Spanish views from a small town

Today the low pressure systems have decided to howl in from the Atlantic and pretend winter isn't over. Unless one has full body rain gear (I don't) it'll be a wet trip to the woods. But to the woods I should go this afternoon to bring back flowering broom. The ubiquitous bushes have been tapestrying the hillsides with yellow patterns for the past two or three weeks and now they're at their most majestic. And they're necessary to sweep away witches and their spells. Yes, we're in the twenty-first century. No, I'm not superstitious (I like to think), but I do like to keep up traditions. And the tradition is to put a branch of broom on the doors, gates, and cars on the afternoon of the last day of April. The origins go way back to the Celts, for whom the first of May was one of the most important times of the year. They celebrated spring and the beginning of planting time. And before them the Phoenicians already celebrated. Probably since man stopped being a...

This is my letter to the world, That never wrote to me,- Those first two lines from Emily Dickinson's poem popped into my head this morning as I was driving on an errand. Her method of expression was to write the impressions of what she saw and felt in her little world on paper in the form of poetry. Little did she know that her poetry would someday transcend the frontiers of her friends and family. She was once told that her poetry would not do for publishing, but she didn't stop writing. She simply wrote for herself. Most bloggers also write for themselves. There are so many thousands of blogs on internet now, that there is almost no certainty anyone will read yours. But people still write their letters to the world, even if they never get a response. Writing becomes cathartic, as I'm sure it was for Miss Dickinson. Before internet, people would pin their soul with ink to paper. Now people pin their souls to the web with fingers on keyboard. Most bloggers aren...

My parents spoke Galician to me from birth and from that I easily picked up Castilian Spanish. My English came from the world that surrounded me, including Sesame Street and The Electric Company . When I began kindergarten I understood most of what was being said around me but I still couldn't speak it. A few years later a classmate told me he would never forget the first day of kindergarten, when I came up to him and started speaking in Spanish as if he understood. He didn't know what to think. But I quickly fell into the flow of the language and had no problem that year or the next, when I learned how to read. I had always loved books, mostly for their illustrations, but they also frustrated me because I didn't know what the letters were saying. My mother had taught me the alphabet but that was it. I quickly learned to read and loved it. It got to the point where I would not be conscious of reading words. The pages simply turned into images in my head as my eyes skimme...

Today is market day in neighboring Padrón. It's one of the biggest markets in western Galicia and dates from the Middle Ages. It's almost like an old-fashioned country store where you could buy chicken feed and paté and a coat. But bigger, much bigger. There are over six hundred stalls where you can buy clothing of all kinds, from underwear to children's to shoes to the latest fashions. If you need a scythe you can find one. Want to find a CD by Beyoncé, the Gypsy Kings, or Mozart? You can. There are all kinds of plants and seeds to build a garden from scratch. There are people selling fruits and vegetables from their home gardens and eggs from their corn-fed chickens. There are stalls with fresh bread and pastries. Inside the market building proper there are traditional fruit and vegetable stalls with produce from all over the world. (If you want to pay, you can find cherries in February.) There are butcher's stalls with different cuts of meat and different meats. At...

Today's children would feel lost in the Spain of over thirty years ago. There was even less gadgetry and technology than in the Boston of that same time. I remember coming to visit one summer when I was nine. Our house at that time consisted of four tiny rooms, a cubicle of a bathroom and a large attic. There were wooden beams crossing the ceiling, holding up the attic floor. On those beams in the rooms and hallway there were naked lightbulbs hanging. When they were turned on at night I realized I couldn't see well. I remember asking if they were twenty watt bulbs, but no, it was that the voltage was low. There was no television, no refrigerator, no telephone. There was an old radio and that was about it. But then, our house had been shut up for nine years. Some neighbors and family had refrigerators and televisions, though. But because of the low voltage the refrigerators only barely cooled the food and couldn't freeze anything in their tiny freezers. I remember visiting...

When I was a little girl it was a treat to stay up till midnight on New Year's Eve. Normally I would be in bed by nine or nine thirty, to get up at seven. I remember that midnight felt different. Then I grew up and it wasn't so different. I would go to bed at ten thirty or sometimes past eleven on a weekend. The eleven o'clock news was the nudge that would put me in bed. Now, the night that I'm in bed at eleven o'clock is the night that I have a fever of a hundred and two. If television prime time in Boston begins at eight o'clock, here it begins at ten thirty. The nightly news is at eight or nine, depending on the channel, and news programs can continue till ten or ten thirty. We're insane, you're asking? Probably. But it also feels funny to go to bed when there's light in the sky. In the month of June the sky to the west keeps a sunset afterglow till around eleven. And in December night falls around six. When Spaniards refer to seven or eight o...

