Category Archives: Grist for the Mill

This year, I swore I’d notice the actual moment in August when the swifts, a fixture of the Madrid sky since spring, hightailed it back to Africa. And then, just like I always do, I missed it. One morning, the swifts’ peep and playful tumble met me when I stepped out on our balcony; theContinue reading “Swift(ly): August 31”

Half a lifetime ago, that night in May when the curfew ended and young people partied in the streets, El Pais published photographs of the bacchanal of heaving bodies congregated in Sol, Madrid’s center. One of which showed a joyous young woman up on somebody’s shoulders: beverage cup in one hand, white, green and blackContinue reading “Dreamscape”

The buskers haven’t packed it in and the construction workers are still on the clock, but you can tell it’s August in Madrid: half the little shops are cerrado por vacaciones, their rolled-down security grilles giving the streets a semi-abandoned feel. When I woke up this morning it felt Sunday quiet, State of Alarm lockdownContinue reading “August”

… for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. Baudelaire Years from now, if anybody asks me what I loved most about Spain, I may very well sayContinue reading “Passionate Spectator”

*Half-throttle. The morning we left Madrid for Catalunya, it became permissible for the first time in almost a year to go without a mask outdoors. By the time we returned, curfews had just been re-instituted in Barcelona. Spain is in the midst of its fifth Covid wave. This isn’t like the last one; hospitals aren’tContinue reading “Medio Gas*”

Our nearest grocery store, open 24 hours a day pre-Pandemic (which, over the past 14 months, has gone from being not open at all to only being open 11:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m., then 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m., then 7:00 a.m. – 10:00 p.m.), is now open 24 hours. There are tourists! In Madrid!Continue reading “Signs of Life”

First, of course, starting in January were the Facebook posts from the U.S., a trickle, then a flood: vaccinated! (I was such a late FB adopter that my friends list is more curated than most, which allows me to avoid both the fray and anti-vaccine posts.) Then one friend here went home to England; anotherContinue reading “The Long and Winding Road”

Two Saturdays ago, I woke up to a dawn broken by singing. This sounds much more picturesque than it actually was. But at the sound, I carried my cup of coffee onto the terrace and leaned my elbows on the railing to enjoy it. Two Saturdays ago was also the next-to-the-last Saturday of Madrid’s curfew.Continue reading “Quiero Fiesta”

Looking back on it, writing poetry was probably my entry point into writing, period. I wrote my first poem in 6th grade; I then set poems aside as one of life’s “childish things” and began writing short stories in college. (Poetry didn’t sell, “they” said, not mentioning that short stories don’t, either.) After a hiatusContinue reading “Backstory, In More Ways Than One”

Today is International Day of the Book. Who knew? Certainly not us Americans, unless something changed since I left the States a year and a half ago. But here in Spain, people really celebrate el Día del Libro. This might be because Spanish people love festivities in general. It could be because the celebration wasContinue reading “El Día del Libro/World Book Day”