crankiness is a ...

Ok, so I am a bit crankier than usual these days. I can feel it in my lack of finesse, my curt answers, my failed smiles. I'm tired and cranky and just generally disappointed in my fellow human being.

Strike that.

I'm disappointed in the majority of human beings. There are still a few that have not disappointed me. My child, for one. There is nothing at all disappointing about her, ever. And sadly, she bears the brunt of my crankiness. Pre-adolescence and wild mood-swings accompany her these days, but I know it isn't her fault. She comes home and melts down in a wailing ball of misery, then, she reflects and apologizes, and brings one of her childhood favorite books, Mama Do You Love Me? and asks me to read it to her before bed, she snuggles in, sucking her thumb, and cuddles in the crook of my arm as I read out loud to her. Today she read in full on British accent scenes from Harry Potter which she is tackling with exceptional speed after finishing Libba Bray's trilolgy of teen girl angst and drama while we were off at Water Polo Nationals.

I am trying, desperately trying, to make this final thrust of the dissertation happen. I have a good feeling about this year's job market, and in any case, it is the final moment for my Santa Barbara limbo. After this year SOMETHING will be decided, even if that something is an unexpected twist. And I feel... well... cranky.

Here's the problem. (And sadly, I thought I had overcome this aspect of my social self, but alas, I have not.) I don't like "groups". I like individuals. But as soon as there starts to be a group dynamic in which people are "included" or "excluded" or there have to be constant events in which every member of the group is convoked... well I just flee. I can feel it happening. I start to singe at the edges, and then the inner heat boils and I implode, caving in on myself. I cut bait and abandon ship.

I am better off alone, I tell myself. I do better when there are nobody else's heavy expectations on my shoulders. I am better off where no one else can hurt me.

So I call Jeff and apologize for not being more welcoming now that he is going to live on this coast. I make plans. He belongs to no group, not to me, but to my pantheon of past. But there are always places where ghosts can seep in through the cracks.

I guess it is true. I. and I are a team, terribly difficult to break into for anyone. Don't expect that our little hermetic seal will ever be broken, either. So for now I just try to tie up my loose ends and seal myself back up, crawling into my snail shell, pumping the air out and sliming my way shut with a wet sucking whoosh.

Yick. I am highly unfond of myself right now, perhaps it shows.

Mexico Journal: July 28, 2010

My hard drive crashed. Something as simple as an unending script. And then the white screen of death. And strangely, I don't care. I mean, I care, because it means that despite my headache, despite the fact that I have other (thankfully non computer related) work to do, I need to take Pietro in and have him revamped. Forget about the cost. I don't care. I have all my written files backed up on line and in my other computer which is currently at the house that is still not mine again. It almost feels appropriate. A sort of a spiritual cleansing.

I silently thank myself for not erasing the pictures from Mexico from my camera. I always erase everything upon downloading, but something told me not to this time. So, what is lost? Some photos that never made it to Flickr. (They were always the least important). What else? All my music, I think, is on an external hard drive. I am not worried if it is not. There will always be more music.

There is a cat breathing his bad-breath on me, draped lazily, one paw framing my notebook. His steady purr suggests that he is pleased with my existence. The California sun pours in through the window and though I am still precariously settled - at once at home and not - my wandering in Mexico seem a distant dream, and imagined escape from reality, a brief parenthesis that closed so neatly that even I am wont to conjure the sensation of Mexico City's grey drizzle, the Cineteca, the visits with Javier, Tania, Sharon and Imelda in the space that I once shared with them, and whose route --Blue line to Tasqueña, bus at the paradero del sur to Miramontes, getting off at the Superama that marks the beginning of the Alameda del sur -- all seems unreal, as if it is just a fabrication of my memory tricking my real, concrete, tangible present.

Bright blue sunshine, a light breeze, clean air. I. went to water polo, and I walked past the Media and Social Sciences building that a year and a half ago, before my last hard drive crash, was only bricks and glass and scaffolding - a potential, delicately postulated future. My habitual trek to the gym under welcoming sun, past the old gymansium and the soccer fields gave me the sensation of never having left, the sensation of never leaving.

I imagine under what circumstances I can remain in this town of suspended reality, this town where my heart is only whole because the millions of shards into which it shattered, all those years ago, are still concentrated in one mound. There is a simulacrum of wholeness, but I know it only that. Still, how can I knowingly let myself scatter to the wind, I wonder.

So the hard drive, annals of my life in tiny bundled information packets, does not strike panic into my heart, in fact, I feel momentarily liberated from addictions of the same organ. I have everything I need with a pencil and paper, my books are awaiting perusal for syllabus design and I suppose, begrudgingly, that I should deal with the last of my returning rituals, which now include fixing broken technology.

Mexico Journal: July 22, 2010

Under the steady patter of rain on the plastic awning in the penumbra of a stormy afternoon, I find myself scribbling away, face to face with a complete stranger - also scribbling away - a mirror that is not a mirror. He is light-skinned, of European descent with dark hair that tinges grey at the sideburns. He is thin and nervous with a triangular goatee beneath his lip. If we were in the states I'd say he is going for the hipster look, with his trick T-shirt that announces "elvi's" instead of "levi's".

Today is my second visit to the Cineteca. Here, totally invisible is a reality. My table-mate, who I invited to sit, feeling guilty for the three empty chairs at my table, is looking everywhere but right ahead. I think he is writing a script. I let my mind wander about what would happen next if we were being scrutinized by the intransigent lens of a movie camera.

I laugh at myself, inwardly, for telling stories to no one, imbuing meaningless moments with meaning as if my life were one long travelling shot. Today I succumbed to consumerism, or rather, today I carried out my urban objective of acquiring contemporary novels and films for my collection. The film I saw yesterday, Gasolina, (Julio Hernández Cordón), a Guatemalan film, left something to be desired. It was a good attempt at minimalist indie-film-making from coming from a country whose film industry is nigh invisible, but it fell flat and failed to provoke the necessary horror in me (the viewer). Or at least that's what I felt... as if the emotional link to the characters wasn't sufficiently developed.

