Toledo

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Toledo, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

ACT I:

At a table in the bus station café. A cup of coffee. Men chatter and gesture at the bar about football, women, weather, whatever. The sun is hot; flies buzz and peck at the windowpanes. A dull rumble of waiting engines. The driver drinks coffee at the bar. And somewhere from the darkest caverns of the universe, echoing through the hallways of infinity, the farthest corners of the world, to the speaker there in the cafe, "I'm a genie in a bottle, baby. Come on, rub me the right way, honey!"

I got on that bus a-rumblin' in the parking lot and took it to Toledo on a sunny Thursday afternoon. I had just finished my first week of classes. Natalie had studied in Toledo two years before and we would stay with her Argentine friends, though Natalie would come a day later due to schedules and timetables. By the time I arrived at the station in Toledo it was already 10:30, I had taught that day and packed and cleaned the apartment, and I was tired. So after the Argentinians picked me up and took me to their flat, I only talked for a moment and then went straight to sleep.

The argentinians are in the middle of a huge love drama with the Spaniards from the Poligono. I will not go into the details, but here is a list of the characters.

NADIA: heartbreaker, sister of Anahi
ANAHI: girlfriend of Sergio Villacañas Sanchez (Villa)
VILLA: a Spanish gentleman and friend
SYLVIA: mother of Nadia and Anahi
RAMONE: Sylvia's man
FELIPE: friend, heartbreaker
IRENE: sister of Felipe
PILI: mother of Felipe and Irene
NATALIE: friend to all since her time abroad
JEFF: along for the ride

In the morning I woke up and talked with Sylvia for a while about life, love, Argentina, and Spain. The girls and Villa were all at work or class, and I had an entire day to go out and explore the city by myself, so I hopped on the bus and went to the Casco, the old part of town.

Toledo has been around since the Bronze Age (3200-600 B.C.E.) and has been passed through the hands of many cultures. It was run by the Romans, then the Visigoths (I have no idea what they were but I imagine it was something like the Mystics at the end of The Dark Crystal). And during the Golden Age It was a city of Christians, Jews, and Muslims all living in peaceful coexistence. Around the city the architecture changes and interweaves through the various histories, all placed so intricately among the streets and plazas that when looked upon from above, it resembles a coral reef.

Since the Roman times, the city has been famous for fabricating swords. Today, down whichever street you may happen to wander, there will surely be a shop of spades and shining armor. And in those shops they have whatever type of sword one could possibly desire—happy daggers of Damascene steel, swords of Middle Earth; of the old world Spaniards and Samurai; of the Roman legions of Hannibal. And many other trinkets and Spanish garb.

When I go to a new place, for the sake of becoming acquainted with it and its people, I like to get lost. And sometimes you can get yourself more deeply lost and have more conversations with strangers if you give yourself an impossible, and absurd quest—one that can never be completed no matter how many alleyways and hidden passages you walk down. Ceramic paint, bubbles, a ball painted in the style of Spiderman. For Toledo I chose a long boquilla from the 1920's that a dignified lady might take with her to the opera. And like this I went from one old woman in a novelty shop, to a man in a bakery, to another on the corner; "do you know where I could find a boquilla?"

One person would give me directions like "go up there and a little further bajas pa arriba y a la vuelta al izquierda de la no sé qué no sé cuánto de la bla bla...." and I would just smile and head off in the direction to which they were gesticulating. I'd follow whatever that was until I was good and lost among steaming cafés and marzipan bakeries, then I'd ask another individual who would point me very confidently in completely the opposite direction.

All of this zigzagging across the map and talking to strangers about relics of the past led me eventually to an antique shop that was itself antique down to the door hinges. Antique shops are amazing little kaleidoscopes into the past, full of any and all things that once were special to people that once were. Well, this antique shop was in the middle of a city that began in the Bronze Age and which had its golden age in medieval times. Thus, the things on its shelves, hanging on the walls, from the ceiling, were truly antiques of another era in human history—another people, another culture, another forever ago. Suits of armor with still the velvet undercoat, clothing more vintage than America, a door knocker that looked with vivid detail like the hand of a goddess demurely holding an apple, candelabras of ancient rabbis, silver fish pendants, weapons of gruesome utility, magic mirrors, golden angels, and the most frighteningly beautiful pendant I've ever seen. It was there among other old broaches and lockets, a man holding on, but falling into infinity nevertheless. Like when that Aureliano somethingorother in 100 Years of Solitude reads his own destiny in a book of history and realizes on the final line that when he reads that final line, time will churn and everything written and everything to be written will be unwritten and unspelled into the depths of forever. At least that's what this necklace brought to my mind. And that price tag? It says €210.

