Once in Madrid - Loco...Twice in Madrid - Amor

Nearly a week in Madrid and I am on the plane back to Chicago to pick up my visa. It didn’t get approved before we needed to leave so I went to Madrid as a “tourist” and waited for the phone call from the Chicago consulate which would take me out of the netherworld and make clear the direction of our next few years. While we have been headed towards living in Madrid for some months (actually close to half a year), I have continued to keep my guard up and to prepare for what we fully expected would come – rejection of our family’s legal legitimacy. But the world is changing...finally.

I visited Madrid for the first time a decade ago as the first leg in my version of the classic college summer trip. I was newly out of the closet and reexamining my world view. I’d spent every summer during high school and college close to home at a job, educational opportunity, or volunteer role. I knew it was time to get away and spend some time figuring out just who I was. I, like most newly-out gay people I know, had a new zest for life – the love and happiness that comes from clearing your chest and being accepted by those who love you without hesitation. It truly was the most invigorating year of my life. Eventually, I returned to earth and realized that I didn’t have special super hero powers.

Why I chose Madrid as my destination really was a mystery to me at the time and now. I had some high school Spanish so I think I thought I could go there and get by. But if I’d really done my homework I think I would have found that most people with high school Spanish can do little more than read the random street sign – they are not equipped for immediate plane departure conversations with natives. Whatever it was, when I landed in Spain, looking back, I think I lost my mind a bit. Perhaps it was being on my own, perhaps the foreign country – whatever it was, I was loco. I proceeded to hold up in my Madrid hotel room (a single – no hostel there) for two days, eating primarily trail mix that I’d brought from the U.S. I took my entire time in Madrid to try to sleep and to curl up in a ball on my hotel bed and try not to freak out. I didn’t go enjoy pinchos (little tapas like meals). I don’t remember going to see any sights. I remember walking down a couple of streets and attempting to buy some food from a local vendor and getting completely freaked out. It was such a sad visit. (Note to reader: my summer improved dramatically following my next city in the trip – Paris – where I hit bottom and seemed to come out of whatever stupor I was in.)

So I am really glad after one week I didn’t let my one previous Madrid trip color my consideration of our family’s move. I have found Madrid to be quite delightful, if a bit empty with August vacationers exiting the city. We have constantly explored in our attempt to see different neighborhoods and consider the big decisions which need to make in the next few weeks. I am really excited for the next few years and the opportunity to live in Madrid. Perhaps I’ve matured a lot or perhaps I am more open to things now than I was when first a visitor, but it somehow now all seems destiny. Things come together in the craziest combinations when we look for opportunities instead of roadblocks.

Without Address - In Route to Spain

Friday we sold our place in Chicago, a closing and important step in our forthcoming move to Madrid. Eric, Dorothy, and I are hold up well in a hotel in downtown Chicago for the weekend. It was a good time to visit our favorite spots and act like tourists in the city we've called home for close to four years. We expect to hear from the consulate Tuesday that we can pick up our visas. The interview there last week went really well and didn't raise any new issues in paperwork not completed, same sex coupledom, or anything else. If the call comes, then we'll leave on an Iberian flight to Madrid Tuesday PM, arriving Wednesday morning. We've got a three bedroom apartment booked for six weeks from when we arrive that is fully furnished (including crib) so we will be able to take some time looking for the right rental place to move into when our stuff arrives. The move out went well but was exhausting as any move always is. Everything we own is either in one of our 7 suitcases or in a 20 foot cargo container which is likely still in Chicago, awaiting our visa number so it can hit the seas. Our digital phone is up and working well so you can continue to reach us on the number which was formerly my cell. For now that's on forward to my new cell phone but after the move will be set to ring in Spain.

That's all the news right now. We've gone from totally craziness in moving out and closing on our condo to what seems like a real serene time before the move. Good to catch up on sleep and lounge for a couple of days. I can already tell that is going to be a passing phase.

Feeling Close and Far from Family

Our neighbor, Anne, apparently fell several days ago in her apartment and was unable to get up. Two days later an alert visiting nurse who had been unable to ring her called our front desk and she was discovered. Tonight, Anne's daughter, stopped by our apartment to share the news and to meet us.

Anne is our favorite neighbor. She's really the only one that has shown any interest in us as people since we moved in, invited us over for cocktails and popcorn in our early months, and recently coming over to our place for dinner. She is a woman who though in her mid to late 80s (I'd guess) still exudes woman-about-town adventure. I was struck on our first meeting of how much she reminded me of my great aunt, Lois. Lois lives in Topeka, a long way from Chicago, but for Topeka, Lois was Anne. Both married successful lawyers. Both had impeccable senses of style. Both had husbands that needed to be taken care of. Both were flowers that seemed to be losing some of their bloom.

Living away from family and elder care (believe me that my family has more than it's fair share of elder care), Anne's predicament has shaken me. Physical distance does not create emotional distance but it does sublimate it somehow. Tonight, I am sad to see another family dealing with very difficult times because I am sure I have seen emotion and worry in the face of Anne's daughter that my distance has masked in my family members.

We Need to Make Globes Mandatory

In the Tuesday, July 18 edition of the NY Times, President Bush is reported to have engaged in a conversation with Hu Jintao of China about their respective trips home from a summit in Russia. According to the Times, Bush was anxious to get on the road because of the long distance he had to travel but commented to Jintao "This is your neighborhood; it won't take you long to get home."