Today's film, on the other hand, was a gut-wrenching and beautiful Turkish-French co-production, Pandora's Box. I cried what I needed to, and combatted my wooziness from the anti-amoebal medicine that Claudia's mom prescribed me last night. Being at Claudia and Eduardo's (well really Eduardo's mom's, but who is counting?) has been sheer delight. Hot water showers on demand and a washer/ dryer (in one machine!) to revive my paltry cloth belongings.

The rain is no bother at all. The lights that went out at the café are back on and I am regretting having ordered a wine-soaked mocha cake. I always forget that I don't like cakes in this country because they look so appetizing but are too sweet, cloying, with an aftertaste of vegetable fat. Sigh.

So the city has been kind, thus far. Tomás and I were able to meet up several times before he left, and the truth is, apart from hanging with Claudia and seeing the Delgadillo clan, there isn't much else I want to do in the city, but walk and walk, and visit the Cineteca.

I'm ready to go home. My quick run to Yautepec was lovely, after the difficulty of this awkward, dishonest situation in which M. and I are supposed to not interact (because of his new partner's irrational jealousy). Tania was there and after the mosquitoes had their way with my legs, we all went to the club, where la Tía Lulú has her restaurant now. It was nice and comforting, even, to eat her food again, and watch I. splash around in the water like the fish that she is. Tío Julio stopped by, hobbling on his crutches (he fell off a roof and broke his hip a few months back) that I., of course, wanted to play with. The afternoon slipped away over a few caguamas.

It is strange, being in the city this time, I am totally dependent on others. My days are spent inside my head and my evenings are spending time with Clau and Eduardo, hearing about her projects and the nefarious senators and representatives with whom she must deal, whose idea of a "gender perspective" is how far down one's blouse they can look!! And, of course, I am telling stories, we are catching up on a year's worth of news, but it feels nice. I hope that they will take me up on my offer and come visit SB soon.

I've taken it upon myself to poke around places in the city that I haven't been before. Today I had lunch at "La fonda de los leones" (or something to that effect), just around the corner from the Museo Frida Kahlo on Ignacio Allende. Kirsten and I used to walk past it after Claudia would drop us off and head to her job in the afternoons of our ColMex summer, but I never went in. I satiated my urge for plantains and my ravenous hunger, if nothing else. I can't seem to muster up the desire to go to any museums, not even Leon Trotsky's (which is my favorite because I have a soft spot for good old Leon.)

PostScript:

At the close of the previous writing, Manuel (my table-mate) and I struck up a lovely conversation. He was Argentine (I guessed) and was, indeed, writing a screen play. If I lived in the city, maybe we would have stayed in touch, as it stands we exchanged email addresses, but no letters.

I watched several more films at the Cineteca: Strella (a Greek film about a transvestite that seduces his father), Vaho (a Mexican film, set in Itztapalapa, and like Gasoline, a good attempt as a debut film, but very ingenuous... and a Brazilian film (with Tania, Sharon and Ime at the end of our lovely Saturday visit) Viajo porque preciso, volto porque te amo.)

Mexico Journal: July 18, 2010

It is early Sunday morning and the city is sleepily rubbing its eyes, yawning, stretching. My footfalls are familiar and I navigate with precision. I, too, am tired, but the latent pulse of DF calls to me, whispers my name with each step. My feet know the way over cobbled stones, cutting across almost empty 6 lane circuits. I jog a few steps crossing Universidad as motors rev and truck grills bear angrily down on me. I feel safe, untouchable, almost invisible. I like invisibility. I prefer it to the burdensome stares of inquisition. I even prefer it to the smiling, cheerful appellation and offerings of help. In Metro San Lorenzo, after I kill an hour inside the dome of TAPO's bus central, checking in via email.

I've arrived. But to what?

To the city that has been home to me.

The air was cool and fresh when I stepped off the bus at 6 am. My neck and hip hurt from the cramped sleeping position on the 2nd class bus direct from Playa Vicente. But I digress.

In the metro I stood with feet firmly planted, deciphering the updated map of public transport. I pore over the landscape of intersecting lines, colors and double bars, seeking out the nodules of exchange. I am far from lost (one cannot really get lost in Mexico's Metro, it is all very clear), rather I am gaining my bearings, calculating where I want to go and how I want to get there. I look at my phone - 7:15.

"Hola amiga," a well-meaning interloper distracts my map hypnosis, "¿adónde vas?"

I smile, apparently dismissively, waving my hand vaguely at the map. He gets it and says, (and here I am translating, "Oh, you can figure it out here. Chido." I reply, "Cool man." I refrain from expressing the mild irritation that rises with the assumptions so clearly based on my skin, hair and eye color. Invisibility is far nicer.

So here I am, sitting next to the fountain of the Coyotes and I have almost, if briefly, acheived invisibility or at least normalcy. The water falls in a limpid tinkle. The plaza's renovation is complete and the gardens are greener than ever. Though it is Sunday, there is no hippie tianguis. They must have moved into a permanent spot, I muse, recalling the bazaar de artesanía ensconced between Pays Coronado and Nieves de Coyoacán. Everything, or almost everything, is still closed. I took Metro San Lorenzo on the grey/green line, changed to the pea-green line at Guerrero and rode it all the way to Metro Coyoacán. There was a bag full of vomit on the floor near my feet, but its smell did not rise to offend my nostrils, so I simply stayed put, not wanting to be a squeamish gringa and also not wanting to move around with my not-entirely-unwieldy pack containing many of my worldly possessions.

