A Little Bit of Ice

I want to talk about fear. Sometimes I think fear is stupid. Other times I think fear is the most natural, protective instinct we have. I'm afraid of a lot of things. I'm afraid of forgetting to put on my pants before I go to school in the morning. I'm afraid of not finding a job. I'm afraid of finding one. I'm afraid of writing everyday and realizing I really haven't got much to say. I'm afraid of what's going to happen next month, when my visa expires and I'm forced out of the place I've come to love so much. I'm afraid of leaving Spain. I'm afraid of staying. I'm afraid of how much I like morcilla (Spanish blood sausage). And most of all, I'm afraid sometimes of how crazy I am about this boy I met just six months ago and the vulnerability that comes with that.


Allow me to exspain.


Everyone, meet Iván. Iván, meet everyone.

Sun in Sevilla.

This is Iván. He works with me at school. He's from Alcázar and he has a cat named Isis and bright pink socks and a smile that makes me smile. He's happy when he's in the mountains or on the beach or with his guitar. He beats me at chess. For breakfast he heats milk in a bowl and has HOT cereal -- this wowed me. I'm easily wowed. He thinks Americans are nuts because we eat dinner at 6. We laugh at the way each person speaks the other's language, but really we're incredibly lucky to have two different idiomas to express what we feel. He's nice enough that we speak English when we fight. But really that's not even the beginning of getting to know him. That's not even part of the beginning. Which actually brings me back to fear.


I've been afraid for the past few months to write about this kid. In fact, it took me a really long time to realize it, but the fear of writing about this kid, coupled with the giant part that he's been playing in my life, might be part of the reason why I've neglected this blog for so long. So yeah, I've been afraid to write about Iván. I want you to meet him. I want everyone I know to meet him. Sometimes I like to daydream about introducing him to all the people who read this blog (and many many people who don't), all my favorite people, as we hang out in some little bar in Downtown or walk around the Ferry Building (depending, of course, on who you are and where you live -- my daydream is happy to come to you). And when I'm daydreaming that, I'm the happiest girl around. And sometimes, that's really scary. Because it's easy from there to start worrying about getting your hopes up. It's easy to start thinking -- "but what if things fall apart?" It's easy for things that you invest in to crumble, and talking about it makes them seem all the more fragile. What I mean, I guess, is it's easy to give in to the knee-jerk reaction of fear for self-protection. Maybe I'm not explaining right, and maybe it's not necessary to explain everything on an internet abyss with a punny title, but I'll try my best to get some megapixel of my scattered idea across, because this concept of fear and of letting fear go has a lot to do with my time here and the things I've come to realize about myself.


I will use an example. Conveniently, this example also will finally put you a little bit more up to date with what's been going on in my life. But only a little. Because it was like two months ago.


Okay. So there was this mountain. Or, you know, mountainy sort of area place thing. It's called Riopar and, as I have confirmed, it is on Google Images. Its star attraction is a waterfall that turns into the beginning of a river that dominates the province of Albacete. Iván and I headed up there to hike one weekend in February when there wouldn't be many tourists or other hikers and we could enjoy the wilderness almost all to ourselves.


At first we wandered around a bit by the bottom of the waterfall, where the wide path was paved with "rugged" cobblestones and wooden banisters. Couples were taking pictures of each other with pinched, violently happy smiles and thick scarves. A family was hauling their little 'uns up the stone stairs, leaning them over the railings to feel the mist. It was lovely and safe and very pretty. But it wasn't all there was.


Soon, we found the real fun. A winding, overgrown trail, nearly invisible save for the white arrows chalked on trees as periodic reassurances that the traveler wasn't utterly lost. It led, Iván told me, to the top of the waterfall, and the cave from which it fell. Iván told me the cave was a deep network of crevices and tunnels, but from the ground, it looked more like a long, gaping gash in the rocks. It also looked, you know, um, kinda, well, high. And I wanted to go to there.


After about ten steps, I claimed a walking stick for myself, and spent the rest of the trek feeling a bit like Samwise Gamgee loping along after Aragorn. The pathlet (mini-path? pathito?) snaked along the edge of the mountain, weaving between trees and expansive views, and I hummed the Lord of the Rings theme song and congratulated myself on my good choice of walking stick and was a generally happy camper.


Until there was the ice.


It was only a little ice. And after all, it was February and it was a mountain and we were right next to a ton of water, so of course there would be ice. Still. It was ice. I'm pretty sure I've only seen ice in the wilderness a handful of times. For me, seeing real ice on the ground is like seeing a hipster in Spain -- very unlikely and highly shocking. 


We weren't far from the top when it happened. A steep drop off on the outer edge of the path, and along the incline a small but intrusive patch of shiny stuff. It stretched for about three feet along the path, and before I really thought about it, it seemed harmless enough.


"Careful of the ice," Iván said, a few steps ahead of me, clearing the section with this mountain goat kind of hop. The man has a grace that I most surely lack. I watched his back as he moved a few steps away from me. I kicked a rock and watched it tumble down the cliff. I looked back to Iván. Cliff. Iván. Ice. Damn, that's a long way down. Damn.


