​I started wearing my college ring again.

After graduation I moved to Spain and I left it at home, too mature for a sentimental piece of jewelry.

The Wells College ring is anything but sentimental: a bold onyx square engraved with a stylized “W”. On either side of the stone the date fits in a superhero triangle – a “19” on one side and an “86” on the other.

So, there I was, in Spain, thriving, I thought, but struggling to find my way as a new adult.

My mom knew, as moms do, and she mailed me a package. A vintage raspberry wool coat with a Three Musketeers bar in one pocket and my Wells ring in the other. There was a note too, “Don’t forget who you are and where you come from.”

I slipped the ring back on my finger and felt the glow and confidence blossom in me just as it had when I was at Wells, the ultimate nurturing place.

The cad I was dating noticed the confidence, he was taken aback, and didn’t quite like it. He asked to have the ring for a night. Foolishly I twisted the gold and onyx off and placed it in his palm with a warning that it was very special to me.

He gave it to his mother.

We broke up. It took me a year to get it back. Somehow his mother had worn the band down and I refused to wear my ring. I tucked it away.

I got married and another ring went on my finger, a plain gold band my father placed on my mother’s finger when they were married in England during World War II.

After the announcement that Wells College is closing after 156 years, I put my Wells ring on over my wedding ring.
​
Again, that glow.

​The first day of kindergarten I sat in the cootie seat on the bus. The 4th graders laughed, and I never felt like I belonged.

I absolutely refused to take the bus and since I am the youngest of eight and since my mom didn’t seem to mind, she drove me on the days I decided to attend.

Besides being youngest of eight, at about eight I started to go to college.

I wasn’t enrolled in college naturally, but my oldest sister started at Wells College. I would barely cross the threshold of my elementary school, but I would stay with my sister at Wells for days.

I went to my sister’s classes and listened carefully. During art classes, I sat and drew pictures of Mark Spitz. We got snacks at the Student Union. I roamed the library and I snuggled in the purple velvet chairs that softened the sharp corners of the newly built Long Library.

Wells College was indeed a place of learning and part of that was the quiet and space to learn who we are. That longing to belong – and we did  – we belonged at Wells, cooties and all.

​I took Good Friday and Easter Monday off thinking I would catch up on some work.

Thursday evening a virus caught up with me instead. My throat as rough as coarse grit sandpaper.

My husband offered to make me a light brew, something that would go down easily, was I interested?

I sat on the sofa. Listened to the clinking of pans; the sharp sound of glass bottles being moved. I tried not to swallow, and saliva pooled in my mouth. I swallowed, felt the burn, and settled my head back on the pillows.

Luckily, I wasn’t going to work the next day. My lips felt chapped – I knew the sore throat came with a fever.

My husband came in holding a hot mug.

“Drink this.”

Brandy, honey, and lemon slid down. At once astringent and soothing.

“Mmm. Gggd.”

He smiled and handed me the TV remote.

“Didn’t you start a new series?”

I had started watching a K-drama. I kept the warm mug in between my hands until I finished the precious liquid. My head heavy with fever, my eyes glassy, I read the subtitles until my husband came in to say goodnight.

“Episode Three – good job - Are you sleeping down here tonight?”

I croaked back that it would be safer for his health and let my head sink into the pillows. My husband covered me with blankets and one of our dogs snuggled by my feet and the other curled up with her back to the top of my head. We slept.

The next day my throat was still raw, so my husband made me three doses, left them on the kitchen stove, and then left to grocery shop. I stumbled into the kitchen, joints aching, throat on fire. I warmed up the mug and drank to soothe. I went back in the TV room and continued watching my series, now firmly entrenched in the drama.

My husband came to check on me.

“Your face is all red. Did you drink all of that at once?”

I nodded yes.

“Oh boy….”
 
By Easter Sunday my stupor was such that I didn’t know if I was sick, drunk, or hungover. I do know that my throat felt great, and after finishing sixteen hours of my TV series, I’d swear I could converse in Korean.

I found a five-dollar bill stuffed under my bank card when I opened my purse to pay for some perfume.  When I turned toward the department store exit, I saw the clearance rack.

“I’ll only get something if it’s under $5.”

I eyeballed the wall of clothes slipping off hangars and started sliding the clothes to one side.

Too big, too small, a tear in yoke, nope, nope. I paused. A Calvin Klein sleeveless black pleather top with pleats at the collar. My size. I searched for the price tag: $4.30.

And so, the pleather top went from hanging in Macy’s to hanging in my closet until I stumbled across it this morning.