At Coyoacán I cross the street, walk towards Xico, passing the parking garage for the behemoth Centro Comercial. El Palacio de Hierro is open only for its loading dock and I observe my surroundings carefully. There is a red Chevy car parked with two men in it. I pretend not to notice and keep walking. As I near the end of the street I see police officers conferring. I distrust them, naturally, but I make a mental note of how far to run. The red car approaches from behind, I slow, but continue walking with determination towards the Cineteca. I know it isn't open for hours, but it is a safe quiet place to sit. I slip through the open door to the back end of the parking lot. There is an air of peace that exudes from the simple grey building with stark white letters that read: "Cineteca Nacional."

It wouldn't make an interesting photo, I think to myself having had the very same thought hundreds of times before. There is no way to visually capture the magical sway that this film palace holds for me. From outside it simply appears to be another institutional edifice. But I immediately relax. I peer at the cartelera, note a Mexican film and Brazilian film that I want to see later. I just rest for a few minutes, enjoying the silence and relative privacy. There is no one but the two guards patrolling, the box-office announces its closure until 3 pm. I sit for 10 minutes, make a phone call home. No one answers. It is too early, I think, on a Sunday morning to bother anyone else but family, though I am itching to see friends here in the city.

The temperate freshness of the rainy season is a relief: it is neither the oppressive heat of Cosoleacaque and the tropical poaching of Playa Vicente, nor the bone-piercing chill of the mountainous San Cristóbal. The weather is an invitation to wander and that is just what I do as the city's blood begins to percolate through its veins and arteries. I cross the street, just in front of the mass of people waiting in front of Xoco's hospital: Families huddled together with sick children or elders... I cross again, past the smiling newspaper vendors. There are some young boys playing in a small patch of grass, rolling around like baby tigers and giggling uncontrollably. I smile and miss my girl. I can't wait to see her beautiful face and cover it with kisses. The little boys remind me of Pedro and Manuel, rolling around punching and tugging at each other. I walk down Centenario, turn at Aguayo, wander past the market, La bipolar. My feet carry me to the Café el Jarocho and I know I am ready for a good cappuccino. I indulge in a churro filled with nutella. I wander to the Coyotes. I write some and then, just as I mentally lament the gentrification of Coyoacán, I need to satisfy my bodily urges. Ni modo. To Sangróns for a clean bathroom (no longer policed to parse out only the legitimate clientelle, perhaps because of the self-same gentrification?) and a breakfast of champions - or rather of gringos y fresas.

I sit down to order after giving my face a quick rinse to erase the last traces of my overnight bus ride. Enchiladas suizas. ¿Ya qué? I pick one of the few specialties that I know I won't get anywhere else and watch the dining room fill up with the city's southern bourgeoisie. The servers, in their traditional costume: all lace and colorful striped skirts - bottle-blond hair pulled back tightly in a bun. I try not to balk at the price. This meal will cost the same as my share of the hotel room in Playa Vicente - 80 pesps - slightly less than 8 dollars. It feels extravagant. I forgive myself this one indulgence, after all, I haven't been getting to Mexico as frequently.

I thin about the book I read and the protagonist's inner conflicts about privilege and solidarity. I share some of these same preoccupations. I think about the bus, only for women, undoubtedly a response to public transport's notorious and inevitable objectification of women (in advertising, in sheer physical proximity). I wonder if gender segregation is a real solution to deep-rooted sexism and am dubious, though I am quite certain that it makes life much safer for the women that make use of it.

With each step that pulls on my injured quadricep I think of my "cleansing" and my putative relationship with masculine authority. I thin about the fun I had the last few days with all the boys at the Festival Teseochacan, the music, the distinctive ways of interacting. Manuel says he doesn't like missing people. I tell him I am glad I met him as we all lay like drowsy cats in the beds with the lazy fan ticking back and forth. Music filtered in from the balcony window. "Why?" he asks, making it hard for me, as he is wont to do. "Because you remind me that I need a sense of humor," I joke, but I am glad that I accepted the challenge that this journey proposed to me. I hugged Fico and Oscar goodbye, Manuel... left the room, said goodbye to the kind cuidadores, and searched for the others. In the plaza, in the middle of the fandango, I found Pedro, and then Jorge and Ricky. Hugs and more hugs, and then I marched off into the night, leaving the eternal fandango (momentarily?) behind, past the Palacio Municipal, past the closed up pawn shops (that had sprung up, likely to launder money, even as we were there), the street sparkling with the recent rain and the lights twinkling.

I felt strange walking down dark streets, at night, alone, but in the end, nothing extraordinary happened. I caught my bus. I tried to sleep restlessly with bad cumbias playing for the driver's pleasure if not my own. Ha. I am only just now remembering our previous bumpy ride from Tuxtla to Coatza during which the luggage compartment under the bus bounced open and we lost a wheelchair that the bus then had to turn around, a mile down the road, and retrieve. Last night's trip had no such excitement.

So, I've arrived. The day is now in full swing, and I should pay my bill and keep rolling. The delicate silence of the empty dining hall has given way to a dull roar of animated conversation and my plate is finished and cleared. Veracruz seems so far away now, if not for the flaring reminders of bug bites that cover my arms and legs, it might seem like a dream from which I just awoke.

Mexico Journal: July 15, 2010

Jenny, the curandera, said that San Cristobal was magical and that if it had kept us there longer than we had expected, it would give back what was needed. I thought about it for a good long while, making my attitude fertile land for adventure, or whatever it was that I might need. My conversation with Palermo followed, and it was just what I needed. He reminded me of the "Little Prince" and it was, incidentally, his favorite book. It was if we knew each other from before. He listened lovingly, and he talked: about wanting a different world. We realize, he said, that we're never really alone. And he was right, there we were sitting in the dirt - he and his friends making macramé jewelry, me watching the rhythmic motions of their hands - smoking a little with these young men, exiled from their own upbringings, searching for something else, maybe not so different from what I am seeking.

