Tag: Sara Wilson

I was 20 years old when I first came to live in Paris. I arrived as a student in the Spring of 1998, instantly joining the thousands of other Americans who were also coming for a semester abroad. I was eager to use my French, experience new things, explore Paris! But four months was too short and my experience too typical. I knew that I would be back, but I didn’t quite know how.

My senior year in college, I found my golden ticket to return. While my friends were interviewing for high paying corporate positions, I was applying for a job as an English assistant that offered a minimal salary, but compensated with an invaluable work visa.

For some, life is defined by success: the high-paying job, the potential promotions, the nice car. For others, life is defined by a systematic order of doing things: find a spouse, buy a house, start a family. For me, the value of life lies in the relationships that I’ve built along the way.

I have friends that are preserved in my childhood. Friends that I used to play with in my family’s treehouse, that I celebrated my birthdays with by bobbing for apples, and that I starred in plays with bringing the whole mountain community of Idyllwild out to enjoy the performance. I moved away from that small town—so small that it didn’t even have a fast food restaurant

I thought that Spain was supposed to have endless sun, but for the month of September all I’ve seen is rain. I thought that it was dry, that its reservoirs were only half full and that just last year it was suffering from the worst drought in 70 years. But all I feel is wetness as it seeps through my Puma shoes and soaks my socks and drenches me within seconds. I thought that I was going to have a year-round tan—as David’s (my husband) step-mother told me so when I first arrived—but I look up at the sky and only see a layer of clouds so thick that it seems impenetrable from any rays of light.

I fell in love the other day. It was the heart pounding, gushing, can’t-stop-thinking-and-talking-about-it type of love that’s usually reserved for schoolgirls. But here I was at 31 feeling it all in a rush as my breath was stolen away and I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was love at first sight, and I did what came naturally: I told my husband, David, all about it. I said it in English, and I even tried it out in Spanish. And then I repeated it again and again in the nooks of the small, winding streets because it only seemed appropriate to be declaring my love to this little village that had captured my heart in a language that could be understood by all.

I officially became the 74th American living in Torrevieja, Spain—assuming the latest census records on file are accurate. In a town of just over 100,000, I am certainly a minority here, and the whole fact of me even being here is so unlikely that it makes me wonder how it all came to be. After all, I don’t even speak Spanish; never mind that it’s practically the first language in California where I’m from. Romanced by the melody of French from the age of 12, I chose to learn francais instead. But that’s immaterial. I speak English and French, yet, as of late-June, I now live in Spain.

So why Spain? It was a combination of things that pushed my husband, David, and me out of our two-bedroom, rent-stabilized apartment in New York City’s Spanish Harlem for a more authentic experience across the pond. (We had moved from California to New York a few years back). It was pretty much a perfect storm of incidences that led to our departure

While I hardly claim to be an expert on the area, considering that I can’t even communicate with the locals, I have learned some things since my arrival to Torrevieja on the 18th of June:

- It’s about 45 kilometers south of Alicante, which is where the closest airport is located. David (my husband) and his stepmom picked my sister and me up (this new adventure couldn’t have begun without her by my side) by car. Quite a luxury considering that the taxi service to Torrevieja costs 55 to 70 euros!

There’s nothing more horrifying than going to a cemetery to visit a specific tombstone only to find that you can not find the tombstone you came to visit! That’s what happened when Luisa, my mother-in-law, wanted to pay her respects to her father who was buried in the cemetery of Callosa de Segura, the village where she grew up.

It had been three years since she had been and it was one of the highlights of her visit to her village. We had even trekked long and far during the hottest time of day to make our way to this small cemetery hugging the bottom of the mountain. So when we arrived and Luisa couldn’t find the tombstone, I couldn’t believe my ears. And when she was sure that it had been where there are now just vacant, broken tombs I thought she must be hallucinating from the heat. Was she absolutely positive that this is where it was? Yes, she was sure. She had been here countless times. How could she forget the location of her own father’s grave?