I notice the Telebanco machine in the lobby …make a mental tick with my flagging energy …take the elevators up to “yi ceng” …ahhh …wrong country …my hotel card says, ”Planta No. 1.” I’ll be sleeping on the first floor. My body is heavy, spent …a slo-mo version of thought as I flick in the key card …open the door …jam it into the plastic receptacle that will turn on the lights. I must not be completely drained, because I enjoy these sounds …the flick and the resistance of the jam.

I have made it only as far as Madrid.

I fling stuff anywhere …the sound of the heavy, veteran, Moscow coat as it slides crackling like winter’s long past autumn leaves scuttling against the conservative flocking of the wing back chair. I like that sound, too. I splash water on my face in the pristine bathroom …beige and white like the “muzak” I have absorbed as I walked through the hotel lobby. I run out to dinner. It’s 11 p.m. I am starving …gobble up fish and salad, Manchego cheese and melon and wash it down with table wine, fall into deep sleep …and sleep and sleep and sleep. I wake up with a sledge-hammer-to-forehead headache that has reduced everything in my brain to broken pieces. I can feel them rattling around in there …the same sound like tiny glass pieces that shift back and forth in a cheap kaleidoscope.

“Da wu” …heavy fog and a budget South American airline I had never heard of had brought me to this used-up state. A Beijing winter fog of moisture and pollution had suffocated us, the terminal-weary travelers, for hours. I had wired myself with cup after cup of coffee from an ubiquitous world-wide coffee chain, the bitter, international curse. The fog just hung there like a predator with a low, gray growl.

My wait had been fun for a time. I sat with the Russians who were flying to Novosibirsk. Most were women. They wore cheap, ugly Chinese clothes and magnificent furs …gauche boots laced up the back through fake gold eyelets, the rawhide remnants of the laces bouncy as they walked. The women had dyed, incredibly red hair, the color of fall apples …some bleached blond, dry and flyaway …strange haircuts …bright red lipstick or none at all. They held bouquets of half-dead white roses given to them for the journey. They were tall, mostly mountainous women …magnificent gaits  …exotic birds each one …absolutely uncaring about anything except their own presence. Underneath I felt that they would be kind, thoughtful …shrewd, well read, darkly analytical …the women of Siberia. I wondered if I could sneak on the plane and strike up a conversation …wondered if they would tell me dark stories about the underbelly of China. But, the announcement came. They would be heading off, the Chinese accent said in translated English, to “New Siberia.” I wanted to scream, “Novosibirsk” to avoid the reality of anglicized everything. Instead, I muttered “Novosibirsk,” under my breath and remembered Siberia in wistful silence …the people of Siberia living in that vast cold space of forest shamans wearing felt boots and the reality of few possibilities.

Confused staff from my “airy-fairy” airline choice had led the six of us around the airport to various drafty locations for seemingly no reason at all. We finally boarded a completely different aircraft that would stop in Russia to refuel. Then, they had changed their mind and said, that with only six passengers, we had enough fuel to go “directo.” The flight would increase by over an hour now …almost 14 hours. They had lied. We would stop off in Barcelona to refuel adding still another hour. My hope for the a school-girl’s laughing lunch of chipirones with Hermione at a chiringuito near the sound of the sea would be another day off. (It would be Hermione who would later refer mockingly to the flight as my “airy-fairy” airline choice).

I had no shame. I made a bed on the plane’s floor next to the emergency door and vibrated in the draft as I slept praying that bolts and rivets would remain in place. I awoke a cripple …staggered to one of over 300 seats with maddeningly stationary arm rests while all the staff snored in cushy first class.

Later, I had many discussions with “el capitan” about my lodging for the night through the flight attendants who informed me that “el capitan” was tired as were they …and that “el capitan” had made his decision …no lodging, no meals, no arrangements for the connecting Spanair flight. I kept my sarcasm to myself and smiled sweetly as we discussed over and over how we could best solve “our” problem. He relented finally and I made my way through Barajas with a Spanair representative who had only caustic comments about the euphemistic term “airline” that the six of us had suffered.  She had given me the customary Spanish kiss on both cheeks and assured me that Spanair would take care of me before she had left me to be taken to an airport hotel, magnificently boring and clean.

