Settling In, part 21

I was starting to feel more at home by now. I had a routine going during the week—I would walk with Ana, I’d go to Spanish class three mornings a week, I’d go to Hipercor for groceries or what have you two or three times. I’d take a bus into the city and go to the gym two or three weekdays, and maybe on Saturday or Sunday morning, too. I’d go to my 12-step meeting on Thursday and Saturday nights, and Mike and I would go to a movie or something after the Saturday meeting. I bought El País, the best-selling newspaper, almost every day. I especially enjoyed the Friday paper, which had a terrific weekend section, Tentaciones, that covered all the entertainment in town. There was a little magazine I bought, too, Guía del ocio—Leisure Guide—that had all the play and movie times, all the concerts, and suggestions for weekend outings. It was a little tricky to get the right Guía del ocio, because the one that came out on Friday covered events beginning the next Monday. If you needed information on this weekend, then you had to have last week’s Guía. Good kiosk operators kept a supply of the old Guía around for people who hadn’t gotten theirs. Bad kiosk operators forgot to ask me if I wanted this week’s (la semana que viene) or last week’s (la semana pasada) issue, and I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

It was an old pleasure of mine to sometimes take a weekend day and just chill out, lie on the couch watching TV, doing nothing. In my first months in Madrid that had seemed too scary—I had to keep busy all the time so I wouldn’t be able to ponder my loneliness and fear. But by mid-October I thought a day of nothing would be okay.

I planted myself on the couch in the TV room and started watching old movies, music videos—whatever popped up on Sky TV. But it didn’t go too well. It was a gray day, and I got into a gray mood fast. Everything made me homesick. There was a Sting video in particular, a mournful song with a futuristic visual—big windmills and tall people—that seemed to sum up my misery. And an awful video of the song “Black Hole Sun”—it had freaky-looking characters whose faces were stretched digitally into horrifying shapes. Not safe, not safe, my brain was screaming—I wasn’t ready to sit down and have a quiet day yet. Better to keep moving. I had a good cry.

“What’s the matter, Mom?” Julie asked, disturbed to see me upset.

“I guess I’m just a little homesick,” I said. “I miss Grandma and Grandpa, too.”

“I know what you mean,” Julie said. “Sometimes I miss stuff at home, or my friends.” She gave me a hug.