I pulled myself away eventually, high on our conversation, and mostly just in need of a continuation to my own personal cleansing journey. And then I stumbled into Santiago's clutches. I had seen him the night before, I thin, and he had tried to pull me into a conversation but I was accompanied then, and I didn't need the energy then. In fact, I was walking past the cathedral steps with every intention of checking my email, happily thinking of home, and how I wanted to tell someone about my walk along the city's periphery. It didn't happen. Santiago roped me in with his cocky swagger and warm caramel eyes.

"It's my birthday!" he declared, "Come sit with me for a while." And I did. I mean, I didn't have anywhere else to go, not really, and I had a set of keys, and well, it was what I needed, after all. He convinced me to walk with him to buy a liter of liquor (of which I did not partake!) and we sat and talked and shared stories. He had twin girls in Norway (or was it Switzerland?) and another set of children in Quebec. It was his 30th birthday, he said.

He listened and made me feel beautiful, not superficially, but deeply. He had quite hypnotizing eyes when they trained upon my own, pools of onyx and brass. We walked back towards the Zócalo, he tied a bracelet around my ankle that he made. He told me tales of his life and I told him about mine. We held hands, swinging them playfully as we passed the marimberos in the Central Kiosk. We stopped to dance a few songs in the glittering rainless night. Then we sat on the Cathedral steps. He wanted to hold me, to possess me, to make me his, for a night, perhaps, but that was not in my plans. He traced the lines of my face with his fingers, ran his hands through my hair, made his deals, shot the breeze. I could feel the pull of a palpitating life of informal economy and stolen pleasures. I played along, but I didn't want to return the kisses that he attempted to steal from my mouth. And then, just as it began, it ended. I told him I had to go home, and that while under other circumstances a passionate adventure might be really appealing, I was in a different place. I was "cleansed" and I need to simply protect my little heart.

He walked me to the edge of the andador and while his deep pools of eyes were tempting, my decision was immutable. "Tienes un corazón tan grande..." he said, and I believe he could really see me. "Eres muy fuerte, mujer," were his last words to me as he kissed me goodbye and I walked away, never looking back.

Boundaries, limits. I needed that, and to feel the love of a complete stranger, whatever his ulterior motives might have been.

When I got back to the house in a taxi (I didn't think it safe to walk home alone in the dark after 11), I found myself quite alone. Jorge had left me a note that made me smile, and feel loved. I cleaned the kitchen once more, in gratitude and packed up my few belonging into my backpack for an early departure the next morning for Veracruz, again.

In the morning, of course, we didn't make the 7 am bus that we had planned on, rather we caught a 10 am bus to Tuxtla Gutiérrez and from there a 1 pm bus - third class- to Coatzacoalcos.

I must admit that I was very grateful for home remedies because the night before, when my stomach was still not all that one could hope for (to say the least) and my cough still hadn't completely abated, I made a special menjurge, not sure if the various effects that I hoped to acheive wouldn't contradict one another. I chopped up a few ripe guavas and boiled them with cinnamon, a pinch of gordolobo and a eucalyptus leaf. Thankfully it worked and I managed the six-hour bathroomless bus bouncing along the free Mexican highways without incident. I slept in a hot sweaty stupor as we crossed great swaths of the Republic. The mountainous cold, mistly climate of San Cristobal ceded to a hot sub-tropical explosion of verdor. I awoke just around Malpaso and we crossed violent turquoise waters on a suspension bridge of dubious provenance.

People came on and filled in our empty seats - I shared my space with a woman and her 5-year-old daughter (with my pack beneath my legs, elevated by the wheel well no less!) She was a güera de botella with plucked-off and painted-on eyebrows, and tacky jewelry of the nouveau riche - enormous silver teddy bear "hoops" studded with diamonds (or rhinestones?) and sporting acrylic nails with blue 3-D flowers. Still, she was pleasant enough. From Morelia, Michoacán. Her older son, she told me, had been kidnapped, her whole family, in fact. That's why she wasn't living in Michoacán anymore. It was strange. She wasn't the only person to talk about such violent eruptions into daily life with such a matter-of-fact way. (I was thinking back to my bus ride to Xalapa from DF and the story my seat-mate told me of her neighbor, whose family was literally extorted into the street).

And yet... the sheer, unfettered beauty of the changing forest landscape, giving way to red earth, tezontle hills, animals out to pasture, fertile lands that are rich with varied fruits, lakes, rivers, palm fronds, coconuts cut with large machetes by the side of the road, women making tortillas, standing over a hot comal, in straw-roofed palapas.

When we got to Coatzacoalcos Pedro steered us onto an immediate transfer to Cosoleacaque, the town where they had already been visiting a pair of jaraneros: Fico and Ricky. They received us in their comfortable and unfinished house, and we stayed up late talking and playing music. Well, I mostly listened.

The next morning we set out after a "breakfast" of shrimp cocktail and seafood broth to the beach. It was probably only 30 miles away, but it took 2 hours and much negotiating to get there. We travelled in the open-aired back of a truck, with a blue vinyl tarp covering an iron structure that arched above our heads. The wind felt divine, as if I were becoming the dog, with his head out the window, like their Siberian husky - Keyser, that earlier I had played with and who had lovingly given me a full body bath with his tongue.

The beack, Peña Hermosa, was so vast and completely virgin that it almost felt like an invasion. But sadly, the marine algae was strewn with litter - an unfortunate reality in many places, where trash collection is irregular at best and the collective consciousness has not agreed to repudiate the poisoning of the earth. Still, the water itself was sheer glory, warm and wonderful, there was a reasonably large sand shelf. I waded out, not trusting fully the seemingly peaceful waves. Then Jorge and Pedro swam out father than I and I let my guard down a bit, confident in their navigation.

All of a sudden I realized that the sand was no longer beneath my feet and that I was on the far side of the breaking waves. I tried to contain my panic. Fighting the ocean is a futile task anyway. With my first hard kick the slight pull in my right quadricep seared with pain and I remembered how Jenny related that to my relationship with masculine authority. I pulled hard with my arms instead, joining the crest of the breaking waves and letting them push me back to safety and sure-footing. Jorge and Pedro, it seems, had their own drama of a similar kind, and Jorge was pulling at Pedro's long curls, nearly drowning them both.

