Spring Breaks

I heard the plink of the pebble as it bounced off my windshield and watched as a crack made its way down the glass. Presumably, we were both traveling at 70 miles per hour: Me in the car going south on the Pike and it flying northward presumably from an uncovered gravel truck just ahead.

I didn’t say them aloud but the magic words of doubt and superstition kept circulating through my thoughts … This was a sign of foreboding,

“You should not be here.”

There had been so many middling problems vexing me during a month that I had started calling it the “year of April.”

But there was no turning back.

In a little more than an hour, I would be at Logan Airport and heading to the Iberian Peninsula for Spring Break. It didn’t seem like real life.

My daughter called in the middle of April and asked me to join her in Spain. A trip she’d been trying to plan with friends was falling through her grasp like a handful of sand. She wanted to go on holiday but didn’t want to be alone. 

She did not expect me to say “Yes.”

And honestly, I did not expect it either.

To say that I am an anxious traveler is an understatement. I have a hard time not tripping over words and fumbling thoughts when the nice lady at the local sandwich shop asks me what I’d like and I have not so much made a decision, as I’ve mangled the trajectory of one amid all the potential choices available.

I may never be able to use Spanish effectively… no matter how many stars Duolingo shoots at me after I complete a module. And I suspect the moment I try to say “Hola” the person to whom I’m trying to address will detect “English speaker,” and will switch languages with an ease I will never possess. 

“Never say never,” my daughter wags her finger at me … Reminding me she’s always been the wiser. 

She’s not wrong … as we unpack and set about on our itinerary, we encounter a mix of languages to traverse. We point … say numbers. I know the word for orange and can tell her when she points to it on a menu. 

She answers, "No," after I stare blankly at the clerk, who is calculating the price of a t-shirt I am trying to buy, had asked if had a member's card for discounts.

And we are not alone. All around us, there are people just quietly enjoying their lives and their surroundings.

The last Monday in April, when Spain and Portugal experienced a catastrophic power outage that disrupted mass transit and communication networks for most of the day, we were among them. Jockeying for space on the narrow sidewalks, throngs appeared from the shuttered subways, hoping for a seat on one of the buses that had also seemed to appear out of thin air.

Travelers from all over the world were walking through the wrong doors, and asking for the wrong things. Many were flummoxed. Put out by the interruption and circumvention of plans.

But they were also calm. They acted as if this was just another Spring Break … where things may not be working, but there is also room for a workaround. They sat at street-side tables as servers exited darkened restaurants carrying orders of whatever was available. Cash was king.

I was grateful we hadn’t taken the train to the mountains as we had planned. But I worried, after overhearing some women on the street surmising the power would fight its sabbatical for as many days as we had plans.

Soon, a ring of people had gathered at the corner. In the center was a boombox and the voice of a broadcaster explaining the situation. Strangers coming together to share information the old-fashioned way.

We joined fellow travelers in line at a darkened patisserie, where a woman behind the counter was busy portioning cake. She popped two slices into waxed paper sacks, twirling each end of the bags into little dog ears for closure before handing them to us. She asked for three Euros and smiled as she made change, thanking us for our purchase as we mused she had saved our lives.

How lucky were we to have cake for dinner?

Of course, the worst never came. The lights returned, cell service was restored. And the girl reached her father by phone, which made his world a little brighter, too.