writing – the solo mama project

I had to remember how to log into this blog to write a post—and, when I did, I saw that I only ever did “one week in.” And we’ve now been here 2.5 months!

WTH. I’m a writer. I thought I’d be capturing hilarious moments, poignant insights, real-time windows into the day-to-day of how an American mom and two kids adjust to life in Spain.

And, while the transition has truly gone as well as we ever could have dreamed, I underestimated the mental load of carrying this for my kids—and ended up with zero bandwidth to even think about what to write here, much less getting outside of my own experience to imagine what you’d enjoy hearing about…

So I guess this is surprise #1 about this experience: over and above the million-and-one actual tasks of relocating a family to a foreign country, the energy it takes to re-figure out how to get your daily needs met in a brand-new location, country, language… the energy output is high.

But in a good way!

Anyway, let me catch you up.

For the first three weeks we were in this apartment, we shared one towel.

Evan had brought a Warriors towel for sentimental reasons and SURE, YES I could have run out and bought cheap towels at the chino or made another expensive trip to El Corte Inglés or even ordered some on amazon and then searched out the amazon locker where it would be delivered (if it even fit)…but everything I was doing was even more pressing, like: submitting paperwork for my visa application, setting up our utilities in my name, getting school supplies (which required 3-4 trips to different papelerias), setting up a kitchen from scratch (including one big trip to Costco and many walking trips to local markets), and feeding a family of three with three different approaches to food in a new country where we don’t know yet what we like.

Anyway, the day I took a bus to Ikea and filled a taxi with home products was a great day. A day in which we multiplied our towel inventory.

In other major headlines: the kids started school!

Chloe leveled up to 3rd grade, based on how they do the age cutoffs here (which is by calendar year, so anyone born in 2017 is in 3rd grade, so simple!). We wondered if this mattered, and I was pretty sure it wouldn’t as long as she was with kids her age (I was right- she’s rocking it). Evan was put in 6th grade, as expected.
On the first day, they opened the big castle door of the school (in the middle of the most touristy area of Sevilla, right around the cathedral), and from the big crowds of families emerged kids parading into the school with live music playing. I will never forget this moment as my kids walked into a school where I’d met or talked to no one. My friend and colleague Elena had met with the school back in June. I did manage to follow my kids in (which is frowned upon) to at least connect with each of their teachers to say, “Hablan inglés! Están aprediendo español!” and they smiled, and then I was kicked out. Surreal. I can’t believe how brave my kids were to walk in there. I’ll be thinking about this forever.
I have a photo of the schoolyard with the kids lining up by class that I took right before leaving (see below). Chloe is looking a little lost, and Evan has been approached by girls trying to figure out who he was, where he was from, etc. The girls right away connected with a boy who was born n Minnesota and lived there until he was 6. He became Evan’s instant social connector, and all-day translator. His social transition was immediate and Evan (to this day) has all those kids playing basketball every recess (my impression is that they weren’t playing as much before he arrived).
Chloe doesn’t have any kids in her class who speak English (though everyone here speaks at least a little), but her teacher does. After the first few weeks, she asked me to ask the teacher to have the kids speak to her in Spanish, not English, which was such a great impulse. Now, she has friends and is rehearsing to do a K-Pop Demon Hunters dance number and they’re all patiently teaching her words using a lot of body language. We had a friend over and I overheard her speaking Spanish in complete sentences with verbs correctly conjugated (albeit all in the present tense, which is the right place to start).
The mom of the Minnesotan boy has been my gateway to the school parents and an incredibly helpful perspective on the massively overwhelming parent group chats (by classroom), which blow up my phone all day every day (yes, they’re muted now). Between the Spanish texting slang and me generally not knowing how things work here, I truly can’t keep up. My mom friend tells me when there’s something I need to do (we were co-judges for the costume contest at the Halloween party, for example—I bought medals). She also invites me along on impromptu post-dropoff coffees where I actually get to chat in Spanish with new friends–sometimes with success, sometimes really frustrated about all the nuance and specificity (and correctness) that’s lost. But I feel my brain stretching and I love learning languages, so I love being invited and going through the pain and joy of learning.

And this is the point in writing this post where I got pulled away for many hours.

A friend of a (US) friend dropped by with some Spanish textbooks for me, we had coffee, and as that was wrapping up I got a call from Chloe’s teacher saying “Evan se cayó. Puedes venir por el?” (Evan fell. Can you come get him?)

Instantly panicked, my communication skills went out the window and I thrust the phone at Luís, who calmly took it and said, “Díme,” and then explained to me that Evan had fallen and hurt his ankle though he was basically OK. I think he chuckled, which was reassuring.

Within a few minutes, he’d delivered me to the school on the back of his scooter–and I burst in to find Evan calmly sitting in the office with his foot up on a chair with an ice pack (he came down on it wrong while playing basketball).

I was surrounded by concerned adults, and there’s something about everyone trying to use their (limited) English with me that makes my Spanish become nonexistent. It’s like I can’t speak any language.

Then Evan’s teacher appeared, and she’s also the French teacher, so I speak French with her (much easier than Spanish for me), but every time I started in French, Spanish took over, down to the level of individual words, until I exclaimed in English, “Ohmigod, my brain cannot pick a language!!!” I let her finish telling me about a permission form in Chloe’s backpack (in Spanish LOL).

We got his ankle X-rayed and our first medical experience was a goddamn delight. No waiting. Everyone spoke English. Nicest people. No fracture, just a sprain.

Then Luis came back with two movers and a heavy dining room table for us to borrow for as long as we’re living here. So generous!

