Imagine this.
It’s early summer 2008 and you’re standing in the lobby of a stuccoed hotel somewhere in Toledo. That’s “Toll-aye-doh” not “Toll-ee-doh.” Spain, not Ohio. You need to send an email to your mother and your new husband, neither of whom is on the trip with you, neither of whom got to try the paella two days ago at the rickety table in that sun-glazed Madrid alley, neither of whom sipped the chocolate or sampled the churros. Now’s the time to tell them about it, about all of the bits and bites. If you don’t, you’re afraid you’ll forget and won’t get the details just right. You really do need to catch these details while they’re brightest.
The man behind the front desk is so short. He stands on a stack of books, three volumes high, staring off into the middle distance. Encyclopedias, maybe? Dickens? Dickens would be especially good for elevating oneself, you think. He looks tired, and you wonder for just one second what the whole rest of his life looks like. The dark circles under his eyes have stories to tell.
You need his help, so you pull your chin up, square your shoulders and don a smile. Your Spanish isn’t very good, and you hope to make up for it with friendliness.
So you ask him. This stout, aging man behind the desk looks at you, unblinking, and you wonder if he’s heard you or if you only muttered the words inside your own head, failing to actually verbalize them. It’s been years since you took any Spanish classes, and you navigate the ins and outs of each new conversation in this country like a sailor fighting for ownership of her sea legs. Scared to death.
“Que?” The space between his brows lessens, his forehead wrinkling into a staircase of confusion.
Rife with ineloquence, language flows between the two of you in fits and starts; it takes a few tries to figure each other out. Your eyes meet and you see that his are kind, expectant. You think he’s looking for something; a connection maybe.
“Oh. Lo siento,” you murmur, sheepishly. I’m sorry. You try again. “Ummm. Tienes una computadora con la red?” Do you have a computer with the Internet?
La red. You’ve excavated the dusty word from the back recesses of your brain’s warehouse, where all of the debris and stockpiled knowledge from middle and high school lie in wait. If Ms. Seeber could see you now, how pleased she’d be.
“Ah, si. Ven aqui.” You follow the man into a small room that sits just off the main lobby. One computer is perched on a desk set against the far wall, under large, light-filled windows. Your faces reflect in its glassy gray screen and you think he looks a little happier now, satisfied.
“La red.” He says, making typing motions with the fingers on both of his hands. “The Net. You write in the net, in the web.”
A sudden shyness brings a reddening about your cheeks that feels foreign. Stepping in and out of a language that isn’t your own comes with a particular brand of vulnerability that you wear like a mask over which you have no control.
“Gracias,” you say again, as you begin to type.
You write about the charms of Bomba rice; of saffron, sweet green peas, and the most tender calamari you’ve ever tried. A deep satisfaction comes in the telling and retelling of these small yet remarkable moments of Spanish dining and the new, unforgettable foods it entails. You find them again with ease, these moments, with a grace that evades you when asked to recount other aspects of your trip; the museums, gardens, and Moorish cathedrals. It is the moments of taste, texture and smell as they belong to the foods of Spain that have you rapt; these are the experiences you share with truest excitement.
Time passes in a vacuum. Has it been hours? Perhaps. You relive these foods and flavors with such relish. You write and write and write, hitting send only after it’s all been told. You’d gotten yourself caught; caught up in all of the words and ideas and inspirations that, as if in a parallel universe, are now flying through the tangled, vast web … into the red… getting trapped, getting caught.
Ever deeper, through the Net they fall.