“That’ll go with this loud skirt.”

And it seemed like a good idea until I got in my car on this hot and humid day – one of the hottest July days ever on planet Earth.

The pleather – 100% polyurethane - clung to my back and kept all the heat and humidity close to my torso. The pleats around the collar ended where my cleavage began and became channels – nay – rivulets, pooling at the band of my brassiere.

I work in a space with a wall of windows I could hardly mop myself with tissues.

I got a mug of ice from the breakroom and tried icing my neck. Naturally, the melted ice water joined the torrents of sweat running downstream.
​
I mopped.

A colleague saw me melting and suggested I wear it under a blazer—perhaps in winter when temperatures drop.

​








We usually spent the 4th of July on our farm in Maine. Both my parents were World War II veterans, and our barn was painted to show my parents’ pride in their country.

The show hadn’t been 100% intentional. We ran out of white paint and the hardware store was forty-five minutes away. Mama’s impatience couldn’t wait to have the house and barn painting project finished.

“This way we’ll have a head-start on decorating for the 4th!”

Mama loved celebrating any holiday and life milestone, but she really loved a parade. The vintage cars – “We had one like that!”, the marching bands, “Think of the coordination it takes!”, the homemade floats, “I don’t know if that one will last to the end – let’s follow it to see!”
​
Wisely, she did not care for clowns. During one parade, she left our standard poodle, Millie, and a still in diapers me alone on the curb in front of her parent’s house and a cavorting clown swung toward me, he quickly swung to the other side of the street when snarling Millie leaped in front of a growling me.
​
When I was a young teenager, I was asked to ride in the 4th of July parade. It was exciting in at least four different ways: I got to ride the cutest pony in town, the cute pony was owned by a cute boy, I was near the front of the parade, and mama was, as always, cheering me on.

​My first post-college job interview in Madrid was with a Swiss firm. Career Services at my college prepared me well. Three copies of my resume printed on Cranes 100% cotton paper were in a slim black leather portfolio. I looked polished in the requisite navy-blue suit, white blouse, stockings, and navy-blue pumps. It was 111 degrees Fahrenheit.

I sat in the waiting area of the office. The heat and lack of air conditioning made my confidence and any polish wilt.

The Swiss man who interviewed me was a bear of man. His meaty fingertips drummed over my resume, carelessly leaving sweaty prints on the fine cotton paper, I knew he wasn’t even considering me as a candidate.

As I answered his next question, he bit his lips to stifle a yawn, his nostrils flared.

I have a strong yawn-response and I covered my empathy-yawn with what I hoped was a confident jaw-lock, deep breath, and sunniest smile.

Death nell to my aspirations.

He stood up, wiped his brow with a damp handkerchief, and extended his arm toward the door.

“You are just too nice.”

I scrambled to put my resume in my portfolio case and to un-stick my sweaty legs from the office chair. I walked to the door and as I passed the Swiss bear, he looked down at me and patted my head.

“You, little one, are too nice. You will have to become mean to make it in this world - stop smiling.”

Nice? Maybe so, because instead of biting his paw off, I just let that yawn I had been holding in spread over my face.
​

​
Mama used to say that the day would be a good one if there was enough blue in the sky to make a sailor’s pants. This morning, I walked the dog under a dull white sky.

“Just a short walk, I have to work.” I told my hound. Really, I said, “Pas trop loin, il faut travailler aujourd’hui.” I said it out loud, holding the vowels to create a fuller sound. I had to meet with a French-speaking mom and I wanted to exercise my mouth.

My mouth has grooves of a lifetime of English and decades of Spanish. The paths of my French mouth are grown over from disuse.

Last night I watched, “Haute Cuisine” to jog my ear. The subtitles flashed to remind me of a word. Repeat it. Repeat it. Uncover the paths, build that muscle memory. My mind told me I was forcing it so I got out the ironing board and half-listened while I ironed clothes. Smoothed out wrinkles in the shirts while I worked to wrinkle the front of my mouth to form French correctly.

I drove to my meeting through a flurry of snow. Whirling pellets on the windshield. I spoke with the mom and occasionally my mind would pause and there was a swirling snow squall in my brain. No words, just a voluptuous static. I had to let it be to see a bit of space in my brain and to allow the word to appear on my lips.
​
I was lucky the mom was sympathique and that there was just enough blue in my mind to make a pair of sailor’s pants.

​When my in-laws were visiting the States, mama gave me her espresso machine.

Every afternoon mama would walk down the street to my house for coffee.

