4:22 p. m. » The Grande Finale

The culminant moment of all my stay here has already dragged me through itself -- and yes, as premature (or at least in relation to the format in which these types of things are usually scripted) as it is, I can't help but think that this makes the fact that I've now got three more weeks to sit through just about perfect. It's forced me to think -- and mostly about you. Consider my stay here. Everything that you've read below actually happened to me (and I regret leaving out some of the now seemingly most significant pieces, for example the worms in our cupboards, the bloodstains, or the evil things the two women living with us say to Serena). I assume that this was already understood by pretty much all of you, so you know that, obviously, that would make this blog nonfiction internet reading material. The problem is though, to you, this might as well be fiction. They're just stories. You weren't present for the happening of any of these moments -- you skimmed across these subpar tries at documenting situations, situations that left no room for exaggeration (though perhaps a tiny bit for dramatization), not stopping to consider that, OMG, this actually happened to someone. I was at the second birthday party of the week that Serena had been invited to. I sat there in the corner, on the opposite side of the room from the (other) parents, doing my homework. This, mind you, was after everything happened to fall together well with a not-so intense episode of panic I had had in having to somehow obtain a gift for the kid, working within 10 minutes of my deadline, and during the siesta. After arranging a deal that, thinking back, had to have looked suss to the parents in the schoolyard, two Americans and I met in an alley next to the school, one of whose hair was wet, where they gave me a wrapped present and a small amount of money. At the party I received a text message from Cecile (who'd just spent three days in Madrid), saying that she'd landed and that she'd meet me at the party shortly. She (finally) walked in the door just as the kids were, at volumes indescribable, chanting "¡Piñata! ¡Piñata!", provoking the father to bring the thing out. Christ, (¡PIÑATA! ¡PIÑATA!) it was getting to be too intense. Serena made a run for her mother (¡PIÑATA! ¡PIÑATA!), but just as Cecile embraced her, the poor thing began a mad fit of coughing. She took a step back (¡PIÑATA! ¡PIÑATA!); she projectile vomited at least two consecutive steady streams of some sort of clearish mucus-resembling goo (¡PIÑATA! ¡PIÑATA!), practically drenching her mother's clothes and leaving on the floor a pool large enough for half the kids in the room to wash and rinse what hair they had in. As the father of the birthday boy frantically hurried to her side with (nothing but) a wad of KLEENEX, suggesting that she might be brought to a (¡PIÑATA! ¡PIÑATA!) doctor, Cecile began fumbling through languages, saying, "she's just tired! she's just tired!" And as if this (¡PIÑATA! ¡PIÑATA! [in addition to them now climbing over any adult they could find]) weren't a point low enough, after the (now paranoid about their own children's health -- who knows what these kids had been doing together and sharing in school) parents' persistence with the doctor idea and with questions such as had she been doing this often lately, Cecile, completely (¡PIÑATA! ¡PIÑATA!) desperate-looking and flustered, nodded at me and blurted out, "I don't know! She's been with him!" Death. For at least three seconds I was sure there was no other way out. Time stopped. I wasn't even there. It was then that I realized that this, actually, was my life; that I, actually, had chosen this over college; that I, actually, was there; that this, actually, was happening; that these, actually, weren't just stories; and that all the parents were looking at me; and that, God help me, I had just come to this ridiculous city to try to learn Spanish. I started missing things that I had no business missing yet. Seeing Serena's empty shoes every night. The old men in my neighborhood, probably more ancient than the statues they surround, sitting on their benches, at least one of whom I kept wanting to talk to and befriend, but weakly put off, wanting to grip the language better. The woman who hands out fliers for the vegetarian restaurant, who after my declining her offering once, learned my face and that I wasn't interested and instead just smiles and says hola everyday as I pass her. That one mother, who always rides her bike to fetch her daughter at school, who recently dyed her hair, who always smiles when I try to speak Spanish with her. The old woman on the Metro who sits in the same seat and rides in the same car and at the same time every morning, having a new book every Monday. Always seeing the language. The street signs. The streets. The city. And of course Marga -- something I was never even able to bring myself to consider pursuing. Marga. I could write a novel of treppenwitzen. Marga. Whom I only see for a fifteen minutes each Wednesday. Whom I ask to help me with the homework I don't even need help with. Who always wears the thing in her hair. Who doesn't have an e-mail address. Who's had hundreds of students like me. Whom I might, even now, never see again. Who once wrote me that note, saying that they missed me and that she couldn't hand my homework back because she found it too charming. Whose face I wouldn't have been able to help but see instead, were I to have been so lucky as to be with any girls while here. Who always feels the need to touch my hair. Who once told me I speak with a French accent. Who used me for or tricked me into paying for her drunk cab ride home. Who swears to me I was there with her for things I know I wasn't. Who drank port with us during class. Who first taught me how to give compliments in Spanish -- and who probably was on to me, playing along when I pretended not to understand, as we'd have to practice it again, and again, and again. But I woke up. I was back in the living room of young Pablo's house in Poble Nou in Barcelona in the real world. I didn't know if the parents had been staring at me for some time or if I was still just immersed in some synchronized-like quick first glance. This is why I am here. I am here for and because of this moment (¡PIÑATA! ¡PIÑATA!). This is why I am here.