"I'm Baaack ...." Chapter 3: Madrid, España
[Editorial Note: You'll notice I stopped posting there for awhile. I guess I was torn about how effective/wise/strategic posting my book on a blog in fact might be. I'm not sure I answered that question but have since learned about Catherine Sanderson's new book, Petite Anglaise, and felt inspired and marginally hopeful. She's a British ex-pat living in Paris who's blog (http://www.petiteanglaise.com/) got her fired but culled a sweet book deal. Does such luck come in pairs? I can dream, can't I?]
3. Madrid, Spain, September 1996
When I was a senior in high school, before I lost my front top four teeth in a nasty field hockey accident, before I split my lip and broke my jawbone, I wanted to study abroad that very year.
My parents declined. They said it would be a mistake to “miss” my last year in high school, one that, they said, promised to be memorable with proms and parties, leadership opportunities at school, etc.
Perhaps they were right; but, perhaps also, if I had gone to wherever I thought I wanted to go at the time (Was it Ireland? Africa? I don’t remember.), I won’t have lost my teeth and still suffer through the awkward pain of sensing my crowns shifting every once and awhile (and the nightmares in which I slog through my daily life with no teeth after they’ve toppled out of my mouth into my bloody, cupped hand). But, as they say, hindsight is 20/20, is it not?
In their refusal to let me study abroad my senior year of high school, my parents, however, did concede that when I was in college, the junior year typically being the one during which college students study abroad, I’d be able to go, too.
Not one to forget, my second year at Penn rolled around and I got working on getting myself overseas for the next academic year. I had tests and interviews and recommendations to complete. Finally, I was accepted into a program administered by Penn, Cornell, and the University of Michigan in Sevilla, Spain. Sevilla is the capital of the southern province of Andalucia.
I was scheduled to depart shortly after Labor Day to Madrid where the program would convene, the students would gather, and my adventure would get underway.
I remember, probably precisely one month before departing for Spain, sitting on the beach in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, with my childhood pal Andrea, whom we called Brownie or Perci. We must have been down there with her parents for a few days. We spent most of our childhood and adolescence across the street (Willowbrook Drive) from each other so her parents were like extensions of my own and vice versa. I recall that night, sitting on the damp sand. We stared into the darkness, the sea and the sky inseparable. She was talking about a boy and sex and things moving too fast and I was thinking how in one month’s time, I’d be on the other side of that void. My thoughts excited me, tightened my stomach; they seemed very unreal.
U.S. teenagers are an interesting bunch. I notice this phenomenon about my former self the more I get to know people from other countries and cultures, which is often what happens in such exchanges: while you certainly grow in your knowledge of these other places and peoples, you inevitably, almost reluctantly, learn a lot more about yourself. A different kind of treasure, I guess. But, U.S. teens generally leave mom and dad around age 18 and head off to college. Or, if that’s not their cup of tea, they typically leave nonetheless and venture off into a world of messiness and some times squalid environs.
Take me, for example: I left home at 17 to attend Penn located in the ever-lively neighborhood of West Philadelphia. To many people from most other countries, it’s a bizarre pattern we United Statesians exhibit. Why flee the nest so early? In most other places around the globe, young people don’t leave home until they’re ready to get married and establish a place of their own. To their minds, what’s the hurry?
In the United States, however, we hop, skip, gallop, and leap from the security of our parents’ homes and (too) watchful gazes as soon as we possibly can. The sooner the better. I was lucky. My parents were patient and very generous with me. I really wanted to attend an urban school and, ultimately chose UPenn.
3. Madrid, Spain, September 1996
When I was a senior in high school, before I lost my front top four teeth in a nasty field hockey accident, before I split my lip and broke my jawbone, I wanted to study abroad that very year.
My parents declined. They said it would be a mistake to “miss” my last year in high school, one that, they said, promised to be memorable with proms and parties, leadership opportunities at school, etc.
Perhaps they were right; but, perhaps also, if I had gone to wherever I thought I wanted to go at the time (Was it Ireland? Africa? I don’t remember.), I won’t have lost my teeth and still suffer through the awkward pain of sensing my crowns shifting every once and awhile (and the nightmares in which I slog through my daily life with no teeth after they’ve toppled out of my mouth into my bloody, cupped hand). But, as they say, hindsight is 20/20, is it not?
In their refusal to let me study abroad my senior year of high school, my parents, however, did concede that when I was in college, the junior year typically being the one during which college students study abroad, I’d be able to go, too.
Not one to forget, my second year at Penn rolled around and I got working on getting myself overseas for the next academic year. I had tests and interviews and recommendations to complete. Finally, I was accepted into a program administered by Penn, Cornell, and the University of Michigan in Sevilla, Spain. Sevilla is the capital of the southern province of Andalucia.
I was scheduled to depart shortly after Labor Day to Madrid where the program would convene, the students would gather, and my adventure would get underway.
I remember, probably precisely one month before departing for Spain, sitting on the beach in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, with my childhood pal Andrea, whom we called Brownie or Perci. We must have been down there with her parents for a few days. We spent most of our childhood and adolescence across the street (Willowbrook Drive) from each other so her parents were like extensions of my own and vice versa. I recall that night, sitting on the damp sand. We stared into the darkness, the sea and the sky inseparable. She was talking about a boy and sex and things moving too fast and I was thinking how in one month’s time, I’d be on the other side of that void. My thoughts excited me, tightened my stomach; they seemed very unreal.
U.S. teenagers are an interesting bunch. I notice this phenomenon about my former self the more I get to know people from other countries and cultures, which is often what happens in such exchanges: while you certainly grow in your knowledge of these other places and peoples, you inevitably, almost reluctantly, learn a lot more about yourself. A different kind of treasure, I guess. But, U.S. teens generally leave mom and dad around age 18 and head off to college. Or, if that’s not their cup of tea, they typically leave nonetheless and venture off into a world of messiness and some times squalid environs.
Take me, for example: I left home at 17 to attend Penn located in the ever-lively neighborhood of West Philadelphia. To many people from most other countries, it’s a bizarre pattern we United Statesians exhibit. Why flee the nest so early? In most other places around the globe, young people don’t leave home until they’re ready to get married and establish a place of their own. To their minds, what’s the hurry?
In the United States, however, we hop, skip, gallop, and leap from the security of our parents’ homes and (too) watchful gazes as soon as we possibly can. The sooner the better. I was lucky. My parents were patient and very generous with me. I really wanted to attend an urban school and, ultimately chose UPenn.
Comments