Fortitude as a Foreigner

“I see you looking for the ocean. There’s a river in you. It’s deep in your eyes.” J. Foreman

My eyes betray me during the second or third week of every international move. The glint of enthusiasm gives way to a dull disenchantment as roadblocks inevitably crop up when we try to settle into a home. Termites, dead mice, no power, the usual culprits build until a sinking sensation drags me down. In my drowning phase, the ocean beckons and just standing in the surf reignites the spark that has extinguished in me. 

Water has always been my element. I remember the exact moment, as a six year-old, when I first floated on the Great Salt Lake. The stinging cuts on my legs, my burning eyes, the crushing heartache because a friend relocated… all washed away when I lay on the salty water and heard my heartbeat in my ears. In that moment, I learned of water’s power to heal. The power was confirmed when my mom, on a whim, decided to drive five hundred miles to the Oregon coast to see her Aunts. I could smell the ocean just before I felt its power in my chest. The crashing surf smoothed the sand and my soul from anxieties I couldn’t articulate. I was revived and reassembled anew.

Growing up landlocked, I looked for “the ocean” in tattered National Geographic while biting my nails before piano lessons, in the swift canal where river otters floated by while we sweated in the fields bucking hay, in the library’s engaging classic’s section when a math test was on the horizon, in the corn field’s rustling leaves when my feelings were hurt again… whenever I felt lonely, overwhelmed, or starved for something or somewhere that I couldn’t place, I looked for my ocean. It wasn’t until I was “fishing” on the Snake River with my dad, when the makeshift pole I was using was ripped from my hand by a strong current, and he said, “It will be in the Pacific Ocean soon,” that I understood at an elemental that I too had a river deep in me, a strong current that was always rushing to the ocean to be uplifted and buoyed.

It wasn’t surprising that I married someone whose career meant we’d relocate every three to four years somewhere over the sea. Two of those moves plopped us on the tiny island of Guam in the middle of the Pacific surrounded by sapphire waters. It was a fairy tale place where sea turtles, enormous humphead wrasse and ethereal manta rays kept us company while scuba diving. I loved the sound of breathing underwater and how fish nibbled the bubbles that formed when I exhaled underwater. But even there I hit the disillusionment period after a few weeks until I got in the water and felt the tide untether my stress and carry it away. Only then could I return to my stable core.

Which brings us to this last move to Spain. We have been here twelve days and it’s time for a meltdown, a drought, a headache that can be seen in my eyes. The bank account we tried to open, couldn’t be initiated as Steve’s retirement paperwork, showing his monthly pension, is still sitting on a case agent’s desk. Without a bank account we cannot enter into a year long apartment rental. No amount of phone calls or messages to the case agent can get her on the line to fix this stalemate. 

And our real estate agent Jorgen finally got the keys to the apartment at the top of our list, a penthouse with Northeast orientation, with lots of natural light, wrap around balconies with city views of Valencia in coveted Plaza Ayuntamiento; but, the offer we put in was brushed aside as the property owner decided to take it off the market. She offered us another apartment located in Ciutat Vella, in the el Carmen neighborhood. While located in a lovely 19th century building, the apartment was one long room and didn’t have natural light. The white marble floor was a plus as well as the beautiful hardwoods in the bedrooms; however, the cupboard doors were barely hanging, water stains marred the ceiling, the sofa was covered in mold and dog hair and worst of all– two industrial power cables converged right over the terrace from two neighboring palazzo. An abrupt recoil was my immediate response, but I wondered if this was as good as we could get. No other real estate agents had responded to our emails about viewing apartments. And if I did throw out our wish list and took this apartment by default, was I ignoring my intuition and just delaying the inevitable meltdown that would happen in a few weeks when the dreariness of sitting in a dark apartment, looking at two power cables while eating dinner, drowned me in a river distaste?

