My thoughts...have been organized

So I decided to apply for a nonfiction writing seminar at Northwestern for next quarter. For the application I wrote a piece that basically sums up my current state of mind here, but organizes them a little more eloquently. Here it is:

I sit alone in a crowded bakery not three blocks from my dorm in Barcelona and, out of the corner of my eye, observe the Spaniards in their natural habitat. It is 5 o’clock on a Friday afternoon and this seems to be the time to gather for a late-afternoon tallat (small coffee with milk) or a croissant. Two small children play loudly with toy cars at the table next to me while their chatting mothers look on, occasionally interjecting the raucous game with commands to quiet down. Directly in front of me sits a boy slurping chocolate milk and squirming under the unrelenting attention of an older couple whom I assume are his grandparents. On my right, a mother consoles her sobbing daughter with kisses and coca-cola. I cower alone at a table that is pushed against the wall, clutching my tallat in both hands— a symbol that I know something about the culture here. A stained glass sign above me lets me know that this café is called Oriol and has been in business since 1927.

To me, my foreignness is palpable. I notice myself leaning into the wall, as if to cloak myself in its solidity and discard the temporality that tugs me away. I have been living in Barcelona for almost two months now and, while I am finally beginning to notice an improvement in my Spanish, I still feel constantly out of place. At first glance, I could be a plausible Spaniard, decked out in my flashy Nike tennis shoes and oversized gray sweater. I even like to think that my quarter of Sephardic Jewish blood gives me some physical resemblance to the people here. Sadly, any cushion of physical advantage I’m fond of imagining bursts as soon as I open my mouth. My accent is nowhere near perfect, the words come out too slowly and because of this I have perfected the blank stare of incomprehension when I’m spoken to. I find it hard to completely throw myself into learning this language when I know I’ll be gone in two more months. My visit here is only a blip on this city’s history—and mine.

The United States is younger by millennia than the oldest Roman walls of Barcelona. In Spain, families have been rooted in the same towns for hundreds of years. Cataluña, the autonomous community in which Barcelona is located, is known for its people’s fierce national pride. The people here feel their legacy in their bones, a legacy that is intricately intertwined with the fact that they have occupied the same land for centuries.

Home was a concept I never fully understood until I left it behind for college. Nor did I realize how important my hometown is to my identity until I came to Barcelona. When I introduce myself, the first thing I want people to know about me is that I’m from Ann Arbor. Not that I’m the oldest child out of 3 girls, not that I go to school at Northwestern, not my political beliefs and certainly not that I’m American. Only the rare souls who have been there, or those who know someone from this Midwest mecca can understand what I mean when I say I’m from Ann Arbor, Michigan. I wear Birkenstocks, eat tofu and ride my bicycle as much as possible not because I want to emit any sort of image, but because it feels comfortable to perpetuate the culture I’ve been steeped in since birth.

I have always assumed that as I grow up, I will move away from Ann Arbor, leave my family and friends to pursue a career and form my own life. America was built, and still runs, on the ideas of immigration and mobility. In contrast, Spanish culture relies much more heavily on concrete traditions, objects and places, just as the residents of this barrio rely on Oriol for their daily caffeine rush.

I’m either becoming more affected by Spain than I thought I was or something in me has changed because now I’m not so sure that I need to leave my home, my identity, in order to grow as a person. Meeting Spanish university students who either still live at home or go home to their families every single weekend demonstrates to me the—until now—completely unexamined path my life could take if I choose. Living alongside the proud Catalonians has shown me that instead of uprooting myself, maybe I’ll just grow in a different direction.