This originally started out as a letter to my family. It then became a diving board into updates of my life in town, wandered into life ponderings, and finally ends of course, with birth control. It goes like this:
Hey family!!! I love you.
This upcoming week is my last in Bollullos and I’m trying to tie up tons of loose ends. It’s kind of strange to try to be completely present with the friends and coworkers and students that I value so much, while at the same time knowing that I may never see them again. And while I know at “home,” I’m getting rid of all my extra clothes, trying to eat up or give away all my extra food, cleaning, and packing because I know I’m leaving.
It’s funny, I leave places all the time…. I left MA during high school to go to CA for the summer, then left CA in the fall to return to MA. I graduated high school, had to pack up after every year of college, said goodbye to Buenos Aires after studying abroad 6 months there, was in Sonoma for a year, now I’m leaving here, and soon I’ll be in Barcelona, only to leave for India….
And despite all my practice, I think leaving never gets easier. In fact, this time I’ve been quite given to sentimentalism and nostalgia, thinking: “this is one of the last times I’ll see Cafe Villa Sol from my window while eating breakfast, with all the parents hugging and kissing little kids and laughing or talking in their brusk, back-country Bollulos way, or seeing the different paces of crowds of old people on benches and spry, young kids running around kicking balls, gathering in their squeaky groups, and playing with monkey dolls. I left art class for the last time, after telling the teacher he was the best art teacher I’d ever had, and telling everyone that this was the most open community and the most comfortable, homey time during my each week. And as I left I started to cry. I made it out of the classroom though and only started to tear up as I walked away.
So that’s the story. I’ve analyzed nostalgia and wistfulness and have decided that it’s the idea of being sad that you won’t see things or people anymore. It’s missing good times. But it’s deep root is humans’ fear of change. I know I’m going off to something that will be just as good, so why should I be attached to this specific type of Bollullos good? I’ll have just as nice of a piso, if not better, I’ll have (hahah, HOPEFULLY, if they don’t decide to get rid of me altogether because it’s too complicated with my papers!) just as nice of a job, if not a bit better. And I’ll be able to visit my family in NJ and MA and maybe go back to CA and see the step fam and THE PUPSSS!!!!!! And I knew that I wouldn’t see my students again anyway, and that’s fine because teachers always have students and then the students always leave and grow up every year. And in life, things always shift. One does not attend an art class indefinitely, and the faces in the class and the vibe always changes slightly anway. So what’s the point of telling yourself that this is the last time you’ll see/ feel these things? OF COURSE it’s the last time! Every time’s the last time…and the first. Because every time you go to teach a class or hang out with a friend or even listen to a song, you always come to it in a different mood. So nothing’s ever permanent or recurs the same way as it did before.
I’ve realized what I really like about traveling the way I do–about traveling in order to stay in a place, get into a routine, see faces, make friends, make some kind of mark in people’s memories and have them leave marks in mine–is the same reason people like routines. Instead of constantly being faced with the idea of this being the last (and first) time they’ll do something, they get some illusion of lastingness. Maybe it’s like beating death for a while? Embedding yourself in the day-to-day and then not having to look back and reflect all the time about the unbearable lightness of being. Another thing about traveling to form a routine is because you put less pressure on your life; after all, if a class you taught didn’t go well today, you always have tomorrow. It’s like having a daily yoga practice. It’s okay if today was SPECTACULAR and it’s okay if it was so bad it made you cry or if it was generally just okay or boring, because if you have to step back and “judge,” you’re not judging your one crappy day but rather the practice in itself to see if it’s progressing in some direction you want it to. Takes the pressure out of living, ya know?
But anyway, enough deep ponderings on the nature of routine. I’m changing mine; it’s that simple. And there’s one thing that’s not affected by my changing of routine, by my moving from place to place around the world. And that’s the wistfulness I have for my family (and pets).
I really miss you guys!!
Living in this sweet town has made me strart to understand what families are, after having spent years at college learning what families aren’t–un-thought-out, fleeting attractions between genders, young people with mostly the same goals like getting good grades, earning friends and earning significant others. And because everyone’s the same age, they are either in some way in competition with each other (for grades/social standing) or being baffled at life in the same way together because everyone’s at the same stage and can’t really teach the other too much yet, etc… That’s what family isn’t.
Another thing that family isn’t: having relationships with friends, students, coworkers, and random old people in town. Having caring, rewarding relationships with older and younger people makes you realize also that there’s a familialness to working in a group and to helping others. People who are older help others. They just do, because they’ve kind of been there. They’ve been broke just leaving college, they’ve been confused about what to “do” with their lives, they’ve been single and unmarried. And sometimes all they can do is offer their support and loyalty, even if you haven’t earned it like you’d have to with friends in college. Let’s face it, I’m super helpful everyday with people who act like seven year olds, interrupting me, coming up to the front of the room where I’m giving a presentation and telling me they have to go the bathroom even though they’re really just bored and want a break from the presentation, and people who still go home and wet the bed and have screechingly loud, high-pitched voices and can fit no life lessons into compact, logical verbal packages that will then make me a better person. In college I would have never chosen to help or be friends with someone like that. But I do it every day here, and really quite enjoy it. I help people. I give them things and information they’ll need to be successful without asking them any thing tit-for-tat style in return. (Yes, I get paid, I suppose that’s the tat for my tit!) But I do it with students outside of class or with old people crossing the street or having a rough time moving their luggage off the steps of the train.
From having lived in Bollullos, I’ve realized the differences in age/capability that leads one to help another without this other having “earned” it…is FAMILIIAL.
It’s also very different, because there appears to be something more that family offers: a routine. A long history of the subtle ease of their loyalty! Yes, they’re there and they’ll hang out with you or help you (in your siblings’ case, if you can convince them). And there’s this unquestioning care/affection that your family has for you that you didn’t earn, and rather has built up over years of having NO CHOICE but to be near you and take care of you even if they were tired after a long few weeks at work or you were annoying them or genuinely, malevolently, hurtfully mad at them.
What a crazy thing for the human race, this love thing! It makes groups close and gives them a “together” feeling; makes people feel inclined to altruistically help each other; and imagine this: you too can build it yourself if you fall in love and aren’t careful with your birth control! Amazing.