Settling In - Mysore House and the Polideportivo Gallur

 

In one way it's hard to believe I've been in Madrid less than a month.  But hopefully time will stop flying and settle into a normal rhythm soon.

I have my appointments for my empadronamiento (legal certificate of residence) and picking up my Tarjeta de Identidad de Extranjero (the foreigner's equivalent of Spain's DNI) next week.  I also got an email today that the faculty meeting of the Complutense where I should get officially approved and get my Complutense affiliation (which will allow me to use the university library, and indirectly should provide me with a letter to get a card for the Biblioteca Nacional) is next week.  So hopefully within the next ten days I should be plentifully provided with various shiny new ID cards which will turn my wallet into less that of a tourist and more that of a local.


In the meantime, I have renewed my Polideportivo membership (with the new month), and my abono de transportes has been getting plenty of use as I head into the city center to go both to the archive at the Residencia de Señoritas and (as of yesterday) to go to Mysore House, the Ashtanga Yoga studio recommended to me by my yoga teachers at home.  Yesterday was the first day I'd done any yoga since arriving (in other words in over three weeks), and I was incredibly weak and creaky, but apparently regular swimming has kept just enough muscle tone to allow me to still do headstands without too much trouble.  And today the creakiness was just one degree less, so hopefully soon I'll be back to normal, and will be able to work yoga and swimming into my daily routine - perhaps to begin and end my days, or perhaps respectively before lunch and before dinner, to work up a nice appetite.

Having a daily routine is important, since time in archives (much less time actually writing) is an odd and flexible thing, that slips by and stretches into hours without my noticing, both when I'm being productive (reading and writing) and when I'm not (futzing around on the internet, watching tv or - I confess - writing this blog).  I think the key is to have set blocks of hours to do things, and then squeeze as much as possible into the schedule, be it relaxation or work.

I'm also hoping that setting up these routines makes me feel more as if I'm working and less as if I'm on vacation.  I'm ridiculously relaxed and comfortable and (with the exception of missing people at home) also ridiculously happy here.  But I'd like to hold on to the being happy and relaxed while leaving the sense of perpetual vacation.  It would be easier of the weather cooled off.  It's appreciably cooler than it was when I was here in July (like a difference of 20 degrees), but it still gets up into the eighties (Fahrenheit, about 30 C) in the afternoons here, and even though it's cool in the mornings I still haven't used my jeans more than once, or more than a light cardigan in the evenings.  I know it's getting dark sooner, but even the darkness is so late here relative to home that I still feel as if I'm drifting in an endless summer, although the Mercadona has been selling "chuches de Halloween" complete with fake plastic jack o'lanterns.  (My Madrid friends say that everything has been contaminated by the Anglo-Saxon traditions, and that the old celebrations of the día de los santos and día de los difuntos are dying.)

And yet...I noticed that my olive oil was getting low, and I've had to buy more pasta since I was here (not to mention perishables like milk).  I've used the vacuum cleaner more than once, and have done multiple loads of laundry.  The things that you do once (or perhaps twice) on a longer vacation, and that are cool things to do far from home (shopping, cleaning, laundry) are becoming more the patterns of real life.  And now I've settled into yoga and swimming as well as going dancing.  And these are things that absolutely anchor me in a (very pleasant, but very non-tourist) life-style.

It occurs to me that for me (and for like minded people) the pool and yoga and tango serve much the same purpose as McDonald's and the Catholic Church for others.  All of them provide a set type of design and architecture which varies enough locally to be slightly interesting, but which remains comfortingly familiar partly because form follows function, even when it comes to iconography.  (The little shower symbol is universal.)  And the familiar setting goes with familiar activities and rituals.  (Except maybe for McDonalds.  Although when my high school students went to the Netherlands they invariably headed for the McDonalds in spite of the best efforts and snidest comments of me and my co-teachers.  Their photos usually involved pictures of themselves with McDonalds employees, and also the 1 € menu, which they found endlessly fascinating, as it was their first practical example of the perils of currency exchange.  (They were quite indignant when they figured out that since euros are worth more than dollars the menu was actually more expensive.)  So perhaps even McDonalds has rituals, for people who go there more often.

The other thing about frequenting pools and yoga studios and milongas (and I suppose places of worship for those who believe) is that they provide an automatic like-minded community, who are instantly accepting in a way that is different from the courtesy (whether professional or genuinely kind) extended to tourists, or the emotional energy involved in actually making new friends, which involves a period of risk and experiment.  You can't talk during yoga or swimming, because breathing is kind of an issue for both, and it's generally considered rude to chatter to your partner while dancing a tango (though of course some small talk between songs is normal, though not required).  But a friendly smile and nod of recognition at the pool or entering yoga can feel tremendously welcoming.  The nice thing about these nods and smiles is that you have no need to identify yourself, or to ask identity of the other person.  The nod is a way of greeting someone you have already recognized, from seeing them at the same time and place, and doing the same activity before.  And it's a way of saying "hey, I know you are a fellow swimmer (or yogi), and I know that you come regularly, and are competent but not brilliant.  You now form part of this activity which is important to me as well as to you, and we are companions."  I know that's a lot to extrapolate from a nod and smile, but in a general way, the sense of being recognized with no demands made is nice, and makes you feel like you're part of a community.

Of course you can be a visiting member as a tourist (that's why I always travel with tango shoes), and it can be a way of breaking through the tourist shell to have meaningful interactions with people in a foreign place.  But being a regular member makes you feel like you belong in a place.  In some ways more than even friendships, because I'm used to having practically a more active social life on vacation abroad than at home, and also because friendships are personal and involve one to one interactions, whereas the almost impersonal nature of this makes you part of a group.

So I've learned to use the hood on the stove, and scrubbed the stove-top multiple times, and people at the pool nod to me now.  This is starting to feel like home, as opposed to just like a beautiful dream where I pretend that I'm at home.  I just went to take out the garbage, and the street was absolutely still and silent (except for a garbage truck gliding along in the distance).  There's a brilliant almost full moon tonight, but in spite of that, and in spite of the streetlights (most of the house lights were out, because people go to bed early here on weeknights because they have to work in the mornings) I was able to see Cassiopeia about the street.  I feel like picking out constellations in the sky is a good omen.

Tomorrow I have no archives scheduled, but I still have my workout plans (and leftovers in the refrigerator), so the routine will hold.  And I also have a few books I have to get digitally either via the library or Amazon, so that I continue to get work done.  Routine is the mother of comfort.  And hopefully also dissertation chapters.