Around then, I just shut down. Really, I was safe. Of course, not completely safe --I was taking the risks that always accompany hiking. Still, I was completely paralyzed with fear, so afraid of falling that I couldn't take the next step. It flooded me wordlessly. I was helpless. I couldn't go forward or even turn and run. I couldn't do anything but cling to the rock and think of all the terrible ways this could end, and how I could never get out. The world became twisted and small and threatening and I just wanted to apparate away from my terror. Of course, the fear came from a reasonable place -- a self-protective, self-preserving place -- but it had grown far beyond proportion to incapacitate me.


And all because of a little bit of ice.

Moment of peril: a re-enactment

But then Iván looked back. "You're so brave," he said. "We don't have to go any further. You're so so brave. Don't do anything you don't want to." He stepped to the rock just beyond the ice and held out his hand. "It's just a little ice. Do you want to keep going?"


It's just a little ice, really. And his hand was so close. How could a little ice keep me back here, a quivering ball of out-of-control fear. So I made the scary choice. It wasn't even that far to jump, once I'd done it.


At the top it was beautiful. It was worth it.

Spoiler Alert -- he doesn't jump.

Maybe my connection between the trip to Riopar and my fear about writing about Iván don't have much rationally to do with each other. But I can't help but be reminded of that feeling of falling with no one to catch me. Throwing myself into the uncertain and uncontrolled has never been something that I've felt comfortable with. For Iván and I, our lives are up in the air and full of question marks. For the past three months, I've been afraid to write about him here because I was afraid I would somehow jinx things, that once I wrote about him he would disappear. We are still learning to trust each other and love without reservations. Like my fear of falling, my fear of my feelings for Iván is rooted in an instinct for self-protection. But once fear becomes paralyzing, it ceases to be useful or even healthy. Maybe this won't last forever. Maybe it will. But as long as I focus on the ending, I'll keep missing the middle. And it's a really great middle.


Neither of us know what will happen in the next few months. But no matter how things go, this has been beautiful, and I'm finally ready to try to forget about fear and take in the view.

Gachas and Boxed Milk

Okay. Milk in boxes. 

It's one thing I'll never get used to about Spain. It's like something out of 2001: A Space Oddessy. Picture this: you're in dire need of some pancakes. You go to the store. You look in the Dairy section for milk, but -- gasp! -- it's not there!  It's not nestled in the fridge between the yogurt and the cheese, it's not even next to the orange juice. You find an apathetic-looking Mercadona lady pricing puddings and you ask her if they're out of leche. She looks at you like she thinks you're joking, then you see her face shift from skepticism to pity as she registers your genuine confusion. She leads you away from the refrigeration, toward the center of the store, to a mammoth aisle near the cleaning supplies, lined with stacks upon stacks of sterile, white bricks. Here she leaves you alone to realize: they're not bricks at all! They're little pods of airtight, room-temperature milk, waiting to be activated! 

Until they're open, they don't need to be refrigerated, and the sealed bricks can keep for nearly a year. I can't decide if they're just more highly evolved than we are or if something is very very wrong, but I must say it's pretty cool that you can buy milk in packs of ten and keep the other nine in your cupboard until you need them, like extra cans of Coors.

It's little things like this that keep me in awe at Spain daily. Little things that I took for granted in the US -- like milk in refrigerated bottles or speed limit signs in miles or prescription medicine, or even the assumption that everyone in the world had at least heard of Captain Planet -- that still strike me every time I see them.

Two weeks ago, I was invited to a friend's house for lunch. I was told we would be making gachas (pronounced like "gotcha(s)", which is a pun that I've had really probably too much fun with -- Person A: "Hey, want some gachas?" Person B: "Sure!" Person A (punching Person B): "GOTCHA!" Bahahaha, get it??), a traditional Manchego dish made with olive oil, some only marginally identifiable meat products, and this mysterious special red flour that's only found in La Mancha. Delicious. Makes you so full you think you'll probably explode, and even if you don't explode you'll definitely never eat again. Food junkie that I am, I was content just with the concept that I might be able to sit around and consume some obscene amounts of this gooey amazingness, but when we arrived at the house, I quickly discovered that when someone asked you over to "make gachas", it was a far cry from being asked over to "make spaghetti". In fact, I'm not sure I'll ever feel adequate asking someone over to make spaghetti again. I'd just feel lame. Operation Gachas was no puny pot-and-pan deal -- it was a giant iron skillet set atop a roaring fire in the fireplace, next to which several baguettes sat toasting. It made Los Angeles stoves look like Easy Bake Ovens. 

The heat from the fire made the house glow and we sat around the hearth talking while our host set to her delicate gacha-making work. As she cooked, carefully and continuously stirring the mixture with a mammoth wooden spoon while she simultaneously adjusted the burning logs for an even heat, the rest of the guests explained to me the art behind what she was doing as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "It's just a peasant food, really," one friend said, "but it's hard to make right." No big deal, just making weird magical paste food with a Hagrid-sized spoon in a fairy-tale sort of fireplace. The usual.

