Inspirational love (and my week) - And many thanks to You!

Consistency is returning to my life! It is seeping back in through the metaphoric channels that I have carved in the weeks gone by. In other words, my schedule is getting more orderly! I now know that I can go to yoga on Monday, the climbing gym on Tuesday, Spanish class on Wednesday, Spanish dance on Thursday, and still have time to go to school every morning, climb on the weekends, and spend time with friends besides. This schedule will be tested again in the week to come, and this testing may lead to some important refinements so that I can maintain sanity amongst my ever forthcoming wants, but this horario worked pretty well this week!

To begin with, yoga is a beautiful thing. Just to breathe is a gift, and a full hour of relaxation amounts to something close to a miracle! Granted, laying the foundation for the ability to balance on my head isn’t so bad either! (Imagine me starting in a crawling position, bringing my head to the ground, balancing my knees on my forearms and then, with the help of my teacher, lifting my legs into the air with head and hands pressing into the solid earth. I can hardly wait to try it again!) My most important lesson in Spain, aside from the usual quest for eternal happiness, is how to relax. I am so active and goal oriented that I used to forget to take a few deep breaths and keep a few moments for me and myself every now and then. Spain has given me the gift of perspective; I am in a place where I have no responsibility except to myself and the new goals that I am setting for myself. I have given myself the gift of freedom by working my tooshie off for many years at school, and now I can let go of that need to keep straight A’s and refocus on balancing life. This is not to say that school is a thing of the past. Quite the contrary! I love learning with a passion and this liberation from worry over grades and their consequences on my future actually feeds my desire to learn. Additionally, I have realized how important friends are. Life is essentially nothing without the beautiful relationships of love that we create within it. These friendships –and the deeper love that you share with one special person- is the ultimate everything. All else is just a means to that end (or that continuum, I should say!). All pretty words aside, I have realized how much I love you guys! Elsbeth, Rhiannon: You guys are amazing. I can’t believe mi suerte. To have had you guys in my life for as long as I have, wow. It’s a real gift. Only now, in retrospect, do I realize that I should have been hanging out with you guys every single weekend this year. Thanks for always being there and always being incredible.

Now, I hope the rest of you out there know that I am just bubbling and overflowing with thanks for each of you and that my expression of one particular gratefulness to particular people in no way demeans my love and gratefulness for you. I only wish I had more time and space to express this thanks. To all of my young friends, thank you for giving me laughter, light-heartedness, and smiles. Thank you for being there for me when I need to talk and for accepting my sometimes silly feelings with mature graciousness. To all my friends who are young-at-heart (and yes, that means you! All of you!), thank you for giving me wonderful, perceptive conversation. Thank you for sharing your wise and varied perspectives that have allowed me to grow into the person that I am today. To all of my teacher (and this, again, includes everyone to some degree and in some way), thank you for inspiring me. No. That was not enough. Thank you for inspiring me; on stage, in the classroom, in your living room, and walking down the street you have given me morsels of understanding that amount to inspiration. You know who you are. You are the people who have made life possible, the people who have given me the world through knowledge, opportunities, kindness, and open-mindedness. Allen, I have to single you out here. You can not begin to imagine how much you have given me. So let me help you! Imagine infinite confidence, absolute trust, extensive knowledge, and endless pleasure. Now times that by a million! For this, I say thank you. Mom. I don’t even need to begin, because we both know there will never be an end to our special connection that includes so much more than maternal affection and daughterly love. You are my friend, teacher, and inspiration – and in this way, in the above words, I have already thanked you infinitely. But one more time can never hurt! Thank you, Mom. And Dad: add to everything above a faithful companion and the best rock-climbing buddy in the world, and then your portrait might be complete. Nah! Maybe if Leonardo DaVinci were alive he could capture all that is you within a canvas and a bit of paint, but otherwise, words and colors are not adequate.

And I know why. It is because you (and you, and you, and you, and you, and you!) are made from love. - We are such stuff as dreams are made on. I believe that dreams are made of wishes and wants. In turn, wishes and wants, in their purest forms, are love. Love cannot be confined to nor adequately expressed through such rudimentary, material things as paintings and prose. It is so absolute that, as I try to grasp phrases to describe it, my mind evokes only brilliant colors and instinctive, indescribable concepts. My mind swims with the implications of infinite love, and I can do little more than sit, simply smiling, and let a vague residue of these emotions filter through my fingertips and onto this page.

Well, now that I have covered yoga on Monday, shall we move on to Tuesday?!

