Believe it or not, it has been 5 weeks since I left
Flagstaff. It has been difficult for me to get a grasp on time here; does a
week really last a week when you feel like it’s barely been a day? I admit
there have been times when I’ve wanted nothing more than to take the Metro to
the Madrid Airport and stow away on the next flight back to Arizona. But at the
same time, when it occurs to me I have 9 more months left (only 9 more
months?!) I wonder how I could possibly waste a single moment here not being excited
and passionate and bold.
This isn’t to say that every day here needs to be a
completely new experience. This weekend I’ve had a pretty bad head cold, and
done almost nothing but lay around. But one of the things I am slowly learning
here is to find the virtue of every moment, good and bad. To realize that I
need quiet, sleepy days just as much as I need the strenuous adventure ones. It’s
finding balance, and it’s difficult but worthwhile.
This past week has been the best one I’ve had here so far
(other than being sick). When I ask myself why this is, what made it better
than the rest, I find it difficult to pinpoint an exact answer. The fact that I
am beginning to actually see/hear improvement in my Spanish, that my classmates
are becoming more interested and willing to communicate with me, a sudden
realization that I have my whole life ahead of me to learn and explore and love–
all of these things have given me hope and made me feel better. Underneath it
all, though, it is finding connections between cultures and people and places
and ideas that have made this week wonderful. Becoming more adjusted to the way
things are here has made me realize that, despite the sometimes vast,
chasm-like differences in the actions and attitudes here compared to the U.S., beneath
every gesture and word it is possible to find a similarity. Over many years,
people have developed the need to give labels to everything and everyone; these
can vary from “wrong” and “right” to “Spanish” and “American”, “girl” and boy”,
“rich” and “poor”, etc. It is absolutely necessary to define things, I know
this, but I feel that much of our inability to change the world for the better
comes from this inherent belief that what defines us also separates us. We look
for the differences first, in order to make comparisons that give us a sense of
place and time, and then so often fail or forget to look for similarities - connections.
And yet, there are so many that completely bypass
language.
Sitting in class on Friday afternoon, I can feel the familiar excitement
among
my peers for the weekend, and the familiar frustration in the teachers.
When we
go to check out at the Grocery Store, everybody tries to find the
shortest line.
When my host brother’s phone was stolen from him last weekend, everybody
in the
family was startled and a little frightened, because it doesn’t matter
if you
live in a city or a small town, getting robbed is something that “only
ever
happens to other people”. There’s always going to be that kid in class
who
gives the most bullshit answers on purpose. You will find that in the
course of your life you will meet people over and over again who have
some connection to you and who you are - just this past week I met a
Canadian studying abroad here who knew someone at NAU and found out my
new yoga teacher studied abroad with AFS as well.
These connections are how the world…works. And I think that’s beautiful.
And whether or not this is because we’ve chosen to
make it
work this way or it was “meant” to work this way or it only seems to
work this
way, it makes me realize that we have no reason whatsoever not to
explore this
world to the best of our ability. This doesn’t mean you have to hop on a
plane
and fly to Morocco (although, man, that would be so cool), it means that
each
day we must dare to find those connections, sometimes to make those
connections. It's the only way that we are ever going to be able to
change anything about ourselves and our lives and our world.
I've probably been listening to my Filosofia teacher too much, with all this abstract talkin'.
Anyways, I'm doing fine, and I am really happy here.
