The Distance from Home

You might call it irony, the way I am sitting on a couch in Spain, sorting out my future the same way I did thirteen years ago in North Dakota when I promised myself I'd never move far away.

At fifteen, the future was lined with a handful of cards ripped from Campus Life magazine. I checked the boxes carefully, making sure not to leave errant ink next to the name of any college that wasn't in Minnesota or a Dakota. I wasn't even open to free info from either coast, so sure recruiters would try to rip me out of the Midwest with their shiny brochures and scholarship offers. And when I finally made a decision, at seventeen years old, it was exactly 502 miles away. Not far enough for my classmates, who all claimed they'd blow this dump after graduation. Too far for me, the only one who felt safe inside the edges of our tiny world, a bell jar safely covering the radius around my family's farm.

The 4500 miles between North Dakota and Madrid don't feel as wide now as those first 500, that eight-hour drive carving a sharp divide between childhood and adulthood. I thought then that choosing anything new meant severing the old--and not only severing, but hacking to bloody pieces with a dull knife. I left my parents' home--a stray sunflower in the middle of a wide open wheat field, as if someone dropped the wrong seeds, magically harvested a ranch-style earthberm on the prairie. I had no idea where our land started and stopped, only that I was somehow included in the "our," that I was invited to return to the pastures and tree rows and gardens forever, even if I hadn't helped with the planting and harvesting.

When a college friend enlisted in the army, she distributed her five most precious books to friends for safekeeping. The rest of her possessions were sold, trashed, donated. I opened an envelope once to find a letter handwritten in the margins of pages she'd torn from an Emily Dickinson volume. This was a great mystery to me, having grown up in the same place where my father has spent most of his nearly-sixty years, which is also where his father spent an entire eighty-six. My closet shelves have buckled beneath the books I've been stashing since graduation. I've never yet had to change my permanent address.

And yet I live across the sea, doing things I never anticipated I would be brave enough to do. That's not exactly true, though--that I am doing anything because I'm courageous. The truth is that the sense of belonging to a place is the weight allowing the balloon to dance in the sky. The number of miles between two spaces means less than having a space to measure distances from. And this, I think, is why it's impossible to completely cut the strings, to fly haphazardly until tangling in a tree. I am free to go anywhere because my heart is tethered securely to the one place I can always call home.

Mom, Dad, thanks for letting me fly so far this time. Next year, we'll do this together. Merry Christmas.

The Card

Since I needed to go into Madrid anyway, I tried my hand at Aluche.

(Aluche is topped like a circus tent, blue and white and swirly. It's the place in charge of sending out the letters that tell you to come on down, get fingerprinted, wait 45 days for a plastic card that proves you're a legal resident of Spain. But Spain has conveniently decided not to send me this letter for the second year in a row, so here it is, nearly the new year, and I've spent seven months of my new card not having it in hand.)

The laywer told me to go first to Manuel Luna, which is the place I first went last January. (You may recall that I handed my first stack of papers to the authorities in June and finally received that residency card the following February.) "Is it necessary to start there?" I emailed back, since last year's visit resulted only in a wasted day of school and some lady at a desk telling me I should've gone to Aluche in the first place.

Anyway. Friday. First day of Christmas vacation, and I had a date. With destiny.

I walked into the carnival of bureaucracy with a sheet of paper I'd printed from the secret website which no one's ever told about directly, just learns of through others having paperwork woes--like a secret password handed around between members of a secret society. The man ushered me through the door, and though I was supposed to request a fingerprinting date on the second floor, something inside me--something spontaneous and adventurous and, I don't know, maybe glutton-for-punishmentous--decided just to stand in the short line. The line where all the people who received their letters go. A kid on the "naughty" list, trying to sort things out with Santa--that was me.

A few minutes later, someone pointed me to a desk. I slid my paper stack across the table to a man who clicked a few buttons and typed a few things, then handed me the bank form for the extra tax I needed to pay. "That's it," he said.
"That's it? Just this, and the photos, and these papers?"
"And your passport."
"And that's all?"
"That's all."

(Keep in mind that this was in Spanish, so my part of the conversation probably really sounded like, "And all? This and photos and papers and is everything, yes?")

Could it be? Could I dare to hope against hope that my piddly little internet paper would in fact grant me access to fingerprinting that day? I rushed from the building, powerwalked the next few blocks back to the train station, and asked some nearby policemen for the nearest bank. The first two banks had signs posted on the front door: We only allow payment of 790 tax between 8 and 10. 11am. Dang it. I rushed around the corner, paid my form, hustled back to the train station to get some quick passport photos done (since both photo booths at Aluche were broken), and nearly skipped all the way back to Aluche, fists clenched around the papers. Once again, I stood in line just to see what would happen.

I'd been composing happy facebook statuses in my mind, things like, "The world must be ending today: Spain has finally decided it likes me!" The man at the booth must've seen the hope in my eyes, because he reached out to snap it in half. "This is not an official date." He jabbed at the paper that declared me approved. "Who told you this was okay?"
"I don't know, this guy who was sitting there, he said I just needed these three things..." (Again, a more literal translation would be, "Um, uh, don't know, a man he who seat yourself here, he say this is good.")
"This is not a date."
"Okay. Where do I go?"
"Second floor."

I hear stories of people who glide into Aluche with their paperwork and glide out two months later, card-wielding members of this crazy country. Sarah even got a letter reminding her that her residency documents were due! As for me and my household, we resigned ourselves to the second floor, where an indifferent man stamped a piece of paper and handed it to me. March 6th, 2013. By the time I actually receive my residency card, I'll have about six weeks left in Camarma. Apparently Spain wants to save my card for a going-away present.

This video pretty much sums up all feelings I have regarding this process:



P.S. On the brighter side, I rode the train into Madrid with two dorm kids. One of them was sniffling incessantly halfway through the trip and kept asking us for Kleenexes. "Where is a bum selling Kleenexes when you need them?" (It's common practice for people to walk up and down the aisles of commuter trains, setting Kleenex packets on your lap and hoping you'll buy them.)

A few minutes later, a homeless man with a "Pide Ayuda" sign did enter the car. As he neared us, asking for money, our boy asked, "Got any Kleenexes?"
"Of course I don't have Kleenex! I live on the streets!"
"Oh, okay, man. No worries."

And that, friends, is a little something I like to call irony.

Another Delightful Installment of Student Quotes

Boy 1: "We should just sit around and eat all day."
Boy 2: "I will not do that. That is against the Ten Commandments of my life."

Boy 1: "Ms. C, he looks like a girl."
Boy 2: "I always look like a girl, honey."

Girl: "I have a prayer request. I'm ill."
Me: "Okay?"
Girl: "Not, you know, the regular kind of ill. The other kind."
Me: "Yes?"
Girl: "You know, the other kind of ill. You know. Lovesick!"

Girl: "Did you get a haircut? It's so cute!"
Boy: "No, I just showered."

Girl: "Hi, Miss C."
Me: "Hi, Miss (Name)."
Girl: "I'm not a miss yet!"
Me: "You're always a miss."
Girl: "Well, you're more miss-y."

