Sanibel Scribbles

by Christine Lemmon

  Suddenly, as if she had finished listening to a motivational tape, or watching a year’s worth of Oprah, she felt ambition joining forces with desire deep within herself and knew she had to turn those pictures on her ceiling into words that could be used in the kitchen with Rosario, in the city streets below, and in the classroom. She closed her eyes and made the decision to advance her language quickly. Yes, now it was time to learn. She would have to act quickly since she only had one semester, so she started by making it her goal to learn from Rosario in the kitchen each morning.

  The señora poured warm milk into a mug and placed a roll of flat cookies on a plate next to a jar of marmalade. She never sat down with Vicki but instead wiped counters, scrubbed the floors, and poured more milk each time it got low. As the American woman nibbled on galletas and complimented Rosario on the marmalade every other bite, the Spanish woman poured out her life and boldly shared her opinions on everything.

  Though barely understanding one another’s native words, the women communicated. Vicki grew empathetic as Rosario’s eyes saddened. She felt homesickness as Rosario’s voice lowered. She felt anger as Rosario’s hand wildly flailed in dramatic gestures, and she felt frustrated as Rosario wiped her dirty hands on her apron and closed her eyes in silence.

  Vicki now appreciated the significance of the family tree exercise they once did in one of her Spanish classes as Rosario told her how she missed her aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, nephews, nieces, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, great-uncles, great-aunts, second cousins - all living in Pamplona. She shared how her husband loved food so much that his stomach had grown bigger by the day, and how she worried about his ever-growing estomago. She mentioned how her life consisted of nothing but cooking and cleaning, and how the collapse of the Franco Regime had accelerated a social/sexual revolution in her country and how, along with the downfall of Franco, came a downfall of morals. The señora liked the fact that birth control, abortion, divorce, homosexuality, and adultery were all illegal under Franco. Now, la gente do all of these things—littered the streets, picked public flowers, skipped church, and sunbathed nude along the coastal beaches. She shook her head in a tempered disbelief as she spoke.

  Was Rosario saying she missed Francisco Franco? A man who ruled the country with an iron fist for forty years? Vicki spread pear-flavored marmalade on another cookie and sipped her warm milk.

  The mornings came and went as quickly as the marmalade in the jar disappeared, and the two women continued communicating in a way that demanded more than simply traditional talking and listening. It required a keen observation of tones, hand gestures, facial expressions, and body language. Vicki understood her señora well over morning breakfasts.

  During the christening of a new jar of plum marmalade one morning, she slowly asked Rosario what she feared most in life.

  “Nada. No tengo ningun miedo,” replied the woman as she hit the jar against the counter to loosen the lid.

  “You must fear something. Everyone fears something,” said Vicki.

  “Fear no, anger yes, si, si. If fears won’t go away, get angry at them. Drive them away because fears are the enemies!” shouted the Roman Catholic and believer in Christ.

  “Do you ever fear or get angry at death?”

  “No. Only those without God, without a plan for salvation, should fear death. Then and only then, it should be their biggest fear in life.”

  “Despite your faith in God, do you ever personally find yourself fearing death?” Vicki spread marmalade onto a cookie and took a bite.

  “Only when my children were young. I feared that death might take me and leave them motherless,” she answered. “El muerto should hold no terrors because it is only the beginning of eternal life with God.”

  “What would you say to someone who feared death?”

  “Pray,” she replied, then gave the sign of the cross and blew a kiss up to the ceiling.

  Vicki missed the mornings with Rosario, but her next two weeks were spent sightseeing throughout Spain with a group of other American students from various Midwest colleges. The foreign studies program grouped them together initially to minimize culture shock and develop English-speaking contacts, should they be needed through the semestre.

