Commercial. I wonder what everyone's thinking. We've changed. It's senior year, and we don't squeal so much. Five of us have spent the last semester abroad, in Germany, Japan, Seville and Florence. I was in Madrid. Here we are, nine months later, together again. Saying that the flowered dress makes her look fat.
Studying abroad is an opportunity to "discover yourself," as they say. But how do you tell people, "I've learned about myself. I'm different?" I saw the Stele of Naram-Sim in an empty alcove of the Louvre. I watched Sara Baras dance as Mariana Pineda. I walked the streets of Spain and peeled potatoes and watched (the majority of) a bullfight. I stood in the cell where Santa Teresa had her vision of Christ. I went to mass on Easter Sunday and thought the world was depressing.
We show our photos, and leave the rest unsaid. It was good, it was super guay (very cool). I had a nice summer, my classes are fine. But, perhaps, this is not as frivolous as it may seem. We're with each other. And, after all, that was the best thing about Spain-living with someone. For four months, I woke up every morning in the piso of a Spanish senora with whom I seldom spoke. But she gave me an invitation into her house, and my roommate and I became her hijas.
I always called her Senora, but her name is Amelia Negro and she is 91 years old. She has hosted American girls since her second husband died more than 20 years ago. She is a petite woman who "wobbles like a duck," as my roommate noted. She cooked for us, went to the market, sewed blouses and injected medicines into the behinds of her neighbors.
We ate lunch and late dinners with her, watching her two-channel television. At times, our two hour meals would try our patience as we listened to her tell and retell stories of her past in articulate but rapid Spanish.
She was 21 when the Spanish Civil War began, recently married with a daughter of six months. It was difficult, but she never went hungry. They always had lentils (the dead bugs would float in the boiled water) and horse meat. To buy food, she had to sell almost everything, including her hand sewn wedding dress. But, she wouldn't give up her gold wedding ring when the soldiers came. "He perdido mucho en mi vida," she said (I have lost much in my life.) But not that.
Through these talks, I began to form an image of her-a strong, rebellious woman who believed in the need to share life and didn't believe in crying. I pictured her as young, dancing, the eldest of ten children. She always gave us positive aphorisms. "Tienes que salir adelante" (You have to go forward); "Hay que ser justo" (You must be just); "Cada momento tiene encanto" (Every moment has its charm.)
The truth is, I'll forget these sayings; I may even forget her stories. But the experience of living with her was remarkable. I can still hear her on the phone, telling her daughter, Es que no se puede, estoy llena de dolores. "It's that I can't, I am full of pains." Or half-laughing, when she asked us if it's morning or night: Estoy volando en la luna. "I am flying on the moon." She never wanted to show us weakness; she didn't even like us knowing that she had slept all afternoon. But I began to understand her, just by being around.
When I went to Barcelona for the weekend, my roommate told me that the senora had missed me. She had said that I was like a mother. When I was around, she felt cared for. That may just be the best compliment of my life.
And so I look at the made-over woman on TV, and say, "Oh, she looks much better in that outfit."