We cured ourselves of the scare with a large mojarra frita each accompanied by black beans, pico de gallo and handmade tortillas... And cold beer, at the enramada. I can't think of a simpler or more perfect meal. We talked and laughed all together and Fico, Pedor and Manuel took turns playing and singing. We took the hired transport back to the nearest town (Jujapan??) and then waited to take a shocks-free bus, the last of the night, back to Cosolea. When we arrived we were met with the sky splitting open (like the night before) and pouring hot, thick rain drops on our heads as we walked up the street "Emiliano Zapata" back to the house.

I rinsed in the rain and threw a few bowls of water over my body to wash off the salt and sand. Everyone crashed out to sleep early, except me, because I started to read (after forcing myself to wade through the slightly pedantic, over-informative prose) La mujer habitada. I have suddenly been ensnared by the idea of being a warrior in the armed resistance despite ones own upbringing. It's just, well, I still can't get my head or heart around the part where violence, even justified violence, is the acceptable choice. I just don't know, but maybe that is simply my privilege, a bourgeois choice of a philosophical question rather than a real, urgently lived present.

In any case, we had a lovingly prepared meal in the morning, of enchiladas de mole, and Fico and Ricky's mother told us about her life, her experience working for the government of Tabasco, of leaving an abusive husband, of her years in alcoholics anonymous. And all with aplomb, and a warm smile. She insisted that I take a book of recipes because her mole was delicious, that way, I'll have to come back to return the book one day. Fue un mandato.

We left Cosolea without Pedro (he stayed behind with a girl he met before and seems to be romancing) and took a bus to Isla (after Acayucan). When we got there, a kind man, a school superintendent/ inspector, gave us a free ride to Playa Vicente. He and I sat in the cabin of his truck and talked education, liberation pedagogy (Paulo Freire and bel hooks) and politics on our 30 km ride.

Now, after a dinner of albondigas with the guys (25 pesos only!) I came back up to the hotel room to rest a little. Our room is comfortable and costs less than $8 a night) and opens out onto the plaza where the music festival is playing.

Earlier I was distracted by a seemingly pained man singing verses angrily about dignity beneath my window. I've been growing quite fond of the Son Jarocho and begin to recognize some of the songs. It is a music whose richness and complexity don't come from individuals but rather from collectivity. My thoughts on revolution have listed recently in that direction - education - liberation pedagogy as the only viable route to profound and permanent change. The unteaching of individual progress in favor of a collective understanding of mutual responsibility to one another. That's what the music inspires in me.

It must be midnight now because the official event has ended and the invitation to the fandango has been invoked. I wonder if the guys will come for their instruments or if they will simply stay out. In the meantime this brief parenthesis must end so I can get back to my book.

Mexico Journal: July 12, 2010

Self-involvement is a given when writing in a diary, but part of me wishes I could just be outside my head. Yesterday was the close of the World Cup and the close of a cycle. We stayed on in San Cristobal because Emel got a gig for the guys - they're probably there right now, as I write.

I decided that I would just enjoy my "life" and what it looks like in San Cristobal, so today I came to get an energy massage and a "limpia" with basil and an egg. Jenny, a Salvadoran woman worked her way around my body, burping as she released the trapped negative energy. She did a "reading" of my body and made some very astute observations about how the majority of m y pain was emotional pain and that it came from my relationship to masculine authority (right leg). The truth is, after it was over I did feel better, lighter, happier. I was also, strangely, burping for the next half hour.

I then treated myself to a relaxing lunch at Tierra Adentro: fish, rice, salad and vegetable cream (no milk products involved) soup. After which, I walked and I walked and I walked some more. I followed "Real de Guadalupe" down all the way to the periférico and then drank in everything with all my senses. 3 hours later, after skirting the edge of town until I was almost too tired to continue, I saw a largish paved street that looked like it would lead back to the center (and it did!) without being blockaded, and I ambled back only to find myself (after snaking back and forth a spider's web of alleys) at the Santo Domingo Plaza.

I am sitting on a still rainless afternoon on a colonial style cement bench watching Palermo, the Honduran artisan and his friends' agile fingers weaving macramé. In the dusty square patch where once there was grass, little boys play soccer with plastic bottles as both the "ball" and the makeshift goal posts. I have no real need to do anything, and I have truly enjoyed my day alone. Something has shifted and some pain has left my body and definitely my heart.

Things are looking up.

Mexico Journal: July 10, 2010

Jorge and Manuel came home very drunk because of a near-death experience they had with a car-stereo thief and his knife. Pedro, apparently, went right to bed, but Jorge was full of love and good energy while Manuel, on the other hand, made every effort to avoid eye-contact with me. I don't know why that feels so hurtful, but it did. The next day I had every intention of being alone, but we all went out for a breakfast of Pozole (Jalisco style) at a little place on the andador Hidalgo. I took my leave with the idea of getting a "limpia" from Emel's friend, but then she wasn't there, so I wandered and took pictures and got caught in the rain.

I stood still for a long time under a dripping eave, but eventually found myself magically on the andador 20 de noviembre. I wandered into the Bar Revolución thinking I'd have a capuccino and read for a while, but that, too, failed because there the guys were. Drinking together. I felt awkward and slightly out of place, but the only real option was to join them.

I started with a capuccino with piquete and it went downhill from there. Next I had a "sacrificio maya," a novelty drink which involves a flaming mixture of kahlua, tequila and orange liqueur in mineral water. Too sweet!!!! but I drank it in one jalón anyway and moved on to a very rum-filled mojito, then a piña colada, and, if I recall correctly, 2 margaritas (frozen) plus some of Jorge's tequila sunrise. Needless to say I was a crying mess, but we all had a reasonably good conversation. Pedro, after all, was the straight-talker and he basically let me know that he doesn't (yet?) consider me a friend and that what I have to say isn't of import to him. I admire his directness but I must say I don't feel like I have any options. To me, the way to build friendships is to share stories and converse. I don't feel hurt though, just a bit unsure of how to proceed. Apparently, too, my conversational style of checking in is offensive. Talk about lack of cross-gender communication! I guess where I stand indifference is a huge challenge. Do I want to tackle it?