Anyway, mama’s tired. Tiredtiredtired. I try to catch up by sleeping and watching Gilmore Girls (which for some reason is the perfect way to decompress right now).

Shoot, I didn’t talk about Halloween. Or work. Or my first visitors! I’ll write more soon (at least sooner than 2.5 months).

Meanwhile, here’s a bunch of photos!

PS While I’m distracted and busy here, I haven’t stopped thinking and worrying about what’s going on in the US. I’m just as plugged into US news as I ever was, doomscrolling a ton. My old neighborhood outside Chicago is crawling with ICE agents, as people are getting plucked out of daycares, landscaping jobs, and school drop-offs. Friends are going out with whistles, protesting in Broadview, waiting at bus stops with helicopters and drones flying overhead. I’m so proud of how the city is fighting back to protect neighbors. May Tuesday’s results be a sign of what’s to come. xo

This morning, I emerged from the fog of 2020 into the promise of 2021 and found myself here, back on my blog. After quite a long hiatus (let’s say… 7 months?).

I just said “Happy New Year” to E and he said, “Yay!” then “Well, not exactly yay.” And I know what he means, even though he was distracted and couldn’t elaborate on what he meant by that. Kids are good at boiling things down and not even knowing why.

While I do not mean for this to be a retrospective (because who wants to relive 2020), it was pretty uniquely terrible. Living through a time of so much suffering, so much loss, so much dangerous and distressing political drama… A time of little to no child care while work doesn’t stop. A time of fear and guilt and blame over whom we see and don’t see. And all of this while we are relatively fine, in our safe bubble of privilege, ability to work and do school from home, good health care, etc.

The “not exactly yay” part comes from the fact that we’re still in the middle of it.

And here’s a big giant however: HOWEVER, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it makes a huge mf-ing difference.

My kids recently went back to listening to Circle Round, a charming WBEZ storytelling podcast. They listened to it constantly last March/April/May, which, for me, was the worst part of 2020. There was so much we didn’t know and it felt like it could be YEARS of lockdown. Plus work got really busy, my kids had almost nothing to do, and every day was a marathon of competing needs.

Now, when the sweet theme song of Circle Round comes on, I have mild to moderate PTSD.

Back then, we didn’t know much about the disease, we didn’t know if Trump would be re-elected (and/or stage a coup or some other alarming nonsense), we didn’t know how long the vaccine would take.

Now a new presidential administration is coming in (not a minute too soon), people are already getting vaccinated, and masks work. We have every right to be hopeful about the coming year! (and yes I intentionally wrote this before getting hit with a ‘2021 already sucks’ post somewhere online this morning)

We have so much grieving to do. 300k+ people didn’t survive, more are still sick or long-haulers. The pandemic has more fully exposed so many weaknesses in our society, primarily the racism embedded in our systems of education, healthcare, criminal “justice,” extreme poverty… there’s so much work to be done.

But, if you’re reading this, you did survive, and we can look ahead. And get to work on healing.

We learned a lot in survival mode. I know that the minute I have full-time child care again and/or both kids out of the house for any length of time, I can move mountains. I can accomplish great things. I can be incredibly focused and productive and still have time leftover for dishes and meditation and a run. And we’re getting closer to that moment, but we’re not there yet.

As the clock struck midnight, I’d been asleep for two hours already. But I did some chicken scratches earlier in the day about my intentions for the coming year. And I have too many. I’m craving newness like never before. It’s a lot of typical stuff about exercise and drinking water and reading audiobooks.

But the main one that is relevant here is that I wrote down something like “free my voice.” During this time of not seeing people, and not finding much time to talk on the phone, my main social outlet has been social media. And I have kind of a constrained voice on social media. I appreciate it very much as a passive consumer as I keep updated on other people’s news. But my shares are limited and don’t contain much content. In short, for the first time in my adult life, I haven’t been writing.

I’m also an extrovert. Fortunately, I have two little humans who give me lots of interpersonal connection and bodily contact. I also am on the phone all day with talented and smart co-workers. And we Facetime a lot with family. But I MISS MY FRIENDS. I miss making new friends. I miss developing friendships. All my friend timelines of who called last and how long ago are broken. I’m out of touch with everyone–and I’m never out of touch with everyone.

Which is why I’m back here, freeing my voice again, which is a much friendlier way of saying, “I should really be writing” (which was the title of the first blog I ever started and then never did anything with). Writing is my path. And it’s a way I connect with people. I put it out there, and sometimes things come back. Both the act of putting it out there and the connections that bounce back are nourishing. I don’t know where it will take me, but at least I’m on the path. (Oh, and I recommend watching the new Pixar movie, “Soul,”–the meaning of life IS the path, living life on the path–never the destination.)

I’m also starting a journal again. Man, I have boxes and shelves of filled-up journals but haven’t journaled since the babies came along (and E is now 6.5). In the end, it helps me know what I think and get out of the whirlwind of thoughts.

“Freeing my voice” also pairs nicely with a past New Year’s blog topic I wrote about, maybe just a year ago?, titled “New Year, More Me,” because you never have to make yourself new. You don’t need to be like someone else. You just do you, and that’s it. You’re the one who will be the best at this. Unharness the you-ness.

To make time for this, I’m going to stop putting away toys. (Just kidding, I’m literally going to publish this post and then try to unscramble a few puzzles that are intermixed across the living room floor).

I wish you and your families a hopeful 2021 and send you lots of love! xo

Tag: writing

Wildly overdue updates

2021: and we’re back