originally delivered: March 13, 2025

You’re reading an excerpted version of Everything Alex Writes.

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 Dear ______,

The last time that I wrote to you, I had lived two weeks with José Luis, and I was touched by his thoughtfulness. I am now writing to you after a full month of living with José Luis—my 62-year-old Airbnb host—and yes, he is just as thoughtful as ever—but now I have been moved by how we have integrated each other into daily routines. We wash our white laundry together. We retire to our separate bedrooms that share a wall and then an hour later, someone sends the other a funny headline or video. We rot in solidarity. 

        I am most fascinated though around our routines at mealtimes. In the mornings, I eat yogurt and muesli as José Luis wakes up—¡Buenos dias! I rush out the door—¡hasta luego!—as José Luis stands up from his desk and locks the door behind me He saves me the trouble of fiddling with the key from the outside. Now that my rotation has finished and my hours are all my own, we have exchanged roles. I still sit eating my yogurt and muesli, but I lock the door after he rushes out. . . no breakfast, no coffee. . . with just his backpack and singular pair of shoes.  

         I have asked him about his lunches at work. But he has been unable to give me a satisfying answer.  He says that sometimes he brings lunch—this, I have never witnessed. If he has time, then he makes a run to the grocery store for prepared food—this, I cannot fact check, and I doubt he has time. He loathes his monotonous non-profit admin job. While he likes his colleagues, he has clarified that they are not friends, just very nice colleagues. I take this as they do not lunch together (as I have seen my attending doctors do at the hospital). He does not linger at work. He is home by six. Thus, in my conception of his world, the only narrative I know to be true, José Luis purely lives off of thinking about others until he comes home in the afternoon.

         In the afternoons, I arrive home first and pull out my laptop onto the dining table. An hour later, I hear the door unlock. ¡Buenos tardes!, José Luis shouts from the door. ¿Y qué tal tu dia? I have to pause: a few seconds to recollect the morning’s events. . . memory clinic and a walk in Retiro . . . and then a few-plus seconds to recall if I have the vocabulary to describe them. 

       While I am thinking, José Luis breaks fast finally and grabs a snack from the kitchen. It is at this time—my snack time and his “first” meal of the day—that we share our gastronomic purchases with each other. We watch intently after each other’s first bite and find entertainment in each other’s reactions. Last week, he tried my sourdough picajo from the local bakery. I wanted to buy the spelt but the picajo was the only loaf left at the end of the day. ¡Que picante! I was also off-put by the kick. This week, I tried his favorite tortilla de maiz, which now I adopted into my diet. (Think: Kroger puffed rice cake, but corn.) I also tried his goat milk—a new purchase for him too. Unsurprisingly, goat milk tastes like goat cheese.

          José Luis does not take an afternoon café, an afternoon smoke, or afternoon cerveza. José Luis actually does not drink any caffeine, does not smoke, and never drinks at home. When my friend Chloe visited and stayed with José Luis and me for a weekend, she called him  straight-edge. But his closet does not read hardcore punk to me. So, I instead like to paint him as an exquisite being without vices. After all, how could you indulge in yourself when you are so occupied by thinking of others? 

       At eight o’ clock, I am finishing my girl dinner as José Luis wakes up from his siesta. He begins to prepare his own. . . girl dinner. La cena de las chicas, I tell him. First, a presentation of snacks. And later, an intermission, a return to the kitchen for a little something more. He asks of the origin of la cena de las chicas. The Internet. He clarifies his question. He was asking of the country of origin. De todos los paises, . . .in all the places where the girls exist. 

       José Luis’ dinner reads like Sylvia Plath’s. Monastic but striking:

Three eggs, fried over-easy, each patted dry with a paper towel. Brown toast. Hummus. Two carrots, skinned at the table. Hard, sheep cheese, also sliced at the table. Tortillas de maiz.

During intermission, he rises from the table and then returns with a strawberry yogurt cup for a little something more. He later will make another trip to the refrigerator for a second cup, an encore.

One Two strawberry yogurt cups.

The closest José Luis gets to cooking is preparing an extravagant salad once a week. He empties a bag of salad greens into a large mixing bowl. He pops open a can of corn, adding the water included too. I make a face. He tells me that he paid for the water in the can too. He chops a plastic sleeve of pre-cooked beets directly into the bowl. He adds two whole boiled eggs, later mashing them directly in the bowl with his fork. He cracks two walnuts in the mortar. He crumbles one tortita de maiz. He goes back into the pantry drawer for the last time and pulls out a tin of sardines. To finish it off, he adds a swig of apple cider vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.

          José Luis names each ingredient aloud. I repeat after him. I will only retain half though because I am preoccupied with the fact that I have a recipe for this exact salad—down to the egg mashed-in-bowl. It is hot girl salad. I do not have it in me though to explain real hot girl sht. Instead, I tell him that I love tinned fish. . . me encanta. I tell him that he is a chef. José Luis says this is not cooking though. …or I’m not sure you can call it cooking because I just throw whatever I have in the pantry/fridge together and voila vegetables.

He finally sits down to eat. I have finished my food, but I stay to chat, He asks me about my day—¿Qué tal tu dia?—even though he already asked me this afternoon. I am honest this time though, and I tell him that I have been stuck in my thoughts. My residency rank list is still unsettled. I am in decision paralysis. The deadline looms.

          Although my rank list has been weighing on me, I tell him all of this with a smile. My mood and affect are incongruent. It is the José Luis effect because whenever I chat with José Luis, I feel lighter. A part of me floats away and sees the two of us from a distance. A dark-haired girl with a mane and a round face and a bald and clean-shaven older man with rimless rectangular glasses sit across from each other, engaged in animated conversation. I come back to myself, and I cannot help but laugh at the scene. 

          José Luis tells me to choose what will make me happy. His response is banal. I am a little disappointed. What was I expecting? I was honest with him this time not in hopes of sage, life-changing advice but fresh thoughts. After all, he is one of the most thoughtful people that I have ever met. And yet, I understand that his trite response—to choose happiness—is probably the only and most appropriate advice that he, someone who has only known me for a month, could give. 

          He rises to store away the remaining half of his salad. Perhaps I am too honest this time. Perhaps José Luis just has boy brain in the end. When he sits back down, I change the topic. I ask if he will eat his leftovers for lunch. José Luis says, Quizas… Maybe. The next day, he has left for work, and I see the large mixing bowl still sitting in the fridge. It is uncovered food. No Saran Wrap, no foil, no top. Boy brain.

          It is now my last night, and at eight o’ clock, José Luis walks in on time. He witnesses my last girl dinner in Madrid, the last of my rations: five mandarins, a two-inch block of hard, sheep cheese, and tortitas de maiz. I open my mouth to explain my presentation of snacks, but nothing comes out. I am finding my words and conjugating my verbs. While I am thinking, he crosses the dining table and enters the kitchen. I find my words. He returns. But before I can speak, he hands me a small carton. It is a tin of sardines.  ⋆⭒˚｡⋆