I, I kept on walking down steep and narrow streets, through secret cobble stone passages, past the most beautifully decaying buildings with grapevines growing right out of them into the sunlight—through the city of a fairytale with strange magic in every brick and lovers in love at the center of stage. And by the end of the day I was completely exhausted with blisters on my feet so I sat down to have some eggs and wine before returning home to pass out on the couch until Natalie arrived.

The next day was filled with more adventuring through the Casco, this time with Natalie, Nadia and the rest of the Argentinians. And I made everyone take a walk through the cemetery with me, for I do love them so. This one apparently was used in the filming of several Almodóvar films and was the home of innumerable graveyard kittens. I have precisely 67 photos of cats peeking around graves, playing in the sunlight, or skittering away from me. I'll only make you look at one.

Or maybe just three.

may my heart always be open to little kittens who are the secrets of living

More narrow stairs and winding streets. We had fresh tea of cardamom and rose beneath the elms in the afternoon. Nadia took us up to a small lookout above the city from where we could see the old chains still hanging from the church used to publicly torture the witches and whores and heretics. And somewhere far down in the courtyard of the church, two vagabonds sang All of Me by Billie Holiday.

Look close. The chains are there.

And speaking of torture, there was a museum filled with the most gruesome devices and very professionally produced signs with very graphic descriptions. It was disgusting to think of how horrible we humans could have been to each other. But are there not still people like that? And later we went to a museum of the Knights Templar and I was not nearly as enthralled with its history.

That night, it must have been a Saturday, we made great plans to botellón and dance all night. Botellón is as much a part of Spanish culture as tapas or flamenco. It is when, on the weekends, all the young folk go to a certain park or abandoned parking lot and drink booze. In the supermarket are sold botellón kits which consist of a bottle of Brugal rum, Coca-Cola, and plastic cups, all wrapped nicely together. In this way, the people can have their fun, save loads of money by mixing their own drinks, and talk to each other without having to shout over loud techno-pop. We bought three large bottles of varied alcohol and one small carton of orange juice, dumped it all into a 5-galon jug, and called our creation Agua de Valencia. We stored that monstrosity in the car while we wandered to a döner kebab in search of food. And we ate our great plates of kebab, drank Syrian tea, and smoked hookah on a patio table set out on the street—a street so small that we had to scoot our chairs in every time someone passed. Smoke, steam, and clinking plates, the chatter of happy Spanish nights.

We stood around at the botellón, bobbing and dancing to fight off the cold. Someone threw a wig at us so we passed it around and took silly pictures. Then at 2:30 a.m. as the crowds of people were beginning to wane we hiked up to a very old church that had been recently turned into an art museum/café/music venue/dance club. A dream come true. We danced until 5:30 in the morning, when we could dance no more, and called it an early night. Here, it's only considered a late night if you stay up for breakfast the next day. But as for us, we tip-toed to bed and in the early afternoon awoke to have some excellent coffee in Il Café di Roma.

We said goodbye to the Argentinians after we'd finished our coffees, and went to the house of The Spaniards of the Poligono, planning things carefully to avoid any possible conflict between the two families. There on the fourth floor in a tiny, warm kitchen, Pili with her apron and floury hands welcomed us with widespread, greeting arms. On the stove there were pots boiling and oil sizzling, and Pili rolling croquetas de bacalao and then tossing them into the hot oil. Fresh fruits and jars of spices, dried pomegranates and almonds, homemade olive oil. Oh, and the wonderful smell of it all! We ate pumpkin soup, fresh salad, roasted chicken in broth, the croquetas, and flan with coffee for dessert. It was a fine meal and afterward we were full and giddly.

