It’s full-on summer in southern Spain. The awnings have been erected over Calle Larios to provide some respite from the heat, though sometimes even in the shade, hot air pricks your skin.

If you want to rent a tumbona and sombrilla at the beach, you’d better get there early. And even if you are lucky enough to secure a lounger and umbrella, on the hottest days, they are no guarantee of a relaxing recline in the shade. On one such day, I had brought a book, but it was too hot to read or think. My brain went into sleep mode. The only thing to do was submerge my body in the sea. In the end, it was an enervating day—the walk to the beach in the heat, sweating on the tumbona under the sombrilla that was stingy with its shade, the push and pull of the cold surf that hammered my muscles all over, the walk back, the collapse onto the couch. Enervating in a satisfying sort of way. I didn’t have the energy to take a photo that day of all the sweating bodies. But the photo at the top is of pretty Nerja, an hour and a half bus ride away, taken the following day under a less scorching sun.

The lethargy from the beach day extended to my appreciation of the Eurocopa 2024 final between Spain and England. I watched it alone, splayed on my living room couch rather than among the throngs at the local sports bars or on the big screen in Plaza Mayor. I did leave the terrace door of our apartment open so I could hear the shouts in the street when Spain scored twice in the second half, once to break the 0-0 tie and then for the game-winner. After the game, I opted for bed rather than join the celebration outside which went on through the night and into the morning. Many Latin Americans here went back to the screen to watch the Copa America final which aired at 2 am here. All of this meant that when I went to the gym the next morning, attendance was sparse. I do regret passing up the chance to witness in person the glee in the streets. Blame it on the summer heat.

I’m not a drinker but I decided to sign up for a wine tasting as a way to support a local business. I arrived a few minutes early and greeted Valeria who was busy at the counter and then headed to the back room where I did the two-cheek kiss with Adrian who told me the wine reps would be ready in a few minutes. I scooted back into the public space and bumped into a woman who had followed me to the tasting room. We exchanged a few words in Spanish about the event and she told me that two of her friends had cancelled on her. I don’t remember what I said back, but suddenly she said in English, “You’re American! She said she had initially thought from my accent that I was from South America. Turns out she’s British and has lived in Málaga for fifty-one years. Her Spanish of course is fluent, while I am yet a pretender. Turns out she also knows a lot about wines and throughout the wine-tasting, she was commenting and questioning and assessing. Also present were two attractive, well-dressed, Spanish-speaking couples that might have been Spanish or Latin Americans (my ear can’t always distinguish the accents) whose volubility increased with each sampling of wine. These were Italian wines, and the wine reps were Italians speaking Spanish. I barely said a word. My head was spinning from the wine and the Spanish conversation around me became louder and more animated as the evening progressed. Meanwhile, my non-discriminating palate judged each wine to be agreeable and the almonds, cheese, and mortadella to be crucial in absorbing some of the alcohol, allowing me to stagger, loopy but not blighted, home.

Home. Málaga. People often ask me what I miss about the United States. Aside from being able to see family and friends, I say that I miss nothing. Until someone says, what about Mexican food? And then I say, yes, that.

And speaking of Mexican, I’ll be embarking on the process (spearheaded by my elder daughter) of obtaining Mexican citizenship. How, you ask? Our new neighbor is a young transplant from Oklahoma whose parents are from Mexico. This allowed him to apply for Mexican citizenship and obtain a Mexican passport. He told me that since my grandmother had been born in Mexico, I too, according to the recent change to the Mexican Constitution, was eligible for Mexican citizenship. News to me! The eligibility extends to my daughters and their children as well. Chain citizenship. It’s a generous policy and I’m grateful for it. It gives me and my family options in case, you know, the world gets crazier and Mexico, under the new leftist, physicist female president, becomes the safe haven, and tacos become the salvation food. Anyway, there’s an essay in the thought stage on my becoming Mexican. In the meantime, here’s a photo of my grandmother Francisca as a young woman, born in 1898 in Acaponeta, Nayarit, Mexico.

And speaking of essays, I’ve had my first essay written while living in Spain accepted for publication. It’s an essay that features my acupuncturist here in Málaga. It will appear in an anthology at the end of 2024 or early 2025.

I had written all the above for this post before July 21, a 100-degree day that kept me inside the air-conditioned apartment for most of the day. By eight in the evening, it had cooled to ninety-eight, so I ventured outside for an iced drink at an outdoor café. I was reading a book of essays I plan to review when I decided to check my phone and saw that Biden had ended his campaign for another term. Is there a word for the feeling when you’re sitting alone in a different country than the one where you once lived and called home and you learn some momentous news and there’s no one next to you to turn to process it and you get weepy with emotion even though what you’re feeling is hard to define and then you turn to that social media platform called X which you abandoned when it was taken over by that creepy billionaire and you see the storm of support for Vice President Harris to be the next President of the United States and you weep again but this time you know why you’re crying? Is there a name for that? Let me know.

There’s still a week left in July, which I will use to prepare for some travel in August to Portugal, where I will see a writer friend, and then on to the north of Spain where I will attend a writing/walking retreat. I hope to finish my new novel for reals this time.