Nothing but the Start

For the most part, Americans are really friendly.  It’s true.  We will talk to you if you sidle up to the bar and sit down by yourself.  By the end of the evening you will feel you’ve made a friend.  We’re fairly open, engaging, and ready to hear the other side of things.  (But be prepared, many Americans will also be ready to tell you the other side of things.)

Bars in Madrid are not quite like that.  From what I can tell thus far, people tend to go to the bar with their friends and stick to that group for the evening.  Makes sense in its way, just as the American bar scene makes sense.  Good and bad.

But before this becomes a post about alcohol, let me get back to friendliness.  Where does it cross into politeness?  What does it share with simple openness and comfort in one’s own existence?  (internal editor sighing, fingertips reeling it back in.)

The Spanish have this wonderful custom of saying buenos dias every time they walk into a room or pass someone on the street.  And saying hasta luego when they leave a room full of people.

It’s baffling for an American.  For a while there, I thought everyone knew everyone in the world.

When I figured out that this was just a custom, I was still at a loss as to when it was appropriate to greet people in the street and when I could feign exhaustion from greeting everyone in the street.

But you know, it’s really nice, this Spanish thing.  If you are eating in a restaurant and the table next to you gets up to leave, someone in that group will undoubtedly bid you a good day.  It’s only natural isn’t it?  I mean, you were neighbors for a meal, you partook of the same air and added to the atmosphere.

I cannot say that the Spanish custom of acknowledgement is better or not as good or equal to American openness.  Neither gives me all that I want.  Americans still pretend the people on the sidewalk do not exist and the Spanish still don’t seem to care about getting to know the person next to them. (Forgive me these unseemly generalizations.)

But both lean towards the common idea that we are all in this world together.  And that’s easy to understand.

I’ve been thinking about humility lately.  Humbleness.  I didn’t bring my 25lb dictionary with me to Spain, so must make do with the Internet: the Oxford English dictionary (which itself made the leap into a solely virtual existence) says humility is “the quality of having a modest or low view of one’s importance.”  According to my hardcover – not be carried around – Spanish English dictionary from Collins, the Spanish use “humildad” and the noun is appropriately feminine.  (Read that last bit as you’d like.)

This definition does not give humility enough credit.  Perhaps a proper volume would delve into the positive aspects of having a “low view of one’s importance.”  There’s something in that which doesn’t agree with me, but let’s leave that for now, because humility is a quality many of us strive towards.  And the funny thing about humility is that you don’t learn it just once.  Its lesson comes again and again in various forms.  It sneaks up on you just when you’ve forgotten there are things you still need to learn in life.

• I’ve actively sought it in yoga. You cannot push your body more than it will allow.  You must learn to work with it – this thing so incredibly connected to emotion and soul that sometimes it seems only a manifestation – and accept it as it is.  Yesterday, for example, I could do astavakrasana.  And today, for seemingly no reason, there is not a chance.

• I’ve learned humility from relationships. When I realized that I could not control everything, it took humbleness to accept defeat and recognize that I cannot fix everything, cannot make things better, cannot help someone else on the strength of my own sheer will. I will admit to anyone that that may be the hardest lesson I have learned so far in my otherwise charmed life.  I will also admit that I have deleted two sentences from this paragraph.

• And I learned it through horseback riding. Lessons that culminated when I crashed unexpectedly into a fence.  When everyone thought I was a ringer to win (or place well), my horse did not jump the fence I had pointed him toward.  We circled and then went over and the entire round was perfect but for this one small unexpected circle. (Okay, so it wasn’t a crash.)  I had learned enough to make even a refusal look purposeful.  But I will tell you something.  My horse did not refuse.  He simply did not see the fence until the last minute.  I had not prepared him.  Interestingly, these years later, I express the opposite of humility when I think of that round.  Because I could admit that it was my fault.  This thing that happened which was such a shame to everyone.  But when I exited the ring after that round and dismounted, when my legs were shaking and I wanted to cry so badly, I looked at the trainer who had the duty of dealing with this girl who did not perform as expected, I smiled at him and said, “Well, that didn’t go as planned.”

There are things more important than even our heartbreak.

Those are three very different examples of learning to be humble.  And I think I’m a better person for them.  Of course, I still long for the distinct pleasure of being 15, 16, 17 years old, when humility was not in my vocabulary.  And perhaps, being so pleased with living abroad has returned me to that state, because without warning, humility tapped me on the shoulder and disappeared before I had time to see her.  (Although, in truth, I did have a visit before.)

Most mornings I get my coffee to go from Paloma on the way to my office.  I don’t drink coffee before leaving the apartment which is not the smartest thing because Paloma has usually been working for hours by the time I run into her and she’s ready to talk.  Half the time I just say si, si, entiendo, gracias, even when I have no idea what’s being discussed.  Even when I’ve had a cup of coffee Spanish evades me.

Well, lately, I must have been responding in a more convincing manner because now she demands responses that imply I really do know what’s going on.  NAd here is the humility lesson because Paloma does not stop talking to me in Spanish when other customers enter her store and get in line behind me.  No.  No, no no.  She carries on with her Spanish conversation/lesson the same way she will carry on with the next person in line…as if we have all the time in the world.  And have I mentioned that the Spanish are not exactly quiet talkers?  So, essentially, everyone in line behind me waiting for their turn to buy a coffee and a croissant or whatever are also actively engaged in this conversation with the American – whether they like it or not.

Have I mentioned this is all happening without my having imbibed any coffee???

My first reaction was to get the hell out of there.  Fast.  Without coffee if necessary.  And never return.

But for some reason I went back and kept going back.  The coffee isn’t even that good.  And I talk to Paloma in my ridiculous Spanish which does not have any subjunctive whatsoever.  And I do the sorry, smile, nod, shrug my shoulder thing at the people behind me because I know I sound ridiculous.

But I also know it doesn’t matter.