It was about to begin: my mom’s little vacation. That’s what we’d christened the few days my mother would spend at my brother and sister-in-law’s apartment during her longer stay at my house. She had come along with me two weeks before, when I’d returned to Spain after my annual summer visit in the United States, just as she had done four years earlier. That earlier time, it was to see my new digs in La Pola, and she stayed for two months. This time she would be staying just five weeks. With a break—or two—at my brother’s place. It would be her first stay there. That made my place home, my brother’s a hotel. Where you’d go for a little holiday.
My brother’s apartment is just down a long street from my house. So when my mother left for her two days away, she wasn’t going far. No change of city, no change of climate, no change of language. But she and I joked about the culture shock anyway: different schedule, different priorities, different rhythm altogether. The sort of difference you usually expect between countries, or even regions of a country. New York City and Dallas. Seville and Barcelona. Different lands, almost. My brother and sister-in-law’s place and mine. A world apart.
So why, I wondered, would my mother make the effort? From her world to mine and so soon into a third? If time away is an escape, one move should do it. But if, instead, it is a great adventure, why not pile them up? She had come to discover—well, make that rediscover—Spain. The customs, the food, the life around her in such exuberant display, the architecture. These are happy motives for a change, unlike in Chicago’s 1984 song “Hard to Say I’m Sorry,” which says simply that “everyone needs a little time away from each other.” Even lovers, they sang, need a holiday. Otherwise, they might change their minds. They often do. For plain old family, though, there is no easy way out when you get tired. As Frost has it, and my mother reminded me, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
So when my brother proposed the little vacation, everyone looked on it with favor. One Tuesday afternoon he walked the seven minutes from his place to mine, and the three of us gaily shouldered my mother’s bags and purse and a few items of food and started back across town. We had gone about three blocks, a third of the distance, when my brother paused. “See, on that corner?” He was pointing behind us at a gourmet shop my mother is fond of. My house was hidden behind it. “That’s the little store beside the bar. A Capricho?” That was the name. I nodded. “You see it?” he asked our mother.
“Yes?” she answered.
“Now, look that way.” We all swiveled to face forward. “See that far corner and the house beyond it? That building on the corner is my building.”
Information often comes in response to a question. But sometimes there is no question—no request. If you suspect a gap in another’s knowledge, you might want to offer something. My brother was pointing out where we’d come from and where we were heading. My tendency is different. I jump in when I spot a misconception or error. Another day, when my mother pointed out a building and said my house must be behind it, I corrected her: “Actually, it’s behind that other building.” You might say my brother provides information, while I correct misinformation. He’ll save you from a fall; I’ll help you to your feet afterwards. Both ways can be appropriate, and both can be annoying. So when he’d directed my mother’s attention to our position on the street, she, with a trace of irritation, said that she knew the street and knew I was at one end and he at the other.
Still smiling, my brother remarked that it was a good idea to check one’s whereabouts from time to time. To his credit, he didn’t add that it is especially important if you hope to venture out alone one day, without knowing the language and with limited stamina. Repeat the simple exercise of orientation a couple of times, and at least you’ll know where you are. You won’t wander in circles or have to ask for directions in a foreign tongue. My mother acceded, I agreed, and on we went. In another five minutes we arrived. We agreed that I would pick my mother up two days later at 11 a.m. Goodbye, we all said, and I left. My mother would face a few new challenges as she got some respite from a few inconveniences. My brother would enjoy my mother, and I would enjoy a break. But my mother—she would have the best of it, a treat and a break, before she came home again. And before that home-away-from-home got old, she would be on her way back to her own home, where, when she arrived, she wouldn’t have to wait for anyone to let her in.