Test Question: Name three major characters in Judges. What are they known for?
Girl: "Ehud was a very epic leftie who killed a very fat king."

After I scolded a student for making the world's most obnoxious (and continuous) noise
"Unfair! You won't let me woodpeck!"

At English camp, when I told two of my boys to join me at the Shrinky-Dink workshop
Boy 1: "Yay! Shrinky-Dinks!"
Boy 2: (crestfallen) "Oh, there's no food in here?"

Card drawn from a board game based on actual events from Joshua
"Evil unicorns attack your house! Go back three spaces."

Boy, in reference to The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle: "What's that book about the girl in the ship? Sarah Palin?"

Boy: "Ms. C, why doesn't this school have Slushies?!"

Girl: "Ms. C, did you ever have crushes?"
Me: "Well, sure, most people have crushes at some point."
Girl: "I bet you dumped 'em all, huh?"
Me: "The thing about crushes is that most of them are kinda secret. Most of my crushes never knew they were crushes at all."
Girl: "Oh...do you have a crush now?"
Me: "Nope, no crushes."
Girl: (quite sympathetically) "Well, that's okay, Ms. C."

Girl, after learning my age: "28? That's young for someone so tall!"

Team Retreat in Toledo

Summary: American Thanksgiving celebrated in Spain, with lots of turkey and no lefse. Followed by meetings and bonding in the magical town of Toledo. My WorldVenture team is really divided into three different areas of ministry: theological education, MK education, and working with North African immigrants. Such a diversity within our group--and such great people.

And then, for the first time ever, I got asked out to have a beer. In Spanish. By an overfriendly store manager named Paco who was at least thirty years older than me. "No, no, I have meetings," I said, "lots and lots of meetings."

"Will you be back in Toledo?"

"Maybe one day, maybe in a few months."

"You stop by my store."

"Maybe I will bring a friend to see all the beautiful paintings."

"No, no, no friend. Just you and me."

Buying stuff in any small Spanish store is magical because your purchase, no matter how common or small, is treated with special delicacy, wrapped carefully, sealed with a sticker saying Deseas te gusta (We hope you enjoy). But I've never before had a purchase come with a date offer. I need to move north, where nobody touches each other.

A Few Disconnected Thoughts

Last year at about this time, I was on an airplane leaving Marseille. I remember leaning my head against the window and saying to myself, in a voice so loud I'm sure even those outside my head could hear, "I am never going to make it." We had three weeks til Christmas break, and I felt like my bones were going to splinter under all the pressure.

I can't believe it's been almost a year since that plane ride. That we're almost to another Christmas break. We have only two full school weeks, three half weeks, and twenty-five research papers to go. There's been such a distinct ebb and flow to the semester: first, the month-long euphoria of smaller classes and a year's experience. Then, the drain of October, of assignments collecting dust in the grading bin. The November peak, the holidays ahead, the nestling in of the classroom, the routine. Now it's a steam train plowing toward 2013, to Lord of the Flies and Anne Frank. And my head is in such a mess of it.

I wish I'd kept better track, even if it meant writing down one-sentence summaries of the days:

Biked to Alcala and ate potentially rancid hummus on the sidewalk outside the Asia Store.

Got a visit from a friend and introduced her to one of the most integral parts of Madrid: Hello Kitty.

Scary man on the street yelled at Sarah in Spanish: "You are a big problem for my friend!"

Alas, I've been asleep for the past year and a half. How painful to realize that, potentially, the biggest legacy I'll leave for future generations is a string of semi-coherent facebook statuses.

Sometimes it feels like there's nothing to say, only because there's too much to say. The days blend together into a mess of weeks, and I'll flip back through my lesson planner, trying to figure out how on earth we got from there to here when it seems like we just started! I wish I'd written more! I wish I'd captured every minute of it! The end of November makes eighteen months in Spain, leaving just six more. Six! A fraction of a second. And the life I was so sure would crush me last December has become the most normal and--dare I say it?--enjoyable thing.

My kids keep asking why I'm leaving and what I'll do next year, and I don't know what to say to any of them, but I wish I could pack them into suitcases to carry with me. Don't grow up, I'd tell that. Nah, that's bad advice. Grow up wise, but always keep your childlike hearts. I get nervous for their futures on their behalf, maybe more nervous than I get about mine.

These days, it gets dark so early. I'm ready to hibernate by 9:00. The most important man in my life is Michael Scott. I am not as tired as I used to be. I want to hold on to every minute.

Here I Raise Mine (28th) Ebenezer

Here I raise mine ebenezer; hither by Thy help I'm come. I never really got that when I was in my high school hymn-hating days. The idea of ebenezer is a "remembrance stone," a memorial to God, but to me, the lyrics conjured up images of Dickens' Scrooge swigging a cup of grape juice with old Father Abraham. This was the best you could do, Robert Robinson? Israelites in the desert, raising cane and ebenezer?

Still, thirteen years ago, I came home from camp with a styrofoam cup filled with sand from the volleyball court. "Miracle debris," Todd had called it. He asked us to pick something--a twig, a rock, a flower--any physical reminder of all God had done that week. I carried that scoopful of sand home with care before stashing it in my desk. There I raised mine ebenezer. Perhaps the first deliberate one.

---

I turned 27 with a list of virtues in hand, of disciplines I wanted to work on during the coming year, of characteristics I was going to develop. Then the calendar flipped to the most stressful month of my life, a September that yanked me from bed at 7.30am and refused to let me collapse until the lesson plans were wrapped up at 9pm. I was too hot to exercise, too tired to read, too exhausted to care that I hadn't been as generous or encouraging as I'd intended. I took inventory during Christmas break, figured out all the things I hadn't done. Hadn't written a book, hadn't cleaned out my file cabinet, hadn't made one school lunch the night before, hadn't saved the world, hadn't lost weight, hadn't figured out how to make my impulse haircut look presentable. Oh, but I had watched two full seasons of The Office in the course of one week. So, basically, at 27, I was still the same, disappointing me I'd been at 26. I'd tried to lead her into the forest without a trail of breadcrumbs to bring her out, but she kept managing to follow me home.

---

On my last night of 27, I plunked my legs on the table underneath a tree, just Sophia and I still awake on our staff retreat. We'd overlapped life in Spain for only two weeks last spring, but she was back now, asking if the past year had been good. I'm not good with that question unless you're good with long answers. I'm always tacking a caveat somewhere. It was a good movie, but... I loved the book, except... I think I said something like, "Well, overall, it was a good year," but what I really meant was, "The year was good, but I still suck."

The things I hadn't accomplished had been spinning like laundry in my brain, wringing out disappointments in dishwater colors. But Sophia asked, and the thoughts untangled, arranged themselves in a straight line, and leapt straight out of my mouth: "I know that I've needed to be here, because God has me in a position that is forcing me to see something I couldn't see from any other vantage point." I'd been testing out those words for months, but suddenly they tasted true.

