject of extremely critical comments, which is not inherently a bad thing (even if I don't agree) but often cheapens my perspective. 

As I reflected on these concerns during the train ride back to Gràcia, I could only think that these types of situations would be just what constituted the oral component of my Foreign Service exam, and that today, if the discussion was any sort of a test, I had utterly failed. It's hard enough for me to participate in classes at Chicago. I am overwhelmed by the insight of other students and often judge my own comments as having little value. Here, that anxiety is only intensified, made worse by the task of expressing myself in a language that is not my mother tongue. No matter how good I am at Spanish, I will always feel more comfortable speaking English. Today, preparing myself to venture into the debate, I was halted not only by my nervousness in front of the 60+ other students but by trivial linguistic obstacles: "But how would I say 'containment'? 'Mutually exclusive'?" Beyond that, though, I seem to lack the fundamental ability to gauge the dynamic of a conversation and intuit the best places at which to jump in and contribute. It's something that I'll need to learn quickly, as that Foreign Service exam is looming. 

Maybe I should watch more Sean Hannity. He seems to be good at making his opinion known, though I wouldn't categorize his comments as a "contribution" to the debate. They seem to be more of an opportunity for him to trample any kind of rebuttal like an elephant wearing anvils as shoes. 

My love for mini Babybel emmental cheese is too great, my appreciation for heated discourse too little. What's a girl to do?

This room

I had the privilege (no sarcasm) of attending a meeting / brainstorming session last night held by the editors and principal contributors of a local Bcn culture publication. The way I've been feeling this week, it's hardly surprising that I was overwhelmed by the large personalities of those in attendance. I found myself mute, crossing my arms and legs and closing myself to the world that everyone else inhabits, maintaining a fairly consistent expression of "I'm interested but I'm not going to try too hard." This happens to me sometimes, this kind of self-sabotage that makes me seem dry and philistine. I have things to say, but they get stuck in the same chest cavity where I store all of my anxiety. 

The meeting lasted 3 hours, but its slow, nonlinear progression started to feel like an endless steppe. Suddenly, I hadn't been in that room--a cozy space with white walls, dim light, red candles, and circular cruise ship windows that offered a view into the alcohol-filled kitchen--for a mere few hours. I had been there all day, perhaps my entire life, just sitting, hardly giving any more signs of life than the plastic chair beneath me that seemed to have become as much a part of me as an arm or a leg. It suddenly occurred to me that I might never leave this room. There was no June 6th flight to Chicago. There was no graduation. There was no Masters in Public Policy and Foreign Service exam. There was just this room, these lime green pillows, these half-empty cans of Estrella beer, this comfortable smell of cigarettes, this tall man in the bright red shirt whom I cannot stop thinking about for just one second of my whole goddamned day. Overtaken by romantic angst and cabin fever, I imagined myself drinking all of the bottles of Vichy Catalan sitting in the kitchen in a dramatic act of self-cleansing, just drinking and drinking them until I had bathed all of my organs and rotten emotions in expensive sparkling water. 

The meeting let out and I felt like a newborn who had just left the comfort of the womb to enter prematurely the incomprehensible and sometimes cruel reality that governs our society, and when I was safely at home in my room I began to cry like a baby, although I am 20 and really have nothing to cry about.

If only you knew

I just started volunteering as a teacher's aid in a public elementary school. I've always had this idea that I love young kids and interact brilliantly with them. In spite of all experiences to the contrary, it's a half-truth that I maintain with fervor. It's difficult not to adore those six-year-olds who are still too innocent to offend, their curious eyes as wide as water basins. To teach them, though, is another story, and it's something I simply don't feel comfortable doing. It's pretty much a given that my lack of self-confidence and rather austere composure make me an unlikely candidate for entertaining kids. I keep telling myself that I'll learn. In the end, though, I seem to be just another cynical girl who will grow up to write a bitter and painfully introspective novel. These people aren't made to mold young minds. 

Still, my job really isn't that complicated. I say 'hello,' I teach the students games, I read aloud, trying to raise my voice above that hesitant murmur that has become my trademark when I am placed in situations that make me uncomfortable. I really do like going to the school, not so much because I feel as if I'm making a big difference, but just because it's heartening to hear a chorus of 'Hannah Montana!' as I walk across the playground and is so enjoyable to play 'Go Fish' and watch the students laugh and chatter amongst themselves in Catalan and Spanish. It's completely wonderful to eat lunch with the teachers, too, though I don't think I've said anything more than "està boníssim" (referring to the meal, of course). It's the simple things that you appreciate. 

Arriving to school today, though, was a total fiasco. My bus stop was closed because of some festival in Plaça d'Espanya, and so in the end, the teacher who supervises me, Josep, had to pick me up on his moto and bring me to school. Josep is one of those really good guys who is perfect with children and is truly concerned with the well-being of others. His sense of humor and sensitivity kill me, and when I'm around him I start to act in the awkward way that is typical of shy, star-struck teenagers who have just been introduced to their idol. 