  Together they toured El Museo Del Prado and El Palacio Real. They drank pitchers of sangria and ate tapas in masones. They climbed to the top of the Roman aqueducts in Segovia and walked the Alcazon castle where Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand gave Christopher Columbus permission to go to the New World. It also claimed to be the castle that Walt Disney modeled his castle after. Their last few dias together were spent in and around Cantabria, a town lying along the Bay of Biscay, better known as El Mar Cantabrio. There they hiked the Picos de Europas—mountains in Northern Spain that rose to almost nine thousand feet—ate in exquisite restaurants, slept in bed-and-breakfasts and savored life.

  Dear Grandma,

  A mural of heaven! Someday, my dream is to own property in Los Picos de Europa, and on that property I’d like a Spanish-style inn. I can’t take such magnificent nature for granted. As our bus trudged up the winding mountains, wild bulls crossed the dirt road in front of us. Let me tell you, bulls do have the right of way in Spain, and they can take as long as they like.

  I also spotted a tiny, solitary fisherman standing on a stretch of sand at the foot of the immense weather-beaten cliff. I wonder what his catch options are in water like that. Tarpon? Shark? Whales? I’d love to go fishing with him. I hear those waters host the finest seafood in the world. Then again, I heard it from a boastful little old Spaniard who was chopping wood. These people are proud of what they have and of their magnificent country.

  Hiking through the mountains was treacherous, and we got dizzy, but I felt like it was the highest and closest I’ve ever stood to Heaven. It began pouring, and I fell a distance, cutting my knee, but I still felt an exhilarating high. I felt in tune with God and His beauty, His art.

  Then we stopped at the bottom of a waterfall. I stood to the side and put my hands in the crashing water. Its temperature pierced through me. It was then I realized there are several levels at which we can participate in life. So, despite the group looking at me as if I were just released from a mental asylum, I quickly pulled my shoes and socks off and started to wade in the icy pool. I then chose to hold my head under the falling water. But then, I decided to go one step further and walked under the waterfall, not minding that my clothes were also getting drenched.

  Unfortunately, I slipped on a rock and fell like a child in the tub. I must not have looked hurt because within seconds, shoes, and socks were flying everywhere and the entire group joined me. Thankfully, the path led us to a sunny spot so we could dry ourselves off and tame our goose bumps.

  I don’t want to return to Madrid. It’s a busy city! It’s too much of a culture shock after the island. Maybe I’m in that purgatory stage, lingering between two comfort zones. Will I ever love Spain as much as I loved the island?

  Anyway, I took photos of my seafood soup at night. In it were foreign-looking shells, far different from the shells of Sanibel Island.

  P.S. How does it feel, Grandma, being cast back to your Maker? He loves you so much that he took you back!

  After spending the night in a quaint valley inn situated in the mountains of Spain, Vicki dreaded leaving the next morning. She longed for more time to walk with the roosters of the country and to talk to the old, toothless, parch-faced farmers chopping wood in their backyards. The natives of the valley had an ignorance that tasted as pleasantly pure as honey from a hive. She wanted to sit in the geranium- and laundry-filled porches of the little inn and write letters to Grandma. She liked the cold, wet valley air that cleansed her pores. It reminded her for a moment of Michigan’s chill. About this time of year the crispy leaves would start to fall, delicately covering the ground over Rebecca’s grave site.

  The tour bus left, and the group spent the next three nights at a luxurious three-star hotel in a
city called Llanes. There they drank sangria and cedra and ate fried squid and tapas under the moon overlooking the sea. They swam the icy waves of the Mar Cantabrio. Vicki and other Americans lay down on their backs in the sand near the shore and let the waves rush over their bodies, stealing their breath away. They danced way past midnight at flashy discotecas. They lived a lot and slept little.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  BACK IN MADRID, THE city felt cold, crowded, and dirty compared to the Spanish countryside, but Vicki knew it would only be a matter of time before she found that one special place—Sanibel Island’s Lighthouse Beach, Tarpon Key’s old dock and houseboat, or its rustic bar. It might be a challenge finding it in a metropolitan city, but she felt determined. She would eventually discover a place to think, to dwell, to escape, just as Simon had said she would. Such secret places made time go by more slowly and new places became a little more comfortable.