~~

My headache feels the need for coffee …lots of coffee with hot milk. I use the Telebanco machine in the lobby first, a lens of memory coming into focus from the night before. People walk by. No one cares. No one notices. The machine whirs, then spits out Euros with a click …click …click. I like that. It’s far better than the bank in my neighborhood. There, I key myself in and am treated to the nosey stare of the bank guard strolling over to see how much the “lao wai” is taking out.

I should see breakfast coming, but I walk to the dining room in a blind spot of soft carpet and oil paintings of castles on the walls. I am not prepared for the emotional avalanche as I sit down to breakfast …the things I have not realized that I miss about the West are shocking. The common dining room created for a convention cast of thousands is so clean. The tables are covered with two fresh table cloths, the napkins starched, the cutlery and goblets brilliant, the china sparkling with garlands of subtle pink on a navy blue, patterned background. I fall into the rhythm of a Western lockstep with the each sip of good coffee, each bite of whole-wheat toast with fig jam and the taste of excellent cheeses with membrillo. China grows distant. For a moment, I have lived nowhere but in Spain …China a dream subsiding into red mist. Then, I notice the sprigs of bamboo on every table. China comes flooding back just as quickly …dusty red lanterns …curious alleyways …the glare of headlights in the evening smog. China is everywhere, even in this starched table-clothed oasis. My feelings for China are still inexplicable …my pleasure in Spain, defined and clear.

I’ve sorted out my Western/Eastern life with a host of Chinese cab drivers, some drunk, some sober, their clutches stripped and motors choked with sludge, grinding up bumpy Mountain Big Street. Most are curious about the lives of foreigners and seek to find some common ground. I have become equally curious about them …so, there you have it, as much as I complain, I have joined the discussion. I tell them that when I am in China, I long for Spain …when I am in Spain, I long for China. I tell them that this problem is a big one for me. They laugh. They are knowing with countryside wisdom. How could anyone go live in Spain when they have experienced life in China?

~~

I am not so sure, as I sip “Fuensanta” out of a dark green bottle “mas grande.” The mineral water is soothing. Soon, I’ll take another nap in the bed of blinding white sheets and matelasse before heading to the airport. It occurs to me that I am moving past middle age and I don’t know where I will end up …well, that’s not true. I’ll end up in the same place everyone else does. It is the space between I wonder about. A kindly relative has written me lovingly. She says, “I hope you will find what you are looking for.” I consider this sentence over and over as if, in those simple words, there must be an eternal truth that I should repeat like a mantra to make it so.

The truth of my truth is that I am not looking for anything in particular. I am just looking. An incredible array finds me …farmers selling radishes …the fragrance of unexpected petunias …wild honey on a drive through the mountains …blue sky, bluer sea …graffiti …slippery vomit on the street …pollution so thick I can’t see beyond the next block …the taste of orchid tea …dirty children begging on the streets …a smile from the “hulu” maker as he sells me a skewer of candied crabapples …the perfidious with the unctuous smile ready to pounce …the confused with the heart locked up so tightly that loneliness and unease are its ultimate companions …the loving with the clear look in the eye …a shepherd girl singing in the rain to her flock among wildflowers …the beautiful and the ugly mixed up together insisting that my consciousness change …that I rearrange my foundations without destroying them. I try to change nothing I see. I try to change nothing that changes me. If anything, I find a state of mind about my own life and my relation to the people and things that find me …I describe and describe and, in so doing, forgive myself for living life with judgments. I strip away, like layers of an onion, those things once so important …the things and ideas I never really needed. What remains of my needs, whatever they may be, are sometimes met in ways I could never have imagined …sufficient …moment by moment …an act of faith.