Category Archives: Musings

Lake Chapala Nibbles on Its Edges (48)

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When I lived in Ajijic, the lake flooded. It wasn’t the worst the village had lived through. People told me years before Lake Chapala came two blocks into town. The year I was there, she only swallowed the shoreline. But I remember the eery feeling I had seeing everything submerged. I used to be able to walk straight down Aldama from my hillside home, then walk along a dirt path that hugged the southern edge of the village beside the lake. All of that was submerged, even the cobblestones of my street disappearing into the water. I stood there for a long time listening to the lapping of the small waves, felt my mind twisting with the reality before it. I walked across town, approached the lake from the west.

basketball court submerged in the lake

egrets on the tennis court fence

flooding_don't bother the birds sign

I marveled at the way the basketball courts had vanished, the hoops sitting out in the water. The lake edged the tennis courts at the fence line as if by design. I watched the egrets sitting on the chain link, their unexpected furniture. The little sign asking people not to bother the birds was still visible, the tree it was posted beside surrounded by lake. Two people passed me on horseback, the horses legs churning up the mud. I cringed at what their hooves might find, hoped they wouldn’t be injured. It all made me glad I lived on the hillside, as often as I might have looked at homes nearer the lake with a certain longing. On the hillside, the thunder gods sat on our red tile roofs and laughed. But when the rains came, the rivers of our streets ran away from us. I stood watching the horses heading east where I couldn’t follow. I choose thunder, I thought.

Hope (47)

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I was encouraged to read two recent arrests stirred protests over Arizona’s immigration law, glad to know there are civil rights organizations like Corazón de Tucson to rally outside the police department, activists like Alcaraz Ochoa willing to crawl under a Border Patrol vehicle to block them from driving away when the answers they gave him about why they were arresting Rene Meza didn’t satisfy him. It makes me remember I can’t blame all Arizonans for their racist legislation. It reminds me there are people there who didn’t want these laws in place, people who must be as appalled and embarrassed now as I was when our country elected Bush. It makes me remember to have hope.

Anti Arizona (45)

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We were having breakfast together at my favorite place, Palm Greens Cafe, where once when they brought my food I commented about what a glutton I was being, and the kitchen staff serving me smiled an impish smile and said, “Yes, but a gluten-free glutton!” If I hadn’t already been charmed by the place, that alone would have won me over, stolen my word-loving heart. But when Corina told me she was considering Arizona for the next stage of her young wandering life, I think I went into some weird autopilot. I don’t remember half of what I said, only my gluten-free vegan pancakes with blueberries sitting untouched before me during my diatribe and the surprised looks on her parents’ faces across the table. I know I told them I didn’t want to spend one cent in Arizona because of their racist legislation and their lies. (I read one of the reasons they claimed to have crafted the anti-Mexican, anti-immigrant laws was because of increased violence along their southern border. But in truth, violent crime has gone down there in recent years.) I know I told them if I needed to go to New Mexico or Colorado from some reason, I would fill up the gas tank in Blythe and drive straight through their pretty desert state. I know my voice and my words were harsh, maybe shockingly so. I called Corina later to apologize for my vehemence. “I know it’s beautiful,” I said. “I can understand you wanting to go there.” But I’m still praying she’ll pick another spot.

Closer to the Earth (44)

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I’d pulled out the travel section of my L.A. Times a few weeks ago and set it aside unread. The cover story was about Mexico, about the northern village made famous for its pottery. Now the next generation are doing marvelous contemporary things with clay, and I’ve saved the photographs of big beautiful pots for my mother to see. There is one in particular I think she’ll enjoy that reminds me of some of her own large slab bowls. Nestled between the images of the pottery is a shot of one side of a village street, and I am transported. It could be any rural village in Mexico–the narrow, uneven sidewalk, the crumbling edges of things, the dirt road, the fading paint on the walls of the buildings. But what makes this so different from a dilapidated block in some U.S. town? Why does it awake a longing in me, a fondness, even, none of the aversion I might feel for the equivalent in this country? Is it the colors, the texture, the light? Is it the lack of despair in that Mexican air that weighs more lightly on the world? And why do I crave it?

yellow house

window and flowers

When I moved back to the States, I remember my shock at the clean, wide streets, the lavish landscaping. Now I teeter between pleasure in the places where this wealth allows for a clean beauty, the brick and the desert plants and vivid blooms a masterpiece, often echoing our Spanish roots here in the Coachella Valley, and my dismay and disconnection from the places where the clean wealth falls short of this art and only looks garish and sterile, even obscene. But when I see this photograph of the village street in the newspaper, I ache to be there, walking along the banqueta, the sidewalk, my sandals dusty, my skin drinking in that other sunlight, the colors and the textures akin to the earth, to life, to participating in the world in a different way. I can’t quite grasp the words to explain it even to myself. It is a knowledge and a memory of the body, I think, and the spirit, not the mind.

