Bone-Deep Feelings

Right now I'm sipping my chirri coffee on the yellow two-seat table in my flat in Madrid. It is a cold cloudy day in May...not the Sahara dust cloud that made me sick for the past week and a half...but a raincloud with the promise to clean the air and all surfaces. Peter Brown's sampler is playing and I'm musing about the different paths we took.

Music remains a huge hole in my life. For some reason I hold a bit of shame for letting it go so far behind me. I'm not even bringing my saxophone back to the USA because it would set me back 100 Euro just to transport it. More than likely I'll pick the bass back up and re-record "night's harmony" on this new computer.

I had a full disc of casio-songs on a free software that Pete gave me 4 years ago. The computer crashed and I lost all of it though.

This past weekend was a bitter-sweet one for several reasons.

Let's start by my physical state. Last week I went for an hour long run in the partial sun of a hot and sunny day. The last time I ran that long was in the Shawnee camp with Badger and Sean over a year ago.

I had no intention to run that long. I know my knee is still jacked up from that judo match last winter...but there was so much intrigue and beauty on the streets that I just kept going and going. It was hot and dry, my throat was craving water but then I saw a peacock in Retiro; my knee started to crack but then I found a colorful street to strut through. The day was great.

The next day it was cloudy. I thought it would rain. Instead of rain clouds in the sky there was a progressively thicker layer of dust on everything in the city. Those were dust clouds obscuring the sun. I had never seen anything like it. Had I known...I would have not ran that day.

I spent the next three days clutching a fistful of napkins, toilet paper, and handkerchiefs...anything to catch the mucus streaming out of my face. Allergies are a pain. Running for an hour and sucking up more dust than a sweeper didn't help.

Friday night I went to knitting club but wasn't exactly perky. I saw people and made some jokes. There is a girl there that I really like. She's shy, funny, has a nerdy charm, and speaks English. We flirted for two and a half hours one night but since then I hadn't sat next to her. This time I was blocked in the corner by the token angry old woman knitter.

In my recent reinventions I have placed myself in a high-value, positive, and efficate position. I don't permit negative thoughts as often and don't rationalize everything that I do. Finally the reductive process has been successful. Sick, however, makes it tough to be positive.

I asked Marcos to come have a drink. He agreed but said he had friends coming. I invited myself to hang out with them if it was ok. He called. Shy-girl and I started bantering for a bit then Marcos thundered up and took me away to the bar. I need to get around to asking shy-girl out. It's too nice an opportunity to pass up even if nothing is going to happen. It's good to feel natural with another person.

Marcos's friends were ok. One was a gorgeous, typical looking, Madrid woman. The other was a blonde, taller, and really sweet. Unfortunately, the typical looking Madrid woman also acted like a typical Spaniard. Long-winded complaints were all the conversation permitted for 30 minutes. I checked my watch. No. 50 minutes... another round. An hour and twenty minutes. I tried to stab at conversation with some questions but I know nothing about the Madrid-Barajas Air Traffic Control World....which is how they knew each other.

Jason always deflects my sister from talking about work when they're together. I understand why. Although her job is interesting it's scathing to hear someone moan for an hour and twenty minutes. It was Marcos's turn. He talked about some things which were much more interesting but still slightly exclusive. The blonde asked me a few questions and we had a light chat for a bit before typical Madrid woman piped up to kill the rest of our time together. Those Mahou beers, medium sized, were 3.75 each (About $6).

It was a cold night to be drinking out on the patio...but I welcomed the air since the Sahara Cloud had moved. Arms crossed, legs crossed, and chin down is not a good posture to have open and warm conversation. However, some of us were underdressed for patio drinking in 55-60 degree (F) weather.

It reminded me of earlier that day when I was with the other teachers. As usual, they complained externsively about the employment situation. Then they complained about the government. Some laughs were shared and stories were exchanged. Loli, Pilar, Susana, Alina, and Miriam were there along with an older teacher with whom I don't work.

We ate together. I checked my watch as the conversation edged in on the admission test requirements. The older lady and I chatted as we got cocido soup and salads. Unfortunately the restaurant had a one-size-fits-all pricing system. My soup, salad, banana, and 4 oz beer cost me 8.50 euro.

I can think of better or worse ways to spend my Fridays. I was upset spending almost 20 euro in total during the day but I was glad to be with company. My question remains: how do I filter the right people into my life?

Saturday I was determined to be productive...but I stumbled upon the show Louie and tore through one episode after another for a few hours. Then I got a fierce workout, played sax, studied a little toxicokinetics, read some epa reports on natural mercury deposition, and killed time on facebook.

Then I sat down with a glass of red wine and watched an episode. Another glass and another episode followed. Eventually I was through the entire second series. I went to bed with a sick stomach at 9:00 p.m.

The next day I woke up feeling down. I made a salad and studied a bit. Then Rob called to go out.

Spain has its pride and charm for a variety of reasons. However, beer is not one of them. They boast a broad selection of 5 lagers that taste similar. They're not bad. There's certainly a bit more flavor than Bud Light or Natural Light. However, if you want to switch out the lager for a pilsner, pale ale, or porter...you're out of luck. The Irish pubs are the closest you get to variety and they charge 5 euro per glass.

