Monthly Archives: July 2012

Banished Again (16)

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Almost a third of my year is already over, and still I struggle with my chosen focus for this year’s blog. My friend Colleen once suggested I could stick with it for awhile and then abandon it at some point later in the year. “But I don’t want to abandon it,” I told her. My tone was cranky, miffed, defensive. I had made this choice, and there were endless possibilities to write about within it. There was no reason to give up on it. There was every reason to persevere. But in the time since our conversation, her suggestion whispers in my ear from time to time. It tries to seduce me. Stubborn creature that I am, I shush it. I turn my head away, present it with my back. I refuse to listen. And yet, when the whisper comes, when I feel the warm breath on my ear, it is a siren call. Today, I even counted on my fingers. If I stayed with Mexico for six months, when would half a year arrive? October? It wasn’t soon enough.

“But I don’t want to abandon it,” I say again out loud. There is no icky tone now, no crankiness, no bridling at a sibling’s suggestion. I really don’t want to abandon it, even as the idea of letting it go calls to me, full moon to high tide. But I am afraid. I was out of town, two short trips back to back, weeks lost to preparations, to journeys, to recovery. I am a week behind on my blog, me who wanted not to fall behind this year, not to spend time playing catch-up. But I know there is more than the ordinary resistance to writing behind my delay. I glimpse part of my problem–trying to write about all things Mexico is not only my fear of failure, of not doing it justice. I think fear lives in the fact it is so complex. It is not simple for me to think about Mexico. I can’t make broad, clear claims because it is all too layered, too complicated for that. My mind is always studying the complexity, weighing the distinctions, wondering about the reasons. I become overwhelmed. How do I capture the intricacies? I know in my heart I need to write about the specifics, not worry about whether or not the largeness of things seeps in. But my head worries about oversimplifying, about getting it wrong.

How do I write about the racism I felt there? Will my readers understand how tiny the percentage of people were who faced me with resentment, even hatred? How can I tackle something like that without talking about all the reasons their feelings are understandable, without comparing it to what people of color face every day in the United States? How do I take on something so big in one blog post? How do I explain my longing for life among Mexicans, for their natural grace, that warm and gracious generosity? Will my readers believe I think people in the United States can’t be as welcoming? Do I really want to try to dissect our stereotypes in 500 words? And what about the idea that most of what I know about the Mexican people comes from only one strata of society? People make claims all the time that are not true for all of Mexico. It is not one thing. It is not only Baja California Sur and Jalisco. The United States is not only Alaska and New Jersey.

Goldfinch on tube feeder with Mexican birds of paradise and tecoma blossoms

I sigh and take a sip of water, set the glass on the patio table beside me. I listen to the quiet sound of the misters, watch a goldfinch alight on the thistle feeder. “No,” I say, a laugh in my voice now, “The United States is not only Alaska and New Jersey.” I shake my head, a small smile on my face. I am satisfied in the aftermath of release, my fears banished again in the act of relinquishing them to the page, a second exorcism on this chosen path. Mexico is not only Baja California Sur and Jalisco, but I will write about them anyway. I will write what I know. I will write what I believe, what I think, what I wonder, and I will trust my readers with the rest.

Culture Shock (15)

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The cats and I crossed the border from Sonoyta, Mexico, three years ago on the second of July. I sang “California Here [We] Come” most of the way through Arizona. Near the California border, we were perched on a ridge on the highway with lightning breaking beside us, my fingers white where they gripped the wheel, the thunder drowning out the beat of my heart. But it cooled the air, welcome relief from the July heat, the desert washed clean around us, alive in scents and color. We bogged down just west of Blythe, an accident on the interstate, and I dipped a washcloth into a bucket of ice water, squeezing it out again and again on the heads of my two cats. I remember running ice cubes over my own forehead, across the back of my neck, along the curve of my collar bone. I decided I was being groomed in some fashion, learning a new kind of endurance on that journey. I would feel that again in the weeks that followed our new lives in the Coachella Valley, coming to terms with the lethal summers, knowing the heat could kill me.