We live on a country road surrounded by fields and woods, with a few neighboring houses. Few people, lots of birds, some foxes, boars, and rabbits. Let's say it's not a major population center. Cell phone companies also know this. That is why, when we first got a cell phone we had to go outside or hang out an upstairs window to get a signal. (We never got a land line because it's too expensive to install and monthly payments are through the roof.) Cell phone companies tend to extend good coverage to cities, towns, and large villages, where there are plenty of people to pay for their services. The little hamlets get served after everyone else is.  Our phone coverage improved, however, to the point of being able to stay inside during the winter rain whenever we talked on the phone. But when our daughter started high school, some of the teachers expected their students to have internet at home to submit reports and check supplementary information. So we got a wifi stick for ...

Last night we went to the festival in Padron, where this week they're still celebrating Easter. It was a hodge-podge of color, lights, sounds, and people. At one end was the travelling orquestra, giving a music, dance, and light show from their travelling stage, a trailer truck that opens up into a 21st century stage that envies no professional stage. At the other end were the carnival rides, each blaring out their own sound track, shaking grown-ups and children in different ways, sending out shrieks of laughter into the night. In a corner were the pulperías , the travelling restaurants that set up a tent and benches and cook octopus and barbecue ribs and sausages. Just before eleven o'clock, midway through dinner time here in Spain, the lines for seating were greater than the crowds watching the orquestra. In part, because eating octopus at the Easter festival in Padron is almost culturally obligatory. It's become an intrinsical part of the festival. Eating octopus is s...

Why did I wash the car?  Why did I hang the clothes out to dry? Why did I open the windows? Why can't I remember that every year at the same time the pine trees that surround us release their pollen and cover everything with a film of yellow dust? Now, I have to shake my clothes out before I put them on, or wash them again. And every time I sweep, a small cloud of yellow dust swirls in the air. And now the car looks like it hasn't been washed in two months. The fact that it hasn't rained in a couple of weeks makes the pollen lighter and last longer. It's a good thing it's one of the few pollens I'm not allergic to, but I know some people that feel like they have permanent colds these days.  The good thing is that it's almost at an end. I think. Let me close the windows. 

As the end of the month approaches, the looming promise of the next paycheck appears like a goddess bathed in ethereal light. Until you hold it in your hand. Then you remember all the bills you've been putting off until the arrival of this promise. The promise turns into the canned laughter of a sitcom. I don't know. Lately, new bills and new monetary comprimises seem to appear like a bad magician. I think, okay, I have to pay this , and that I have to pay the next month. In between maybe I can set aside some money toward a vacation next year. What a joke! The parcas seem to hear me think about saving money and award me with something else I must pay. And since some wise guy at the beginning of the last century decided workers in Spain should be paid monthly, keeping a monthly budget is insane some months. Sometimes, during the last week and a half of the month, I find myself scrounging for forgotten money in pockets, drawers, even in books, in case I had used a bill as a b...

Green is the color of life. New life is appearing all around us, in twenty different shades of green. The dusty green of eucalyptus, the undying green of the pines, the apple green of new leaves, and the golden green of oaks surround us. This is a privileged corner of Spain. Here, the pines and eucalyptus conserve their green all year. And now, in the spring, there's an explosion of new leaves and shoots.  It's a joy to go for a walk through the woods and fields these days. Despite having passed another winter without any snow locally, it's beautiful to see spring has finally arrived.

You can tell it's spring when you hear the neighbors' tractors in the fields nearby and see them going slowly up and down a field, with half the family following, bending over. For some the signs of spring may be the first daffodils or new grass blades or buds on trees. Here, the first sign is when the potatoes are planted. It's generally the first planting of the year, but it's prepared much earlier, around January. First, the seed potatoes have to be bought and spread out in a cool, shadowy area. Then, about a week or two before planting, fertilizer has to be taken to the field, where it is spread out. A few days before the potatoes have to be cut up, leaving an eye in each piece, from which the plant will grow. And, of course, the weather has to cooperate from the beginning, but the potatoes can't be put in much later than the beginning of April for them to grow correctly. So some years spring comes on rainy days and you see the neighbors becoming drenched as t...