Day 58: Making Time
Mañana, mañana, even for good stuff.
From the outside there wasn’t much to Day 58. Our routines are settling into place and we’re pretty well adjusted to the daily flow. I get up before 6, Bill gets up at around 6:30. Mitzie gets walked three times a day, and we share at least 3 of our meals together on the terrace. We have our Spanish class in Russafa twice a week, we have our tutor session online once a week, and we both work full-time. We have Saturdays off together and I have Fridays off on my own while Bill has Sundays. We’re connecting with friends on our collective and respective days off.
Even with all that routine, or maybe because of it, I’m finding myself needing to make time for the things I want to have in my life. I had two things I wanted to do yesterday, for example, and neither got done because I didn’t make the time.
I don’t want to throw shade on Day 58 or myself — it was a lovely day! I woke up early enough to start a load of laundry and write both my daily blog post here and craft an article for a local-to-Hip-Circle magazine before Bill got up. We shared a pre-dawn breakfast on the terrace before Bill walked Mitzie. We took the bus to Inter Estudios for Spanish and I did the homework I’d neglected over the weekend full of fun (Seriously, Day 56 and Day 57 were so good!) while we bounced our way across town. I somehow managed to win a quiz game we played in class that focused on fun facts about Mexico AND got all the questions right in an exercise about Central and South America in class, confirming my feeling that I’m meant to be in a Latino country. Instead of going straight home with Bill I lingered in Russafa to enjoy coffee with a friend and a woman newer-than-us to Spain (she’s on week 2, I’m on week 9, and my friend is on something like week 17) at Café Tostao (where the waitress knows our orders already). I had a lovely walk home from the bus and noticed at least one nail salon in our neighborhood that may warrant a future visit. Bill took a break from his work day to join me on the terrace for lunch and said lunch ended with a piece of milk chocolate. I worked a full day (a productive one) that had a really fun dance class towards the end of it and included a potentially helpful webinar. Bill made a DELICIOUS steak for dinner (he’d braved the butcher counter at Consume) that we chose to eat early since it was heavier, and the evening was perfect weather-wise for enjoying it on the terrace. We explored the north side of our wee neighborhood in search of somewhere fun to go for an end-of-Monday beverage and ended up back at Casa Monica’s. I got to make friends with a sweet little girl (maybe 3 years old?) at the table behind us and that totally made up for the false advertising on the wall of the restaurant (really, it shouldn’t be so hard to find a cocktail). On our way home we saw people tending to the huge family of feral cats. We ended our day with connection and conversation, and with me making the realization that I hadn’t done the two things I’d set out to do. Mañana, mañana *may* have been uttered before we headed to bed at around 22:00.
So, while I don’t have a painting to show or my sourdough starter bubbling away on the kitchen counter, I *did* make time for quite a bit of living yesterday. And, in true Spanish fashion, perhaps I’ll make time today.
