An American in Madrid
I leave the piso just before 7.30 tonight to cycle to yoga, all suited up with my reflective gear. But wait—bici’s not there, where I left her half an hour earlier locked to a tree two floors below our balcony. What?! My mind reels. Did I forget to scramble the combo? Did I lock her to the post next to the tree? And my gaze lands on a tightly wound coil just below the curb. The lock. It’s cut, cleanly. Must’ve taken all of five seconds.
A little bit of press for the new neighborhood.
Nearly three weeks ago I fell while hiking in my favorite spot in Madrid, La Pedriza. We were busy exploring the far reaches of La Pedriza posterior when I stupidly tripped forward and felt a yank on my left arm as I hit the ground hard. When I brushed myself off, my shoulder was conspicuously lower than it normally is. Six hours later, after an intense thunderstorm and a careful three-hour descent in a makeshift sling, the shoulder had been returned to its rightful place by an ornery emergency room doctor.
And thus, with my left arm completely immobilized in a sling, I began a three-week stint as a persona discapacitada in Madrid. I’ve been commuting to work and more or less living my life as normal, to the extent that a one-armed person can. I have grown used to people staring and, especially, to the majority of people who don’t budge to give me a seat on any of the various modes of public transport I use daily.
There are always exceptions, though. Today, as I was riding on a city bus, one woman was especially solicitous, looking concernedly at me even after I declined the offer of her seat. As I approached the door to leave, she offered to help me off the bus (I had a small suitcase in tow) and, when I demurred, she leaned over and confided that her daughter currently has both arms in casts and she, to put it lightly, knows how it is. I, too, can say I’ll never look at physical incapacities the same way again.
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