Close-up of Mexican birds of paradise_orange blooms and buds

I took comfort in the bright orange blooms of the Mexican birds of paradise that laced my new home. I thought it was a happy omen. I remember sitting that first evening on the lawn of the motel across the street from the apartment I’d rented over the internet, using their wireless to send emails to Mexico, letting people know we’d arrived, safe, sound, staggered by the feat. I remember walking in the days that followed, feeling like I’d landed on another planet with the wide, clean streets, the expensive landscaping, the manicured everything. After the narrow cobblestone streets of Ajijic that had been my world, being here couldn’t have felt more foreign. I remember feeling like an alien, desperate to connect with the Mexicans who crossed my path, the woman in the mall restroom, the tailor near my new home, the bartender at the Mexican restaurant who told me the owner there was from Guadalajara. I was stripped of the need to speak Spanish, but I didn’t want to stop. It felt wrong. And everywhere I looked, I saw signs of wealth, and you could walk for miles without being able to buy a bottle of water in the brutal heat.

I wanted a tiendita on every block, even in the residential neighborhoods. I wanted brown skin, black hair, warm, laughing bodies greeting each other in the streets, greeting me. I craved the rich, textured, vivid world I’d left behind. I felt small and unveiled, vulnerable, alone. I missed Ana and Rodolfo so much it hurt, an ache that didn’t go away. I didn’t want to be here. I only wanted to be there, in that other world that already seemed like a dream, all those hundreds of miles away, where I’d left all the food that had flavor, all the color that had depth, all the people who met me with an open heart, warm brown eyes meeting mine. I wanted fruta picada on every corner, tortillas delivered every morning, still warm, the sound of the tamale man calling in the early night. I wanted the life that had become mine. I wanted to go home.

The Trouble with Attachments (14)

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Three years ago on the first of July I was driving west across northern Mexico in the late afternoon. I planned to spend my last night in the country near the little border town of Sonoyta. I wanted to cross into Arizona early the next morning. The weather had been kind to us, clouds hugging our toll road for the past three days, but it was still hot. Undeveloped desert stretched in all directions. The night before, we stayed at a wonderful motel, but I can’t remember where it was. I only remember there were big trees and grassy areas, wild ferns, lush growth in contrast to the sparse desert. I walked to see the nearby river from the overpass, and on my way back to my room a big truck drove past me. It was filled with pigs. They were screaming, as though they knew where they were going. I’ll never forget the sound or the feeling of helpless terror it conveyed. I remembered reading (in a romance novel!) that pigs are almost as intelligent as dolphins. Now when I miss bacon I remember their screams.

Desert and mountains copyright Tommy Huynh

Later, I ate dinner on the patio. I lingered through the late afternoon and evening by the pool. It was safe and soothing, my oasis in a stressful journey from Jalisco with my two cats. But as is my wont, I decided I would try to repeat this luxury the following night. This is where I went astray. In the afternoon when I was about an hour or so from the border, I saw a motel in the middle of nowhere, sitting alone on the right-hand side of the highway. It was new, and the man in the office was warm and kind. But I had it in my head I wanted a pool. He told me about a motel with a pool in the next town (whose name also escapes me now, and no staring at my worn and folded map evokes an answer), so I thanked him and drove on. I found the motel and checked in. And little by little I discovered this was where the army stayed. There was a pool, all right, but it was crowded with young army men on their off shifts. I was damn well going to swim anyway, and swim I did, weaving in and out of the boisterous young men. I chatted with one, treading water in the deep end, and that’s when I got the skinny on the place. It turned out they came and went all night long.

It wasn’t only the incredible, constant noise that marred my night. It was the energy of the military outside my door and the sight of all those young men carrying machine guns, that even after almost two years in Mexico I never learned to see without a little skip in my heart. To this day I am convinced my last night on the other side of the border would have been filled with big sweetness if I’d only stayed at the place that caught my eye, not had my heart set on a pool at all costs, been content with my previous night’s oasis without being greedy and trying to grab after more. But there was sweetness in the early morning hours there. I couldn’t get Sable out from under the bed when I was ready to leave, and one of the army guys who was out by the pool offered to help me. I couldn’t have done it alone, and I owe him a debt and my big gratitude. Maybe he was the reason I was there.

[Editor’s note: This photo is by Tommy Huynh. He holds the copyright, and you can find it on his website: http://www.lumika.org/mexico/natural_scenes/14.htm. Used here with his permission. And on another note, I got a chuckle out of my title here. I wondered if people would think I was going to talk about problems with attached files! ;-) ]