President Bush illustrated here just how skewed American perspectives on geographical distance are when thinking of the rest of the world. In reality, the time Bush would take to get home was almost exactly the same as that of Jintao. Before we moved to Asia and still today, I struggled with distances and putting them into a real perspective. I suspect that part of our problem comes from American media, which sometimes portrays developing parts of the world as specks on the map, creating closeness in our minds which masks long distances and great cultural heterogeneity.

Have you studied a globe lately?

How Quickly We've Forgotten

This week I had dinner with an old friend from my day's at the Community Center in Kansas City, Sally, and found myself as usual humbled, amazed, and laughing at our conversation. Sally is to this day the most PFLAG mom-ish woman that I've ever had the chance to meet personally, but in no way is she a stereotype. After graduating from school, Sally moved to Chicago in the 1950s and worked as a teacher. She shared with me over dinner the experience of being a single woman moving into the city at that time and the implicit assumption that existed even by the 50's that if a single woman in the city was synonymous with being a prostitute. She wasn't able to rent an apartment by herself or under her name, and ended up living in an apartment block for single women, before getting an apartment with a girlfriend after her father signed the lease. Lucky for her, her dad was a reverend.

I try to remember it to keep myself sane as we feel hemmed in by purchasing bureaucracy. I try to remember it to show how quickly things can improve but also how easily hardships can be forgotten. Part of me is excited by that and part saddened, as I think my generation easily forget the remarkable transformations that have occurred in the lives of women, just as we continue live with the transformations that haven't materialized to the same degree. Poverty and race remain aspects of our society which divide and challenge our prospects for progress. Also in conversation with Sally, I was reminded of the great challenges of those without education (formal and practical) in life as she described in her words the high cost of being poor. Being somewhat transient now, I recognize somewhat these costs but know that it is nearly impossible for me to comprehend them. There are parts and aspects of the United States which feel more mysteriously frustrating and incomprehensible to me than anything I gleamed in our time abroad.

Issues of Proportion and Defense

I've landed...well at least somewhat. My feet are back on U.S. soil for the first time in months and more permanently than temporarily. But for the time being, I still feel very confused. My emotions are a web of misdirection, brining joy at being back and close to family again, panic at being back and saying good-bye to Hong Kong, and mostly some disorientation. I find myself focused more now than ever on the differences of the life we've been living and the one we are moving towards, as well as defensive and supersensitive to all things worldy (and unworldly).

It's a Sunday afternoon and I type away at a Starbucks on the Plaza that looks little different from that of Lan Kwai Fong. But even here, I am struck by the small differences...the smallest size of coffee I can order in KC is the second to largest size in HK. In fact, the Starbucks there recently introduced a new super small size to cater to their clients. America truly is sipping on the big gulp. The buildings that appear through the mural-sized windows are urban in design but seem diminutive to me now. Even in it's most urban setting, KC is two-stories high and miles wide.

I've noticed since our move to Asia a certain sensitivity to discussions and topics which I was learning more about and experiencing daily. Like an withdrawling Asia junkie, the sensitivity has heightened. Yesterday, again at a Starbucks (I really do go other places), I had to bight my tongue when a man walked in and requested Chinese dim sum tea. He made his plea in a way that spoke more to the prestige he thought his "knowledgeable" question would bring in its utterance rather than as a practical use of words intended to get a good tea. I cringed. I am still cringing. While I have to give the guy credit for knowing the term "dim sum," dim sum is in no way a tea, but rather a style of food typical of the Hong Kong region, including dumpling and stuffed rolls.

sensitivity can be a wonderfully dangerous emotion. It awakens with it a line of other senses, good and bad, but in a world where we are hit with stimulants from all sides, coping and living often need to be done in a deadened (or at least slightly numbed) state. Gosh, that sounds pessimistic, but right now that's how I am feeling. I wonder when I will again get to a place where I don't notice some of these things. I want that and I fear that, the stability that comes from being comfortable and used to your surroundings.

I just found a site that makes me feel a little better:

http://www.expat-repat.com/inbound.html

Just the few things they said here make me feel less strange in my emotional flood. Coming back is much harder than going. I feel more different now than I have ever felt. All these things will take time and acceptance to deal with.

Jim Thompson House

Kristen reflects below the canopy of the Jim Thompson House in one of the many antique Chinese fish pots scattered throughout the garden.

Flying in from Hong Kong Saturday morning, Kristen and I went immediately to our hotel to get settled.
The Plaza Athene

After some sleep and rest, we walked to the train and went a couple of stops towards Siam Square with final destination of the Jim Thomson House.


Kristen stands outside the main portion of the house.

An American born entrepreneur, Mr. Thompson is famous for reviving the Thai silk industry in the 1950s and also for moving to Thailand and adapting many ancient Thai traditions and living customs to western way. Although he mysteriously disappeared while on vacation in Burma, his house and his stores remain intact and open to the public.


Mr. Thompson collected many antiques from across Asia and Europe. This traditional Thai carved panel is just one example.


Floating flowers, beaded water, and swimming streams of young fish.


This fish wasn't so young.


A Thai-style mini-house and offering sits quietly but colorfully at the entrance to the complex.