That's when I saw my past year--my past ten years, even--all burned up and burned out like a row of scorched trees waiting for the ax. I've carved the charred branches into planks just so I can shove them in my own eye; I've searched the crevasses of the bark for rot and ash, never noticing the tiniest of leaves uncurling. Or the stacks of stones glinting between the piles of broken branches.

I've built them with my own hands, I guess. Stacked stone upon stone and cemented them together with criticism and self-loathing, the prodigal daughter carving a shrine from pig waste. Here stands the row of ebenezers left to become ruins. Ebenezers to self.

Oh, dear Lord, that's it.

That's it.
The night flipped past midnight and into 28, and I had to be sitting under that tree at that moment, at that angle, answering that question, if only so I could see clearly this one thing: I'd been ignoring a path lined with miracle debris because I wanted God to notice my ebenezers. Hoped this would be the year I'd check everything off the list. Looked so intently at myself that I forgot whom I was building for and began to loathe what was being built.

---

It's been two months. It's still so easy to look at myself and see only the lack. But I know this: I know on an August night, I felt Him yanking the plank out of the place I'd so firmly lodged it. It could take another 28 years, but I'm certain he is removing this chunk of wood, planting it, watering it, transforming it, miraculously, back into new life.

Into ebenezers.

The Distance Between Yes and No

The last time I did this I told myself I wouldn't do it again.

I have three distinct memories of deliberate disobedience: (My mom could list off about a hundred more, including the time I called her "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and bolted down the driveway. But I mean the kind of disobedience with potential to reroute your entire path.) Crying in the college career office, a counselor assuring me that the gloom lodged in my stomach might be the divine sign I'd been searching for. The "great opportunity" I accepted by saying yes when I meant no. The hand I deliberately held despite recurring and obvious premonitions.

---

After taking a career interest survey my senior year of high school, I sat down with the guidance counselor, who waved her pen above my chart like a magic wand. "Your top two interest areas are the arts and humanitarian services," she said, then added, "I would consider ruling out the arts, since there aren't many jobs available here in those kinds of fields." The pen swooped down to X out that part of the paper, a divining rod for my future.

It wasn't her fault, this intense fear of following my heart. (Her credibility rating as a counselor was low anyway, especially after the rumor that someone made her cry in class by insulting her shoes.) But her words sat atop a stack of excuses ten times as high as the stack of job-finder newspapers collecting in my bedroom. They joined writing isn't practical and you're not good enough and how could your desires possibly count as ministry and teaching is the best way to impact kids and you won't make any money and if society depended upon one profession to stay alive, they wouldn't vote for writers. I can't tag all the words back to their origins, the tangle of magazine articles, books, sermons, discussions I'd overheard. I only know that I believed them.

Now, "following your heart" is a phrase that gets a bad rap (not, thank goodness, "Ice Ice Baby"). It's deceitful and utterly wicked, that heart, and so it gets written off as untrustworthy, as inferior to logic. That flimsy, fluctuating heart, that derail-er of common sense. But I have tried to cut the heart out of decisions--dropped the unpredictable, beating thing to the side while I scratch out lists of pros and cons. I convince myself that God must be testing me, that he couldn't possibly ask me to do something I also want to do. I put my gifts, dreams, desires on one side of the page, X them out. Burn them as a sacrifice. Do whatever you want with these, Lord, except ask me to use them. Make me a better person by making me miserable. Like all those missionaries who don't want to go to China and end up in China. Send me to China if it makes you happy. And he responds with confirmation, from the lips of friends, from the pages of the Word, from the pens of writers: Shar, I did not come to bring you misery. You're adding it to yourself, expecting that I'll send you to China when I'm really just asking you to do what I've called you to do. These things you want to do--I've put them in you. And in refusing to follow your heart in this, you refuse to follow me. 

Perhaps it's why we're given a heart--the one thing we can't ignore. You can snap the Word shut, cover your ears so no wisdom gets in, but you can't ignore your own pulse. Call it your gut, a conscience, call it intuition, but I think they're all tied up together, these parts God uses to amplify his voice when we're committed to silencing it from any other source.

And the last time I disregarded the way my heart was being prompted, I told myself I wouldn't do it again. Those three disobediences are three of my heaviest regrets, my yeses that tasted bitter like nos. Yes to the security of paychecks and a title and wrinkle-free four-year plans; yes to a future that I can control. No to risk, to trust, to the conviction driving me breathless to the floor. In my most crucial decisions, I hate to admit, I trust fear more than I trust God.

---

Which is why I can't keep delaying this decision. I do not have a specific career plan charted out. I don't know where I'm going to live. I don't have any reasonable answers about my future. Everything about it is fog-colored, and for some reason, that is the only option that gives me any peace. I have eight months left in Spain, and this intent form is staring me in the face, daring me to check an option. There's "Lord willing, I plan to return for service at ECA." Then there's "I believe the Lord is opening other doors for me." To Spain or not to Spain. Yes or no.

How do I put words to it? I have no regrets about coming to Spain. I work with generous people in a magical school community, almost too good to be real. I am in love with my students. I have received even more confirmation that I should be working with teenagers until I drop dead. Still, I know this is not my forever place or even my forever vocation. I have prayed that my desires would be in line with God's, that he would reshape my desires to match his if this Spain life were meant to continue.

Instead, he's cracked open the door of this cage where I sit defeated and tired on the floor. He reaches in; I shudder at the feeling of being held. I back away like a broken little bird, terrified that these giant hands will set me down somewhere new and cold, alone. He whispers, "Would you like to come with me?" I know that sound; I have spent years trying to block it out. And I'm sick of leading myself in circles. It's time to follow instead this still small voice that stirs my heart. But how do I tell the kids I adore I won't be back to teach them? How do I tell their parents? How do I close up this unique chapter of my life?

I have contemplated every possible way to word it, from "my commitment was only for two years" to "I'm not made for the classroom," but in the end, the truest truth is simple:

I have spent my entire life choosing what's safest over what's best. It is time to say no so that I can, finally, tell him yes.

At the Beginning

I didn't sleep well on the last night of summer.

Three months is a long time when it comes to routine, and my body in its purest state is designed to wake up at 11am, to do the best thinking just before it passes out fourteen hours later. The working world is not designed for people like me. Certainly the school day isn't.

But I showed up at 8:00 on the first day, took the classic first-day-of-school picture that didn't involve sobbing next to the bus driver like the one in 1989. Handed out syllabi, recommended books, situated the homework hand-in boxes on my file cabinet just so.

It's a very different year.

The house is different. (No more black mold growing in a square above the shower.)

My roommate is different. (My former roommate returned to the States, and my current roommate is in love.)

My kids are different. (My biggest class is now 8, instead of last year's 16.)

My classes are different. (I'm teaching 7th grade Bible, and the rest are the same, but I'm not at school at 9pm, scrambling to make worksheets. There has never been anything so beautiful as folders full of already-created lessons and activities; I have been leaving school by 6 every night. I'm still trying to figure out how this is possible.)

