Andrómeda’s home is in a bustling neighborhood, La Latina. Situated just southeast of El Palacio Royal, there’s plentiful access to bars and terraces with tapas, as well as buses to take her elsewhere, should she choose to do so.

***

After wandering down a narrow street that curves towards an outlook over El Caso de Campo, I found the correct apartment number, and rang the bell for Andrómeda to let me in. I stepped through the entryway and up a few stairs to a second set of doors. Next to the main wide, worn marble staircase, there’s a rickety old elevator that gets residents up from the mailboxes to their apartments. I chose the stairs.

Now with a “permanent OT lens,” as my professors called it, I note the irony of the elevator’s placement. This rising metal box on strings (it doesn’t deserve much more of a title) is still 11 steps and two doorways back from street level. Back at Polibea, Andrómeda’s occupational therapist, Raquel, has shown me videos of her visits to Andrómeda’s home, and how they practiced carrying light-weight items up and down the stairs. It goes without saying that many people would not even have this option. And even if the placement was logical, this elevator was not an exception from the majority I’ve squeezed into in Madrid – hardly wide enough for two people to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. No wheelchair would have a chance.

When I first walked into Andrómeda’s apartment, I saw that she had been sitting on the sofa, playing a game on her tablet. Our small talk was brief, given that I wasn’t sure what to ask after “¿Qué tal?” to which, of course, I received a “Muy bien,” and a huge smile. We got right down to the tasks at hand – I brought up a few recommendations that Andrómeda, Raquel, and I had pulled together over the last few days. I asked her preferences, and we agreed that heading to the family business first was a good start.

We grabbed our masks, bags, and Andrómeda her cane, and headed out. She was sure to lock the door behind us, turn the lights on and off for me in the hallway, and secure the elevator door (not that a thin latch made me feel any better about the metal box on strings). We headed out.

***

At the end of the day, as we sat and waited for the cake to bake, Andrómeda offered una merienda, or snacks. She pulled two bags of potato chips out of the drawer. After opening and tasting them, she noted that they had both expired. When we tried two more bags, we discovered that those were also expired, and had been for multiple years.

Now, it would be one thing if an item or two in the cupboard had gone past their recommended date. It happened in my family too, that is, before my brothers hit their growth spurts. However, a single jar that has migrated to the back of the shelf and is then promptly forgotten about tells a different story than a drawer full of expired food.

At first, this seemed out of character for Andrómeda. Her home is dust-free and organized. She takes care of herself and is always clean. Everything in her home has its place. Andrómeda doesn’t seem like someone who would forget about a drawer full of food.

However, as I sat on it, the stale potato chips began to make sense. Andrómeda lives a life of routine. Based on my knowledge, that routine includes getting herself ready, daily commutes on the back of her brother’s motorcycle to (arriving 10.00h) and from (leaving 14.00h) Polibea. She’s usually home before lunch and eats on her own. She uses the bus to visit her mom. For errands, she can go on foot to the grocery store for small items, orders larger things by bulk online, and goes to the hair salon next door to her apartment. On the weekends, she frequently makes trips to see her son, daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters who live just outside Madrid. In the hours between these scheduled events, Andrómeda is alone.

I would imagine she does not have many occasions within which to pull snacks out of a concealed stash in the living room, never mind check their expiration dates. Perhaps what I saw was truly just four bags of expired potato chips, within which there was nothing else to discern. However, after getting to know Andrómeda, I believe it points to something more. Her determination to be independent, along with her severe communication challenges, means she is also very alone.

For short distances, such as walking around her neighborhood, or walking around Polibea, Andrómeda uses a cane. At home, this cane is left at the entryway, and she furniture-walks.

***

In the United States, many of our days are spent rushing from one point to the next, a competition with ourselves to see how quickly we can get from one place to another. What’s the fastest metro route? How much can I push the speed limit on my drive? How much work can I get done while on my commute? In Spain, this is not nearly as common of a question.

Yes, people have schedules. However, “1 o’clock sharp” is best translated as “a las 13.00h, tranquilamente.” As mentioned in other reflections, there’s a common phrase in Spanish – “quien abarca mucho, poco aprieta,” or the equivalent phrase in English, “don’t bite off more than you can chew.” In Spain, I think part of why people don’t run between one obligation to the next is because they simply don’t sign up for so many obligations.

For Andrómeda, time is even less of the essence than the average Spaniard. As she lives alone, she is on her own time. And though it would only take her brother 20 minutes to drive her to Polibea’s new location on the back of his motorcycle, she would much rather find a route she can do on her own, despite the fact that it will take her almost four times as long on the bus. This ties into her high value of independence – as we’ll later discuss, Andrómeda doesn’t want to limit or interfere with the lives of any of her loved ones.

For now, Andrómeda does rely on her brother to get her to Polibea. The current site is not easily accessible by public transport. And last week, her brother suffered an ischemic stroke. Andrómeda did not make it to Polibea all week. Fortunately, he had a quick recovery, and was able to drive her by car (not their typical motorcycle) the following Monday.

Andrómeda loves her son. Following her stroke 11 years ago, he and his wife moved in with her to provide support. While gracious for their generosity, Andrómeda is sharp. She saw that her son felt responsible for the care of his mother, and yet that he and her daughter-in-law needed to live alone. When Andrómeda moved into her own place, it was because she did not want to be the one to stand between that.

Raquel told me that this continues to be her main motivator for an independent lifestyle. Andrómeda does not want to be anyone’s burden. She wants to show her son that he need not feel responsible, that she can live alone.

This independence and determination are also what drove Andrómeda to find Travel Xperiencia, a company that organizes group trips across the world. Andrómeda loves to travel but had difficulties doing so on her own after the stroke. She would go to the beach with her son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughters, but felt similarly to when they were living together – she didn’t want to be an inconvenience. Plus, she would much rather venture solo into the unknown than sit on a beach. So, Andrómeda went to Raquel, and asked for help. Together, they found Travel Xperiencia, which serves both people with disabilities and people without (In general, Andrómeda prefers to spend her pass-times this way, rather than in “adapted” activities).

Though not “independent” in its traditional sense, Andrómeda’s adventures are precisely the kind of independence we aim to facilitate as occupational therapists. Though her trips may be pre-organized and in groups, they are still done without relying on her son. The same sentiment applied when Andrómeda recently visited Valencia with a close friend – not alone, but still independent.

***

Andrómeda is also very close to her mother. Early on in my case-study day with Andrómeda, her mom called for a quick check-in. Andrómeda knew it would be her on the other end of the line, predicting so before getting to the living room, where her cell phone was propped on the back of the couch. The brief, comfortable encounter led me to believe the conversations are regular.

Andrómeda’s mother has recently moved to a residential facility. Andrómeda visited her frequently before but is now even more determined to see her mom as much as she can. With this in mind, she and Raquel made the photo map to her mom’s place so Andrómeda can visit as often as she’d like.

When I asked Raquel about her many years of working with Andrómeda, one of the first things she told me was, no matter how small the matter, “ella lo quiere resolver a su misma.” She wants to solve it by herself. From installing a jar opener into her kitchen shelving to traveling across the world, Andrómeda is finding a way to do so independently as possible.