Consolation

Consolation
by Billy Collins

How agreeable it is not to be touring Italy this summer,
wandering her cities and ascending her torrid hilltowns.
How much better to cruise these local, familiar streets,
fully grasping the meaning of every roadsign and billboard
and all the sudden hand gestures of my compatriots.

There are no abbeys here, no crumbling frescoes or famous
domes and there is no need to memorize a succession
of kings or tour the dripping corners of a dungeon.
No need to stand around a sarcophagus, see Napoleon's
little bed on Elba, or view the bones of a saint under glass.

How much better to command the simple precinct of home
than be dwarfed by pillar, arch, and basilica.
Why hide my head in phrase books and wrinkled maps?
Why feed scenery into a hungry, one-eyed camera
eager to eat the world one monument at a time?

Instead of slouching in a café ignorant of the word for ice,
I will head down to the coffee shop and the waitress
known as Dot. I will slide into the flow of the morning
paper, all language barriers down,
rivers of idiom running freely, eggs over easy on the way.

And after breakfast, I will not have to find someone
willing to photograph me with my arm around the owner.
I will not puzzle over the bill or record in a journal
what I had to eat and how the sun came in the window.
It is enough to climb back into the car

as if it were the great car of English itself
and sounding my loud vernacular horn, speed off
down a road that will never lead to Rome, not even Bologna.

En Abril, Aguas Mil

I know... it's not even April anymore. But you get the idea.
Recently, the weather has been causing some serious confusion here in Sevilla.

First of all, it seems that our spring weather has taken a few steps backward, or at least it slowed down a bit. I am sort of okay with this, though. It was really nice for a while there -- but at the rate the temperature was increasing, we were due to hit 90 degrees by the beginning of May. While I like sunshine and warmer weather, I was not exactly ready to sweat bullets or combat heat exhaustion. So, I suppose these last couple of weeks, I welcomed the rain as a metaphorical speed bump (except for that time I was cursing it, walking through torrential downpours on my way home from school). Miraculously, Sevilla's normal weather has been transplanted to Pittsburgh, where 85 degree weather and sunny days were the norm last week. Who says climate change isn't a thing??

But I'm not the only one confused by weather. It's evident that everyone's a little unsure of it by the way people are dressing. If you were to stand for one minute, (no more, no less) on any random sidewalk in Sevilla, you are guaranteed to see a nice mixture of people wearing short shorts and tank tops, while others are in long pants, boots, and jackets. How is this possible??

Well, to be fair, the girls in short shorts and tank tops are probably American, while the Spanish are pretending not to sweat in their jackets and long pants. All stereotypes aside, though, it's rather impossible to figure out the weather by watching what people are wearing outside.

I just wonder how long it will be before everyone stops asking whether or not we're cold without our sweaters on.

The End is Near

Well, the flight has been purchased. That means that the end is in sight -- the date is final. I'm going home.

And more than likely, for good. Or at least for a while.
I always thought that at some point, I'd know when it was time to go home -- that I'd feel like I was ready to leave and be done, and move on to the next phase of life. I suppose I did feel that, some time around December, amidst the troubles I was facing with my apartment and with my residence card. But the spring has been much better to me than the winter was, and now that my departure date is approaching, I find myself wishing I could stay -- if only there was a way.

Life seldom turns a page when we want it to, and never as cleanly as we want it.

 I think part of the problem is that I don't have anything lined up. I don't have a job to return to, or one to stay with either. I don't know what comes next. What is my life going to be like when I get back to Pittsburgh? Will it be the same as when I left, or will it grow to match who I am now? What's the next dream?

The part of me that wants to stay knows that life can't continue like this forever. The important thing is to move forward -- I'm just not sure what that includes yet.

Something to think about...

If you are depressed you are living in the past.
If you are anxious you are living in the future.
If you are at peace you are living in the present.

-Lao Tzu

This or That

How's this for a juxtaposition...
I am currently sitting on my balcony, weather as perfect as can be, having just eaten some delicious croquetas, enjoying a glass of wine and the final wafts of azahar in the air. --- And I'm working on my résumé, job searching in the States, and wondering how I might actually afford a plane ticket home.

At any given second in time, I can be 100% sure that I want to stay in Spain forever, or 100% sure that I am ready to go back to the US and work a real job.

It's okay. I question my own sanity, too.
Does anybody ever really know what they want in life?
Maybe we just have too many options.

Trouble With Tony

Some of you know the back story of my living arrangements better than others. Those of you who are fortunate enough to know Tony and his quirks know that it is definitely a topic worth blogging about. But I don't want my blog to become Tony Central. For that reason, Meredith and I have started a new blog ... one especially dedicated to our Tony stories (and trust me, there are plenty!).

Some of you may have already seen the link on facebook, but I figured I'd share it here, too.
Trouble With Tony

This blog will be helpful when we start working on our book, and eventually the movie. I'm telling you... Tony is a real life case of being "stranger than fiction". You won't want to miss this!

My old friend Stress makes a visit.

Oh... Hello, Stress. Have we met?
I'm afraid it's just been so long since I've seen you, I must have forgotten what you look like. But don't worry... this week there's no mistaking you.

This week, you look like:
A 4-hour English lesson.
A fun, but activity-filled week at school.
A 2-hour English lesson.
Another 2-hour English lesson.
Visitors -- Past, Present, and Future.
Having no food. And eating out for EVERY MEAL.
Money -- most notably, my lacking it. (See above)
The ridiculously fast arrival of Semana Santa.
The realization that time and life pass way too quickly. (Shout out to the over-thinkers.)

Yeah, ok. You're right. In a normal world, this wouldn't really be stress. But in the last 2 months, my biggest sources of stress have been about messing up the lines on a painting, which library book I should read first, where I left my metro card, or where I should go with my friends for a coffee... and honestly, none of these problems are all that stressing.

And yep... I realize that I'm in for a pretty big shock when I head back to the US. But until then, I'm just going to try to keep on living this stress-free life while I have the chance. I'm just hoping my old friend Stress packs his bags and heads out quickly. I'm sick of the way he makes my mind run without ceasing, how he keeps me awake and prevents me from getting a good night of sleep, how he creeps in and shares all of his doubts. Anyway, I've got better, cooler visitors coming TOMORROW. :D And we don't really want a crowd.