Things I’ve seen in Spain.
Little children, deviceless in public, making blatant eye contact with adults, behaving ten years more mature than their age.
Employees taking breaks in the middle of each day to be with their family, their friends, and to drink a glass of beer, and laugh loudly in sidewalk cafés with loved ones.
Old men taking long walks alone. Hands clasped behind their backs in silent contemplation. Moving their bodies, since they do not own a car. Even in their late 90s, they walk. They walk to the market for groceries. They walk to the bar to see their friends and eat supper. They dress in nice clothes. No tennis shoes in sight. No lounge shorts or T-shirts with phrases printed on the fronts saying “Yer Trailer or Mine?” They wear khakis. Button downs. Sweaters. Flat caps.
Public toilets without folding seats, only surgically cold porcelain bowls, so you have to hover, thereby subjecting every muscle in your body to an incredible test of endurance.
Bathroom light switches located outside the bathroom wall instead of inside where it would make sense. So, when you enter the bathroom and it’s dark, you are soon searching for a switch by feeling around on the interior walls but can feel no protrusions so you end up saying “Hell with it,” and perform your necessaries in the ink darkness.
Succulent plants as big as small trees.
Teenagers, sitting quietly in cafés, playing newspaper crossword puzzles with a pencil in hand. No phones.
Young men hand-rolling their cigarettes non-ironically.
Giving gifts just because.
Being able to buy a beer—a good beer, not the American porta-john-flavored beer—for less than a buck.
Hanging laundry, flapping in the breeze, white in the sunlight, fragrant with the smell of nature and the faint scent of fresh earth and trees.
Old women who wear tabard aprons over their polka-dot dresses while doing housework, as though it is still 1931.
Young women who take great pains to present themselves, dressing in their nicest clothes simply to ride a bus, a train, or board an airplane, as opposed to the common American dress code of wearing one’s pajamas, slippers, and partially exposed thong underwear.
No A/Cs, but open windows, and the smell of beautiful, non-sterilized, non-artificial air, freely drifting through each room, fluttering the curtains, filling each space with the vivacious and unspoiled breath of nature.
Public smoking, without nasty glares, demonstrative throat clearing, and public shaming from non-smokers nearby.
Too much cholesterol, butter, gluten, excessive sodium, full-fat milk, three alcoholic drinks per day, not including wine with dinner, or beer for lunch, and the second-highest life expectancy in the world.
Daily naps.
Downtowns and plazas bustling with shops and storefronts that are actually doing good business, as opposed to American villages that once thrived, but are now ghost-town shopping districts which have been choked to death by Walmarts, Best Buys, Home Depots, Kohl’s, Marshalls, and yet another Starbucks.
Locally-owned cafés that are not corporate entities but owned by real families, supplied with food that has never been frozen, did not come from a plastic package, and is not laden with at least 29 undisclosed preservative chemicals known to cause cancer in the State of California. Florida, no. But California, yes.
Elderly men and women, who finish out their final years in their families’ homes instead of a nursing facility.
Cars without computers. With simplified engines that anyone with a ratchet set can work on.
Coffee that doesn’t suck.
Reverence for trees, and a great, almost religious hesitation to cut them down just because they are in the way.
Tradition preserved instead of trivialized, criticized, then politicized, before finally being sterilized.
Young children who ride the bus by themselves, without a parent hovering nearby, and manage to fully entertain themselves with only paper books, and physical magazines.
Fewer ball caps, more fedoras.
Less polyester and nylon wicking shirts, more wool and cotton.
Newly constructed commercial architecture and public buildings that actually look attractive instead of resembling adult correctional facilities.
Reverence for the religion of one’s elders and loved ones, even going so far as to participate in such events, even if the participant himself or herself is not religious.
Ancient proverbs, used frequently, even by the young. Proverbs like:
“Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos.” Raise crows [meaning trouble] and they will peck your eyes out.
“Donde comen dos, comen tres.” Where two eat, three can eat (Always room for more).
“No hay mal que cien años dure.” There is no evil that lasts a hundred years (This too shall pass).
And my favorite saying of all:
“Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.”
Tell me who you walk with, and I’ll tell you who you are.
Questions: SeanDietrich@gmail.com
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Originally published on Sean’s website. Republished here with permission.
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