The Road Most Traveled

I know now I'm never going to live in Spain.

Please don't think I'm an aging malcontent, complaining, whining away the evening hours. Don't worry about me, either; I'm not climbing out of my second-floor bedroom window, legs dangling weightlessly before the heavy leap. I have simply reconciled myself to the truth; I won't be going back.

Darn you, Robert Frost, you and your road less traveled. I believed in your words once. At 20, I stood on a hilltop in Segovia, feet buried in virgin snow, eyes locked on the clock set into the ancient stones of the Roman aquaduct. I swore then that I wouldn't live a normal life. Mine was an oath sealed by warm breath rising in the cold air.

It's been 10:10 a.m. in one of my heart's chambers for a long time.

Like most good stories go, he changed my mind. Blue eyes, broad chest, desire sparking from his fingertips, he carried me forward. Does passion count as ordinary? Surely I haven't betrayed myself. Don't turn your eyes from me, Robert Frost!

Small wrinkled fingers caught in my hair, tiny tooth pearls showing in lopsided smiles, milky mouths gaping in soft sleep against my neck. Are these anything less than extraordinary? When they were babies, I might have thought so, bonetired from the day, countless trips up and down the stairs, my husband traveling for days and nights and days and nights again. It was survival for me then, tummies fed, tears wiped, all four clean and sleeping. Now, though, in a quiet house, those moments are strung together like tiny white fairy lights across my life.

And, really, I suppose it was enough that I lived there once, that I walked in the pinar, sitting cross-legged on broken needles, slaking my thirst with a bota full of cold red wine. A strong sun overhead watched us as we spoke haltingly, the language new and exotic on our tongues.

Pictures bombard me when I let my head go back to Spain, the sharp crease of pressed trousers, the white-haired viudas wrapped in black, the sizzle of olive oil in a pan. I opened a building door in Ciudad Rodrigo, pulling a foot back just in time from stepping into a tornado of men chased by massively-horned bulls. I stood on the edge of the world, or so it seemed. In Santander the rolling emerald green meadows stop abruptly, morphing into treacherous cliffs dropping straight to the sea. Enough for a lifetime, Mr. Frost.

It may have been more than enough to walk by the house where Cervantes wrote El Quijote, my hand dragging daily along the black iron rail, rising and falling over the small connecting spikes. Tilting at windmills, I too walked the streets of Valladolid.

If I stand completely still, breathe to the bottom of my lungs, I can conjure that cold 10:10 a.m., its thin memory shimmering with silver frost. I didn't know then what I know now, Robert Frost. I made promises I couldn't keep. I took the road most traveled, but, oh, that has made all the difference.