Highlights of the first month:

Overheard on the bus ride to secondary camp, from a 7th grader who had thrown up that morning
Sickling: "I'm so hungry!"
Friend: "Dude, why didn't you eat breakfast?"
Sickling: "I did! It just came back up through my mouth!"

Said by a 7th grader, pensively viewing his White-Out pen
 "Ms. C, can you explain to me the mechanism of this?"

During Bible class, while re-enacting key scenes from the Pentateuch
Boy: (pretends to fall from the sky, then lands with a crash)
Girl: "What is that supposed to be?"
Boy: "It's the people falling from the sky!"
Girl: "No, it's manna and quail that fell from the sky."
Boy: "Oh. I thought that was a couple. Like, Manna and Quail."

While I sat in front of my computer with a thousand tabs open, as per usual
Girl: "What are you doing?"
Me: "Oh, just checkin' my email and some other random stuff."
Girl: "I wonder what that random other stuff could be. Muahaha!"

Conversation with a 5-year old boy/aspiring intellectual
Boy: "In Europe, I only like Spain, France, and England."
Sarah: "What about Italy?"
Boy: "I HATE POMPEII!"
Us: "What? Why?"
Boy: "Because it was full of Romans!"


And other sundry things heard in class
Boy: "Do you have some White-Out? My White-Out's not working." Pause. "Do you have the answer key? My answer key's not working."

Boy: "Hey, don't interrupt; she was calling on me. Come on, you're British, you're supposed to be polite!"

Me: "Stalling will not help you."
Boy: "Stalin? Of course he won't. He's dead!"

Girl: "There are no rules in reading except 'have fun.' That's why I love reading."

Something Old, Something New

Perhaps I should take the hint. (When was that last thing I wrote? A month ago?) But I am writing every night, writing in bad, scratchy handwriting, spilling out the things that won't let me sleep, and those piles of papers get deposited in stacks on the floor, on my desk. Years later, I am finding old, scribbled-on receipts in drawers, wondering what I meant by "matt black and fiction."

I've always been terrible at keeping a journal, and this blog has become my substitute, my way of storing memories while retelling them for others, but I'm always being bombarded with these other things I can't stop thinking about, things I just need to sort out on paper somewhere, and I'm not sure a European update blog is quite the place for that.

So I'm starting a new place.

Shar Meets World will keep on keepin' on right here. In a year, I'll probably scold myself for creating this need to maintain divergent blogs, but I like organization, and double-blogging seems like the best way to manage my brain right now. If you're interested at all, you can visit the second home for all my words over here, all the poetry and stream-of-conscious thought that usually gets pressed into essay about everything and nothing. And if you're not interested, I still like you.

And one of these days, I'll bring my computer home and tell you all about what it's like to wear blue for three weeks in a row.

Alive!

School's going, I'm here, things are great, less work, more work, new kids, old kids, classroom full of owl decor, stomach full of pan con tomate dipped in hummus, and I'll write again one of these old days.

Norway : My Heart Returns to the Place it Came From

We North Dakotans are so proud to be Norwegian. (I'm sure I've mentioned this before a time a two.) We carry the blood of farmers and fishermen, and with it, the weight and pride of working the land, of hauling old traditions into the new world. We sponsor the continent's largest Scandinavian festival, during which the local news channel displays the weather back in Oslo. I guess it makes sense: during the Great Immigration Days, 1/3 of Norway's population left home to become 1/3 of North Dakota's population. The mountains leveled out into plains like lefse dough beneath a rolling pin, and we became the new Norwegians--or, perhaps, the Norwegians became us.

The roots of my family tree spread deep underneath the ocean, curling across the Swedish coast, poking a few spare tendrils out of the earth in Germany and Romania. Primarily, though, my heritage is a collection of sprouts and blossoms tended in Norwegian soil. In sixth grade, we were assigned our first-ever major research paper; everyone's topic had to be a different country, and there could be no overlap. I remember sitting at my desk breathless, anxious, scared to death that someone else would snap up Norway before I could. I had no backup plan. I needed to write about trolls and the midnight sun or I would shrivel away under a pile of bibliography cards! Turns out I needn't have worried: my classmates were preoccupied with England at that time. Sweet Norway land was mine, and I was thrilled because I was Norway.

My great-grandma Anna immigrated to the States as a young woman, and though this is the story of most of my great-grandparents, hers has always been special to me because she lived in the little house just across the street from where I grew up. I never met her, but I knew that she could beat the crap out of anyone in a game of Chinese checkers. I knew that she was sassy and funny and that, while churning the butter one day, she didn't notice my dad consuming his fill of the final product. (Fifty-some years later, my dad is still leery of excess butter.) She married a farmer, raised two children, instructed my grandma to marry grandpa in a dress, not a navy pantsuit, and was buried four years before I could meet her--except in old stories. She lived to see my parents marry in a crowded church on a sweltering August afternoon and left behind photo albums full of the cards she received during her final days in the hospital.

I think she's beautiful.

Not everyone left Norway when Grandma Anna did. Several of her siblings remained in the homeland, and they, along with their children and grandchildren, maintained the contact between North America and Europe. So when my parents mentioned in their last Christmas letter that they had a daughter in Spain, the daughter of my dad's dad's cousin sent an email inviting us to visit Norway and stay with Ola (my dad's dad's cousin's husband). (From now on, I will refer to the Norwegian family members as "cousins," since that's much easier, and since I don't really know how to figure these things out.)

It did not take much convincing.

After a week of frying our skin off in the Spanish sun (and, mind you, looking quite healthy in all the pictures, due to water we were drinking and the miles we were walking), we arrived in rainy Stavanger. Cousin Mona and her husband introduced us to the fjords via boat. Ola welcomed us into his house with wide-open arms, and even the sun stayed up a little later to make sure we were settled in. Now, I had met Ola once before; when I was five, he and his wife came to the States. They left me a Norwegian picture book, which I spent hours trying to decipher before finally making up my own stories. The book itself never struck me as particularly different, except for the words, of course. It was about a little girl on a farm, poking at chickens in cages and feeding cows, and that was exactly my childhood, only in English. And that, even on the first day, was how our boat ride, our landscape, our reunion felt: not particularly different, not foreign. We don't have mountains in North Dakota; we really don't have that many trees or lakes, either, especially not when compared to our easterly neighbor, Minnesota. But on the quiet water, with nature shooting up around us, it was as familiar as that small girl in the book with all her farm animals. It was just like where we came from.

(There is one notable difference: Norway's western coast doesn't get as much snow as we do. Ridiculously unfair!)

Ola had just purchased a new Toyota, and his great delight was driving us around. He'd swing by a family member's house, take a nap while we chatted in English, and awaken to check his watch, informing us that it had been an hour and that it was time to go now.

