Part two: A stolen sandwich and art

Click to read Part one: A palace and a hostel.

J woke up after the time we had agreed to meet in the lobby. We had planned plenty of time, so I was content to let him sleep off as much jetlag as possible. Besides that, I wasn’t confident which bed was his. With those curtains, what if I reached in and poked the wrong man? I sneaked a snack from our stash in the communal refrigerator and then noticed that the second half of the sandwich was missing. Who would have nabbed a half-eaten sandwich? I wondered, pensive. I passed the time answering messages and chatting with a Lithuanian lady who had broken her phone at the beginning of her two week trip.

Eventually, J came out to the lobby, looking much brighter than the night before, but still sleepy around the edges. He confessed to waking up in the wee hours of the morning to eat the rest of the sandwich. Mystery solved.

The Puerta del Sol was on our way to breakfast and the museum, so we stopped to get our picture taken under the iconic bear. Because I am several inches taller than J, but our families didn’t know how many, we decided to exaggerate our height difference. I stood on my tiptoes and J bent his knees. The camera snapped and with a little cropping, our photo was ready to send.

“Quite the height difference!” commented my sister with a laughing emoji.

“Yes, it’s something to get used to,” I beamed back at her.

“I do believe he comes a little higher than your elbow…”

I guess we’d overdone it. 🙂

Our breakfast was less than remarkable, but the Museo del Prado, the renowned art museum of Madrid, made up for it. We spent the entire morning there, wandering and wandering and still covering just over half before we were too exhausted to continue. I loved enjoying the paintings together, studying them long enough to point out things to each other. Sometimes, we laughed. Sometimes, we stood in awe. Sometimes our wonder was more of the skeptical type. We both agreed that we’d rather fully enjoy a few works of art than see everything at breakneck speed.

We attempted lunch but weren’t hungry enough to justify spending 50+€ on a paella for two. We thanked the hostess and ducked back out on the street where we found a grocery store that sold prepared salads. We took our salads to a grassy boulevard and sat on a bench to eat and bolster ourselves for another tour.

This time, we toured the National Library of Spain. We listened to an audio guide on my phone and after a strange encounter with the guard who seemed reluctant to understand my Spanish until I doubted that I was even speaking it, we toured the rest of the library unbothered.

Back at Retiro Park, we found the glass palace. Then, we sat in the grass and watched the carefree groups of people strolling by until we decided we should meander back for some supper and our hostel. We ate a seafood paella in a corner of a hopping restaurant, growing sleepier as the minutes ticked by. It would be an early bedtime, for sure.

The next morning, we were both up and ready to leave before we had planned to be. Our trip down to Almería was smooth. We traveled from bus to train to bus–two extra buses due to construction on both ends of our journey. We dozed, watched the scenery, and talked, sometimes about those topics that are best talked about in person. Wanna know what we talked about? Too bad. It’s “not your market” as the North Africans say. 😉

A teammate gave us a ride back to Mytown. I sat in the backseat, feeling a measure of something I couldn’t describe. It wasn’t entirely pleasant or unpleasant. So I just sat with it, pondering. We lunched with teammates, unpacked, and I gave J a mini tour of Mytown, introducing him to a piece of my world.

It wasn’t until I was preparing for bed that I was able to label what I was feeling as “emotional dissonance.” I was beyond delighted to show J my world in Spain, but watching my worlds mesh was unsettling. Like the world that had felt so close was being replaced by another world that, in new ways, felt closer.

My new winter coat

As I fingered my winter coat, I noticed the excellent quality of the fabric and stitching. The bus was bouncing through roundabouts; still, it was worth risking motion sickness to do a quick google search of the brand.

I wasn’t wrong. My coat was excellent quality.

But by now you’re probably wondering why I hadn’t figured this out before. After all, hadn’t I been the one to buy the coat in the first place? Well, yes, but I bought it in the same place I buy most of my clothing: a thrift shop.

It was exactly what I wanted–just a bit long, sturdy, warm but not too warm for Spanish winters, a hood, pockets, and dark. And that hole in the pocket wouldn’t take more than 2 minutes to mend and that dog hair would wash out because, yes, it was even washable too. And who besides me would notice that scuff on the cuff?

Besides, I was past due to replace the $5 coat I had picked up at a second-hand market in North Africa seven years ago. So I bought this new coat for $12 plus tax and brought it back to Spain with me, where I was just discovering that Goodwill had offered quite a steal.

As we bounced along, I felt rather pleased with myself. And as other winter coats brushed past me, I felt even more pleased with myself. Doubtless, I had the nicest coat on board the bus.

Yes, there was a rush of pride as I forgot how surprised I had just been to find myself the owner of something of quality. I mentally classified myself with the elite. My classy coat may not have been a luxury brand, but was subtly luxurious, nonetheless. I sat up straighter.

