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.