My mom was intrigued by the coffee tables that were actually used for coffee. Let me just admit it now: I will never live up to the domestic standard set by Norwegian women. We ate like hobbits that week, completely counteracting all of the walking and water-drinking of the previous week. Norwegians have four meals a day: breakfast, a light lunch, a midday meal around 4pm, and supper. So we'd sit down to a table, still digesting our last meal, and someone would bring out the coffee pot and the cakes. Cakes, plural, always in the kitchen, ready to go should a spare neighbor or long-lost relative stray in. And I, I who did not drink coffee until moving to Spain, I who am used to just a shot of caffeine swirled away in milk and sugar, was offered straight black coffee at least thrice a day. Ola snickered the first time I requested sugar, then took to passing me the sugar bowl with a smirk. If I have been culturally insensitive about anything (and I'm sure I have), let it never be said that my insensitivity regarded food. I was drowning in black coffee that week. In fact, I think my body was composed of 80% coffee. Aunt Inga would've been so proud.

Here's another admission: I make fun of tourists. I watch them stop every ten seconds to fiddle with cameras, take a fifteenth pose in front of some monument. Often, though, I play this same game. I collect the magnets and the kitschy playing cards. I take the same photos. I pretend I'm knowledgeable because I've got the Rick Steves guide telling me what I'm looking at. But when you're winding through the mountains in the backseat of a Toyota with Norway's most punctual man, you don't stop at the tourist shops. Ola barely had patience for a fifteen-minute beach detour, so I quickly realized we wouldn't be browsing downtown Kristiansand. In theory, I like to stay off the beaten path, but once I found myself there, I felt twinges of disappointment. Because, well, where is everybody?! All the cool kids are shopping for wooden trolls to put on their knick-knack shelves in America, and here I am, cruising up the coast while my dad is trying to make conversation in Norweglish.

Wait. Wake up, Shar. Here you are, showered in generosity and sweet brown cheese, not on public transportation because you are with your family. You are not coming home with things. You are coming home with stories.

I saw the inside of the house where Grandma Anna grew up, complete with a mysterious giant stone in the front yard. I saw the graves of my great-great grandparents, the wooden trunks that carried a great-uncle's belongings. I learned that some of Anna's siblings were imprisoned for plotting to build up an arsenal against the Germans occupying Norway during WWII--just torn from their homes with small children left peering out the windows. Cousin Sverre was one of the little ones, orphaned for a year and a half, taken in by the neighbors. The parents of his neighbor, Olga, sheltered American soldiers who had to abort mission due to a plane malfunction--stowing them away in the barn. Sverre would grow up to be a ski jump judge at a few Olympics. We spent one night at his son's house in Kristiansand, in a neighborhood built into the hills. We had seen maybe ten cars on the highway when one of them turned around and said, "The traffic around here is just getting so much worse." I smiled and thought, "So this is where we get it."

Sverre's son, also Sverre, told us he'd recently read that last names beginning with Vidr had potential links to Vikings. That, of course, includes Grandma Anna's last name, which only further proves my theory about tall men who date ridiculously short women. (I have a lot of opinions about very tall men with very short women, all of which can be summed up in this one word: don't.) It's like they sense Viking blood and get intimidated, as if tall girls will be too busy plundering and pillaging to settle down and bake the twenty cakes required to be on hand at all times. This really isn't fair, because I think Viking heritage seems kind of attractive. Heck, it predisposes us to be adventurous, adept at carving, and seaworthy.

However, as Cousin Magnus pointed out while we peered over Viking etchings, "While the Greeks were busy writing philosophy, my people were playing with sticks."

Cousin Mona's son got married during our trip, and they were so kind to include us in the festivities. Let me tell you, Norwegians know how to throw a party. It started with the ceremony, a lovely affair in which the bride and groom sit across from one another, one attendant seated next to each of them. Halfway through, they switch chairs so that they are finally sitting on the same side. Other than the chairs, the wedding was fairly in line with a traditional American one. Right up until the waiting food.

We drove half an hour to the reception venue, and still the reception wasn't scheduled to start for an hour and a half. Outside the hall, a long table was spread with sweet rolls, buns, breads. "We're not going to have room for supper!" said mom.

"This is what we call waiting food," explained Magnus' wife, Drude. "This is normal."

And, you know, we're all about trying to blend in with the culture, so we acted perfectly normal and ate as many sweet rolls as possible.

Once the bride and groom arrived, the doors to the main dining hall were opened, and the guests were called in, each by name, to their seats. The servers handed around giant platters of meat and vegetables, and when the tables had exhausted these, fresh platters appeared. Between bites, the parents, siblings, friends of the couple made speeches--not your average 3-minute best-man speech, but 10-minute tributes! We sang songs set to traditional tunes, lyrics reworked to tell the story of Hege and Martin and how they'd met. Halfway through the wedding-fest song booklet, our plates were whisked away. Now, I only know about twenty Norwegian words, but I had undoubtedly understood sjokolade mousse on the menu. So far, we'd only seen two courses. But suddenly, the entire crowd was dismissed. People began shuffling out of their chairs. Mom and I just shrugged at each other.

"We just take a break now," Drude explained.

"A break?"

"Yes. Just a break."

Yes. A twenty-minute break. To smoke, to talk, to nap, whatever. After the break, we returned to the hall for more singing, more speeches, and, finally, the mousse. Then everyone was gathering their coats and purses, and my dad went into farewell mode, making sure the relatives knew how thankful we were. We stood around in the hallway, watching the photographer collect group pictures. Dad kept mange takk-ing and you have a fin familie-ing. The family seemed less affected by the goodbyes. It wasn't that they were being distant, though. It's simply that the party wasn't over.

See, after an hour or so of milling about during the photos, there was a dance. Just one. It's a traditional Norwegian dance in which hand-holding couples line up and walk around the building. It also includes making arches with your hands, walking under the arches, and clapping. In order words, the perfect dance for someone with no moves like me. (Sarah, I know you're reading this, so yes, I held hands with a boy. He is my fifth cousin or something like that, and he definitely wiped his sweaty hand on his pants once he'd let go of mine. In other words, no one fell in love.)

When that dance ended, everyone was called back into another giant room for the variety show. A guy and girl in diapers (representing Hege's daycare job) emceed another couple of hours of videos, songs, speeches, skits, which Magnus and Drude leaned over occasionally to translate.

And then, and then, with midnight approaching, we were ushered back into the dining hall for wedding cake. The table was spread with at least fifteen varieties of dessert. Remember, we had been eating off and on for the past eight hours, and now there was jello cake and Norwegian wedding cake and regular fondant-covered cake and brownie cake and chocolate cake and things that weren't cake and lefse. So, once again in the name of cultural sensitivity, I loaded up my plate. Besides, I didn't get lefse for Thanksgiving or Christmas this year, and the calories consumed after midnight count for the next day, not the current one. And anyway, calories don't count at all in Europe because they're measured as "energy value."

I was absolutely wiped out by 1:30am, which is when we arrived back at Ola's house (an early end, I'm told, to a Norwegian wedding).