I am a giver of love and care, and, I am informed, that even the gestures of care that are in my nature are motive for offense. Well. I guess the next few days will decide if I stay with them to go to the fandango in Playa Vicente or take the next bus to DF.

Jorge and I made it to the Plaza (and, as he later reminded me) I had a shot of mezcal from one of the artisans en Santo Domingo... What a fucking disaster. I fell over? (no memory of this), and laughed heartily, then wandered off, and finally started chatting with some guys on the corner. Pedro and Manuel went to the market, and Jorge and I found ourselves in a store chatting with the owner for a half hour or more while they drank beers, and by the time we got a taxi home, I needed to boot and sleep, which was a shame because there were friends over.

I am promising myslef no hard liquor for a year. I don't even want to think about it.

Today I took care of myself emotionally and physically. I managed to sleep, but I got up and made black bean soup. Then Emel and I took off for down town. I dropped my clothing off for a "real" (ie not hand wrung in the sink) washing and drying, got caught in the rain, spent some time on email and watched the second half of the Uruguay-Germany game.

I had a comida corrida and a capuccino, and then I just walked and walked. I discovered a little church at the top of a long staircase called San Cristobalito. Behind it there was a path leading into the jungle where I stumbled upon lovers kissing innocently and I realized that I envy them nothing. I feel relatively cured of love. Maybe that's what this challenge is proposing to me: to not feel. To let go of any attachment to being loved or even liked.

In the late afternoon I wandered the markets and chatted with the artisans who have been smiling surreptitiously at me for days. In particular a Honduran guy named Palermo who spoke of light and love in ways that make sense to me and I am reminded that the light I seek is in myself, that of a star, not a moon: I have to generate it myself, not h ope for it to reflect off and tangentially illuminate me.

We all met up to take Emel and Iván out to dinner as a thank you, thinking that tonight would be our last night, but instead it looks like we'll be here until Tuesday. That's ok. I like feeling like I know a town. And I feel empowered to walk its streets alone.

I think I will go see some ruins on Monday, though, if it is at all possible. So here I am, after a walk with Jorge, at the Rincón Zapata, listening to a fandango and feeling a tickle in my throat that threatens illness. I need some good uninhibited, uninhebriated sleep.

Mexico Journal: July 8, 2010

It is a rainy afternoon again. The weariness of travel is hitting me. I feel (perhaps unreasonably so) as if my presence is a burden on others. I would like to disappear, not feel so defensive. The last few days have been lost in sleeping late watching the World Cup at Bar Revolución and wandering around the markets: vegetable (popular) and Santo Domingo (hippie). I have genuinely been content to do this, but the truth is I. is missing. I miss her smell, and ache for her hard little hot-potato body kicking at me in midnight sleep fits after she has snuck into my bed.

I haven't been dreaming, not that I can recall anyway, but last night was restful both to my mind and body. After an intensely close initial approximation, Manuel has been pushing away, pushing my buttons, too. Yesterday I snapped because I felt very hurt, and tired of defending myself from attack. It is strange, of course... as family lore goes, I've never been good at taking teasing, and I suppose that's true... but especially now I feel sensitive. I feel angry too, not at Manuel, of course, but rather at M. and I think that the tears that began in hurt turned to tears of rage. M. is getting married in a week. Great! I wish him luck in his endeavors, but here's where the anger comes in: for the last 5 years of my life any time that he has even suspected I might be involved with someone, he was cruel, jealous and angry to the point of making it difficult for me to both maintain the relationship (whichever one it was) and his relationship with his daughter. Yet, here I am, handing over my little girl happily and with no drama (The drama is still all his). It feels so unjust.

So Manuel found me crying in the room that I am sharing with Jorge (who returned with Karla before she had to depart) and he apologized. I appreciated the gesture, but I feel now very unstable in my position. I don't want to bother him and Pedro, whose relationship with Jorge is 8 years in the making. What at once felt comfortable now feels strained to me. He said he feels uncomfortable when people get too close, too fast, which is a legitimate feeling, but my only reaction, then, is to retrreat. Retract into myself and hope for some respite.

Last night, after taking a walk alone (and having a little wine that Jorge so kindly bought me) I pulled myself together and we all went to the Centro. We had some nachos and they all drank mezcal and mojitos, but I just chilled, a little inside myself. We hung with Aline, a girl from Río who we keep running into, and her friend Caro, who is here from Guadalajara, working with comunidades doing lombricultura.

Pedro and Manuel had their jarana and requinto and they played for the sidewalk passersby. It helped me forget my hurt feelings for a while. Pedro's voice is marvelous and his recall of lyrics is truly exceptional. He is a hard nut to crack. I enjoy conversing with him and I feel respected and listented to, but at the same time he is funny and open, there is a solid wall around his core. There's no reason, I suppose, that I should be granted access to that interior, but the fact that it is so cleanly and clearly denied me provokes something in me, a sort of a challenge or fascination. In any case, I had a good time listening and watching the street fill and empty with people who stopped to dance, to clap, to sing along. I joined in a little, but it is generally hard for me to feel comfortable. Sigh.

Today was good though, calm, plenty of alone time. I slept late and Jorge and I made a large breakfast. Emel and Iván were out at work, but we did get to hang out, just me and them, later in the night which was a treat. I really like them, and spending time just talking is the only real way to build friendships. I hope to be friends with them in the years to come.

