"So long, and thanks for all the fish"

Before this week, I cried twice this semester.  This is a happy story, so don’t be put off.

The first time I cried was the first Thursday of our program.  I was jet-lagged, severely unprepared for the fact that no English is spoken in my house, and confronted with the myriad of changes that my life had undergone in a matter of hours.  It wasn’t culture shock, but just my way of adjusting.  I started crying in front of my host mom, Pilar, who I had known for forty-eight hours.  It was embarrassing but she said some beautiful things to me about life and the way to happiness.

The second time I cried was merely out of frustration on a Saturday morning when nothing was going my way.  The internet was out in my house, so I couldn’t pay my bills, work out some scholarship things, post my blog, or talk to my family—which was particularly important because my grandpa was going in for important surgery the upcoming week and the nine hour time difference between Spain and California makes talking during the week almost impossible.

Then, before I even knew it, this week came.  I could’ve cried about having five finals and two papers in four days, but that’s not the kind of stuff that makes me cry.  I could’ve cried about all the places I wanted to go in Europe but never got to—but I’m young, and I don’t have any regrets about this semester.  I could’ve cried about missing Thanksgiving with my family, but I’ll see them soon.

No, this week I’ve been sad because of the people I’m leaving behind.  We had a university farewell dinner last night, and that’s when I couldn’t help but cry.  A few of my professors have touched my life in ways I never expected.  My Spanish professor had nurtured my desire to become fluent in Spanish and embrace the Mediterranean lifestyle.  He called me cariño (affection) last night when we said goodbye, and told me that I was very smart and with a mind like mine, I’ll go far—and that having a mind like mine isn’t easy.  Well, sir, I couldn’t agree more (about having a difficult mind).  My Literature professor is my favorite professor, ever.  Under his guidance we’ve studied everything from Don Quixote to the Bible to contemporary comics that reinvent the story of Orpheus, and everything in between.  He said something about wanting to frame my final, but I think he was just in a good mood.  My Seminar professor is probably the most distinguished professor in his field I’ll ever have—pick up a modern Spanish copy of Alice and Wonderland and it’s his translation.

The hardest person to leave behind, though, is my host mom.  I have found a kindred spirit in her, a second (or third, in my case) mother who has taken care of me both physically and emotionally every day this semester.  I don’t feel ready to go home to my family, because it means leaving the one I’ve made here—and I mean that literally.  Sometimes people throw around the phrase “you’re like family to me!” and that’s not what I’m doing here.  My host mom, her family, my professors, and some friends that I’ve found here have formed a cohesive family that have helped me grow and discover what I want from this lifetime.

Going back to this restaurant tonight.

Our host moms get paid to take care of us—laundry, cooking, cleaning—and some of them treat it as nothing more than a job.  In my case, I inherited a family.  Pilar has two adult sons who each have a wife and infant.  From day one, they treated me as if I was their favorite younger cousin.  It’s been a hell of a ride and I couldn’t be more grateful to them.  I’ve just been incredibly lucky.

Holding Pilar's new grandson, Hugo.

We’re going for a farewell dinner of our own tonight, with Shane, who’s here and enjoying himself thoroughly.  I will cry again.  Saying goodbye to kindred spirits does that to me.  But I know I’ll return to Spain and see her again.  There is some comfort in the fact that when I cried the first time in Spain, it was from sadness at being here, and now I’m crying because I have to go.  It’s been an incredible semester, and I have a great week left in Italy with my friends and brother before returning to the beloved Southern California where all of you are.

I can’t wait to see you and catch up.

-Rachael

P.S. I wrote this this week and a friend liked it a lot and told me to post it online.

I had a dream that souls and heaven and everything I don’t believe in was real.

Our lives were like when you point two mirrors toward each other and the reflections go on for infinity.  Maybe there were slight distortions, but the image was always the same.  You, standing beside me, looking at me with those big brown (sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes black, sometimes amber, once even a gray shade bordering on violet) eyes.

And that’s when I knew, no matter how many fights or how long we’re separated or how mad I get when you forget to call me back—that’s when I knew.

We have been married sixteen times.  We have forged forty-six friendships between just the two of us.  In three lifetimes, we never found each other and died discontented with spouses that burned holes in our hearts like cigarettes pressed cruelly against tissue paper.  Once, I broke your heart by asking another girl to prom and you never forgave me.  Twice, you broke mine—you died of breast cancer and another time dated my identical twin.  We were platoon-mates in the Great War, and it was love at first fight—I was your best man six years later.  I met you on a New York City subway on my way to an important meeting.  I missed my stop to ask what you were reading.

We were troublemakers for a century or two.  Four lifetimes ago, you were my college professor.  Next  I was your mistress and your wife found out.  We marched in the first gay pride parade, and I held you when you found out your parents were disowning you.

So if you leave, I’ll wait right here.  Your freckles form the constellations in my dreams, and I only feel lost when I have to choose which one to wish on.  Loving you all my life?  That’s easy.  I’ve loved you all my lives.

 

I woke up, but the dream didn’t end.  We have spent centuries sleeping together, yet I never tire of waking up beside you.  Those pretty eyes, brown this time, looking at me.  Today I’ll wish on the freckle just below your collarbone.  Tomorrow, I’ll ask you to marry me for the seventeenth time and act surprised when you say yes.