Felipe and Irene took us to the valley after lunch to see the city from afar. I dug my fingernail into the ceiling of his car to write my name because everyone, even the Natalie of two years prior, had done the same. And up on the lookout across the valley, the sun was golden and nostalgic. And the gulls that flew under the old arched bridge, with the old city as a backdrop—that coral reef of doors and windows—looked as if they'd all been painted just for us. That night we hitched a ride back to La Solana with one of Natalie's professors, who was conveniently visiting his girlfriend that weekend. And in the plaza waiting for us was a newly arrived Holt, the other American who'd had problems with his visa.

The very next day, we four Americans in La Solana (Dee, Natalie, Holt and myself) got on a bus to Ciudad Real to apply for our identity cards, where while waiting in a long line we met our Austrian friend Andreas.

ACT II:

Two months later, Natalie and I returned to Toledo with Holt and Andreas. We had another wonderful dinner at Pili's with Turkish coffee and good feelings. We stayed again at the house of the Argentinians, all cramming ourselves into any possible sleeping space we could find. We dolled ourselves up and went out to another botellón, and danced this time until the sun came up. And in the early morning fog we trudged through the streets to a churrería to have churros and chocolate—the most perfect Spanish food that says to you after a crazy night of dancing; now the storm is over, the winds have changed, and everything is going to be all right.

[close curtain]

"Thank You For Being Here Now"

SEPTEMBER 21st, 2011

All along the streets to the subway station, up and down stairways, onto trains and busses I dragged my baggage all the way from Madrid to La Solana. My arms were wobbly and my shoulders tired. And once off the bus I could drag my things under the heavy, beating sun no further than to the nearest hostel I could find, which was obscenely expensive compared to past Spanish travels. Whatever, I was finally here in my town! and a little too hot and tired to fully enjoy it. But I put my bags down in the room, slammed a couple glasses of clay-flavored water, and went out walking in the general direction of the church steeple—pointedly the tallest building in town—in search of an apartment.

It was some three hours past noon; I remember it well. I thought that maybe I had landed in a ghost town. Or perhaps there was some very important fiesta somewhere. Perhaps everybody in town did nothing but pick grapes all day. What did I know? I walked and walked. A stray dog every now and then would scamper by timidly. Sometimes a passing tumbleweed; a swish and rustle of curtains in the wind. There was no one in this town.

I came to the Plaza Mayor where there stood one lone policeman beneath the colonnade of the town hall, smoking a cigarette and looking out at the pigeons in the chapel details. He stared at me as I walked across the plaza, the only other non-pigeon in the world, and made himself look generally stern and intimidating. I said to him in my too-tired American accent, "do you know, sir, where is there a list of apartments that I could rent?" And perhaps deciding at that moment that I wasn't a threat, he leapt into that Spanish talk that is always full of rhythm and hand gestures, explaining to me that there was no such thing as apartment listings in a small town like La Solana, but I could have this map if I wished. He would even put a dot over exactly the spot in which we were standing. Venga. Pues, nada. Hasta luego. Adios.
Gracias.

Even with the map, I got lost trying to find my school. I met some cleaning ladies, dressed in pink, on the street and got into their car. They took to my school which was already closed, joked that they were not going to let me out of the car unless I gave them all my money, and then took me back to the plaza. I walked around a little more to try and get a feel for the place. This time, murmurs and muffled conversation could be heard through windows behind their heavy blinds. A woman rolled up her shade and shook a rag at the dust on her balcony. An old man came around a corner humming and chewing something. We said hola. Some kids ran out of a curtained doorway to play fútbol on the road. La Solana was blinking her eyes awake, stretching and yawning. The siesta hour was coming to an end.

The evening went on and the plaza filled up. The restaurants put out their tables and the spaniards had cañas and tapas and shouted to each other the whole night. At dusk, the big trucks came in from the fields overflowing with white grapes. And as the night got cool, the air smelled like olives and mosto. I had a cup of wine on the patio of my hostel, then slept very deep and well.

SEPTEMBER 22nd, 2011

The next morning I had better luck. I went to my school and met my director and some professors whose names I had immediately forgotten. But I know all of their names now. The professors Antonia and David knew some people with apartments so they took me around town to look at them. Within an hour, I was dragging my suitcase and two backpacks up the cobblestone hills and skinny sidewalks, up the stairs and into my new apartment. It's on the second or third floor of a building on Calle Pacheco. Here in Spain, the ground-level floor is considered the zeroth. And on that zeroth floor is a home decorating shop that sells fancy windows and kitchen fixtures.