  Rosario had two such places in life, the apartment and the church on the corner. She made daily stops at the meat market and bread shop but spent most of her time in the apartment or at mass.

  The day before classes began, Vicki had mailed a letter to Ignacio Guillermo. She kept it brief, simply stating that she had met a friend of his family’s while on a little island off the coast of Florida. His name was Howard. She included her Spanish family’s phone number and suggested he call to arrange a time and place to meet.

  Dear Grandma,

  I especially feel drawn to the Prado Museum and the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia National Museum. I will return often. A museum has stories to tell. Every painting, every piece of art represents a story. When I first stood outside the glass showcase of Picasso’s final “La Guernica” at the museum, I could almost hear the voices of crying mothers with dead babies, soldiers screaming in pain, and dying horses. The twelve-foot-high, twenty-six-foot-long canvas shares a gruesome, destructive story of the Spanish Civil War.

  Then the Spanish tour guide explained the symbolism behind it. The open mouths signal that the person is alive while the closed mouths mean the person is dead. The toro represents the country of Spain and hope for overcoming Fascism, while the arm holding the light points out the hope for Spain. The picture itself depicts the saturation bombing of a Basque village by German planes. I took a photograph of “La Guernica,” and I don’t think I was supposed to do that. As the guard came running, I hid my camera under my shirt and took off.

  And Palacio Real! What a great place to hold a wedding. But since the eighteenth century, its sole purpose has been to hold receptions for royal families and ambassadors. A few Spaniards asked me why there isn’t royalty in the United States. I told them there are. We call them “celebrities,” and they live in Hollywood.

  Then they asked me about American castles. Well, mansions don’t compete, so instead I told them we do have castles, but we call them “lighthouses.”

  As for culture shock? Well, I’ve grown up near Midwest cornfields and streets lined with tulips, and I’ve never taken a subway before. Now, I have to take a subway that announces the stops in Spanish. I guess I also tend to smile at everyone who walks past me in the city. Our tour guide noticed and told me not to be so friendly, that it could be “peligroso.” It seems a bitterly cold thing to do, but I guess I’ll smile less.

  I’m also homesick and find myself quietly humming the national anthem as I walk. I guess I feel patriotic because I’m far from home, and I’m feeling like a complete foreigner. If I bumped into another American, I’d hug the person to death, simply for being an American.

  P.S. You must love living in the eternal kingdom. I can’t even imagine the peace, the glamour, the beauty, the love you must feel for the place where you dwell now. Nothing can destroy the city in which you live, Grandma. Nothing can damage its people, and nothing can tear down its walls.

  With a less than typical smile, she proceeded to walk about a mile to Madrid’s Complutense University for her first day of classes. Dressed in black pants, a red-and-black Spanish-looking button-down sweater bought in Florida, and new, black, pointy European shoes, she felt fashionably dressed to go with the rest of the Spanish culture around her. Her blond hair, with no dark roots, and her fair complexion were giveaways that she was American as she walked the downtown streets, stopping along the way for an espresso topped with milk and a thin, triangular tuna fish sandwich on white bread. She poured a little milk into the espresso, no longer desiring the amount of milk that a latte provided. As she walked, male voices called out several “rubias” to her. This meant blonde, and she knew they were only complimenting her. She looked like a Spanish soap opera star. In America, she’d glare back, but in Spain she knew men were only throwing out compliments as they shouted things at women walking by, a cultural thing. As long as they didn’t bark, or meow like a cat, she didn’t mind, so she smiled a “thank you” and continued walking, making no eye contact. If truth were known, women hated men gawking, yet if they didn’t gawk, the women secretly wondered why.

  Like the hour hand of a clock, she felt in sync with the hours of Madrid. Street life awoke at around eight in the morning, shut down for siesta from around two to four o’clock, then picked up again all afternoon and ticked well into the night. Restaurants overflowed with people between the dinner hours of nine-thirty and midnight, bars were packed by eleven-thirty, and traffic continued until three.

