50 Days ‘til 50: Day 42 - Spanish Lessons - Part 6

Spanish LessonsChapter #6 (revised and update 2019)Back in Sitges now for what Jeff and I realized is our 6th trip here in the almost 10 years we’ve been together. We obviously like it. In fact we love it. Our friends always ask us “Why don’t you try someplace new?” We always say the same thing. Because it feels like home here. The living is easy. The pace is slow without being completely dead. Our gay brothers are also everywhere in this town. Jeff calls it Palm Springs by the sea. Inevitably we run into someone from the Coachella Valley. The prices also reflect this popularity. Contemplating a small apartment 10 years ago for a mere 60K, (you know that feeling you get when you travel anywhere new and different and after two weeks start cruising the real estate ads and job market). This year that same apartment is going for 325K. So our quiet little beach town isn’t so much anymore. But we still love it. What’s not to love about being able to walk a few blocks to the ocean and taking a dip in the ocean whether at 8 am or 10 pm? And lastly and maybe most importantly are the people. They are as friendly as they can be dealing with whatever life stuff they are dealing with and having to deal with the massive crowds that pour into this town like sangria from the pitcher. We already live in a resort town, Palm Springs, so maybe we are a bit more empathetic to their rolled eyes when someone asks them where the bathroom is or what the Wifi password is.It takes me a few days of being here to remember all that. I forget my excitement of being on vacation is not shared by them. Spain’s economy is still tough for them right now. To walk out of a store with an 8 gallon bottle of filtered water realizing you just paid the equivalent of 75 cents. Or when a delicious dinner with plenty of food, waters, wine for Jeff and coffees cost just $30 it’s a reality that we are definitely not in the US anymore.In my ongoing battle with being that kid with the nut allergy my entire life, our goal is to say the right phrase akin to “I have an allergy to all nuts.” This year we needed to learn the phrase in Dutch, German, and now in Spanish. Our first year here I was so proud of myself that I knew how to say the phrase. Thanks to Google translate I blurted out proudly at our first meal out, “I’m allergic to nuts.” After a few laughs from the employees and finding someone to translate to me that in fact what I had said was I was allergic to nuts.As in “Nuts and Bolts.”I guess that’s helpful if you’re eating in a mechanics shop or if you need to have your flat tire changed ( by someone else), otherwise my pride and my confidence was reduced to, well, basically a pile of nuts and bolts.As we dined last night in a place we go back to each year because the food is just so damn good, I had that server who lets just say needed her own vacation, and neeeed it now. All my charms, the smiles, the speaking to her in Spanish and my now fluent ability to tell them about my nut allergy were to no avail. She just wouldn’t budge. No smile, forgetting everything we asked for and we truly thought she might even spit in our food.But in a surprise twist toward the middle of service as the plates came flying out of the kitchen to our table with one dish having pumpkin seeds on it (which are totally fine for me to ingest), she leaned in and said to me,“I’m a really angry woman but I really do care about you not dying in our restaurant.”All was forgiven in that moment. And we wrote it off as just a Spanish thing.The French call is Joie de Vivre. I'm not sure what the Spainards call it or what’s it’s called in Germany or The Netherlands. Whatever it is it's pretty addicting. It's an atttitude wrapped in "nothing is that important and will be attended to whenever it's attended to. Something is Westerners still need to learn how to pull off. I watched a stranger on our train from Amsterdam to Berlin reach out her maternal hand to a solo traveler nervously fumbling for his train pass and checking his documents for his arrival into Berlin. She told him in her broken English "be sure to be careful always, but most of all smile, we are a friendly people." Spain’s people are like that. Once engaged with them it's a passionate place and they are passionate people. They will make you as comfortable as possible. The passion is what I find so attractive. The waving of the hands as they speak, the hugs between both sexes to each other, and the deep guttural accent that if you don’t think is at all sexy, maybe have your testosterone levels checked. And the universally practiced theme of as long as you say please and thank you, you will go far.After arriving here in Sitges, the first few days are always the same. Getting my bearings, finding the perfect coffee shop, not caring that I'm the whitest body at the beach, and not reaching for my phone every five seconds (this becomes my true barometer of relaxation in this day and age and as my partner calls it "completely disconnecting.") I continue to struggle with this but it is about progress not perfection I believe.Here are a few other lessons I’ve learned here in Spain:The only thing you bring to the beach is a sarong and a smileA quad shot of espresso is still a lost in translation item. The winning word or phrase is so simple. A doble doble ( a double double. 2+2 = 4. So easy)If you think you have a little bit of a tan when you get here you don't.If you try and speak Spanish they know you’re not Spanish in a second. They will smile and probably say something snarky to you after you turn your back.Eggs are not in a sturdy carton meaning they flip out onto the floor when you hold the end of the container. 3 second rule still appliesNo bathing suit in the world fits anyone properly. Which is probably why nudity is a popular.Dinner is never before 9 pm and waking up is never before 9 am.And Justin Bieber actually sounds good on the headphones here.I love being somewhere new, different, exhilarating, unfamiliar. I always have. This world and the people in it are fascinating and we all have stories to tell. Just like we do. Yet somewhere in my search to find things that challenge me into further opening my mind, or obsessing over the differences in all of us, slipping into what I think I should be, I'm returned in the end to the realization that we are all the same. When you scrape away all the stuff, all the distractions of life, we are fundamentally the same.Yes some are louder, ruder, bigger, smaller, more tan, LESS tan, more muscles, whiter teeth. Some can't stop talking about themselves, some are more maternal in their need to make sure everything and everyone is ok. Some are more athletic, some are better cooks, some can recite Proust, some can recite the stock market, some are more artistic and some are just downright glum. I've strived and struggled my whole life to be myself in all areas of my life not listening to all the chatter rattling about in my head. As a dear friend begged me once at the way to immature age of 23, "Josh, when are you going to get real?" It's to have been a lifelong battle. Trying not to compare myself to others but to relate. Not to dream of what I don't have but to be grateful for what I do, wishing to knock someone's head off but walking away instead, not to hate but to love.I suppose like anything in life's journey when you have that ah-ha moment where you realize that it's all ok, that all is as it is, and that it's really ok just to be where, who, and what we are. For its in these moments I get to be the real me. Without judgement, without feeling lack or feeling less than or better than. Being naked on a beach also helps. For in those sometimes fleeting moments of complete and utter acceptance of myself and all those around me as being exactly as it's supposed to be. I'm pretty convinced this is what's referred to as heaven on earth. For I think even the most masochistic and sadistic among us to their very core at day's end want a shoulder to cry on or a hug to make it all better. Don't they?Lying on the beach now for the 4th day in utter oblivion I start up a conversation with the man laying on his towel next to me. To be honest we caught each other staring at one of those cuter, tanner, taller, whiter toothed guys. We laughed about it and then most randomly over the next five minutes discovered we have more in common than we don't and in a few short minutes I felt so much a part of, rather than separate from. I will probably never see this man again but for those brief moments we shared with each other about each other and any feelings of separateness I may have been feeling just vanished just like the man sitting next to me just did.As I see a man in front of me now holding his towel and looking lost and alone I'm wondering if it's now my turn to go up to him and say hello?I think I will.......Adios. ❤️❤️jf