Getting off the train in Madrid, we followed the crowds into the dark city. Our train companions formed a line for taxis, but we crossed the street, got on the right bus to the right apartment. Perhaps that does not sound like a big deal to you, but we are notorious for getting lost. It felt like a miracle..
Three Kings Day
On January 5, we thought it would be a good day to go shopping for coats. Madrid is known for its post-Christmas sales. It was 15 degrees colder in Madrid than in Cádiz, and we had no winter clothes. At Corte Ingles, a giant department store/mall, we took the escalator up six floors to the section that has a brand of coats we are familiar with back in Minnesota. The store was packed with people. The experience was so US/Christmas rush/overpriced that I was jolted to hear people speaking in Spanish. We shopped on the biggest and most expensive shopping day in Spain – the day before Three Kings Day, when Spaniards exchange gifts. It is January 7th that prices are slashed.
On Three Kings Day, we walked across the city. Cafes were brimming. We stopped at several places for tea, once for Three Kings Bread,
The Miracles of Public Investment in Madrid Parks
Eva Peron Park
The next day, we were able to orient ourselves. We entered Eva Duarte Peron Park just as an outdoor aerobics class for elders began. We joined them, and it was perfect. I was impressed by the lack of security concerns. People piled their coats and purses on park benches, adding clothing items as we warmed up. When we stretched skyward, our eyes beheld trees still holding fall leaves.
The class was five days a week, free, and sponsored by the city. Our Madrid days began with yoga and a breakfast of black beans and eggs, mango and grapes, oats with prunes, and chia seeds. Then to the park for our class.We had a community to greet every day and great exercise, just what we needed for January in Madrid. Two or three young people taught each session. During our second week, a woman insisted I go in front of her since I was new. The gesture was so small, yet it stayed with me all day. Our days began with yoga and then a breakfast of black beans and eggs, mango and grapes, oats with prunes, and chia seeds. Then to the park for our class.
One day, a woman approached me, saying this was her first time. She thought I was a regular! David exchanged greetings with one of the few other men who took the class.“How are you today?”“I am well because I come here,” he replied.
Our days began with yoga and then a breakfast of black beans and eggs, mango and grapes, oats with prunes, and chia seeds. Then to the park for our class.
Waiting for class to begin, Eva Duarte Peron Park, Madrid, Spain
We began our first Sunday with a plan to walk to the Prada Art Museum through Retiro Park. On the way, we happened upon a swing dance group, dancing on a platform. After one dance, David said, OK, let’s go. I convinced him stay on, reminding him of our promise to be foolish on this trip. Two hours later, we retrieved our coats from the park bench. All the swing music was in English. We were the only ones singing along to Well Hello Dolly, Looking swell, Dolly, and, Stick with me and you’ll never grow old.
Swing dancing, Retiro Park, Madrid. Sunday afternoons.
At the Prada, we viewed 17th-century nymphs and Jesuses for a senior discount. Naked Rubenesque women, painted by Ruben himself, were a lovely self-reflection. Though I am not tall or rich in tresses, I do have the amplitude, and I was surprised to feel a catch in my throat. Representation is a powerful thing.
One day, we cooked black beans that we had soaked the night before. Walking through Retiro, past a flock of parrots, I asked Dave, “Did you turn off the beans?” He thought he had, but was not sure. We hesitated, then turned around, moving as fast as foot traffic would allow, arriving home to the miracle of perfectly cooked black beans in a pan that had just run dry. Now, in addition to “ Do we have keys, phone?” we stand in the doorway and say, “Is the stove off?”
We attempted to walk to the Casa de Campo park. It was just 1.6 miles away, but we didn’t quite realize it was across four highways and a river. When we survived that onslaught of urbanity, it was a delicious shock to find ourselves alone in a landscape of forest, hill, and meadow. We walked for half an hour before finding the lake, people, and a string of cafes that make the park famous. We had a lovely lunch, soaking in the sun. It reminded me of that scene in Mary Poppins where they leave London by popping into a painting of a rural landscape, and find the amusement park that can’t be seen, over the hill.
Democratic Socialism and dogs in Madrid
Health care is free for Spaniards. A friend who lives here told us she has MS, and she gets excellent care. Every prescription by her doctor is paid for, no questions asked.sampled medical care in Madrid. I had a blockage in my right ear. I got prescriptions for steroids and instructions to do what my Grandma Winkler would have us do: sit over a bowl of steaming water with a towel over our heads.
I do a post on FB about how dogs are mellow in Spain. Every dog has a leash, but it is not always held. The biggest thing I noticed, as someone who has recently acquired a fear of dogs after a bite, is that they are not hostile toward other people or dogs. These are not protection dogs; they are companions. My friends who are dog lovers had all kinds of theories about my post, which I’m sure hold merit. I was more focused on how the people who own the dogs are mellow and unafraid in this city of 3 million, and that is reflected in their dogs. I think about the safety net Spaniards currently have, a social structure easily given, easily removed— the right-wing Partido Popular is trying to do just that, fighting every social policy of the ruling PSOE (Democratic Socialists). I am sure my US readers can attest to how health care alone is a stressor in their lives. Some people sleep on benches here, Too many, but from a US perspective, not many. Rent subsidies must help. I theorized that these investments in communal welfare, make people more mellow and that cannot help but be reflected in their dogs.
