Never forget

Everybody told me it was a sure thing. I was crazy not to think I'd be accepted. I had just returned from Mexico--my self-given, and, accepted graduation present... To say the least, I was on cloud 9...septimo cielo. I arrived home late with my dad from the airport...everyone else was asleep. Like the maidenly father Ed is, he offered to make me something to eat. (Which, now, appears to be one of the finest luxuries life has to offer. Even as a 21-year-old college graduate, my father still picked me up from the airport and made his little girl a midnight snack). Life in Mexico for 5 days without technology was both a gift and a burden. Therefore, on the web I went. I had a message...from CIEE. "Update about your Teach in Spain application."

Holy shit...this. is. IT. 

Tiny earthquakes shot through the nerve-endings in my fingers. I eagerly hesitated, but the suspense was too much too endure any longer...

"Dear Courtney,

Congr---"

And that was all she wrote. I nearly collapsed from euphoric suffocation. I was confused..my brain didn't know whether to cry, run naked in proclamation down the street, or to smile satisfactorily to myself in my reflection on the computer screen. Following suit of my childhood ways, I ran into the kitchen exulting what I could not verbalize with what can only be described as squealing, celebratory, 5-year old, ijustrodemyfirstpony jumps.

"I'm doing it! I got accepted! I'm going to Spain!!!"

....

That was 9 months ago. If I had ever had the privilege to have studied abroad during college, I would've been back home by now... I would've stopped when I had just began. I have a life here...People keep asking me how I know Spanish so well...they are convinced i studied it in college. And I look at them puzzlingly.. "I don't," I consistently respond. But, once it becomes a daily affirmation from those who have known me since day one to the pharmacist (Who told me on Monday, the words travelled through her warm tunnel of a smile " Your Spanish is much better than the first time we met...your pronunciation has improved greatly." The lady next to me chimed in to comment on how difficult it is to learn Spanish here in Andalucia, to which I quickly responded with, at least I understand it, rather than living in Madrid where I would easily be able to understand everything), you start thinking to yourself, "Am I really doing it?!"

These little pieces of my life are building a mountain in my soul. Our life is this strangely arranged mountain range. Each mountain represents a different experience--the climb, the revelation, and the reflection. My mountains are lush. They have been built on seeds of intrinsic motivation that I was so fortunate to receive as an innate gift. There are so many that never get to travel, and, on the other hand, there are those that travel with unconscious frequency. But, what makes my lone travel mountain so abundant in growth is the appreciation for its existence. Nature is a miracle. Technology is a gift. Nature was here long before I could express nature as a metaphor using a stone tablet, quill and ink, ballpoint pen, typeface, and today, touch-screen. Those things that surpass our beings--that make us feel infinitely small, yet, so immensely ourselves at the same time--originate in the origin of time...in what makes us all human...language, expression, face-to-face contact. Otherwise, your mountains are constructed from 0's and 1's in an alter-universe whose growth, experience, and reflection leaves you without the impressed memory that lives within you, the places you go, the people you meet, and the experiences you have.

g.e.t.

Dear Grandma,

The weight of language, endless conversation, and nightly outings has left me quite tired lately. I have been exploring the life of the pueblo... Which, roughly translated, means, I have been inviting myself places so I can have friends here. It's an interesting concept... living in a place for nine months...entering someone's life and expecting, or seeking, rather, friendship for a set period of time. In addition, take into consideration the flow of the conversation...you speak like a foreigner, you act like a foreigner, and half the time you are either pretending to understand or you are tirelessly repeating the phrase, "como se dice."

The last two weeks have consisted of late nights with friends, lots of drinks, long, lazy Saturday afternoon lunches of recuperation and language immersion (laced with the muddled smell of a hangover), and lots of love. Sunday...we continue in the same manner--lots of food, family, but, less alcohol, because the next day, I have to pretend I can function normally.

I have been living in the pueblo a little over 2 months now. But, I feel like my life here is just beginning. I don't feel like I'm at summer camp anymore...However, I don't think until my language is more understandable will I be able to feel like I am not a complete outsider. It's very easy to leave the pueblo on the weekends, because, in reality, if I'm not with a family eating on the weekends, there is absolutely nothing to do in the pueblo--no stores, no movie theaters, and all the young people here have boyfriends and families of their own. It leaves you with two choices---be annoying and invite yourself (as ever graciously as you can) into their home or leave to explore Europe. I don't think there is a right or a wrong way to doing this...it's like everything else in life--a learning experience.

But, I'm never scared...I am just still adapting. How can this all be happening? I am ever so conscious of not considering my end date here as definitive...I prefer to think of it as just another possibility...I guess I am so used to being asked as to my direction in life, I am still not accustomed to living in a bubble of ignorance and confusion. I don't know when it will come if ever...All I know is that the grace I experience everyday in the 25 person-large hugs I receive from my first graders, the smiles I receive from my co-workers, and the instantly warm hospitality I experience with the families that live here, I have done something right in my life to deserve this. I am not sure that I will ever be able to reciprocate what they have given me...but, I hope that my presence in their life can be as half as important as theirs is to me.

Un besito.


Mexico-The Staves