Grandes preguntas - Big Questions

Hello to you in 2012! It´s been a while. Here I am back in Madrid after having spent a dear two weeks in Decatur, Alabama to be with my family and close friends for the holidays. Phenomenal!

I would like to take these next couple of moments to talk to you about something personal, a rather personal frustration. That something is technology. We are frienemies, if you will. I love technology. First and foremost I understand that it is meant to be helpful. If it were not for technological advances such as the internet, I would be estranged from my family and friends from home while living out my adventures in Spain. For this I am ever so grateful for technology. On the other hand, let me compare myself to someone who one day receives one hundred dollars from a complete stranger. He comes to my door, ding-dong, hello! Here´s a hundred bucks. I say, “Are you sure? Gee thanks” shocked at the generous, even suspicious gesture. Nevertheless, this doting neighbor requires nothing of me, and returns day after day with a gift of one hundred dollars, to the point that when he arrives late, or heaven forbid doesn´t even show, I get a bit huffy, offended, feeling deprived of my underserved gift. See where I´m going with this? Okay, I didn´t make up the story, but let´s think about these one hundred dollars from this context. 1) It´s a gift 2) It´s unearned and undeserved 3) Though everyone could probably find some use for one hundred dollars, I most likely would have made it by without them, because I was doing so in the first place. To me, technology is just like that. It is a gift, a wonderful one. But it is not and should never be confused with a necessity, though it is often treated as such – I often treat it as such. It is an unfortunate fact of my life that lack of internet, slow moving computers and telephones that behave badly are a cause of great frustration for me. When the gadgets don´t “do their job,” I am known to throw childish technology tantrums. I confess this to you, dear reader, and repent of my utter wrongness in this. I choose today to turn from my past technologically frustrated self and vow from now on to treat it as the luxury and commodity that it is. I am a free woman now, thank the good Lord.

Big news – Madrid is the place for me. It is my NEW place! I have recently moved to a hopping little barrio by the name of La Latina located in Madrid central. Oh, it´s truly the best with everything from posh cinemas alongside gloriously well-stocked candy stores to chino fashion shops and a giant indoor farmers market. Let´s not forget the Irish pubs. Yes, my friends, I am at the center of life.

I have moved in with a spunky group of people. I´ll tell you, just wait. Roommate number one (in order of how I met them) is Limberth the painter from Costa Rica. He is an amazing cook, from Korean to Italian and lots in between, and an overall energetic and positive person. Here is a person who is squeezing the delicious drops out of life, or so he appears to be doing. He loves old cinema and works fulltime for a successful installation artist in Madrid. Roommate number two is Elisa the masters student from Italy. She is a beautiful auburn and linguistic genius in my opinion with fluency in English, Spanish and Italian, her native tongue. She is studying translation at the Universidad de la Complutense and makes an impressive risotto. Roommate number three is Vero (for Veronica), the spicy nurse from Bolivia. She has the most energy of any woman I know her age (which I won´t say, because I don´t know exactly, but I think she appears younger than she is. The woman is the queen of skin care). She whips up some great tacos, as we discovered last week at our apartment´s Mexican themed party. Residence nurse by day, living it up by night, fashionista both day and night, Vero´s just the kind that would make Agnes Scott proud.

My friend and colleague in the English department at school, Maica, is an experienced yogi. Well, I say that because I know she´s practiced for years and that she takes it seriously. Maica and I got to talking the other day about goals and desires for our lives and something odd occurred to me. It had hit me earlier that day as well. I went to the museum of anthropology and saw an exhibition on India. Really deep stuff, pieces of a well-written and researched ethnography that included awe-inspiring, stirring photos and bits of interviews. At the end of each interview excerpt were three dreams of the interviewee. “That all of my daughters would marry well,” from a man with five daughters and three sons. “To become a professor and help many people,” from a man who had been robbed and stolen from in his previous work before finally deciding to commit himselft to a life of meditation. “To have a career that I love,” from a twenty-two year old woman working her way up in business, but discovering little by little how much time she must sacrifice with her friends. “To become a professional football player one day,” from a fourteen year old boy, working toward the end of his education. And a twenty-four year old American girl with a college degree and two years of teaching experience in Spain? What are her dreams? At the end of the exhibition was a box, some slips of paper, and mini pencils. Above was a sign “Tell us about your dreams…” Geez! The thoughts that don´t occur! And I realized at that point, like I realized when Maica asked me the question posed to her by her yoga instructor, that I have forgotten so many of the dreams I once had.