I hung up my prayer flags and wind chime, put my clothes in the armoire, and spent the next couple days trying to situate myself and equip my new home with cooking gas, hot water, towels, internet, and food. For those first few days, I lived on tomatoes with vinegar and oil, manchego cheese, and potato chips, for I had no money to buy anything else. The piso is long and thin with rooms all branching off from the hallway like a giant, seven-legged salamander. It has two balconies and tiled floors that are made to look like some sort of stone. It is built very sturdily—heavy doors, solid furniture, a carved lion head on the banister. In Spain they build things with the expectation that they will last at least a century.

The other auxiliares of La Solana began to arrive. Natalie from Minneapolis came and stayed with me while Dee from Toronto, through a mutual exchange of wrong numbers, could not get in touch with us and found her own cute apartment near the Universidad Popular. And the fourth, Holt from NorCal, who got his letter incredibly late, didn't arrive for another two weeks, when we'd already started our classes. I was very lucky to have been placed here with people such as these.

I grew more acquainted with La Solana, spending entire days walking around with my camera and no other objective than to see every part of it. And little by little, this town that I once thought desolate began to reveal itself to me, a sparkling gem here and a glittering rhinestone there. A movie theatre, a moroccan bazaar, a beautiful white library. Frutería, churrería, plaza de toros, döner kebab. Having all of the bare necessities set up in my new apartment, I went to the tourist information office one day to see what other kind of adventures I could get myself into. Juan Pedro, the guy who worked there, was very nice and took me upstairs and gave me a tour of the saffron museum, explaining all of the old traditions and tools. He even told me that he knew the family in La Solana that had the saffron field still, and promised that he would put me in contact with them. Hopefully they would let me come out to the field with them and help with the Azafranal.

It was very hot and very dry; it had been three months since the last rainfall. All of the windows and doors were open but the shades were drawn to let in the air and keep out the sun. From the fields and plains outside the town, dried thistle trees filled the wind with big cotton puffs. I spent the rest of the day wandering, just by accident making my way all along the periphery in a great circle, taking little tangent hikes on dirt roads to explore olive groves, wheat fields, cemeteries, and vineyards from which I stole a single grape under the hot afternoon sun. That night, a parade through the streets for the Virgin Peñarroya. And when I finally came back to my apartment and settled down to sleep, I looked out my bedroom window and out over the matchbox rooftops there blazed a brilliant night sky, sprayed with an entire aerosol can full of star glitter. I hummed a Billie Holiday tune to the darkness and dreamed of beautiful things until the lazy Sunday morning when church bells rang a slow, solemn bring...bring...bring...and the townspeople were drawn from their beds through the streets to the church like moths to the moon.

SUNDAY

We had all the best intentions of traveling and making use of our few days off before school started, but in the end, we really needed dish towels and oven mitts; we still wanted sugar and salt, and food other than chips and tomatoes. So we stayed here and got ourselves some library cards and bank accounts, found a very nice woman who sells fruit and always shows us the best and ripest deals and never tries to engañarnos. We met a great group of spaniards to hang out with, drinking cañas de cerveza en la plaza. Our new friends took us out to a casa de campo to eat potatoes and eggs, and to drink tinto de verano in the sun until we just couldn't anymore. We explored a village more tiny than ours, San Carlos del Valle, then were taken home by Natalie's Argentinian Toledano friends, who drove two hours to have pizza with us and then return home. So many friends, so many long unpronounceable names; don't worry, these characters will develop later in the story. I had tea before bed on the balcony, watching the teenagers flirt at each other in the plazuela, then slept.

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

By now, I have been teaching for a solid month. All is very well. It is a thousand times less frightening than my experience in Perú, trying to tame children with broken Castellano while they would much rather beat each other with broomsticks than listen to me. I am always with a professor, helping out with songs and perfect pronunciation. Sonia, Tomasi, David, and Maribel are my English professors I work with, and they are all very fun and kind. My students are anywhere from three years old to twelve, and they can all speak English so well. Okay, they can't really speak fluently or anything; not even close. But the three-year-olds know all of their colors and days of the week. I didn't really know all that stuff in high school. The other professors who I don't have class with are also really great. On my first day, the caretaker found a baby rabbit in front of the school and he was very excited about it. He kept it in a box and whenever a group of kids walked by he would take out his rabbit and say "look!" and they would all scream and run away.

