They gave me a deck of playing cards at the casino the other day when I signed up for my rewards card so I could get $15 off day use at the spa. The cards had been used at one of the tables, had a small circle punched out of one side, scribbled information across the label. Walking home, I caught sight of the big red “Mexico” on the side of the box where it poked out of my canvas bag. They were made in Mexico, nothing out of the ordinary in that, but catching that one word in my unthinking downward glance surprised me, had me hesitating in the crosswalk, some secret message, a reminder of this new focus for my blog. It made me see how obsessive I may become about this. I notice all the things that remind me of Mexico, my neighbor’s white wall two doors down with the bougainvillea that could be the one in the photo of my first post here, “I Begin,” except for the lovely curve of that other wall and the sweet gated window. The white hotel downtown with the bougainvillea spilling over balconies on the second and third floor is much more tamed but still reminds me of my three-story bougainvillea beast behind La Casa Azul in Todos Santos.

But even if this chosen theme makes me obsess, so be it. I was already missing Mexico, have never stopped comparing my two worlds since I left California or returned to it. The fact I have now made this an official pastime, a required occupation, is not something I regret for a moment. (“Bring it on!” my corny self wants to say, something my stepfather would have appreciated, I think, had he lived long enough to hear the expression.) This choice is sharpening my writer self, helping me move into feeling like I really am a writer more than ever before. It’s teaching me to tune into the concrete world in a way I may have never done. Before, I’ve taken in the world around me, but I’ve been present with the whole, I think, more than with the details. For example, I remember stopping beside the fountain each time I entered the Villa Bordeaux, my favorite mineral springs hotel in San Juan Cosolá. I remember standing there, taking in the walkway, the fountain, the small pond, the charming little building behind it, the grassy area and the trees beckoning beyond toward the lake just out of sight. I remember the way the stone and brick and water and growing things made me feel when I stood there, relishing the quiet, luxurious, pretty peace of the place. But I couldn’t tell you if the walkway was old red brick or painted stone or how the water spilled into the pond or what it was I found so charming about that little building nearby. Did it have clerestory windows? A small cross on the rooftop? An open doorway, slanting sunlight inviting me inside? I can only tell you I knew I would be content to go live in that little room beside the lake.

I’ve always known as a writer I need to pay more attention to these details, and I’ve begun to do so more over the years. But now I see how this new endeavor might teach me to carve these details in my mind, so they can be there when I’m writing a story that needs that Aztec sculpture sitting beside the large mineral pool with the lake and the mountains behind it, or the silent, mottled turtles sunning themselves on the rocks below the fountain. And this excites me, to watch how choosing to write about what I love, choosing to make each of these 54 posts touch on Mexico in some way, is gifting me with this chance to become more fully a writer, to have it weave stronger threads throughout my days and nights. This morning on my walk, heading home down Palo Fierro, I heard a raven making those rounded softer calls I love so much. I looked up to see a mockingbird chasing him across the sky. I stopped to watch their airy waltz, and as they moved off toward the east I watched the waning half moon hanging in the air where they had been, poised above the mountains, thin white luminescence in a pale blue sky. I heard a breeze chasing dried bougainvillea blossoms across the driveway near where I’d stopped in the middle of the street, the papery blooms scratchy, skittering across the cement. It all happened at once, a sweeping arc of overlapping time, the raven’s call, the swooping sky dance, the moon, the mountains, the scrittering of sound. And at the center of it when I saw the moon behind the birds as they crossed the sky I thought, oh, this is one of those moments. And I came home to write about it, grateful for the fullness of things, glad and hoping to be able to gift that moment back into the world.

[This photograph is not mine. It is a promotional photo for the Hotel Spa Villa Bordeaux. I couldn’t find a website for them, but you can find more images and information here: http://www.hotels.com/ho367385/hotel-spa-villa-bordeaux-san-juan-cosala-mexico/.]