In Madrid, Thinking About Unions
As soon as I got off the plane in Madrid, I felt the sadness of our national divorce. I was coming in to spend the weekend with my American cousin, who was visiting her son. We had not seen each other in many years, and I was elated on the plane, but as I walked through the Non-EU channel, I felt the familiar Brexit sadness.
Elke and I stayed in a small flat above a bar in the Las Latinas neighbourhood, near the flea market. We experienced the pleasure of encountering the new. We noticed how Spanish strangers in the street were physically affectionate: mothers holding hands with sons, friends arm in arm, couples embracing in the park. We saw how post-Franco Madrid flies the rainbow flag; Garcia Lorca’s statue in a busy square. There were no big chain stores in the narrow streets, but many cafes, bars, bookstores.
At times, we got stuck in crowds swelling the pavements for the many Easter processions heading out from Catholic churches all over the city; only a glimpse of a white bier held aloft by men in black suits seemed to evoke the heavier past of the country. At the Prado we sensed a historical darkness: bloody images of Christ on the cross, the Hapsburg chin, the plunder of colonial wealth, the Goya Black Paintings.
How do countries evolve? How do people? In our hours of talking, Elke and I reflected on love, how hard it can be especially in the intimacy of the family arena, so hard it could sometimes drain us to our core.
There have been times in the last two decades when we imagined ourselves escaping the burden of union to some form of self-directed sovereignty — doing whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted. At these moments we would call each other up, make each other laugh, hear each other cry, release our tensions, and return to our emotional labour. Now with children out in the world, we felt proud of social democratic families, interdependent and independent, full of freedom and mutual caring.
One afternoon, we went to a Hammam, built underground. We entered through a room swathed in red tiles, washing our hands in beaten silver bowls before being led down the stairs to the changing rooms. For a couple of blissful hours, we floated in heavily salted warm water in a cave-like room.
At one point a beautiful woman who looked to be around 40 entered the pool hand in hand with a woman who looked twice her age. The younger woman was tall and steady, helping the older one on the steps. She wore a burnt orange two-piece over generously curved, strong body. The older woman was tiny inside her silvery one-piece, her long white hair braided and clipped on her head. In the water, the young woman held the older one in her arms, rocking her like a child.
It was like seeing my past and future selves embracing. Elke and I are between those two ages of woman; no longer lush, but not yet very old. Our children grown, we are expanding our own horizons. We have a newfound freedom, and can take a breath to look back on what we have learned.
Everywhere we saw parallels between the personal and the political. Elke lives in at the epicentre of the fight between a white Christian nationalist state and a multi-ethnic city where powerful black women flourish. I live in London, a global, Remain-voting city at odds with its Leave voting country.
We noted that the two populist leaders who did so much damage to democracy in the UK and the US were both serial divorcers with a string of mistresses. They have no experience of working things out, compromising, listening to someone with whom you disagree. Their model is one man: one state, just like one household: one head of household.
In a recent New York Times piece about marriage and emotional labour, the writer points out that we often say “marriage is work”, but really, the intimacy that comes with long term relationship — including spouses, parents, children, friends should be more like play. It’s like an improv game with shifting rules, where the only commitment is to keep going. Improv: a series of Yes’s overcoming our natural inclination towards “No” with two equal partners. What if our politics could reflect this kind of family life?
Leave was a no, disguised as a yes. In the post-Brexit era, England has grown not larger or more creative but more shrunken, divided and angry. When my side lost the vote, I heard many saying they would have to leave a country where they no longer felt welcome. As an immigrant, I doubled-down on my relationship. I told Elke I had never felt more committed to being a British citizen as in these years I have worked with others to change the narrative about our island from a fortress to an open harbour.
Relationship maven Esther Perel herself points out that “only connect” can be a cure for our deep wounds. Eros heals trauma — more touching, more playing, more joy. Perel got her start as a therapist helping couples in mixed marriages. Mixed marriage is a good metaphor for citizenship union in a democracy: despite our differences in culture or beliefs, we commit to each other for the sake of a mutually flourishing future. Engaged democracy is more erotic than autocracy, in every way.
Late in our Madrid trip, my cousin and I went to a café serving smoked chickpea corn tacos. The spring sunlight, the murmur of Spanish, the food and the people, the high desert mountains and plains evoked California, where we had grown up. We once swore loyalty to our Golden state. Yet in a strange cities we have worked, loved, raised families, found our political voices, engaged with cultures very different from our own. We have expanded our borders, made our compromises, found our rewards.
On the last morning, I said goodbye to Elke and walked to a nearby square to wait for my flight. Sunday mornings seemed reserved for political pamphleteering; tables were set up around the space selling magazines, t-shirts, flags for the Revolutions, green, red and purple. I bought my daughter a fridge magnet: “La Lucha Sera Feminista O No Sera”
A healthy pluralism is the sign of a flourishing democracy, and it starts at home — between us. The playfulness, lightness in post-Franco Madrid is threatened by the rise of the far right, as everywhere else in Europe. I never thought I would live in a world where I would have to persuade my fellow citizens that “Women Life Freedom” is a slogan for all of us.
Yet there are places all over Europe that remind us that it is possible to face the shadows we all carry with us, overcome our wounds, and open our arms more widely than we thought possible. Democratic union is a constant opportunity to forgive each other for the sake of the future, to do the hard work of relationship, maybe, even, to practice love.