And then I looked down at the skirt I was wearing and it occurred to me that it was pilling from overuse. And the sneakers poking out the bottom were smudged from all of the streets they had walked with me. Hmm. Was I the first to notice the incongruous quality of my clothing?

And then I wanted to laugh. Who cared? Who really cared? Let the world scratch their heads if they wanted to. I planned to enjoy both worlds even if I ended up looking like a walking thrift store.

At my stop, I hopped off the bus feeling like a million dollars.

Aging alone

Back when I was teaching, we took a field trip to The Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. There were these cool machines with cameras that would age a photo depending on life choices. Are you a smoker? Do you spend a lot of time in the sun? And so on went the questions.

One of my junior highers got me to pose for the camera. My mistake was not taking over the controls afterwards. Having already gone through the process once, he knew all of the answers to age my photo as much as possible. He ignored my protests as the screen spun out an image of a worn out old lady who eerily resembled me.

Thanks, kid.

I remember that photo sometimes when I find a new gray hair or a neck wrinkle or an age spot I never noticed before. The realization that one is aging is hard for many people; however, as a single, I wonder if aging alone is different. Not harder, but different.

As a single, there is no togetherness in disintegration. It’s just a party of one who watches the body in the mirror stoop and droop a little more each year. A party of one who gets pitied as she grays because there go her chances to snag a husband and, if she doesn’t have children, she can’t even attribute the grays to the honorable occupation of child-rearing.

His eyelids sag and he gets an extra roll of fat at his waistline.

There is no together giggling at age creeping over two bodies become one. It is just her facing irreversible doom as she watches those creeping spider veins.

There is no one to notice that mole on his back slowly changing colors. No one to miss that tooth except him.

Those freckles that once were becoming are overcome by age spots and they’ve scattered farther than she ever imagined. Her body is no longer what it used to be. And sometimes she’s glad she doesn’t have to share it.

I read through 1 Peter recently, about beauty being internal rather than external. Because remember, these bodies were not made to last forever. Whether one is aging together or aging alone, that truth is comforting.

Now it’s your turn. I’d love to hear other perspectives. What has it been like for you to age alone, man or woman, single or widowed? Or what has it been like for you to age beside someone else? Maybe you’ve had both experiences. What are some things you’ve learned over the years?

The Hunchback of Mytown

I’ve always had bad posture. For the first decade and a half of my life, it probably had to do with the fact that my peers came up to my belly-button. A severe introvert can pack themselves full of shame and self-loathing when they are literally forced to stand out from the crowd. Think giraffe in a world full of adorable penguins.

Ironically, now that I am living in the stubbiest part of Spain where I tower head and shoulders over most Andalusians, I am no longer ashamed of my height. I know people look at me in awe or call me “the long one” when they talk about me or add me to their marriageable women list simply because I’m hard not to notice. But, I’ve grown used to it, and like I said, it doesn’t bother me (well, except for the last point).

So, where does today’s bad posture come from? The curvature of my spine is still not curvaturing the right way. I lower my aching back into bed at night with a feeble, geriatric groan, “Whyyyyy?”

Why indeed?

You can try to blame my back pain on FHP (Forward Head Posture) and count the hours I spend on my laptop. You can put a book on my head and tell me to walk across the room. Or you can tell me it’s an attitude problem and blather about the advantages of reaching that top shelf. But, folks, my legs are taller than my kitchen counters. Yep. I can almost sit on my counters without even getting up on tiptoes. So talk about reaching shelves all you want, but how often do I reach for the extra spices on that top shelf and how often do I wash my dishes?

The real culprit to most tall people’s back pain is that the world was not made for tall people.

I’ve been known to pull up a chair to wash the dishes. Sometimes as I work in the kitchen, I spread my legs apart so my cupboards and I can work together comfortably. Tables are too low for us long-necked diners who dribble most of our soup before it reaches our mouths. Clothing is too short in one place or another. Beds with footboards are nightmare-inducing. When we bend, we have to bend further than normal people. When we fall, we’re more likely to be injured since the ground is farther away. And please don’t recline your airplane seat on a tall person’s knees.

What is a tall person’s response to this? At least for some of us, it’s bad posture that becomes a habit. It’s sort of a peace treaty in a war that has too many battles.

The next time you see a hunched tall person, have a little sympathy. Their posture probably has less to do with shame and more to do with acceptance of a world not made tall enough for them.

For the record, I enjoy being tall. But I do sometimes wish I could prop my counters up on concrete blocks.

Are you short? Tell me what it’s like to be short, because I honestly have no idea. 😉

For another perspective on “tall” (and some fabulously creative illustrations) visit: What Is It Like to Be a Tall Girl?

Photo by Nicole Smith on Unsplash