These boots were made for walking

Jack Kerouac, I am not... (Nor Nancy Sinatra, for that matter, blessed be the higher powers!) But I am on the road again, living up to my self imposed wanderlust.

The streets of the city are clean, really, and the traffic is not only bearable, but seems to run smoothly. The green pokes out under the bower of centenary trees, bending under the weight of their own oppression. We walk, for hours, inhale the smells.

I, who am always so particular, even found that the bathrooms are clean (as inexplicable as it is welcome); an inscrutable mystery, the perfumed obsessions that are played out in slathered cologned suits and dainty-shoed professionals. We taste, the pungent aroma of a mole rojo turns our heads, the capsicum sending blood to all the pleasurable places, that only well placed piquancy can do. The words roll off my tongue. I am alive on this pulsing orb, in this breathing, sighing urban landscape that is calling me home. We have keys made, walk around the block several times to throw off any potential stalkers.

Several claxon's toot their appreciation for light eyes, and long legs (not mine, sadly) and curve-hugging, dresses that swish tauntingly. Oye chulas, bonitas, güeritas...
Today there was a very funny one, "¿Me vende una de sus alas?"
What precisely does one respond to that, but with a mirthful giggle and a wave of the hand? We are here to discuss women. We are here to talk about what it means to be a woman, for women, for ourselves, for our children. They are all beautiful, every single one of the women in our course, gorgeous creatures, full of light, and a brightly-burning candle that fuels their work. Humanitarian, educative, legislative, literary, economic, political. There are women from Brazil, Colombia, Italia, Chile, Guatemala, France, Bolivia, Cameroon, the US, Mexico.

Then we walk again. Around the block one more time,
-Are you sure he didn't follow us? The guy's friend?
-He was on the corner working.
-I know he was on the corner, but maybe he was following us
-No, he was working, you can tell... his body looked like the body of someone who directs people to park. I can't explain it, it is a gestural memory, our bodies are trained.

Kirsten cooks and I do the dishes, quesadillas, sincronizadas, plátanos machos con crema...
She comes up with clever household solutions and I act as an on demand bilingual encyclopedic dictionary. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.

There is a stillness in the city that I hadn't remembered. A quiet and peace that settles over me. It almost makes me want to live here again. Almost. I nibble happily on tortillas patted fresh before my eyes, folded over with quesillo and mushrooms, epazote a flavor I had almost eradicated from my memory, by no intention. Tostada de tinga, that touch of sweetness that I can never seem to get quite right when I try in my own kitchen.

We speculate about the woman whose house we have rented, she has so many of the same books and films as I, completely random and incoherent as I. I will like meeting her. And this newness, this me-ness is settling in. I am me in in world once again, walking, walking, walking, until my feet hurt, and my legs ache, and I rest to begin the trail once more.