TAKE IT EASY, HOMBRE
Don’t Sweat the Small things
Living in Granada has been good for both Kay and me. Among other benefits, I’m learning to be more patient, and Kay doesn’t have to endure my impatience. Not that I’m a go-go, type-A kind of guy. But I’ve always been (and remain, although to a lesser degree) impatient.
Why is it necessary, I grumble to Kay as we stand waiting in the checkout line, to share every detail of her vacation plans with the supermarket checker? This is especially galling when the gabby patron has 13 items in a nine-item express lane. “Excuse me, excuse me,” I shout out as I struggle to get myself and my luggage through a family reunion taking place only four steps from the jet-way exit. I question the eyesight, the intelligence and, after waiting for five minutes, the right-to-live of the driver who refuses to turn left into a left-turn lane when traffic is coming from the right, even after watching the previous four cars make the turn.
This is not a response (with one exception, which I’ll get to later) that we see or heard demonstrated in Granada. Patient and easygoing, Granadinos take everything from dog droppings to panhandling in stride. Take sidewalk traffic, for instance. It’s almost impossible to walk more than a block without having to make your way around or through a group of people who have stopped to chat. They stand there in the middle of the sidewalk, all talking simultaneously, seemingly oblivious to the flow of pedestrians. If you can’t get by, and you say “Perdon,” they move just enough for you to squeeze by. At first I found this quite irritating and would comment to Kay on their lack of consideration. But after walking the streets of Granada for a few months, I realized that this was completely normal pedestrian behavior. And furthermore, no one seemed bothered by it at all. I never saw one scowl, dirty look or heard a dark muttering; people simply squeezed around the group and went on their way.
Sidewalk flow is also slowed by street merchants who place large groundcovers on the sidewalk, upon which they display bootleg CDs, DVDs, sunglasses, scarves, etc. In the pedestrian shopping area, they spread these groundcovers in the middle of an intersection, creating frustrating bottlenecks. Yet no one seems to mind. Every one carefully makes their way around the “sales area.”
Another example. While waiting in line to board a bus at the bus station, late arrivals often walk straight to the head of the line. My initial reaction: Wait your turn! No one else seems bothered at all. I think to myself: we all have tickets and assigned seats, what difference does it make? Perhaps they had a reason. It no longer bothers me.
Patience is a necessary virtue at a cafÈ or restaurant. While service is not agonizingly slow, no one races to get a glass of water on your table within two minutes. And when you’re finished, no one slaps the check on your table. You have to catch a waiter’s attention, ask for the check, wait patiently until it’s brought, then wait again for your change. It is not good to be in a hurry in Granada.
Even parents seem calmer. We’ve never seen a parent yelling at a child or jerking a child around. The children are well behaved, but they do get rambunctious. This, however, never leads to parental misbehavior. I can’t even imagine a parent whacking their kid, something I’ve certainly seen a number of times in America.
Granadinos are also very tolerant. The attitude seems to be: No harm, no foul. There are several laws, for instance, that we’ve never seen enforced. One is drinking on the street. It is not unusual to see young people swigging away on a liter of Alhambra beer while sitting on the wall by the river, walking down the street or even sprawled in Plaza Nueva leaning against the Chancellery, or courthouse, only feet away from the guards at the entrance. Only once or twice have we witnessed public drunkenness, never unruly or violent behavior.
The police, whose main job seems to be traffic control, are hardly ever around. Every night our street crawls with merrymakers walking from cafÈ/bar to cafÈ/bar, or sitting on a stoop (all too often ours) drinking beer and playing guitars, or singing loudly at dawn as they make their way home from a night at the disco. We’ve never seen a policeman patrolling the street at night. Not one. And there’s no fighting or vandalism.
We’ve been told that laws prohibiting the possession of marijuana are rarely enforced, and that there is little if any crime involving its sale. Grass is openly smoked in the flamenco/jazz club down the street.
Granadinos are, however, very impatient behind the wheel. Perhaps I should say behind their horns. There’s a lot of construction on our street and a lot of cafÈ/bars. All day trucks come and go, dropping off and picking up large, metal debris containers, or delivering kegs of beers. There are also twice-daily garbage pickups. Every time a delivery is made, traffic on our narrow street is blocked. Even when drivers can see what’s causing the delay, they blow the horn. When we hear the sound of a delivery being made, a sound we know very well, we look at each other and wait. We rarely count to ten before the honking begins.
Spain has the longest life expectancy and the lowest incidence of heart disease in Europe. The Mediterranean diet is, no doubt, very important, as are walking and a glass or two of red wine. But I’ve got to believe that meeting life’s daily irritations with patience and toleration, rather than impatience and resentment, is a contributing factor. I also believe that daily cafÈ time followed by siesta are also life-enhancing activities, but that has yet to be scientifically validated.