Now, let me do a demonstration. What are your dreams? What do you want for your life? What do you really want? Think about it….

Personal. It is a question we are so able to answer as children, but I bet that some of you are at a loss. You may even find yourselves a little unnerved, made nervous, uneasy by the question. Me too.

Do you remember thinking about it as a child, though? Do you remember what you thought? We were unafraid to “dream big” because we hadn´t become much of anything yet. At six years old, I thought it would be great to be a psychologist because I loved to listen to people, I loved helping them sort through their issues. Six-year-old issues, but they were grand at the time, still. It was so simple! I like listening, so what job could I do? Psychologist. There you go.

Then come the late teens and young adulthood. I have an inkling that most people fall into two categories at this age. Category 1: Choose the career that is most sensible that you can make the most money. Category 2: Choose the career that you still dream about and don´t worry about the money. I think that people in both categories are likely to change their minds later on, but they start down the path at their young adulthood. For some, after forming a career, or even after only starting a degree, it is hard to go back to the dreaming stage, asking yourself, and answering honestly, what do I really want for my life?

So I have been asking myself these questions. I was talking to a little girl the other day, 12 years old, a private student of mine. She is learning ballet in school and her teacher has required each pupil to audition for a ballet school here in Madrid. I assume this is for letting them have the experience of auditioning, even if they do not want to attend, which I don´t think my student does. Those who choose to go to this particular institution are there with the hopes of one day becoming professional ballet dancers. Ballet classes are given every day from 9AM to 3PM. Students are given one hour to eat lunch and then must move on to their academic classes at 4PM until 9PM when they are free to go home. What days! It is a life of whole-hearted dedication to dance and dance alone. It is something I personally could never conceive of deciding to do at 12 years old, though I am aware that some do. Later she told me that in this school, if you don´t pass ballet you fail in every subject because ballet carries such a large percentage of the average. She is multitalented girl. It seems to be quite a sacrifice for a person with so much potential, academically and more. She has a real gift for words and language, Spanish, German, and English, that she says she won´t be able to use at the new school. Obviously, I´m revealing a bit of bias, a bit of my opinion, which is that the little girl needs to live her life and be a kid, for Lord´s sake.

Music is springing up in my life like grass in cracked sidewalk. I am discovering new and wonderful things like never before. My friend and colleague, Jacinto, professor of history, is a music fanatic. See, I thought I loved music before I met him. Then we get to talking about it and I realize - I don´t know anything! And if you look at us side by side, Anna doesn´t love music, Jacinto is the one who loves it, because the man doesn´t just listen to music and say, “oh, that´s great, I´ll listen to it again,” but he researches it, as would a good history teacher. He reads about the artist, their albums, and the history of the songs. Then he goes on to find the inspiring artists and repeats the whole process with them. He gets albums and cherishes them. THIS is called music-loving. So this is inspiring to me, and mooching a little off of his careful research I have struck gold like Lisa Hannigan (from Dublin), Cesária Évora (of Cape Verde, sings in Portuguese), Tribalistas (Brazilian), Rosa Passos (Brazilian as well), and Jorge Drexler (from Urugauy, I believe). As far as lyrics, those Brazilians are passionate ones. I´m also learning some songs in this beautiful language, which is inspiring my next project to be conquering Portuguese.

So this has been a big, fat blog entry! It was to make up for lost time and missing a whole two months worth of writing. If you´ve made it up until now thanks for reading! I appreciate your feedback and sharing your experiences with me as well so please keep in touch! Until next time!