Things I’ve learned Part 2

This is the second installment in a set of things I have learned so far this summer living away in Spain.

• Barbecues are actually kind of okay.
• The metro is always better than the bus.
• It’s okay to throw out raw chicken if it is expired and has started smelling weird. You should also use the raw chicken before it expires. Keep track of those dates in your head, you aspiring adult, you.
• I cannot, for the life of me, eat an entire loaf of the Spanish version of French bread before it expires no matter how hard I try, so I should just give up and eat Pain de Molde only. I should also only buy food that I can eat within a few days – none of these “saving for later” shenanigans, which mean that I end up throwing spoiled food away.
• Being a businesswoman is probably not my life calling.
• Germans look out for each other. I think the same thing is true of Americans. Then again, it depends on who you are and who you meet.
• It’s okay to take the wrong bus sometimes. Sometimes you end up in a better place. Most of the time, though, you don’t.
• Perhaps it is what you do when you realize you have taken the wrong metaphorical “bus” that determines who you are and your happiness, rather than the “bus” journey itself.
• I like speaking English. It is unfair, though, that everyone knows English in Europe. Everyone else around you is fluent in your language as well as their own, and you struggle to learn a new language while retaining what you remember of the old. (Yes, this is more of an observation.)
• A lot of people my age in Europe seem to be more experienced than me. Come to think of it, a lot of people back in the States seem to be a lot more experienced than me. It might be a function of me being myself.
• I need to learn how to manage my time better, and to think less about my blog and posting and more about living.
•  I need to do more community service.
• I am bad at making decisions and being frank. Being in Europe has helped this, but I still have a long way to go. Also, whenever I heard the phrase, “You have to make the decision which is right for you,” I thought that was the speaker’s way of shirking responsibility for the (not infrequently unwanted) advice they have just given me. I still think that it is their way of shirking responsibility, but I more deeply understand that no one can make my decisions except for me. It is both a great blessing and a great curse. D’oh. Someone recently said, “With great beard comes great responsibility.” Must have been one of my cousin’s friends, posted on his Facebook profile.
• Germans make good friends for Americans, especially when you're both in Spain.
• All you need to do to feel better about yourself is just change your routine a little, and then life suddenly becomes quite a bit better. Also, it helps if you change your routine with at least one friend in tow. (It becomes even better when they invite you for a day trip to Segovia.)

Spooniness in Full Force

I first wrote this post in April of 2009. I never posted it, but I think today might be a good time, especially considering today's other post. Please bear with me.

I was reading an interview with my high school theater teacher the other day, and I have a few fall-out thoughts from the interview and my theater teacher's beliefs I would like to share. Not only is my former teacher a Shakespearean actor, he is also a poet and very interested in Keats. He comes from the similar Judeo-Christian background that I do, but he has adapted some of our common beliefs to suit his own purposes. In doing so, he has only expanded the scope and realm of those beliefs. If you want to know more about what I’m talking about, check the interview out for yourself here.

He talks about inspiration. Other authors have discussed how inspiration, how genius, is something more along the demons, a thing that comes and goes. I agree more with Mr. Tanner; it is not a demon that visits us, but inspiration is rather a conduit that can be opened directly to God.

"Pillars of Creation" - Hubble images

Naturally, I desire to open this conduit. It seems like with many things, however, that it is not to be, try as might. As Mr. Tanner indicates, most people never reach this state. Only after much skill has been acquired, only after much suffering for the sake of craft, only after utter mastery can the craftsmen and craftswomen let go of their training, become vulnerable, open themselves up to God, and become artists. They walk into the dark. This darkness is the light of illumination, of inspiration. We have to lose ourselves in order to find what is bigger than ourselves.

I do not think I have a lack of desire. As I am right now, I lack skill, mastery, and patience, but I know that if I desire this thing to be and put in all my effort, my God will take care of my inadequacies. The following is a poem where I try and overcome my inadequacies, where I try and practice resisting those deficiencies.

“The Violet Hulled Ship”
Elizabeth Lain

My body lies curled around a

rock like a pillow,

naked and waiting.

A straight vine-line cracks my head,

fractures with images of matchmakers

Oozing onto the cement, playing

their game in amber tones.

The line is heavy, the air is old.

Where I am, it shall not be there also

on this empty shore bereft of all

but the vine-line.

My vision fades, into nothing but

the gray on this abysmal handmade shore.

My heart lacks the pulsing fire, it

has not yet been on the pyre. The refiner,

the purifier’s tinctures will remain unscathing. The heart

made of hardened, hand-packed ash cannot rest

in tomes of flesh or flames of respiration.

I lie curled on this shore, waiting for

the ship with the violet hull

which will never come

to bring to life the small violet buds

of the vine-line.

For the violet-hulled ship has already passed,

lingering no longer amidst

a forlorn and forgotten body that cannot

capture the capability.

Nails grate against the cement,

scraping, perfect points of tendon’s tension,

of bone striving against muscle, of dust against rock.

The ship does not return.