The weather was beautiful today, and the view on the way to school in Montjuïc is spectacular, especially sitting on the back of a moto. When I think of two people riding a moto in this way, though, what comes to mind are couples or close friends--that is, the type of people who don't mind touching one another. I thus found myself torn between the desires to not hold onto his waist (should my feelings for him be discovered) and to not die. It's one of the more awkward dilemmas I've experienced. 

I guess that I'll remember that ride to school for a long time. There was something so bucolic about it--the sun, the wind, the tiny dots of civilization below the mountain. It was a moment of perfect bliss, and then arriving and stepping off the bike, struggling to unfasten my helmet, I was jolted back into the unfortunate reality of impossible love. It just isn't fair.

Cecilia's window

I love these third- and fourth-floor apartments that look out over a vast landscape of rooftops and clotheslines. It has always been my dream to live in an apartment like this. Houses don't appeal to me. I have never liked gardening and would prefer to avoid lawn upkeep altogether. One day, I will live in a community of rooftops and drying clothes. It's an image--the shirts, socks and footballs that your neighbors have lost, the occasional head peering out of a window, the dozens of quirky weathervanes--that I absolutely adore. My apartment has a similar view, but it's a very different feeling from El Raval, the neighborhood in this picture. It's something that I'll really miss when I leave Barcelona.

Good morning

Sometimes, after getting out of the shower, I'll open the window a crack and will hear singing outside. It's something that, due to lack of precise musical knowledge, I can only classify as Middle Eastern--almost like Qur'anic recitation. It is both eerie and beautiful in the quiet Barcelona neighborhood of Gràcia. 

Today I miss home.

Photo: waiting for the pink line at the 18th stop. The Sears Tower is peaking out over the church.

It doesn't take much to knock me

I've been living a sheltered life.

It's the song that's streaming out of my big, "the real world isn't good enough for me today" headphones. It's the song that "made me" blog, I guess. I was walking by Parc de la Ciutadella and it was so sunny and gorgeous that I got lost in the soundtrack provided by my iPod--at that moment, the dulcet, electronic tones of Erlend Øye. The song's beginning sounds like a complete throwback to the 80s, and not in a good way. I hesitate to put it on any mix I make for a friend, and yet it's one of my favorite songs of all time. That day outside the park was really the first time that I'd listened to it, and, like a lot of music that I treasure, it expressed a sentiment that was all too in sync with what I was feeling. Easy and loose / I'm sure confused / It doesn't take much to knock me / I've been living a sheltered life. I should start a blog, I thought at that moment, if only to use this song as its title.

It's just that I let even the smallest things get to me here, as I often do at home, but here the tendency seems more acute. I have an awkward exchange with a cashier and my day is ruined. I hear laughter and conversation in Catalan and assume that it must be some sort of joke about me that I don't understand. I suppose that there's a certain narcissism behind it, as if people care that much about me to really dwell on my struggles to use the subjunctive. It's a bit ridiculous, I would say. 

But I think that I'm getting better. I had a training last week to volunteer at a public elementary school, and I began to feel that I was being integrated into the real world, where people live and work and have friends and families. It's a shame that I didn't decide to do this sooner, that I spent five months being incredibly homesick and wavering between the poles of "T'estimo Catalunya" and missing Chicago to the point of developing chest pains. I can't regret it too much, though. I'm only human.

I feared that this blog would become more of an excuse for indulgent self-reflection than a source of information about Barcelona. I guess we all process these experiences differently. So I'll tell you that I went to the Fundació Miró the other day and that I loved it. The museum adventures will continue now that I have an articket. 

I miss everyone at home so intensely, and yet I don't know if I'll be ready to come home in four months. Being here has changed me in ways that I'll only begin to realize once I step off the plane on June 6th (tentative). 

When you live 30 seconds from the theater

On only one other occasion in my life have I gone to the theater alone, and it wasn't planned. This was last year, when Doc was showing Almodóvar every Wednesday, and I was meeting a guy that I had met at the UChicago Folk Festival. He never showed up. I went in anyway. The film ended up being not one of my favorites. I think that it was La Ley del deseo or something, and the irony of watching it after being stood up was just enough to turn me off.

Really, though, there's something quite therapeutic about going to the movies alone. There's no talking, no passing of chocolate between friends, no "What did you think?" after it's over. You are silent. You are absorbed. 

I opted to see Milk again, and for two hours, I could have been anywhere in the world; all clues to my surroundings disappeared, along with the strangers sitting around me, in the darkness of the theater, all eyes fixed on the screen, not even a hush emitting from the audience. We followed the film with a devotion that I've observed during silent prayer in church. The worst part about seeing a movie alone, though, is when the lights come on. You take your time putting on your coat because there's no one waiting for you. You skip the discussion of "What's next?" because who's going to go to a bar by herself? Still, I liked it, especially after three hours of sleep last night and the nightmare that was my medieval history final--8 essays that I put off all semester.  

In other news, my flatmate, Robert, might be one of my favorite people in the world. 