Still indecisive, we switched gears and started working on getting a ‘cita previa,” an appointment, to register at the Spanish police office in Bailen with our NIE (Numero de identical de extranjero) which is a residence number and tax identifier that we were assigned when we applied for our retirement Visas. The NIE is needed to open a bank account or get a driver’s license. Additionally we made an appointment at the end of July to register for “el Padron,” a population registration at city hall, but then cancelled it as we didn’t have an apartment address or receipt of first months rent. We crossed our fingers that with the NIE and hopefully an apartment rental contract by the end of July, and el Padron appointment by mid August, that we could then pursue a TIE (Tarjeta de Indentidad de Extranjero) a foreigner identity and residency card by Fall. 

Steve tried a dozen times to make the cita previa appointment but could never get through. Looking on Google maps for the hours of the Spanish Police department, he saw that someone had written you can only make appointments online on Fridays at 9:30. He waited until Friday at 9:30 and was able to make an appointment for himself. It would not let him use the same IP address for an appointment for me. He tried using his phone with a SIM chip to make me an appointment to no avail. We figured we would ask when we got there if I needed my own appointment or could combine with Steve.

On Monday morning we stopped and copied our passport pages before heading to the Cita Previa appointment. We walked about thirty minutes to the police station located behind the train station. Even though we had an 11 am appointment, they said to be there thirty minutes early. But at 10:30 the guard told us to get out of line and come back at 11. We found a street cafe, got drinks and waited until the required time. 

At 11 we were let in the gate and left standing in the waiting room inside. After ten minutes we were called into another room and asked to stand on a line, a foot away from four desks pushed together where masked police employees shouted to be heard from behind glass. The man we stood in front of shouted something… Steve and I blinked and then just looked at each other with concern. The man repeated himself twice but with all the noise interference from eight other people talking at the same time, we could not understand what the man was asking us in Spanish. After seeing our confusion, he motioned for us to stand further back, and he took off his mask. He asked our nationality, and this time we understood. Steve answered and turned over our passports. The man typed in Steve’s NIE, and then started shaking his head. Again we couldn’t understand what he was saying. Another man walked over and said that we were in the wrong place. We needed to go to another place to get fingerprints taken. EU citizens were assigned to the Bailen office but not Americans. Our next step was to get fingerprinted and apply for a TIE. None of what he was saying was written anywhere online. We realized the blogs we had been reading were written by British citizens who were applying for residency in Spain. We were in uncharted waters as Americans. We could see at this point why people pay immigration attorneys to wade through this crazy maze. 

I looked around and confirmed that only Brits were in line at the Cita Previa Office in Bailen– there were no South Americans, and definitely no one from North America. I could feel the painful edges of migraine gather behind my eyes. To stave it off I imagined standing in the cool ocean, a ten minute metro ride away.

The man behind the glass told us to wait, and he tried to call someone to make us new appointments. He tried five people, and no one answered. We were told to wait outside the office while he tried to get someone on the line. We waited thirty minutes, and the man left for his lunch. Another 15 minutes passed and another man came to tell us that there were no appointments available until September. He handed us a piece of paper and told us to go back online and make another Cita Previa appointment, and this time click the box for “Expedicion Tarjeta” to get fingerprinted for a TIE. The man was very nice and even though we waited for two hours, we felt like it wasn’t a complete disaster as we gleaned some new information. Steve got online and found appointments available on Fridays in August. We left the station.

We passed Santander Bank on the way home and stopped to talk to Mr. Palomo again to see if a letter Steve found, listing his interim retirement payments, would suffice to open an account. Mr. Palomo xeroxed the paper and said he would talk to a colleague and asked us to come back tomorrow. We headed home, and I waited for the migraine and unsettling disillusionment feeling to kick in…but neither came. We would have more success mañana, the Spanish word for tomorrow. Our American need to get things done “now” was already shifting to more relaxed Spanish rhythms after only two weeks in Valencia. The deep river in me tapped into patient reserves I didn’t know I possessed. Mañana we will go back to the bank, look at another apartment and head to the beach to shore up our courage and fortitude as foreigners. The river inside me is guiding me to the ocean and stability of soul.