The Meaning of "Spain"

Two months ago my husband and I took our three girls to Spain for the first time. Madrid, Spain is the birthplace of my mother. It's the place where she lived until she married my father and moved to New York. And it is the place where I spent every summer of my life. 

I was very curious to see what each of my daughters would take away from this trip - eager to see what character and taste "Spain" would hold for each one of them. I didn't expect a vast cultural understanding from the twins. They are six years old, after all. If you asked them what Madrid is "like", the first would tell you it is a place where you can play in a playground across the street from a palace and where Mickey Mouse makes balloon animals for you. Huh? Finding people dressed as Minnie and Mickey in front of Palacio (or Shrek in La Puerta del Sol, or Winnie the Pooh in La Plaza Mayor) is the last thing I expected to see. To the second twin, Spain is the home of "Balto" the cutest dog in the world. Balto is my cousin's dog for whom she developed quite a fondness, and vice versa. She asks to go back to Madrid almost every day, not to see my uncles or aunts, but to visit Balto.

It was clear that Spain was changing. Distances were suddenly shorter, and all my friends with kids own a Sony PlayStation or Nintendo Wii. It's not at all that I am surprised at the modernity of it. It has been modern - more modern than us - for a long time now. In fact I had always been offended as a teen and young adult when my American friends asked me if Spain had such creature comforts as the bathrooms and appliances that we took for granted. I'd sit and steam quietly thinking "ignorant Americans." The surprise for me was that it was not so different anymore. In a way that was good. There was less I needed to relearn to get around, less I needed to explain, and routine things - such as Starbucks and place mats to color in restaurants - made Madrid less nerve wracking for the kids. Familiarity is always comforting to children.

But the loss of much of its traditional nuances was also sad to me. In a way, that which made the idea of "Spain" so magical for me as a child was starting to fade. Some things remain the same. The smell of cologne from people in the street, the cleanliness of its buildings and the hard sidewalks with small square designs which absolutely kill your feet were still there. And that's when I realized I was like so many immigrants that return to their countries... their homes, which they preserved in their minds frozen in time... to find everything changed.

It had been 13 years since I last visited Madrid. I will never let that much time pass again.

More to follow...