Tuesday brings climbing, beautiful climbing! This climbing is, of course, in the rock climbing gym for an hour or so in the evening. I catch a ride with Ignacio and his dad, have a few laughs during the car-ride before we drop Ignacio off for his physics class, and then continue on to our ultimate destination. During this time, Ignacio’s dad (Juan Augustine) and I bonded over Botticeli, Picasso, vanGogh, and Goya. We shared experiences from our travels and he re-renewed my dreams of experiencing Europe’s nuances step-by-step and country my country. But back to what is most important: climbing. The climbing gym is actually just a practice for the real thing. It is a social hour, a brief dance across walls in anticipation of real rock. Individual pieces of plastic on a wall have a profoundly different feel from one unified mountain. I enjoy the gym and I have no desire to trade Tuesday evenings for anything else, but the joy of the gym is totally eclipsed by what comes on the weekends! Yesterday (Saturday), I went climbing in Mula –a gorgeous rock formation an hour North of Alicante in Murcia. I must emphasize that this rock is some of the most incredible rock that I have ever seen in my life. Parts of it look like the type of relief that you would find on the inside of the cave, or within the pages of a science fiction novel! Instead of climbers, I saw green, extra-terrestrial beings sliding their way up the wall. Other parts were like an exciting three-dimensional puzzle, with incredible pockets and tunnels. In describing this maze of opportunities to a fellow climber who was readying himself to second my climb, I explained how there were some parts of the rock where you could stick one arm in each end of a hole and have them meet in the middle. He said, “Of course! And then you could just crawl in and have a cup of tea!” --- Brilliant rock. Absolutely brilliant. It is limestone of the highest caliber and the reason that everyone knows and longs for Spain’s climbing. I wish I could pack all you rocknasium folk in a little suitcase and ship you over here for a little fun, but alas!

The highlight of the day was the climb that I have alluded to earlier –the “stop and take a sip of tea” route. Despite its deceiving name, this route is really a little mind game. I studied the route and took a few deep breaths. Once relaxed, the route clicked into place all by itself. I do, however, need to develop my endurance because, two bolts from the top and directly below a huge bulge that turned out to be the crux, I took a break. It was as much a break for my mind as my body. No; more so. When I train my mind to regard that lengthy pitch as nothing more than one, easy movement upward, then my body will naturally follow my will; I won’t tire two bolts from the end. Let me tell you, I came down from that climb so mellow and relaxed that I just sat for a while after that, appreciating the horizon. The rating of the route is a 6C+, or a 5.11b/c by our rating system. (To access a table comparing rating systems, see http://home.tiscalinet.de/ockier/ratings.htm.)

Wednesday is Castellano para extrangeros day –otherwise known as a solid hour of hardcore Spanish grammar and vocab! Like many students my age, I return during the evening to take more classes. It is an intimate little group of three or four students and an enthusiastic but focused teacher. He knows that our little group of Americans, Germans, Eukranians, and Russians (among other nationalities that vary from week to week) are only there because we want to be there. He keeps things upbeat and bridges the gaps in our levels of Spanish fluidly. Every week, I take home my fun little illustrated text books and drill out three or four pages of futuro compuesto or pretérito imperfecto de indicative. Amazingly enough, my brain is still intact and functioning! jk. Grammar is a lot of fun -once you get over its ominous name: grammar (*thunderclap!*). In addition to my progress in Spanish grammar, I am also able to read exceedingly quickly compared to my initial snails pace back in early February, my comprehension is blossoming, and most importantly, I have had a breakthrough in my ability to communicate orally. If you asked me, I would not be able to pinpoint the exact moment when this change took place, but somewhere around Wednesday or Thursday, everyone started understanding me. Maybe it was that filosophy tutorial on Thursday morning where my kind-hearted professor and I delved with renewed relish into the history of human thought, but regardless of what triggered the relaxation of my Spanish tongue, the truth is apparent: I have carried on a multitude of deep conversations with brand-new friends and found that not only the message got across, but also the subtleties. My next goal: master synonyms and antonyms, implement turns of phrases, and pick up the Spanish equivalent of a few English phrases -such as “He got cold feet and backed out of the challenge”- to put to good. At any rate, all is well in Spanish Language Land.

Thursday: Spanish dance. Or, more specifically, Sevillanas. I will have to embellish upon this topic at another time since I haven’t done much dancing up to this point. I’ll give you the full scoop next week.

As always, there’s more to share but less time to share it in! I anticipate your comments and hope that you note the photo entries that I have posted below.

“Give me your ears, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.” Until next time friends and, as always, thank you for your interest and attention!

Love,

Jocelyn