Every class starts with daily routines. In the younger classes, we sing songs about how we are feeling, what the weather is like, days of the week, months of the year, heads, shoulders, knees, and toes. In the 1st through 6th grade, I get to torture one student a day by taking them up in front of the class and asking them questions about their family and the days of the week. But they're all very smart and if one doesn't know an answer, the others will help. I have some math classes, some reading, some lecture, and some just regular English. And the English they use is that of Britain, so for the sake of confusion I have had to change some of my speech patterns. "Have you got any brothers or sisters?" "This is my granddad."

We spent this month learning all about halloween, coloring pumpkins and learning The Skeleton Dance. Once, in the sixth grade, we gave the students a list of scary words to look up, and we gave them some Spanish/English dictionaries. Only a couple of the children knew how to use them. We had to explain that half of the book was for English words translated to Spanish, the other half was Spanish to English, and all of it was in alphabetical order. It was not that these kids weren't smart or that they were maleducados in any way. Perhaps just a sign of the times. They were all too accustomed to finding translations on the internet.

When Halloween finally came around, I dressed as a cat with Salvador Dalí wiskers, and I forced everyone else in the school to dress up with me. I made a bunch of caramel corn, which the children found disgusting but the teachers loved. And at recess we all made a big circle in the playground and sang "dem bones, dem bones, dem dancin' bones" in our scary fancy outfits. I would love to insert here a picture of all of my kids with their fake blood and bed sheets, but their photos are not allowed on the web. So it goes.

MEANWHILE, ON CALLE PACHECO

Little by little, our apartment became more of an actual home. We found another roommate, Manoli, to take our third bedroom. She is a Spaniard and a professor at Natalie's school, so we are forced to practice our Spanish all the time, which is just how we like it. Holt arrived and now lives in the apartment below ours. Every night, the teenagers chatter and shout in the plazuela, the wind chime tinkles on the balcony, and we sit around the table to talk and drink Bitches' Brew. One night, after playing a barajas game called 31, and after spending some time talking about travel plans, and having everything this time around fall just sweetly and perfectly into place, I lay awake in bed just thanking the stars through my window for everything that I had, wherever I was, who I was, and everything that had happened before—por las buenas, por las malas—to get me here. The stars were flickering bright that night, and dogs barked to each other somewhere far off in the dark.

Marquette....Madrid...

"Laugh of madness, laugh at the distance,

laugh at the inaccessible glory of a better past,

a graceful shining moment

when accuracy was your tool,

when all you had was perfect."

It was a good summer in that attic, beneath that lime tree, with those friends, doing those silly wonderful things. And oh, how beautiful those leaves become when they're about to die. I wish that I could write down all the magic we made - playing mermaids in the lake, watching great storms materialize over the water, whiskey, and early-morning coffee, and blackberries, and true true blood, and prize-winning pies, and loveletters, and timeless potlucks, and all of the fizzle and pop of midsummer nights with lilac wine. But it's all way too much to write down, way too much to fit through a camera lens.

"The fortune teller tells me that I have somewhere to go. Look and try and understand and wonder how she knows. Love me while you have me babe, and I may be back again. In the mean time I'll keep sailing down this highway in the wind." -Arlo Guthrie

I left Marquette with a single tear and a kiss blown to the shore. And the next two weeks were filled with hello/goodbyes to most of my wonderful friends and family. I packed my things neatly either into my suitcase or into storage before my parents and I decided to storm the Spanish consulate office in Chicago. That visa caused a few of my hairs to turn prematurely grey, and my mother's shoulders to seize up into such a knot that she was barely able to move. We would take it from them by force, damn it! Even if someone had to be killed! But on the way, we stopped in Rochester for breakfast with Brianna and Trevor, then Ohio to pay a long-overdue visit to family who shared some of the world's best scones on the porch in the afternoon. Chicago was nice and full of adventure. I made my parents ride the train into town and we looked at all the city sights through mirror beans and tower tops.