I don't know what it was that I found so frickin cool about what she was doing, whether it was the fire or the physicality of the work or maybe just the novelty of the giant spoon (seriously, though, GIANT. I want to make sure you're getting this -- GIANT.), but I stared, possibly rudely, for the entirely of the process, and then, once the table was set, had to be walked through the technicalities of how one finally goes about eating gachas. The meal, so normal for everyone around me, was completely and entirely new. It was great to feel so out of place.

In the past couple of months, I've been starting to feel more and more at ease in Spain, but just when I start feeling comfortable or complacent, my roommate will ask me to pick her up a six-pack of milk at the market and I'll be thrown back into intense, exciting, frightening feeling of being foreign in a country where fundamentally different things are taken for granted. I know I could get used to things here, and I know I probably will, but part of me is very glad that I haven't quite yet.

Back to Business

I can't believe I've managed to abandon this blog for a whole month and a half. I feel like I owe it an apology. I've drafted the followng.

Dear blog,

I've taken you for granted. You've been so good to me and I've neglected you. I hope we can start over. I promise never to leave you again. At least not for more than a week.

Love always,
Jean

Writing this blog really keeps me grounded, after all, and I'll be quite unamused with myself if I drop the ball again, so depend on some weekly Thursday writing action. That's right. Mark your calendars. Get psyched.

Sometimes I can't believe how quickly time has gone by, and other times I can't believe I've only been in Spain for three months. I imagined that by January I would be a Spanish ace, maneuvering Spanish conversation with unparalleled aplomb. Or at least something like it. Yet I still sound like a small, confused child when I speak Spanish, plus I make embarrassing mistakes like saying polla instead of pollo when I talk too fast (for those who do not know just how humiliating this particular error is, look it up. Or maybe don't. Maybe it's best not to know). At the same time, I really do feel like I'm leading a three dimensional, honest-to-God life here, a life more full and complex than I thought I could construct in such a short time.


Since I last wrote, December and January came and went, and with them the Christmas holidays, my mom's amazing visit, the burial of a mammoth papier-mache sardine thing, two trips to Barcelona, a beautiful weekend in Andalucia, some giant bonfire-BBQs, and a whirlwind tour of Madrid with the one-and-only Michael Rooney. All this was mixed with a lot of coffee, Spanish swear words, and tintos de verano, not to mention quite a bit of air-dried laundry. In recent news, the application for renewal of my position just opened, so I'm working on figuring out my life to decide whether Jean In Spean: Year Two is in the cards.

Wernicke, the stuffed brain who will be making regular appearances, gazes out a train window at La Mancha and the future. What he is thinking, we can only guess.

First things first: Momma. I can't articulate how good it was to see my mom come through the doors of customs in Madrid-Barajas Airport on December 22. This woman is one of my favorite people on the planet. Besides that, she was also carrying some rather mutilated but still very delicious gingerbread men, which she'd been clinging to in a little paper bag since she left Lost Angeles. That's real saintliness, people. 

I'd been looking forward to the trip ever since she told me she'd bought the ticket -- I couldn't wait to show her Alcázar and my apartment and jamón ibérico and Gaudí and Madrid, and I couldn't wait to be around her to talk and argue and eat together -- and the trip more than delivered. After a Christmas with my godmother and her family and an entire cured pig leg, Mom and I spent several days exploring Alcázar, with the help of some of the Spaniards and Americans that have made my time in Spain so great. The Alcázareños took us to the torreón and the windmills, and provided us with an entire wheel of delicious Manchego cheese. A few days later, the Americans reveled with us in the traditional Carneval parade of the Entierro de La Sardina ("The Burial of the Sardine"), which takes place in nearly all Spanish towns and consists of a crowd of black-clad "mourners" following a giant fake sardine through the city while music plays and onlookers cheer. The "mourners" come armed with Silly String and confetti and the mock-funeral looks like more of a nomad party, a sensation compounded by the fact that the sad looking sardine and its pallbearers stop at every bar to pick up drinks and tapas before heading on. This particular parade finally came to an end in the town's bull ring, where the sardine was set on fire.

Nobody understands exactly why this happens. Not even Google.

After Alcázar, Murray and Jean traveled to Barcelona, where we spent New Year's eating grapes and making resolutions in front of Gaudí's Casa Batlló. It was the perfect way to ring in 2012.

Finally, we made our way back to Madrid, where Mom met María Victoria, my study abroad host mother, who immediately fell in love with her and offered her all of her Spanish recipes. Although neither woman spoke the same language, they understood each other on a level that transcended small-talk. Meeting in María Victoria's special living room (I was never allowed into the living room when I stayed in her house -- it was meant for guests and special occasions, which only highlighted the surreality and uniqueness of the visit), the Spanish Momma and the American Momma seemed like buddies destined by the cosmos. Plus, María Victoria had a stock of some really delicious turrón.

The next morning, Murray headed back across the pond and I haven't stopped missing her yet. There's nothing like a piece of home to remind you how grateful you are for where you come from.

Read on, friend!
Someday I'll learn to make grown-up faces in pictures. That day is not today.