I can feel myself nodding to two women I pass on the street. “Buenas tardes,” I say.

They take me in with their eyes, nod, smile. “Tardes,” they say.

What a Wonderful World

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This is the note I wrote to go out with my Christmas cards this year. They have a colorful tree and the words “What a wonderful world” on the front of the card. I thought I’d like to share it here with all of the rest of you, too. Happy new era. Happy holidays.

image of ornaments on a tree

I first reached for this card because I liked the cool, artsy tree, the newsprint and paint. Texture and color pull me. The words on the cover conjure Louis Armstrong.
“I see friends shaking hands,” he sings in his rich, unmistakeable voice, “saying how do you do. They’re really saying, I love you.” The song was released the year before Martin Luther King, Jr. was killed. But you can hear the love in Armstrong’s voice. He was courageous enough, large enough, to believe in us, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. So when the phrase makes me pause, makes me wonder if it’s okay to choose this card given all the violence, all the hate, all the tragedy in our world, I can’t help but think there’s something wrong with that, something wrong that I should hesitate. These things don’t make the words untrue, do they? It is a world full of wonder—big sky, palo verde trees, grackles, people helping. It’s the world my father saw, the small wonders, a person’s profile in that gnarl of tide-washed wood, the magic bean sprouts he brought for my dog Sanji when she was dying, the label he made on his old manual typewriter still taped to the jar, crisp in memory, a cherished item when he died just weeks after she did. It makes me want to cry for him, for both of them gone now these 27 years. But it’s layered in me, the way they loved me, the way I’ll love them always. They are composted in me, rich, fertile soil, my carpet, my gifts, my wonder. And this is the time to look to those we love today, remember they are our diamonds, our emeralds, to run our fingers through them, these gemstones of ours, to spread them out in the morning sunlight or kiss the fire of their facets in the shining of the moon. Bring warm scarves, bundle them forward in the quiet almost-winter afternoon, count ourselves lucky. What a wonderful world.

Here’s to No More Sneers (38)

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Learning a language is hard. I’ve studied Spanish off and on for most of my life, and still I am far from what I consider true fluency. When I first moved to Mexico, my words were molasses, poured in fits and starts, agonizing for Mexicans used to their light rail speech. But with very few exceptions, busy retail folks who were fluent in English and wanted me to just get on with it, the people I tried to speak to showed genuine welcome for my efforts, helped me when they could, all smiles and nods and encouragement.

You have to be willing to look like an idiot to learn a new language. You have to do what we are so bad at in this country, feel foolish and stumbling, bumble your way through it, reach for humor if you can in your embarrassment. It’s the only way to move forward. In Mexico, the people in my world there let this be the best it could be. It was still awkward. We don’t like to look stupid. But their reception of my halting, error-ridden Spanish made it okay to keep going, keep practicing. Their welcome of my efforts balanced out the excruciating discomfort.

I wish I could say we returned this favor for immigrants in the United States. And I’m sure in some cases it is returned, kind estadounidenses nodding and smiling and making every effort they can to understand, to appreciate the stumbling English, to welcome the effort. But more times than I can count, instead I see native English speakers here grow rigid when they hear a Mexican accent. Their faces stiffen. Mouths sneer. They seem critical and impatient. In many cases, the immigrant may actually be relatively fluent in English, but the heavy accent alone seems enough to trigger this ugly response.

And if we know how hard it is to learn a second language, how much one needs to practice and practice, feeling like a fool the whole time—is it any wonder many immigrants don’t make themselves this vulnerable as often as they might? If they learn to expect an 80/20 chance, perhaps, that their efforts will be treated with contempt? How many times would you put yourself out on that trembling limb for any occasion where life doesn’t require you to speak a foreign tongue?

Not to Mention (37)

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I become granite when I hear “English only” bandied about in this country. I don’t even try to be civil. All respect flies away. I am mean and hard, an unreasoning wall. I’ve even heard people complain about Spanish signage in Home Depot. How do they think this can hurt them? “These people should learn to speak the language,” they say. They mean Mexicans. My teeth clench. My skin crawls. I want to spit on them.

“How many languages do you speak?” I want to howl. Do you have any idea how hard it is to learn another language? Not to mention the fact that our corner of the country used to be Mexico. Not to mention the fact that when California became a state it was under the condition that it be bilingual. If we hadn’t broken that pledge, those of us who came up through the public schools here would all speak Spanish fluently. If we hadn’t broken that pledge, maybe I wouldn’t have to listen to the screaming racism underneath their words. Maybe I wouldn’t have to turn to stone.