I can't really explain why, but every single year I seem to forget all over again what Semana Santa (Easter Week) is like here, so that each successive one takes me by surprise. As if I suffer from a strange Easter Week mental block, as if an Easter season during my now-comfortably-distant childhood brought the kind of terrible trauma that can trigger a super-specific protective response.
Monday morning dawned quiet, tranquil, gently low-key. The kind of peaceful that comes from lack of people and traffic. The first reminder of how seriously the Spanish take the 'week' part of Easter Week. The first waves of locals fleeing the city took place over the weekend, the influx of seasonal tourists masking it -- unless one paid attention to news stories featuring highways filled with cars filled with bolting Spaniards. (I didn't.)
Sweet early spring weather. Tourists with luggage. A jarring, unpleasant interaction via internet shook my tranquility, rendering me a bit more sober, more thoughtful. Spam re: lines brought brief comic relief. ("Longer! Thicker!") During a head-clearing walk through the barrio, came across a shopping list dropped by someone. (Final entry: yogur activia -- NO SOJA!! (Activia yogurt -- NOT SOY!!))
Rendezvoused with a Spanish friend, S., me mentioning right off the bat urban tranquility/lack of people/etc. Her response: discouraged outrage at the Spanish tendency to stretch a vacation day into many more vacation days, labeling the country/culture as not serious, brushing off my appreciation of the comparatively relaxed, user-friendly lifestyle. If we hadn't been surrounded by concrete, bricks, asphalt, etc., I might have been reminded of the old grass-is-greener saw. S.'s brother is nearing the end of a business master's at Harvard, he and she are appreciating the more sophisticated, orderly aspects of the business model he's now steeped in. I nod, I listen, I mention qualities of the life here that feel just fine to me. She's not having any of it (though she does concede Spain's massive advantage re: coffee superiority).
[continued in next entry]
España, te quiero
rws 6:59 PM [+]
Comments:
It would be a lot easier to remember if Easter fell on the same day every year...like Christmas or Flag Day or something.
that would be helpful to the western world, but it's not what i meant. i forget from year to year what the experience of semana santa is here, what the days feel like, the kinds of things that characterize it -- and then when i'm in the middle of it i remember all over again.
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