Somewhere, beyond the line and empty shore, two

violet orchids wrap around a fractured ivory skull,
kissing it in the darkness.

"Krakatau and Driftwood" - Unknown

More Inflammatory Remarks about the Public Transportation System in Madrid (Among Other Things)

If there is one thing I’ve learned about myself over the past few days, it is that I am bad at navigating public transportation. There is hardly ever a direct line to where I want to go, and I have not yet figured out the right combination of buses and trains which will get me where I want to go quickly – or as quickly as public transportation can get me somewhere. Every time I get on a bus or a metro train, I think that I have somehow beaten the system, and that I will arrive at the appointed location quickly. Not so. I seem to choose the route with the most stops, or the most changes of stops. The two are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they often come hand-in-hand.

For example, this afternoon I decided that I was sick of being in Madrid without having seen major Madrid attractions. Today’s project was to see the Reina Sofia Museum. The Metro stop is at Atocha on Light Blue Line (Line 1), but my work is at Pio XII on the Purple one (Line 9). The red and purple lines don’t even cross, which means that I had to change trains two times to get to Atocha. My German co-worker was going on the bus, and I thought I would be amicable, wait with her, and then ride the bus to Calle Jorge Juan. At the Jorge Juan bus stop, I would take the Red Line to Sol, then the Light Blue Line to Atocha. It was perfect and foolproof!

Guess what I see twice a day, five days a week...

Except I had trouble finding the Goya metro stop (I might have initially been searching for the Retiro stop, but that’s not important – I found a metro line anyway! This mentality might be the reason I have such a hard time navigating the public transportation system in the first place. There's always a metro stop, and there's always a bus stop where you can find a map. The trouble is finding the right bus to take you were you want to go). And it took nearly an hour to get form work to the Reina Sofia. Wow, most of that paragraph was parenthetical. My apologies, for that, and my apologies for not wanting to go back and edit it out.

I also took the wrong direction out of the Metro towards Retiro Park, instead of toward the Reina Sofia, which took away another 15 minutes from my museum-time. (That's another thing about metros - I'm always disoriented when I come out of them.) I did spend a few minutes looking at an installation of activist art which was raising awareness of violence against women, and I liked that. I do not consider that time wasted. Nevertheless, I did get to the museum eventually, and my wanderings were kept to a minimum.

I wandered around the Reina Sofia by myself, and it was nice to have some alone-time. The Reina Sofia is for smaller works by big artists (with a few exceptions), and it has a lot of the Spanish art. Spanish surrealism is not my favorite, but that’s okay. I had fun imagining things and seeing faces in the paintings. There was a painting called "Head of a Smoker" which I thought was funny because it reminded me of one of the other workers. The next picture I saw was blue and had a white line-like string. It looked like me. I saw a few Salvador Dalis and lots of Picassos. I even saw this:

Guernica, Pablo Picasso

It was… rather depressing. My favorite part of the painting is the horse’s mouth because you can see inside and outside of it, and the roundness of it (not captured well in the photograph). To be honest, I liked some of the sketches and studies Picasso did for “Guernica” even better than “Guernica” itself. There was a study of a crying man, and I liked it because it was so contorted and so cramped – the person could barely fit inside the frame of the painting.

I only got an hour at the Reina Sofia, which was fine by me. I went during their no-charge hours, and I plan on going back again sometime soon.

Donde son las tortugas?

As I was figuring out where I was and the best way to get back to mi casa – and taking a few pictures to document my ventures into the heart of Madrid – I was caught off guard by someone saying, “Perdón, dondé es…” I turned around, and there was an Asian kid with a yellow t-shirt on. From his accent to his yellow shirt, I felt that he was American. I told him that he could speak English if he wanted (I wouldn’t have understood his Spanish anyway, but he didn’t need to know that), and immediately he started speaking in lovely, familiar, American English. He wanted to know where a cheap tapas bar would be where he and his two friends could eat. I wouldn’t know, because I actually have not been to a tapas bar yet. (Yes, yes, castigate me, but I’ve been being frugal and “cooking” for myself [even if that means microwave dinners sometimes – don’t worry, they’re Spanish microwave dinners which makes everything okay! I’m not wasting my time here in Spain!].)

Anyway, I knew that they wouldn’t find a cheap tapas bar anywhere on the Calle de Atocha or at the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V. There may be some cheap bars on some of the side streets, but I didn’t know where to look for them. I am the chica who can't even get to the Reina Sofia from my work in a timely manner (and then follow the signs pointing to the Reina Sofia.)

Nevertheless, it was good to speak with other Americans. I miss people from my country, and I like taking the time to chat with them before we move on our separate ways. One of them was from San Francisco and was studying in San Diego, so we bonded momentarily over the fact we had lived in California. Anyway, they were soon off on the Metro, and I was soon on the Metro too, although we ended up going separate ways. Goodbye, American acquaintances.

I went on my merry way, taking another 45 minutes to get home. There's a metro strike in Madrid, and only half the number of trains are running. Which means yet again, longer on the trains.

Whoo.

No tapas for you.