22 Moments I Rolled With It

[Exhibit I: being forced to use your Adidas tube socks as mittens because you've climbed a small mountain and arrived 70 minutes early for sunset]

I've been in Spain for 15 weeks, and now, to close out 2022, I'm home for a little bit.

Being back on U.S. turf for so brief a moment is a little disorienting, but also wonderful, as I suppose many true expats find. I feel like I've grown in a half a million ways and that I've been away nearly a hundred weeks, but then just ten or fifteen minutes. In some ways, I feel like I've developed these two totally separate lives, and in others, I feel like the "Spain life" is just a sensible branch sprouting out from the same trunk still rooted in the very same solid place. There is routine and continuity now. My day job may be teaching, but in that scheduled sameness, my mental night shift's got my curious little brain sprinting around a dream track taking furious notes, highlighting, absorbing. Learning. And I feel like a thousand things have happened.

To celebrate the end of this singularity of a year, here's just 22 that I kind of can't believe but never want to forget occurred. These are moments when I learned to let go and just roll with it (like a wine barrel, in a thoughtful and intentional way, of course. #LaRioja) and absorb whatever I was supposed to learn:

1. Dislocating my elbow while dramatically testing that my wingspan was, in fact, as wide as a very narrow street in Seville. It was locked into a 120-degree angle for nearly 48 hours. Thankfully, a dislocated elbow is far less problematic while traveling than you would think, especially once you've purchased a sling and numbing agent. It's surely less problematic to dislocate than would be almost any other part of your body. (I am being 100% truthful when I tell you that it popped mostly back into place when I was out dancing the second night).

2. Living in (*dragging 3 suitcases in 90-degree heat between) 3 separate apartments.

3. Getting COVID. I called the doctor because my ear was really aching, and he told me to take a COVID test before coming in to see him. I laughed. And then I took two tests that were both immediately "positive." As far as I know, this is the first time I've had it! It was pretty mild.

4. Going to Africa (Morocco)...a bit after confirming I was testing negative for COVID. Was not about to cancel this trip. Weekend of a lifetime, even masked. Surreal. The constant influx of mint tea surely helped expedite the final stages of my recovery, and I was back in class on Monday.

5. Staying out until 6AM on a Saturday night. I said I would do it. I stick to my promises. It took me until mid-December, but I DID IT. (And am still suffering the consequences).

6. Joining a Spanish running club (and then decided it was far too cold and dark and had to take a rain check until the Spring. Beer Runners, we'll be back. For now we are just your Beer Fans).

7. Enjoying a French croissant inside a pilgrim's cave outside a rural winery. There was nowhere else to sit!

8. Realizing I am picking up some Spanish slang and colloquialisms, like how I say "sí", a bit of a lisp, and the constant "vale"s and "¿qué tal?"s. I think I am learning how to use vosotros! And...learning that "ugh" is "buah" and that in Spanish a rooster says "kikirikí" (kee-keeree-KEE) (though some say it is koo-koodoo-koodoo).

9. Accepting an invitation to breakfast with our taxi driver in Galicia at 6:15AM at the earliest-to-open cafe in Vigo, because he was on his way to get one before starting his day when we found him on the street. (Thanks, Laureano, for the breakfast)!

10. Missing our bus back to Logroño and ending up riding back from Madrid in a very small sports car in under three hours with a professionally trained driver and motorcyclist (BlaBlaCar. You really NEVER know).

11. Starring as All of The Animals in a play about the Five Senses at the Circus for my 1st grade students, alongside my bilingual coordinator.

12. Staying in a hostel for the first time (I know, I'm late to the game).

13. Getting a library card at the La Rioja Library so I could use its WiFi and study one Sunday (I promise I will go back).

14. Getting a Club Jóven member card at my nearest Carrefour (Carre Carre Carre Carre Carre...Carrefooooour). I save about 0.14 euros every time I shop!!!

15. Saying yes to eating one fish eyeball.

16. La fiesta AT SCHOOL until 4AM with my teachers (they are wild in the best way, and I love them).

17. Attending a "language exchange group."

18. Becoming a bit of a fútbol fan who drops everything to watch the game at a neighborhood bar on school nights.

19. Teaching a yoga class to my 2nd graders that was disguised as a lesson on parts of the body (though this was actually one of my most effective lesson plans to date).

20. Eating homemade arepas, and then Cincinnati chili, at two very fabulous dinner parties. These count as a rolling-with-it moments because before the arepas I'd lost a contact and gotten drenched running in the rain with aforementioned running group which caused me to arrive extremely late, and I tried to bring brownies baked in the microwave to the chili dinner... I am Betty Crocker.

21. Throwing together an American Thanksgiving harvest-y salad, Christmas Rice Krispies Treats, and "Gingerbread" cookie decorating at various points in the last month or so with very limited pooled ingredients.

22. Delivering nearly 100 handwritten letters to Santa to the mailbox to send off to the North Pole; some of the students were allowed to use the end of their class period to make the pilgrimage down the street with me and drop in the letters themselves, one by one (*bursts).

[Exhibit II: arriving to teacher Christmas party and seeing they did not spare you from being made into an elf]

These moments add up to equal so much laughter. I had stored it up for so many serious years and I think it has exploded out of me like a tidal wave of joy. Nevertheless, the best part is, I am not laughing alone. This is my thank you to everyone who has loved and laughed with me this year. There is nothing I have experienced before quite like opening a classroom door and finding oneself on the receiving end of 25 grinning bear hugs, like being told by a discerning seven-year-old that, "I like learning English with you. You actually do actividades superchulos," like learning how to take that immense amount of leftover love and pour it into greater resilience, gentler humility, and some of the deepest friendships one has ever found. I am so grateful for this and for you all. Sabéis quien sois. You know who you are. Thank you for reading and telling me how to grow and improve. It's the best gift you could give me.

“Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is no continuity there is no growth.”

- C.S. Lewis, from the essay "Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem" in Selected Literary Essays.

There are so many good punny quotes about rolling, but I refuse to spotlight any of them here. Instead, just agree to keep rolling in 2023, to both continuing along and changing (to growing!). And do make sure I give you a hug next time I see you in roll life. (wink)

Con amor & missing Logroño,