Mama Mia Madrid
One day, we did what Madrid does: stay up late. We put on our masks and went to see Mama Mia! I whooped, sang, laughed, and cried. I’m a little embarrassed to admit I know the show by heart. Yes, the musical is cheesy, but in 2009, when I was acutely feeling that empty nest syndrome, it spoke to me. There is a scene where a middle-aged mother is brushing her adult child’s hair while remembering them, “Waiting at the bus stop with an absent-minded smile.” That line got me every time. I bought a copy of the movie and played that song whenever I needed a good cry. Seeing it live in Southern Europe was even better. The cringy attitude of Northern Europeans toward Southern Europeans in the Hollywood movie with Meryl Streep was gone.
Sublimated Spanish History
We walked to the Museo de Historia de Madrid. It was free, in a grand building, and told its story primarily in paintings from the 17th to 19th centuries. Some of the paintings were fantastic, showing hundreds of expressive faces in large plazas, illustrating an invasion or triumph. Most were portraits of kings and generals. There was nothing from before the Reconquista, nothing from the Franco or post-Franco period, and few references to the Americas from where Madrid’s mineral and sugar profits flowed. Like most US regional museums, wars were the focus, with intimate details of 19th-century battle scenes but nothing from Spain’s Civil War. The pact to forget. The absence of a 20th-century story left the narrative in a strange place, as though missing the punch line.
We visited the Museo de las Americas. I knew I would be disappointed and indeed I was. Luckily entrance was free. You know when a museum begins with a room filled with quotations from conquistadors, — starting with Cristobal Colon—without analysis, that you are in for a whitewash. (On the walls of a nearby school there is a mural that includes Columbus as an inspiring figure. I imagine the students come to this museum. The selection of books in the gift store for children was especially disturbing, with covers that showed racist images of Native Americans and glorious images of conquerors.)
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Painting illustrating racial categories during the Spanish colonial period in Latin America. Museo de Las Americas, Madrid, Spain
Don’t get me wrong. The museum has a collection of stolen Indigenous artifacts that inspires awe. It is also the home to the paintings of mixed-race families that appear in every Latin American history text, which the Spanish Empire used to construct complex racial categories connected to privilege and oppression.
In updating the narrative of the Franco-era Museo de Las Americas, a little critical race theory wouldn’t hurt
The Reina Sofia Modern Art Musuem, was one place where the Franco era and its aftermath are reflected openly and perceptively.
Guernica by Pablo Picasso, Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid
Middle East Madrid
The Reina Sofia Modern Art Museum had a special exhibit on a movie about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. It showed the rise of Netanyahu, then a young right-wing extremist who supported Jewish “settlers,” taking over Palestinian lands. Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Peace Accords, agreeing to return all land subject to settler invasions to the Palestinians. Rabin was murdered right after giving a speech in which he read a poem whose words are part of the exhibit. Lift your eyes with hope, and not through the rifles’ sights. Sing a song for love, and not for wars. Don’t say ‘The day will come. Bring on that day! Because it is not a dream, and in all city squares, cheer for peace!
Casa Aribe At one doorway to Retiro Park is the Casa Arabe, an institution focused on Arab language and culture. It had the best open bathrooms in Madrid. They also had a bookstore where I bought a book on Jewish Liberation Theology translated into Spanish. They had a temporary exhibit of Palestinian art and a permanent one on the Nile River. The Palestinian exhibit was installed in September for a six-month run. Most of the art was created in 2022. I read about it before we left Minneapolis. On October 7th, there was talk of taking it down, a decision quickly reversed after Israel began its onslaught on Gaza. Many of the installations used film. In one, a young woman learned weaving from her elders. They had no yarn or looms, so the instructions were a dance of hands and arms that each woman knew by heart. The young woman wore her hair out and her arms bare. Her elders were covered. The encounters between old and young ended with a torrent of kisses.In another small film, bulldozers and cranes are weapons of mass destruction. A timeline shows the change in a neighborhood over ten years as Israeli bulldozers with US brand names destroy, destroy, and destroy more.In the Nile River exhibit, we learn that the river—the only reason crops grow— is drying up, threatening the lives of animals and people
Women weaving without wool. Palestinian Artist Exhibit, Casa Árabe, Madrid, Spain, January 2024
On January 20, we attended a protest in support of Palestinians. Unlike the protest in Cadiz, this mobilization was huge. Tens of thousands in Madrid joined millions across the world. We crossed Retiro Park to the plaza near the train station, and there were the multitudes. Some estimates say 50,000. It was a rally so big that signs, speeches, and chants were unnecessary. The number of people—too large to move at more than the speed of a shuffle— spoke volumes to the Government of Spain, the EU, Israel, the United States, and the Palestinian people. We stand for justice. We support the South African lawsuit. We demand an end to the genocide.
After the protest, we walked across Parque Retiro, passing 32 used-book stands, a rose garden still in bloom, dozens of groups practicing every kind of dance, sport, meditation, reading, and music. We stopped at the Retiro Biblioteca to use the bathroom and soak up the collective atmosphere of a busy library. At the lake, boaters remind me of being five, rowing with my dad in Boston’s Jamaica Pond. A man played Bella Chao on his alto saxophone.
Rosy memories, mixed with public investment in social goods, sun and trees. The miracle of collective joy.
Rowboaters, Madrid, Spain