In the evening, they took me to Ann Arbor to see my friends down there. I hugged my parents goodbye and wasn't the only one to cry, just a little. And a couple days later, after bookstores, magic shops, henna tattoos, and a search for muffin pans in a late-nite thrift store, Jason took me to the airport on his way to work.

The night came quick over the Atlantic ocean; then quicker came the morning sun so that by the time I landed in Madrid I had not the chance to sleep for a minute. I'm still not sure how I did it, but I found my way with all of my baggage through the subway system to the apartment of my couchsurfing friend, Paul of Peru, in the middle of the city.

After a quick nap and a cup of tea, Paul took me for a walk to see the heart of the city - Km. 0, el Madroño, calle de las putas, the canopies to keep out the heat. We had lunch and crushed a cup of wine at the top of a tall building so that I could see the whole city spread out like a sleeping animal in all directions of the horizon. We walked up and down streets filled with the most beautiful people on earth, through plaza after plaza, stunned by the colors and intricacies of it all. Grand buildings. Famous statues. And all with such wonderful histories that only cities so old can have.

We went to a 100 Montaditos tapas bar to have ourselves some tinto verano, a genius mixture of tonic and wine. We talked about life and things and who we were, and soon found that his roommate Beth and I have a good common Cusqueño friend, Andres. And then, with the mention of a magazine, that Paul and I had a common friend in Lima, Rafael. What a small and funny box of chocolates this crazy world is! We ordered bocadillos - which are various things served on small baguettes - from a menu filled with strange vocabulary. Triquitriqui. Pepito ternera. Sobrasada. Gambas and Gulas. Then tired, we went back home to hang out with Beth and Elena, Javi and Frida.

It took me a couple days to adjust myself to the timetravel. But in a short while I was well enough to lose myself in the crisscross labyrinth of Madrid. The Spanish streets weave in and out of each other in a giant nonsensical spiderweb of hair salons, tapas bars, and beautiful graffiti. The first time I tried this, I walked up and down the calles and avenidas for hours trying to find Chueca. Once there, I had a nice espresso in an artsy cafe and watched the people pass. I tried again the next day and found it hard not to cry for all of the beauty. I found a park with fountains and great leaning maples, then an art museum. And in the several seconds it took for them to tell me the museum was about to close, a protest of some sort had surled out of the gutters and subway vents, and there were suddenly many people shouting many things.

I went back to the plaza of Chueca and from the rooftops somewhere a jazz band played and passers by stopped and sat on benches to enjoy the music. The shadows of the buildings got long and there was an orangey pink glow to things. I passed down the avenue of Fuencarral, where in the light of the lamps at night the girls and boys rent out their bodies beneath the trees, and there a string quartet played classic concertos until it got too dark to see the strings. I wished that I could stay there in Madrid forever. Everywhere was art and beauty and it was always summer, or autumn, or something in between. People like me could be people like me. Could be in love, get married, have children if we chose. But we can't have everything, can we?

During the five days I stayed in Madrid, I spent almost nothing. Most days, we woke up at 1:00 and didn't have to worry about breakfast, then at night cooked dinner for each other. I tried to buy a cell phone but Frida said, "Oh, you need a phone? I have one!" And after digging around in her purse for a moment, she gave me one that she didn't use all that much. That's why, if you're able to have faith in the goodness of people's hearts, couch surfing is an amazing way to travel.

On my last day in the city, Elena took me to see El Parque del Buen Retiro and we spent the afternoon walking through the eucalyptus, pine, and walnut trees in speckled sunlight. We tried to nap in the shade but a man and his camera crew were working very diligently on producing a sort of tourism video, and we couldn't help but watch him do take after take. Then we walked along the pond and watched the romantics who'd rented rowboats for the day, and a man on roller skates who was dancing wildly on wheels to a song that only he could hear.

That night their friend Victor came over and sang boleros from the balcony. And in the morning, I woke up early so Paul and I could have a coffee in the corner cafe before he went to work and I left Madrid. We said goodbye and I returned to the apartment, repacked and restacked all of my various things, and said goodbye hasta luego to Beth and Elena. I would leave for La Solana.