This is why I was excited when Rob pointed out an international brew fest near Casa del Campo. It spritzed rain but nothing could stop us from sampling. It was 5 euro for a glass and 2 for every refill. We tried triple Indian pale ales, pilsners, a wheat beer, porters, stouts, and spiced ales. We mingled with a fantastic couple, met some thirsty American guys, and chatted it up with the heiress to a brewing company. We met some American girls in the Auxiliares program and enjoyed the day sampling and wandering.

Then we sauntered over to a theatre where we thought Citizen Kane would be playing. Instead it was a Chilean movie we had no interest in seeing. We snatched some kebaps at a nearby place and went to the Cat's to chill. After a little while we met a Brazilian wanderer and hung out with him for a bit while we chowed down. The food was amazing as always.

Being back at the Cat's reminded me how far I've come. A big part of me wants this adventure to draw to a close. There's a beautiful Brazilian woman and a couple nice French friends waiting for me on the other end of June in Paris. I also have met some lively and interesting people in the USA to hang out with. I've grown to be more open, controlled, and sociable. I feel stable and whole.

At this point I would love to begin medical school. However, as the chips fell it looks like my best option is to come back or do AmeriCorps next year. I'm waiting on some documents...again...to verify which school I will be working next year.

As accustomed to solitude as I am, I still miss my friends. Pale ale brought me back to two summers past. After a shot of god-know's-what I was wandering through the woods and fell down a huge hill. I lost my shirt and was badly scratched by the underbrush. I wandered home to 78 after asking a couple people which way court street was. The nights were rich with drama and learning. The days were ripe with information and good times. There was always a variety of beer to be had at casa, of course, to be consumed in moderate amounts always with some friends.

Rob, Tom, Jacky, my coworkers, David, and Ian are my friends here. Our times together seem sparce.

This summer I'm looking forward to spending time with all the people that I love. The lake will be waiting for me. I will be jumping between Canton, Columbus, Kent, Akron, and Athens as people beckon. I already am looking forward to spending time with a woman on those warm summer nights in the cool water.

I live in a truly unique corner of Ohio. Last summer after hard hot days dreaming of a French affair that would and will never happen I used to come home to a bit of gin, some cold pasta salad, and adventures in the barn with a nice girl. At the time I thought things couldn't get better. Now I realize that that place is and was something I will always cherish.

When I sit in the Fish Barn in my mind I am immediately taken back to all the times there. The place is a skeleton on which the muscles hung. With time they waste away. I went from having parties there and drawing crowds of the artistic and adventurous out of the crags of Jackson High School to running with nothing but shoes on accross the sheep pasture to play music to the night with my friends.

With the onset of turkey farming and the passing of high school things, inevitably, changed for the place. I grew older, wiser, stronger. My friends moved away to more vibrant places. I still go there in my mind on lonely nights in Madrid. I remember every detail of the stages.

At first there was wood everywhere. Brandon and I tried to set up a tarp tent in the swamp behind the barn. We went out there to play harmonica and drum. I went out to that tent when my brother hurt me or threatened to do something awful. There was only room for two chairs. I took my young, happy, strange girlfriend out there to kiss and wander without the traditional values of my family encroaching upon my self-discovery.

As the spring rains came we got bored with a small tent and remembered that there was electricity in the wall-less barn adjacent to our fort. There was one outlet crudely wired together by my uncle and a lot of switches. At this point the garden was overgrown and there was garbage all around the barn. With time, though, we stacked the wood in a logical way.

The tornado changed everything. If a summer came before that I would be out in the lake meeting people and talking to the community. I'd sneak candy from our concession stand and eat it in the basement when I was a kid. My parents didn't know how I got in. There was a small hatch behind the water softener that led in to the storage room.

However, when I turned 13 there was none of that. Just a barn full of wood and an empty hole where the stand used to be. The barn was perfect though. It didn't get wet with rain.

Progressively, Brandon and I brought things up there to do. There was a box of toys and a deck of cards. We made up stories and talked about the future. Remembering all the old things in the attic of the house I decided it would be a good idea to bring a TV to the barn. Carrying everything up there required some strength and a lot of strange contraptions.

Eventually, we had a couch and a TV. From the goodwill we bought VHS tapes of classic movies our parents wouldn't let us watch. We bought odd things to break and decorate the place. We found an old N64 and played smash brothers in the fall instead of doing homework.


When Brandon moved away and we refinished his old house I would go to the barn to read Plato and Kant. My dad always tried to get me to read the Bible or St. Augustine. I did...but I preferred history, philosophy, and logic to the classics I grew up with.

Yeah, the skin has changed but this summer the skeleton still rests. I hope to have a few people in town who are adventurous enough to drive across a sheep pasture to chill in a barn without walls. There will be local Ohio brew, music from the old guitar, and ...after midnight ... swimming.

If people come or not I will still be there. Musing. I always knew that I would have incredible adventures out in the world. We talked about it when we had fires in the kettle on winter nights. Before the smoke filled the top we would muse about what we knew and would know. Most of those people I met in my barn would never leave that place. Some of them are now in medical school, quite a few are insane beyond the point of help, and a generous amount I will never see again.

It will be nice to see it I can find company just crazy enough to enjoy some summer nights with me.