We left on Monday, exactly a week after our arrival. I said goodbye to family I'd never before met and already felt I'd always known. I wondered how Grandma Anna had ever chosen to leave this place. She'd been back to visit, but still--when she sailed away from the fields and mountains, did her heart splinter like the firewood stacked outside her childhood home? Did all she gained make up for what she'd left behind? Could she ever understood what a beautiful legacy she would leave in two countries, for two children, for one grandson, for two great-grandchildren she never got to hold?

For better or worse, I believe the places we come from leave indelible marks on the people we become. Perhaps I'm even prouder now of being Norwegian. I follow Magnus as he traces an old pathway through a wheat field to his favorite childhood spot on the beach, and I am eight again, brushing through tree rows, biking prairie trails, plucking wild roses from the side of the road. I sit in Ola's rocking chair, looking out at the mountains, and I'm thirteen, captivated by the Black Hills rising around me, even as our tent fills with rain. I climb the stairs to the low-ceilinged room where my great-grandma was rocked to sleep in a wooden cradle, and I am home, I am home, I am home. In the steady rhythms of the land I can recognize my own heartbeat, and the pulse becomes a lullaby. Ja, vi elsker dette landet.

Backpack Backtrack: June 7th-19th

When spring semester began, one of my friends from home facebooked me that she and a posse of girls were coming to visit. I, staring down the throat of a homework pile, wanted it to happen but didn't have any time to think about it happening. I hate to admit this, because I used to be one of those people who awaited every event--big or small--with great anticipation, and now I feel like there are so many things going on that I don't have time to anticipate. I just wake up and BAM!--the next event slaps me across the face and is hovering over my pillow, waiting for me to put on some clothes.

There was a Skype conference stretched across three different time zones, and there were facebook messages and tickets and lists of who owed what to whom, and there was always, "I can't believe we'll be in Spain in only three months!" Then, in two months. Then it was morning and I was at the airport with Alex, who'd flown in early from China to sweat out the last week of school here with me.

There they were: Sara from Alaska, Jen and Lauren from the NoDak (technically, Montana, but they've been here long enough that we've just absorbed them). Together at last. It's funny how you get to the thing you've been waiting for and forget about the stress it took to bring you to that point. I hugged them, and my brain stopped stirring with train schedules and flight paths. They were here.

My friends, like most good Scandinavians, are tall people. The old Spanish ladies who pull their plastic chairs into the street to chat at night are not. As we passed a group of them on the way to Camarma Burger, one proclaimed (in a voice not soft enough for secrecy), "¡Madre mia! Los niñas son grandes!" Roughly translated: "Holy mother, the girls are huge!" Thanks for that, lady. Maybe we should set up a street performance booth titled Take a Photo with the Amazons.

The men in the rowboats at Parque Retiro also noticed the height thing. While Sara, Alex, and Jen were floating around, some guy kept trying to paddle closer, yelling, "Where are you from? Switzerland? Swiiiitzerland?!" I think sometimes my dad secretly worries that I'll end up married to a Spanish man, never to return home. Maybe he should worry. Make a girl feel big and white enough and you'll clearly capture her heart.

After two days exploring Madrid, we hopped the night train to Barcelona.

Oh, the night train.

Here are a few fun facts about the night train: It was hot. No one checked our tickets until an hour into the ride. We didn't sleep.

There was a lieutenant.

I never saw him, just heard that voice scratching me all over. Not scratchy like a cat. Scratchy like a man with an unkempt beard who insists on rubbing it against your face. From the other end of the train car, we could hear him impressing a giggling posse. He said he was sixteen, a lieutenant in the Air Force, a member of search and rescue who'd been emancipated from his parents and was now traveling around Europe alone.

At first, it was amusing. I'd peel off my eye mask to see Jen shaking her head. She'd lean back, whisper, "Did you hear what he just told those girls? We should go tell them the truth!" In America, he'd said, all the security guards at airports walk around with machine guns, and people knock on windows before they rob you because it's a signal to get out. The girls' laughter induced story after story, each starting with, "In America..."

By 3am, I had an overwhelming urge to rip his teeth out and yell, "In America, some people are courteous and do not tell loud lies on trains while other people are trying to sleep!" Unfortunately, in America, some people are passive-aggressive and do not take action to get favorable results. Instead, they lean forward to whisper periodically, "Hey, in America, I would punch that kid in the face."

When the train got to Barcelona at 7:30am, The Lieutenant had finally fallen asleep. We weren't sure if it was his final destination, but since we weren't in America, we didn't wake him. Happy trails, Lieutenant.

Barcelona is a beautiful city: Gaudí, the Mediterranean, Magic Fountains near the '92 Olympic Village, a cosmopolitan heartbeat, wide sidewalks, and men on Las Ramblas who counter your rejection of their restaurant flyers with "I can make you very happy!"

In this case, pictures will tell you more than a chronology of landmarks. Except we found Nutella icecream, and I don't have a picture of that.

Next stop: London. This time sans trains and lieutenants. London is a fairy tale place, and that's probably because it is ingrained in the American conscience from a young age through fairy tales. Whenever someone asks about my favorite city, I usually say Chicago. My parents think Chicago is big and dirty and don't understand my sparkling affection for it, but I spent two college fall breaks driving to Chicago with one best friend to visit another best friend--Hottie the Hog Dog taped to our back window--and Chicago become my other best friend. (Does it defeat the purpose of a best friend to call all your friends best? Yes, semantically, I would agree that it does. But I will not stop using the phrase because it still fits each one.) I have seen several new cities this year and liked them all, but London! London is the new Chicago. London is the grown-up Disneyland. London is that boy you see across the room during the Band Day dance when you're fifteen, that you find yourself still thinking about at twenty-five. Except that London has an accent and knows his history and dresses in dashing suit coats.

We spent only two days in London, which was a shame since it was so rainy and overcast, perfect relief from Spain's biting sun.

We had big London Eye plans, even though Lauren wasn't thrilled about the idea of being trapped in a giant plastic capsule rotating thousands of feet above city and water. It'll be fine, we said. It'll be fun, we said.

It was fun. It was fine. Some guy from New Zealand was trying to catch Alex's attention, and we were walking all around our capsule, snapping photos of London at every angle.

The Eye stops briefly, regularly, on its 40-minute rotation, letting old customers off and new ones on. But we had been stopped for several minutes, one capsule stop away from the very top, and Lauren looked over at me. "We've been stopped for awhile now."

"I'm sure it's fine."

A voice came over the capsule speaker just then: "A rescue team has planned and prepared for this eventuality. A trained rescue crew will be with you shortly. Please follow all of the instructions of the rescue team."

Um. It's not fine.

Minutes passed. We laughed it off, took advantage of the great camera shots. The New Zealander kept his eyes on Alex. Some guy from India offered her a can of pop.

The pleasant speaker voice returned: "We will now reverse the wheel."

"See, Lauren? It's okay. We're just going to go backward."

And it was okay. Until we stopped again, about a quarter of a way from the bottom this time. "A rescue team has planned and prepared for this eventuality."

Aw, crap. There were no ambulances, no sirens. No one had pulled out a glass cutter and attempted to jump from the top of the Eye. But my imagination was painting horrific pictures of helicopters with rope ladders, of my hands sliding out of a trained rescue worker's grasp, plunging like Icarus into the Thames. Not even a wax wing to blame it on, only an insatiable tourist heart.

