Spanish views from a small town

I love her, I truly do. But I can't wait for classes to begin again and have the house to myself. I'm almost there, about a week and a half to go. My daughter is not a rowdy teenager who you can't seem to find when you want her, or who is forever underfoot saying, "I'm bored" as if you were an automatic revue show for her sole entertainment. She is an intelligent, thinking young adult who helps out around the house, whether you ask her to or not. She is responsible and mature, though still uncertain on small, everyday things, which is normal. That's not the problem. The problem is that I have grown accustomed to being alone. The "empty nest" syndrome was never a problem after the first few months, back when she was still fifteen. I have adapted to an empty house by day, and the sole company of my husband by night. I make the noise I desire, dance to music at the loudest volume if I want, or be extremely quiet, and let the sounds of the trilli...

Twenty-one years ago this morning, my husband and I went to Santiago on a foggy morning. I remember a car accident that occurred because of lack of visibility on our way, in Milladoiro, just outside Santiago. But the sun was trying to break through, and it did, later. We went to the Sanatorium La Esperanza, where I had an appointment. My pregnancy had been programmed to be brought to a conclusion that day, because my due date had come and gone, and the baby was very comfy. So, on October 21, 1996, the doctors decided it was time for that baby to see the world that awaited it. When I was brought upstairs, still groggy from the anesthesia of the caesarian, I couldn't connect the tinny cries with a daughter, yet there she was, waiting for me. That day my world changed completely. I acquired a daughter and became a mother. At first, it was strange and time consuming; this child required feeding almost continuously, including during the sacred night. But she learned to sleep at night,...