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Saturday, January 31, 2004 Yesterday: Friday, Madrid feeling a bit loose, as if everyone were more than ready for the weekend, despite gray skies and spritzing rain. Went to Spanish class, discovered that the other two aspiring Spanish speakers had played hooky, leaving me -- Mr. Boring, Mr. Consistent, Mr. Possibly-A-Bit-Too-Serious-About-The-Studying-Thing -- the only student. Class becoming a 90-minute private lesson. (Woo-hoo!) After which I drifted back out into the city in post-workweek mode, streets and sidewalks crowded with people of all ages -- older couples out walking, teens and 20-somethings about in chattering groups, middle-aged folk window shopping or slipping in and out of restaurants and tapas joints, often accompanied by youngsters. Lots to watch, lots to eavesdrop on. January is a month of sales here, virtually every shop window in the city bearing loud, colorful signs ("Oferta! Oferta!"), billboards and banners also pushing the theme -- a continuation of the Christmas season consumer party, with the kind of energy and atmosphere that makes it feel like a national sport. Halfway through the month, I began slowly getting into the spirit, picking up a couple of household items -- necessary, practical, yet good excuses to splurge. Then two days back, during my first day of relative freedom after a nearly week-long forced march, I picked up a pair of shoes that caught my restless eye. Black leather buggers of a strangely plyometric design ("Jimmy's down!"), promoting foot stability, yet inexplicably, intriguingly attractive. Heavy on comfort, yet just weird-looking enough to get me feeling insufferably cutting-edge. This morning: pulled on the new footwear, headed out into the inclement weather. Errands, newspaper, a cup of espresso. A quick turn around a photography exhibit. Stopped in at a local joint for another cup of espresso -- tasty enough that I wound up staying to eat. And as I'm working on the first course, the waiter stops by to drop off a plate of bread, me getting a whiff of a strange, masculine odor. Not sweat, not the reek of someone unwashed -- a scent some men have that is specifically, unmistakably male. Not a smell I find particularly attractive, not a smell I would care to wake up to. But a distinctive odor that brings me back to childhood every time I experience it. A smell that reminds me of my father, provoking all the mixed emotions involved in that. Considering how cardinal a figure he was in the family structure, I have surprisingly few memories of interactions with him. A remote, distant guy, not the happiest of men during my earliest years, though a well-developed sense of humor compensated some for that. Bright, capable, with a great laugh -- probably an interesting person, but not given to expressions of affection or heart-to-heart talks. Which led me, in unconscious brilliance, to seek out the one moment in his day when I could worm my way into his company and connect before he'd pulled on the habitual armor of distance and vagueness. That meant getting up early and joining him in the bathroom as he shaved. I don't remember deep conversations or high spirits. What I remember is a slightly more relaxed father figure, one who engaged in a bit more chat, who would, after he'd slapped on his after-shave (Mennen Skin Bracer -- no aspirations to high style or sophisticated tastes in our lower middle-class household), put a bit more of it on his hands, gently slap it onto both my cheeks -- his smile warmer, his pleasure in the moment more genuine, more visible than at any other time during the day. At least in relation to me. For a few meditative moments, my body sat at a table here in Madrid in a small restaurant on la Calle de Fuencarral, shoppers streaming past the windows out in the rain-slicked street, while my thoughts drifted back in time to a place thousands of miles away. When I came to, the restaurant was filling up with people looking for food, coffee, glasses of beer. A woman stood at the one-armed bandit behind me, the machine producing sampled bits of music and assorted noises as she worked it. The earlier peace had given way to lively racket, and I began feeling the pull to get home, make some phone calls, crank up the computer and write all this down. Lunch: my own personal wayback machine. It's coming up on 4 p.m. now. The streets are oddly quiet for a Saturday afternoon in this neighborhood, the normal street life muted by rain. That'll change as the evening hours draw near. Meanwhile, before you go you might want to check out this example of a trend we probably shouldn't emulate. Later. rws 6:26 AM [+] |