  Her time for education had come. As she walked under a huge stone arch in the northwestern part of the city, she could see her destination, the campus, a couple of blocks ahead. Under the fresh colors of the morning sky, the campus appeared as a scribbled-down item on her life’s list of goals. In a few minutes she’d be sitting in a classroom, officially a foreign student studying abroad. If she had a question, oh well. If she didn’t understand something, oh well. Her professors didn’t understand English. And if they did know a bit, they wouldn’t let her know. While in their country, she had to speak their language. Those were the rules. She felt scholarly, so she dipped into her book bag and took out fake spectacles she had bought back home for five dollars. She didn’t need glasses, but she liked them. They made her look studious. It’s why she had bought them. She wanted to look studious for her semester abroad.

  “Perdoname, Señorita, perdoname.”

  She heard this voice louder than the other voices on the street, and woman’s intuition told her he was talking to her. Don’t look, and definitely don’t smile, she reminded herself.

  She tried hard to act in a PMS sort of way, both glaring and ignoring the voice from behind her. She put her spectacles on, stared straight ahead, and pushed her hair behind her ears in a bold, don’t-mess-with- me manner.

  “Puedes ayudarme, por favor?” The male voice was asking her for help.

  She stopped to look in a bakery shop window but wasn’t looking at croissants. In the reflection of the window, she could see a man in a car pulled up to the curb. Rolling down his front window, he beckoned to her. Okay, he needs help. In times of potential crisis, a glance can’t hurt.

  She turned and smiled.

  “A dónde está el Calle norte?” He only needed directions to North Street.

  She took full notice of the car, a Mercedes, and of its driver leaning out the front window. When he smiled, dimples overtook his face, making him look years younger than he probably was. She did feel a bit safer knowing he drove an expensive car. In a stereotypical way, it meant he might be educated, a professional. Maybe he enjoyed the prestige of owning classy transportation, or maybe he drove long distances to work from a home in the country, a hidden getaway, and needed a well-engineered car—her imagination took over. Okay, he could have stolen it, or he could have smuggled drugs or something. Okay, you’re analyzing things way too much, she told herself. You’ve already smiled, so the damage is done.

  “Yo no hablo español.” Smart, she sarcastically told herself.

  “Porque estas aqui, en Madrid?”

  “Porque, estoy estudiando a la universid
ad de Madrid.”

  She pointed at the university campus straight ahead, feeling quite confident that she had constructed a solid sentence. Words came to mind and, one by one, they formed a complete sentence, probably not in the right conjugation, but they created a rough sentence. She felt pride, as much as one might while building a skyscraper one floor at a time, then standing below and looking up at what had been accomplished.

  In a slow, educated Spanish dialect, he said, “Un estudiante. Si, si. Pues, parlez-vous francais?”

  Did she speak French? ¡Oh, por favor! She had just spoken the most perfect español of her vida, and now this man—with hair long enough to rest on his shoulders, too short to make a ponytail but long enough to curl slightly on his sharp black sweater—wanted to know if she also spoke French. Well, they weren’t wasted moments after all, she told herself, the time spent washing her hair in the shower. She did know a little French because she spent every morning reciting and memorizing the French descriptions and “to use” instructions on the back of her hair conditioner bottles. Yes, she could speak French, as long as the conversation centered on shampoos and hair rinses. What did he use on his own brown hair? How did he slick it back to be as sexy as it looked?

  Removing her fake spectacles after they fell down her nose, she replied, “Si, la solucion demelante. Mode d’emploi. Appliquer sur les cheveux propes.”

  The man laughed, displaying once again dominating dimples, the kind that say this man is a doll, this man can only be a sweetheart, and even in times of anger he has a hard time hiding his softer side, thanks to his having dimples that large. He kept his glasses on. They were real, and he was real. He was no imposter. Those glasses belonged on his face. “Tu eres Americana,” he said.