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Learning how to have fun

By: Grace Baranowski <[email protected]>

As I made my final preparations for my summer in Spain—buying that final pair of socks, assembling important papers, I felt a bubble of glimmering excitement rise inside my chest.
I was convinced that my new life would be different, that for almost two months I could magically live the life I’d always wanted to lead. I sensed subconsciously that normal limits were removed. For the first time in my life, I was truly going to be free to live life without all the normal daily constraints.

When I finally arrived in Ciudad Real, I made myself a promise that no moment would go unlived. No way was I going to go to another country and waste a single second of the new experience. If the sun beat down too strongly, I’d see how it shined, brillaba, on the roof aerator of an apartment complex. If the fish, pescado, was fried with too much olive oil, I’d happily eat it all. If I looked out of my window and forgot how spectacular the arid, hilly expanse was, I’d remind myself that “Dios mio, estoy en España!” Instead of groaning and burrowing further into my blankets when my morning alarm sounded, which, by the way, was the incredibly popular “I’m so lucky” by Lucky Twice, I actually smiled into my pillow and bounded up to drink my milk and chocolate Nesquik.

One particular memory stands out in my mind.

With two days left in Spain, my family decided to take me to a finca (a ranch), complete with toros, vacas and caballos (bulls, cows and horses).
Earlier that day, my mother, Mar, had told me not to bring my bikini to the finca, even though there was a pool there. Not wanting to be disrespectful, I didn’t, but as soon as we got there, Blanca (my sister) shed her tank top to reveal a hidden swimsuit. She jumped into the pool, but I stood there wistfully in my Soffe shorts and tank top.

She motioned for me to jump in too, even though I was fully clothed and sin bikini. So I unlaced my deportivos (sneakers) and plunged in. I could have sat poolside and depressed, but, as I said, I made a decision to live each moment. And that made that day one of the most colorful of my life.
After splashing around with Blanca in the pool, I dragged myself out. I realized self-consciously that the pale blue tank top, when wet, wasn’t the most modest of clothing options. But Mar dismissively told me, “No pasa nada. Sólo es el campo.”

Apparently, the fact that we were in the Spanish countryside negated any need to be worried by anything in the slightest. Still, though, I was without a dry set of clothes. Mar asked la dueña de la casa (the wife of the house) for a change of attire, so she retrieved a nubbly, blue-striped bikini from the 1980s, probably three sizes bigger than my own, and a polo shirt with the finca’s brand.

I changed by the side of the house and reappeared. Words cannot convey how awkward I felt, first of all changing (albeit in another corner unseen by the party crowd), and then walking around the finca, basically pantless, but obviously clothed in both halves of the ancient bikini. And sneakers.

But, as I had decided when I jumped into the water, I embraced the absurd situation and gave myself the permission to enjoy it to the fullest. I helped Mar feed the chickens—without pants. I jumped in the back of a Ford pick-up truck with the head of the finca and his grandson to tour the expansive campo—without pants. I drove a Quad, a groaning four-wheeler, with my two Spanish sisters hugging my waist behind me—without pants. We rumbled past the toros, the red-orange sun slipping between gnarly trees.

And in this release of reason, this refusal to let any sort of unnecessary self-censure creep in, I was free.

When I returned, I tried to make a conscious effort to view everything as I had in Spain. I tried to look at my 6 p.m. dinner with the same sense of novelty that I viewed my 11:30 p.m. cena (dinner) in Spain. I tried to listen to popular music in the same way, to hear above the melody and recognize the emotions behind it that were so apparent in the whining songs of flamenco. In my quest to fully enjoy every moment, disfrutar de cada momento, I had over-stimulated my senses and desensitized myself to American life.

Perhaps every-day stress is making such a strong impression to me right now because I was out of its clutches in Spain this summer—which was, in a word, idyllic. When I got back home, I felt as if those past few weeks had been a dream or a figment of my imagination. The sunny, Spanish days dissolved in the rainy, Indiana weather.

I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, looking at fotos flashing across my camera’s screen, finding it hard to believe I had ever gone. What made it so implausibly wonderful, I think, was not my new, loving family and friends, but my attitude going into the situation.

And now that school is back in session, and I’m finally thinking in English again, I see that just floating by isn’t enough. I, along with the others, need to make a commitment to myself to enjoy everything as much as possible.

One must allow one’s self to become a child again, a wondering, wandering bundle of awe. Otherwise, the stress will get to us. And life’s delicate magic will evaporate.

Grace Baranowski is a managing editor for the HiLite. Contact her at [email protected]

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