One month

One month has passed, and I'm becoming accustomed to all the small, silly things about my new home,
like the way the children's clothing store near school smells like lilacs and vanilla and cleaning supplies,
and that one wiggly stone block that always gets me when I exit the Metro,
and the lurch of the subway stopping, passengers swaying, unfazed by the wails and hisses of the subway doors beeping shut,
the half-bored, half-anticipating stare down a semi-empty street before J-walking in the city,
the screaming school bell and the sound of papers and pencils being shoved into backpacks (I hear this now from the front of the classroom),
the putrid sewage/vomit smell on the western end of Rda St Pere,
and the clean, familiar smell of poorly roasted beans and defrosted baked goods in the Starbucks on the eastern end;
the way time lulls and flows, even when I'm late — the way I walk beside it and with it, never cheating my way out of its gentle hold,
the way my legs feel at the end of the day, worn and strong from hiking up city staircases and home from the beach,
the gritty gravel of Barceloneta and its almost-sand, the tang of the Mediterranean in my hair,
the greasy smell of ham shops,
the way the patatas fritas - french fries - here melt in your mouth like bars of crisp, crisp gold spun soft by gypsies,
the roar of motorcycles and Vespas,
the near-death thrill, the no-mercy approach of those driving them;
the smell of pine nuts and olive oil that greets me when I arrive at home,
the stunting embarrassment of forgetting words in languages I once knew,
the warm blush that creeps back into my lips when I remember;
the soft "besitos" on each side of my cheek from a new friend,
the harsh smacks of "besos" from my homestay mother,
the aggravated cries of the 8-child family that lives upstairs,
the smell of linen and soap on laundry days,
the way my seat creaks at the latest hours of the night,
the way my fingers clack on the keyboard, marking prints in yesterday's skin oils,
the way it feels to write about a home that was not home...