For la cena today we had omelets from the eggs I had collected and potatoes I had fried, thinking of the Spanish speakers I’ve been close with heretofore, almost all of them standing over hot oil in New York City like now I do in rural Spain.

Patatas, my hosts here said while we ate and I played point-to-a-new-vocabulary-word. “Papas” is strictly American — North, Central, South — they said, as is “con gusto.”

I find myself feeling some loyalty to the Spanish — Mexican — Ecuadoran — Salvadoran — I’ve learned from coworkers back home, resistance to inculcation in the ways of the point of origin. Not my king, I want to say.