The rescue workers never came. No sign of any true emergency. We didn't get all the way to the bottom, because our speaker voice soon informed us that they'd be restarting our "flight." Yes, that meant another entire turn around the Eye. Lauren called it her worst nightmare. I call it getting more for your money. But I do think there should be a preliminary message for not-so-serious occasions, something that doesn't cause instant heart failure. You know, like, "We are experiencing a slight delay. Your flight will resume shortly." Is that so much to ask?

Day 2 was just as magical: Tower Bridge, Platform 9 and 3/4, the Olympic Village. (Thank you, Bela Karolyi and the 1996 Women's Gymnastic Team for lighting an eternal Olympic torch in my heart.)

At King's Cross Station, we found ourselves in need of directions, so Lauren and I walked up to the information desk. The guy behind it--an older version of young Stevie Wonder, if that makes any sense--was laughing. Laughing! "Um, how do we get from here to [wherever it was]?" I asked.

He laughed to himself for a few more seconds. "I'm sorry--you're so beautiful I didn't hear a thing you said!"

"Um, I'm sorry!" And I repeated my request, whatever it was. As we walked away, he called, "Just keep doin' what you're doin', ladies. You'll make people go deaf!"

So even though he was probably just in shock at how big this crazy hair can get when windblown, it was kind of nice. Nice enough to write down. Nice enough to remember when mostly the only thing you hear from men is "Switzerland? Swiiiitzerland?" and that usually only when surrounded by tall blondes.

Upon our return to the world's cutest hostel in Horley, the girls decided that it'd be futile to exchange their remaining British pounds for Euros. Instead, we returned to a convenience store we'd frequented the night before and began pulling chocolate off the shelves. Skittles! Crunchies! AeroBars! All the Nestlé products they don't sell in Spain! I deposited my handful on the counter, an exchange for my last piddly pocket change. The cashier looked at me. "Oof."

"I live in Spain. We can't get this there!"

He shook his head at us. "You've got money left--you should be at a pub."

"We're Americans," Alex explained. "We like to get fat."

Our mothers are so proud.

The final map dot in this whirlwind was Sevilla: color, joy, and curved arches. The afternoons were so hot that they forced us onto siesta schedule: mid-day naps, late-night tintos. And as we sprawled across our hostel beds and laughed, I missed it. I missed it even while I was living it.

It's easy to go to a new place and tuck the old away. You don't turn it off entirely, just accept that this is the way it is now. You get used to talking about your life in past tense while trying to pull it into the present. And then, when the different worlds bump into each other, pieces of old scrape off on the new, and suddenly you remember everything. You remember turning the furniture into percussion and waking up to "I have a horse face! Horse face! Bird horse, bird horse!" coming loudly from the bathroom, and you remember talking at midnight with the girls who know everything about you.

I took them to the airport, crying my goodbyes because they're all going home to new, different places, too. When I get home, wherever that ends up being, nothing will be as it was. I mean, nothing ever is anyway. But I have felt the collision of the worlds now; I want to know again the jarring of intersection, of being pulled back into someone's orbit, because, for the first time truly since coming to Spain, I felt a little homesick.

Backpackstravaganza 2012

Mom and dad are on their way to Minneapolis, which means they should be at their house tonight!

And I am heading out to see the world at 5:40 in the morning.

Good night, Spain. Good night, friends. See you again in August.

Good News

My parents are on a flight to Detroit! I feel giddy and completely exhausted, not having slept well for the past four nights from the stress of it all. I don't even know if they slept--they were stuck overnight in the Amsterdam airport. (I hear it's been voted one of Europe's nicest, so that's a bonus.)

I'm going to collapse on my mattress now.

In which my family lives The Terminal over and over and over again

My parents haven't flown since 1986. So when they secured buddy passes for an eighteen-day visit, I was obviously a little nervous. If you haven't experienced the adventure that is flying standby, it goes like this:

Your boarding pass has no seat number. You sit at the gate and wait until all of the regular customers have boarded, plus any last-minute full-price payers, anyone who got bumped off the last flight, anyone transferring over from a different flight, any extra flight crew members. And if there's still a seat open after all of that, you get on the plane. If not, your names are rolled over to the next flight and you try again. There are benefits: tickets are cheaper, and if there are empty seats in business class, you get to fill them. Still, it is a game only for those with nerves of steel.

I flew standby a few times last year with no major problems. But--again with the 1986 thing. And the fact that my dad is a prime benefactor of Murphy's Law.

He prefers parking in the McDonald's parking lot, turning off the car, walking inside, standing in line, and taking his food out to the car to eat over waiting in the drive-thru line. Mom and I will point to the two cars in line, talk about how it'd be so much faster than getting in and out of the car, and just when we've convinced him, those two cars will manage to take an extra twenty minutes placing their orders. That time I convinced Dad to adopt the perfect dog from an animal shelter? The dog shredded the window blinds and got hit by a truck.

Which brings me to the morning of June 24th, when my parents were supposed to arrive in Madrid with two suitcases and a cell phone that works only in the States.

My aunt, the gracious giver of the buddy passes, was tracking their flights online. Since I couldn't sleep anyway, I waited for travel news on facebook. They'd been bumped from the JFK-Madrid flight, she told me. They were being rerouted through Valencia in lieu of spending the night on the floor at JFK.

My parents don't know Spanish. My parents don't fly. Should I get to the coast somehow? Should I hop a speed train in the morning? I asked my aunt to throw out the train option if she happened to talk to my mom again. She said that mom had called but her cell phone was dying. Did they know about the train plan? Should I buy a ticket? What if I got all the way to Valencia (a 2-hour trip) and just missed them at the station?! It was 4:30am, so I did the most logical thing: I went back to bed.

I did not hear from them until 1:30 in the afternoon. I spend the entire morning pacing, a bundle of sweat and nerves, yelling, "WHY DON'T THEY CALL ME?" at the apartment walls. When the phone rang, it was a number I did not know: a phone they'd borrowed from a guy at the train station. "Where are you?"

"I'm in Madrid. Where are you?"

"We're at the train station in Valencia. We've been waiting for you." Dang it. I knew I should've bought a ticket! I tried to explain how to catch the Madrid train, and dad ended the call with, "We'll be in touch."

Oh my goodness. If ever there were conditions ripe for heart attack, it was my life right then. God managed to string some English-speakers into their paths, and my parents were headed toward Atocha at 155MPH. Meanwhile, I was trying not to die of anxiety. I caught a bus to Madrid and wandered Retiro Park for half an hour. I was sinking into the grass, sun filtering through tree branches, and all I could think was, "How am I going to find them? What if they don't get here? I am not going to live to see 30, because I am going to die of panic in Retiro Park." I hate how so much of life is dependent upon cell phones, but at that moment, my crusty, chipped little Orange phone was the most beautiful thing I knew. Except that it wasn't ringing. So I hiked back to the train station and walked in circles until I heard someone yelling my name.

