Dr. Martens

I haven't been this excited about a pair of shoes in a long time, probably since I bought my only pair of Manolos for my best friend's wedding in the pre-kids era. I saw these boots in a store window a couple of months ago, and I fell in love with them. It's not the beautiful brown color, the inner fabric resembling British wall paper, or the fact that they have satin ribbon for laces. It is nostalgia. Pure nostalgia. Because I have a history with Dr. Martens. When I was fifteen, as I was dating punk boys, and had a liking for alternative music, short plaid skirts, and anything that would horrify my parents, I asked my cousin, who was traveling to London, to get me a pair of black, ten hole, Dr. Martens. I didn't like eight hole, steel toe ones, which was the only thing you could get in my Spanish town back then. So I was very excited when he came back with my boots, that I paid with the allowances I had saved for months (I know that this story would be more enticing if I had earned that money working, but it was Spain, and teenagers don't work there). As the ones I just bought, they smelled like leather, and were extremely comfortable (I never convinced my dad of this). Actually, they were so comfortable that I wore them for five straight years, all year long. They started college with me. They went out endless nights in Vitoria and its bars. They made it back to England with me when I went there to practice English for the first time, the summer I turned eighteen. And I just stopped wearing them when they had a hole big enough to fit my toe. If my mother hasn't thrown them away, as she swore she would many times, I will take a picture of them to post it here when I go home for Christmas. They deserve some sort of homage. I hope that the one's I bought today last as long, and I can write about them in fifteen years, at which point I will embarrass my kids instead of my parents when I wear them.

 And since I am getting old enough to be nostalgic, maybe this January I will ask the Three Wise Men (aka Reyes Magos) to bring me a pair of Panama Jacks like the ones that preceded my Dr. Martens. I just checked, and they are still selling them. And they even have them in green!!!

Dream

I have a dream, and my dream doesn't include skyscrapers and one hour commutes to work. My dream happens in a house in the mountains, back in Spain, which happens to be my parents house. In it, my husband and I decide to turn our lives around and go back home to take over my parents land, to become agricultors and follow the steps of my father, who had to retire six years ago. In my dream my kids run free on the backyard, and build castles with straw. They pick apples from our apple trees, and help me grow tomatoes. They go to the mountains to pick up mushrooms in the Fall, a Christmas tree in December, flowers in the spring, berries in the summer. They are happy and healthy and always surrounded by family.
For now, it's just a dream. But I know it's possible: that's how i grew up. And the older I get the more I miss it. For now, I will keep trying to convince my husband (an actuary who doesn't really like the countryside and maintains that he cannot live without a decent amount of pollution) that it's a good idea.
Don't get me wrong, I love Chicago, and I love the USA. But I miss my family a lot, and my parents cannot travel here for medical reasons, which makes my stay here more difficult every year. I will keep reporting on how my campaign goes. Wish me luck. Because sometimes, dreams come true.

Of Birthdays and Kid Rock

The other day was my birthday. I'm just one year from hitting 30, and it feels weird. It's like this part of me is about to die. I guess I had a crazy enough "teenagehood" that lasted until my early twenties, and it's hitting just now that it will never come back. Midlife crisis, anyone? As I do every year, when everyone says "How do you feel one year older?" I end up thinking that I'm not a year, it's a day, and hour, maybe even a minute older. That year doesn't happen in one day, it takes a whole 365 of them. I guess it's just another convention we have all agreed on, to have at least a happy day a year. They used to be happier, though. I used to be all excited in the weeks prior to my birthday, preparing some kind of party, hoping for the calls and cards... Waking up in the morning feeling like a kid, a happy one. Enjoying the celebration. That hasn't happened the last two years. I don't feel the excitement anymore. And everyone seems a little bit bothered by it, but I cannot live according to other people's expectations. Maybe it's due to the fact that I'm a mother now, and I got that excitement when little L's birthday approached, back in April. But I miss my own. I miss being a young girl. That may be the reason behind my apparent musical crash on Kid Rock. Of all people. In Spain he has only been seen in some tabloids because of his wedding to Pamela Anderson. I had never heard his music until some weeks ago. I heard "Picture" in the radio, and I liked it a lot. Then I heard "All Summer Long", and I liked it so much that I got the CD. The guy is wearing a fur coat in the cover. A fur coat. That's not me, my kind of music. Or maybe it is and it's not my kind of cover. I only know I love the song. It's a midlife crisis song. Perfect.