Feeling like I needed you

During my morning commute to Latinos Progresando in Chicago this summer, I was almost always accompanied by my little iPod mini, something that made taking two buses across town a lot more tolerable. I'm fond of the shuffle setting - there are always songs in my 4 GB portable collection of music that end up surprising me. On the #9 one morning, during the second leg of my journey, Goldfrapp's "A&E" came on. I had put it on my iPod but had never actually given it a listen. The somewhat corny introduction usually caused me to skip it. That morning, though, I let it play for the full duration of 3:18 minutes, and I thought that the way it complemented the cloudless blue sky and hot Chicago sun beaming through the bus windows was enchanting. 

It's kind of a sad song, really, and as I was listening to it while studying in the UAB library one day, looking out at the same blue sky from the second-floor window, now thousands of miles away from Chicago, I had to hold back tears. It's a song that not only reminds me of that summer in Pilsen, but of everything that I miss about home - not just Chicago, but Grand Rapids, too, and all of the places and people that helped raise me. It makes me miss my mom, someone who I was so close to as a child but with whom I've have had a more complicated and sometimes frustrating relationship in recent years. I see kids here being picked up by their parents from school, laughing and eating pa amb xocolata, and I realize that I'll never be in that place again. I remember when my mom used to pick me up after school and how sometimes we'd stop at Kava House to get a giant cookie. I remember how my dad came to my mom's house to take me to school at 7:05 AM every single weekday morning from the time that my parents got divorced until I graduated from high school (about 13 years), and how he would sometimes stop by Kava House beforehand to get me a coffee or spritzer. We usually didn't even talk during those ten minutes in the car. I was always too tired. At the time it all seemed very mundane and routine, but I've romanticized such experiences to an extent such that I can't help stumbling into the hole left by their absence. It's not as if I can't still get coffee with my parents, but that perfect and simple quality about our relationship has transformed into something more difficult to characterize, and I imagine that this process will only speed up as I grow into adulthood. 

I don't know what more to say about it, but I guess that I've always had these feelings, and being in Barcelona has only amplified them. It's ridiculous to be so melodramatic about everything. I suppose that music often has that effect. It brings you back to a memory so vivid and particular that a part of you would simply prefer not to leave.

It's 2:06 PM

 There's really no sense in reserving an entire Saturday for studying if I'm going to wake up at 12 PM and lay in bed until mid-afternoon, sipping bad instant coffee and listening to the NPR 24-hour program stream. Had I really made an effort, I could have gotten up at 9 and spent a relaxing couple of hours wandering the MACBA or CCCB before committing myself to the UB library. 

These days, though, I feel pretty stuck. A visiting professor asked me yesterday at our program dinner "what I did" in Barcelona, and I realized, to my shame, that the answer isn't so far from "absolutely nothing." Had it been "study," I wouldn't be scrambling to finish all of my mandatory reading for my history class. Had it been "museums," I wouldn't be completely unaware of everything that's going on at MNAC and other Bcn cultural staples. Had it been "volunteer," I wouldn't still be making excuses for not getting in touch with Amics de la Gent Gran.

I'm starting to feel a little bit like author David Sedaris in Paris. I see movies. I drink coffee. I walk around with an irritated look on my face, convinced that none of the passers-by understands how I feel, as if I'm somehow oppressed, worthy of being the protagonist of some sort of existentialist novel. Unfortunately, unlike Sedaris, I don't have any book deals, and I'm not old enough to resign myself to bitter creative nonfiction or the life of a chain-smoking expat. 

I'm going to take a shower. I'm going to buy groceries so that I don't have to keep eating PB&J. I'm going to finish my reading. Then, I'm going to plan a lovely Sunday at the museum. 

P.S. If you remember my first post about protests at the Autonomous University, here are some photos of how my colleagues have chosen to focus their efforts against the Bologna Process: click here. 

Would you like cash back?

I returned from Sweden today at about noon to an apartment with no groceries that I could claim as my own. Along with a lack of sustenance was the absence of usable cash in my wallet - only kroner remained. I went to the grocery store hoping to pay with my card and get a twenty as cash back. I needed to add money to my phone, and before I realized that nothing good was showing at Verdi I thought that I would take advantage of the Dia de l'espectador discount and catch a movie. (That Harvey Milk film arrives in just a few days.)

When the final bill came up, I handed over my card and asked the cashier if I could ask for cash. Her response seemed both puzzled and annoyed. 

"Like how?" 

"Um, like a 20 euro bill?" 

"Well, if you gave ME cash, I could give you change."

"No..."

The exchange continued for a few painful seconds. Faced with a long line and a look that said, "you're an idiot," I said never mind and walked away. 

The tradition of asking for cash back, prevalent in the United States, Sweden, and perhaps other countries, is one of my most cherished. It is a clever way to avoid ATM fees and to save oneself from not having cash at a crucial moment. I was dismayed when the cashier insinuated that I expected her to just GIVE me cash, purely out of the kindness of her heart, and realized that this was yet another moment that would add to the pile of evidence attesting to my complete insanity.

I wonder where the U.S. Consul General shops for groceries, and if he has ever asked for cash back.