We made eggs (a la mexicana: chile, tomato, onion sauteed), mushroom and epazote quesadillas, tortillas with crema (like creme fraiche) queso semiduro (de rancho), chipotle, avocado and black beans. We also had delicious café de olla and fresh mango. My stomach is still less than happy and I am kicking myself for having eaten fruit from the market (apples and nance) without washing. On the other hand, I have been eating bread for a few days and that could also be a cause for my intestinal unhappiness.

So, the afternoon was spent playing a "cascarita" (pick up soccer) with the boys, I even took a few dives in a goal and generally wore myself out running around. After a shower, the guys took off and Emel and Iván too, so I just got to chill, listening to the rain, cooking beans, tidying up and chatting on Skype with Cheyla and Kirsten.

I told Cheyla about my visit with Nacho and she was wishing she could have a visit with him too. (He came from Tuxtla Gutiérrez the other day to see me and we had a lovely afternoon of football and lunch together). It is late and I hear the happy voices of the revellers. So it is time to go to bed.

Mexico Journal: July 5, 2010

Iván, Pedro, Manuel and I went for a hike up into an ecological reserve, past an old molinero to the "Peje de oro" caves. About 10 minutes in, it began to rain and was pouring with rage and fury within minutes. It made for delicate foot-holds, but was a grand adventure nonetheless. On the first part of the river (creek) that we had to cross, we all bit it on the last rock across, and then squished soggily the rest of the hike, which was, in fact, quite a liberating experience because there was no more worry about trying to stay dry. In fact, after exploring the caves a bit, I opted out of crawling into small spaces with only 2 headlamps for 4 people. (Earlier I had conquered my vertigo climbing out onto an old aqueduct ruin, that was enough risk-taking for my day). The creek had swelled considerably and was coursing with café con leche brown water. We just carefully waded through, cutting back and forth to follow the trail, steam rising from our hot bodies in the chill. After trying to warm myself with a hot shower (Iván and I started a reprise of the caldo tlalpeño from last night, this time adding cabbage, potato and mushrooms), I curled up to snuggle in the bed that Jorge and Karla had abandoned.

The afternoon and evening slipped away into card games and checkers and our clothing is now drying in the sun.

Mexico Journal: July 4, 2010

Shortly after the game and my wanderings on the "andador" 20 de noviembre, I grew tired of looking purposeful. I watched small boys play soccer in a muddy corner of grass by the kiosko in the Santo Domingo plaza. The ball was hard, dirty and small, but the boys playing were so full of joy that it didn't seem to matter that in a little while, on the sunny Saturday morning, they'd likely have to be selling their mother's goods, or gum. I watched forcefully, hungrily so as to not make too much eye contact or call too much unwanted attention to myself. I grow so tired of being asked "¿De dónde vienes?" "¿Por qué hablas tan bien el español?" "Cómprame seño..."

I don't have much money, though there's still a little in the bank. Gabriela can't seem to wire the money to me, which is so frustrating because I don't want to take more money out than I need, and I also don't want to carry around a ton of cash. Ah well.

So the phone rang just as I was growing weary of the pack on my shoulders, and it was Jorge, coming to get me and bring me back to the house, Emel and Ivan's house, in the Colonia Cuxtitalli, a 15-20 minute walk from the centro.

There I met Manuel and Pedro, tow of Jorge's friends who play Son Jarocho. Manuel was immediately warm and friendly, and Pedro a bit more quiet and reserved. Karla (an ex and present?) girlfriend of Jorge's was there, too. So we were a full house, but Emel and Iván were so gracious. They know each other from Davis, but most everyone had only just met at least one or two of the group.

Everyone is surprisingly easy to get along with and we all had a breakfast of huevos a la mexicana, tortilla, frijoles negros and quesillo. Then, minus Emel, who had to work, we made our way back to down town to watch Paraguay lose in the 82nd minute to España. Sad, and an all-around poorly played game. There was an exciting moment in which in less than 2 minutes both teams were awarded a penalty kick that was stopped by the keeper. (Spain's went in, but the ref had called it back because the team entered the box before the contact was made with the ball.)

--- 0 ---

So we went out last night, despite the "Ley seca" before elections, to a bar/ restaurant called "Bagels and Kitsch" - surprisingly (or not so?) mostly peopled with ex-pats , other gringos and fresas. Emel's friend Sarah, from San Francisco,'s boyfriend Aldo was playing with his band: Son Jarocho fusion. It was cool, and Pedro and Manuel had a very nice palomazo with them. They were great. After, we hung out at Sarah's (she's also a jew, which was a point of strange contention with a weird, attention-seeking interloper...), with a bunch of folks and I sang a little though my voice was strained from the cold I'm fighting.

Mexico Journal: July 3, 2010

Sitting in San Cristóbal de las Casas in a gelateria "nice". I arrived at 8:30 am and Jorge was nowhere to be found. Perhaps he came and left? More likely, he overslept, or thought I was supposed to get in at 7 pm. I'm not worried. I left San Juana at the bus station. If I don't find Jorge after the game, where I left him a message to meet me, I'll call Nacho. I'll wander with my camera, I'll read a book, I'll go watch the Paraguay-España game. Germany is winning which is displeasing. Yesterday Brasil lost a heartbreaking game on an own goal.

I'm not sure why this fête of nationalism is so comforting to me, but I think it is the sense of belonging. He laughs at me, he doesn't believe in football because it, like religion, is the opiate of the masses. I agree, to an extent, but unlike religion it doesn't impose itself on anyone and all the drama is human drama, not otherworldly. Plus, it is a game I understand, and love, and ni hablar de los bombones ;) I believe it is something akin to smoking, without the damage to my lungs. I can sit down and watch, and for a few brief breath-holding moments, I belong.