“It tastes better when someone else makes it.” she reasoned.

Mama and my father-in-law drank their coffee scalding hot. My father-in-law’s one indulgence is a spoonful of sugar in his espresso. Mama just tilted back the tiny cup and let the bubbling liquid slide down her throat.

My mother-in-law was a stirrer and sipper of her sugared coffee with a splash of milk. I fell somewhere in between, sipping my black espresso.

When my in-laws returned to Spain, mama told us to keep the espresso maker until their next visit.

Mama had always advised if you are going to have a party – have two - the house was clean, and you were already in host-mode.

After my in-laws left and after my husband and I had returned to our hectic routine with two children under the age of three, we invited friends over for dinner on a Friday.
I brought the espresso maker upstairs and then got the children ready for bed.

The next evening, we had Mort and Esther over. My husband made a special dish that his mother made during the town’s fiestas. We soaked bread in the brandy, garlic, meat sauce. We drank some red Protos.

Amid protests of, “Oh no more!” we decided it was time for an after-dinner coffee.

I went to the espresso machine and saw it was loaded with grounds. I marveled at my husband’s attentiveness to have it ready to go.

We set the tiny white porcelain cups in from of Mort and Esther along with the sugar and some steamed milk. My husband and I finished our wine as our adored guests drank. Their lips tightened with each sip, and I attributed the carefulness to the brew.

The next afternoon we had a birthday celebration at our house. Cakes and cookies filled plates and the espresso maker was in full swing.

I came up behind Mort and Esther and heard Mort whisper, “Do we dare have coffee?”

It turns out that my husband had not been so attentive, rather he had been quite careless and had not checked the machine before putting it away in the basement.

“It looked clean to me.”

I assured Mort and Esther that this espresso was freshly made with new grounds, and they happily sipped their coffee down.

​My phone started ringing when I was a flight of stairs away from my flat’s door. I ran up the last twelve steps, grabbed the key, and unlocked the door. I was out of breath when I pressed the cool red plastic phone receiver to my ear.

“Maaaarrrrrryyyyyy!”

Only one person brayed my name that way and had done so since kindergarten.

“Steeeeeeve!”

A call from a friend in the States was a rare treat in the 1990s.

I knew there had to be a reason.

“What’s up, Steve? Are you coming to Spain?”

“Nope, but my parents are there – do you think you could do me a favor…”

And this was the beauty of living outside one’s own country: friends and family from where I grew up sent friends and family to me to get to know and to show around my beloved Madrid.

“Anything.”

Both of Steve’s parents would have birthdays so would I mind taking them out – would I mind getting them something chocolate?

Getting to know my friend’s parents better and an excuse to eat chocolate?

“No problem! Where are they staying?”

I got their details and assured Steve it would be fun.

“They bicker,” he warned.

“They’re parents.” I countered, “Mine bicker, too!”

I met up with Mr. and Mrs. C. at San Jines Chocolate shop one of the oldest in Madrid. We sat on shiny wooden seats and dunked crispy fried churros in thick and clingy hot chocolate.

“We love chocolate,” they both agreed, “but we could use some coffee after this!”

“I love coffee!”
​
Not a bicker in sight, and Mr. and Mrs. C. became Mort and Esther.

​


I think people learn to drink coffee when they are children.

Mama always had a pot of coffee percolating on the stove. She had so many children to wrangle and by her own confession, she drank eighteen cups of coffee while she was pregnant with me, her eighth child.

Mama took her coffee black. She poured it without a caffeine quiver to her hand. Recently brewed, piping hot, she gulped it down. Friends and neighbors - kitchen friends - would take their poured cup of coffee and go to the sink, open the tap and add an inch or so of water to bring the brew to a more drinkable state. Mama and her kitchen company would lean on the stainless steel counters and chat while the dog and I sat on the floor, cozy and comfortable with our pack leader.

By the time I was a teenager, the cups of coffee were mugs of coffee.

“Good coffee doesn’t need sugar.”

I tasted the dark, let the steam fog my glasses.

“Milk?”

“Who needs the extra calories?”

Caffeine pumped into my body already accelerated with adolescence. I eyed mama, lipstick on the rim of her mug. I measured the woman who bore me, so many, and so much. Her curved arthritic hands slid up and down the mug. She caught me.

“Tastes good and keeps your mitts warm!”

I gripped my mug tighter and let one hand glide down the burning side of the blue and white mug. A bit too hot for young hands, the brew a bit bitter, but I knew I would grow into it. I smiled.
​
“It’s perfect!”