They had arrived.

They had arrived without luggage.

We grabbed a commuter train to the airport, where the guy at the luggage desk informed us that Delta luggage people were only available between 7 and 11am.

We returned on Tuesday, and that's when we met Miguel. Miguel, with his panicked smile and jaunty red jacket. Miguel, who apologized for his slow computer ten thousand times after we handed him the baggage tags. Miguel, who, although he could clearly track their flights on his screen, informed us that he was unable to file a bag reclamation unless we had boarding passes in hand. And in the morning frenzy, I'd instructed my parents to gather their passports and forms together, not dreaming they'd need a different pile of paperwork.

So we tried again on Wednesday. Miguel was there again, looking harried. The entire Naval Academy was standing in line behind us, trying to figure out where their luggage was. Just as we stepped to the counter, Miguel apologized: "Sorry, sorry, sorry, I have so many people I have to take care of. You just stand there, I will help you right away. Sorrysorrysorry." He seemed terrified that the posse of attractive military men might use physical force, so we stepped aside for the next hour as they filled out reclamation after reclamation. Our reclamation took five minutes. I did not leave the airport that day with any love in my heart for Miguel or the Academy.

We did not go to the airport on Thursday.

Friday morning, we received an email from Miguel that the bags had arrived. Poor mom had been rinsing the same two shirts in the sink all week. She threw on Blue Shirt No. 2, and we headed toward the airport.

Miguel seemed less nervous this time. Perhaps the confirmation of arrival assured him that we would not beat him up. He directed us toward the lost luggage office, which of course was located in a different terminal. We took the bus over, found the office, found a suitcase. A suitcase. "I got a message that said two were coming, but that's the only one that showed up," the guy said.

As we pulled the suitcase outside, mom's face fell. "Just one?"

"He said that's all that came in."

She sighed. "And that's the one with all your stuff." The shoes, the clothes, the Reese's Pieces they'd brought over for me. Mom and her blue shirt were understandably disappointed.

I'd asked the luggage guy what to do next, but he said it was Delta's problem; I'd have to contact Delta. We shoved some coins into a pay phone and called the number on the claim tag, only to be told, "I'm sorry, I can't find your records. There's nothing we can do for you."

So it was back to Terminal 1, back to Miguel. "You found them? Yes?"

"We found one."

He stiffened. "They are both supposed to be here."

"The guy said only one came in."

"Okay. I will find out. You sit here." He pointed to the rolly chair behind the luggage desk. I sat. People approached to ask me ticket questions, and I shook my head, pointed to Miguel, who was juggling three different phone calls. "Sorrysorrysorry. They are not answering the phone over at luggage. There is nothing I can do until they answer the phone. You understand? I would take you there myself, but there is a flight, a flight is turning around and coming back and I don't know why, I can't do anything about it, I have to stay here, I can't do anything. Sorrysorrysorrysorry."

I waited, tried not to be anxious. Tried to be gracious and kind, because it wasn't Miguel's fault our bags weren't there. If Miguel had his way, he would've gotten us the heck out of there on Sunday afternoon. So I sat and I rolled, and ten years later, he got the phone call. "Your bags are in Terminal 4; they are just in a different luggage office. You go there, they will be there, okay? Sorrysorrysorry."

"No problem. Thank you. Thank you very much." I waved goodbye and he waved back, praying--I'm certain--to never see my face again.

We went to T4 again, walked into the baggage claim just next door to the one we'd previously visited, and there it sat alongside all the other lonely luggage: mom's blue suitcase, a beacon of glory. I've never seen a woman get teary-eyed over a suitcase before.

Skipping right along: it's now Wednesday, July 11th. D-Day. D for Departure. A return standby flight. And a disconcerting long line at the Delta check-in.

Pat and I dropped mom and dad off in the morning, and I dropped onto the couch for a nap. (The nerves were back! It's nearly impossible to sleep with The Nerves taking over my body, but it's more impossible to do anything else.) I awoke just before the 10:30 departure time, checked the flight stats online. Delayed until 4:15.

Yep. My parents waited almost six extra hours at the airport, only to learn they'd been bumped from the flight. And they still didn't have a cell phone that worked in Europe. When they found one of the last remaining pay phones in the greater Madrid area, I was able to say, "Catch the train to Atocha" just before the money ran out. Pat drove me to the train station. We sat. We saw my parents. We shoved the luggage back in the car. We tried again for Thursday morning.

This time, they borrowed the extra school cell phone. The odds seemed so much better: almost 40 seats still open! But I got a call at 10:45. The flight was full; no one on standby got a seat. Back to the airport with Pat. Another night at Hotel Shar.

The Delta reps in Madrid had already said that Friday's flight was overbooked, and the weekend didn't seem any likelier. We opted to buy tickets to Amsterdam, then aim for a standby flight from there to Minneapolis. (Amsterdam has three flights a day to Minneapolis alone. What? What is this whole two-daily-flights-to-the-States thing in Madrid?!) We reserved online and received a confirmation email. My aunt said that there were sixty open seats out of Amsterdam. My parents would finally get to go home.

I had a bad feeling last night.

We walked to the school to print off their boarding passes. The Delta check-in worked just fine, but AirEuropa was another story. Contact your issuing office, it kept telling us. Unable to find flight details. I punched in the confirmation number again and again. Nothing.

At the airport (Terminal 2 this time--they've gotten the whole tour!), the check-in kiosk also refused to find flight details. The assistant seemed perplexed but told us just to stand in line; it'd be okay.

The guy at the desk frowned. "I'll be right back." And he was right back...to tell us that the flight details were non-existent. "You'll have to go back to the info desk to figure out what's going on."

Thankfully, the lady behind the desk was smiley, with worried eyes that suggested she truly wanted to help. "Here's what happened. Your credit card was denied. Sometimes American credit cards do that."

"But...we got a confirmation!"

"I know. Sometimes American credit cards do that. I'm trying to get you on, but this flight is getting full." Oh no. Of course the day they could get out of Amsterdam would be the day they couldn't get into Amsterdam! We stood there for several minutes as she made phone calls. Then she told us that the only seats left were in business class and cost 700€ apiece. I could almost hear dad's heart hitting every rib as it fell out of his chest. "I will try to get you the same price you paid. The charge did not go through the first time, so I will charge you again here. It will be the same price."

There were a few more nervous minutes, but she finally printed out a confirmation sheet. Mom and Dad were taking business class to Amsterdam.

That's when it really began: the dropping off of the luggage, the crying, the reminders to call once they reached the Netherlands.

They are en route now--the internet tells me so--and my aunt just emailed to say that the 60 seats out of Amsterdam are free and clear. They have seen the Madrid airport for the ninth and final time. After twenty-one days in Europe, my parents should finally arrive in the United States tonight. They'll be a little tired and tattered maybe, but with plenty of stories to tell--stories, unfortunately, mostly about the airport.

But hey--the airport stories will be good for at least the next twenty-six years until they fly again.