Yesterday was a strange example of this impromptu community. Elissa and I got some alone time and ended up at Palaloapan, a cantina "familiar" where we were the only two women, save for the waitresses and one woman with her partner. We decided to earn our status as "malas mujeres" (¡divorciadas además!) and drink beers instead of ordering lunch. Luckily the beers came with botana: caldo de camarón, pastel de pescado (croqueta), empanada de cangrejo... Once we had two beers ourselves, our neighboring game-watchers started "inviting" us beers. Later it became a competition among rivals for our attention and we simply accepted, with a smile. After 6 beers. 6! I cut myself off and since the "diet" was already shot to hell, we stopped for a Tepoznieves ice cream before returning home to her place on Moctezuma.

So, here I am, watching Argentina lose 2-0 to Germany at minute 73. No, 3-0. It's over. Shit. Uruguay, Paraguay are our only hope for a Copa latinoamericana...

Mexico Journal: July 1, 2010 (night)

Tonight, because of your words every cell in my body wails for you. I want to claw at the walls of your venn diagram and stake my claim on your deepest, darkest, innermost demons.

Instead I stand huddled in the sleepless midnight window clutching my notebook to my breast, stealing light from a lonely street lamp with the artificial buzz of flourescence mixing with the organic hum of cicadas.

Sharp angles and unfinished concrete edifices are my only witnesses in the smothering heat.

My body betrays me in allergic misery, and with each violent spasm I contract against a life without you: without your hands, bony and lithe, with a pencil poised to draw, without your mouth emitting wickedly mordent condemnations of your fellow man, without your eyes - searching, lurking, watching, needing, pools of desire to penetrate my every orifice.

Love, she wrote, love over pity

and I hold my breath, and I wait

for you to come home to me

to live inside my flesh, a lichen

feeding me with you

flooding my veins with your liquid

passion, hot kisses tearing into my enemy flesh

I want, my love, for you to be free

To choose freedom. To want freedom,

to live.

Every sleepless night by my side. You are in each breath inhaled yet you remain when exhaling, filling in the interstices of my being, impregnating me with your abject, perverse, putrid, glorious want.

Mexico Journal: July 1, 2010

In the languid heat of the late Xalapa afternoon I awaken with a start. I struggle through the torpor, smell the air. No, the frijoles have not burned. I close my eyes and listen hard to their bubbling boil. I lay back into the mattress on the floor of Elissa's house and think how it would be nice to have a lover here, right now. But then I think, nah, too hot. But I close my eyes and envision him anyway. His shape shifts, my languorous desire is multi-form, ubiquitous, expanding. It belongs to nobody but the heat of the afternoon and my resting body.

San Juana and I roamed the city center today. She shopped and I watched. She purchased and I snapped photo details. We walked up and down the Callejón del diamante where the hippie artisans gather. I asked probing questions about their materials so she could innocently demonstrate her interest. She befriended a boy who took her to the supply store and he gave her a lesson. I wandered alone for a while. Not far. I peered in at the government buildings being converted, temporarily, into voting stations, ready for the (dubious) July 4 elections. I smiled at the world. Today was a good day.

In the morning we slept in. Then we made breakfast with Elissa: lentils with curry and mango, eggs with potatoes, onion and veggies. Last night Elissa and I talked late into the night. We wept together, we shared stories. One day, I tell myself, one day we will be healed. The world will be healed.

In the meantime I simply repurpose food. And I feel pleased with myself. San Juana and I stopped at the Thursday market. We bought flowers for Elissa. I remember when things were so hard for me and Kirsten would cook me a meal, bring me flowers to brighten my day. I am simply returning the favor to another friend. A brave, strong woman whose work I knew before I met her.

We buy fresh pineapple dripping with juice, peppers, cilantro, avocado, green tomatoes in their husks, onion, mamey. I come home and am industrious, enjoying a kitchen at my disposal with all the necessary accoutrements. I boil the black beans, left soaking since the morning, with onion, garlic and chile. I roast the green tomatoes and chile for a salsa verde. I disinfect the cilantro, I chop tomatoes, onion and chile and more for the beans. I set aside the ingredients for guacamole: ripe avocado, onion, garlic, tomato, chile, cilantro, lemon. I prepare the veggies to mix with the jamaica flower for the guiso. And I wear myself out.

That's why I nap. My back hurts and I want someone's hands digging into my unyielding muscles. I feel him, close to me, though I have taken my leave, though I know he reviles my lazy afternoon naps. I close my eyes in the shadow for a few more minutes before I get back up again to dirty my hands.

Mexico Journal: June 29, 2010

"For excuse, for our being together, we sit at the typewriter, pretending a necessary collaboration. He has a book to be typed, but the words I try to force out die on the air and dissolve into kisses whose chemicals are even more deadly if undelivered." (p. 25, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. Elizabeth Smart)

I read these words and the story tears through me, a mortal wound that threatens to leap forth and make itself known in any moment. Those are the times, when the landscape races across my eyes, endlessly changing, violently static. He is with me, under my skin even when I promise myself a measure of respite. Microscopic molecules of his essence ooze from my writing hands and thinking mind as if sweat from my pores when my equine body pushes against the universe.

The scrape of his late afternoon chin against my soft flesh, the bruises that stay for days, physical reminders of his real existence and of my abject devotion to impossibility. There is no breath that doesn't gasp for him, no drowsiness that isn't ripped open to pour into the ever expanding abyss.

And I stand naked, vulnerable at the edge of his cliffs, the peaks and valleys under his feet spread forth offering if not comfort, at least a shared solitude. I am out past the edge of the sea. His island of peace, his ocean of tenderness. And I acquiesce. I will do his bidding, I will hold my tongue forever. I will not protest. I will not create life because it cannot be without his seed.

The thick foliage of my Eastern summers, the soft rains of the city, the oppressive heat. They converge on me as ravens. My body lays open. I smile and wave. The wind embraces the dried eucalyptus leaves and they are all him, pulverized, coursing through the air in tiny particles. I watch him disappear, sand through my fingers. Tactile and yet ungraspable.

We look at each other, as if we understand. And then his door slams shut behind him. Wheels kick up dust as they ride off together and I stand wavering on the edge of my very own demise, the ocean crashes on its rocky shore.