It's not what you are doing or how you are doing it but you are BEing that will make the difference in 2012.
I’ve got 3 hours to
kill before my bus leaves. I started to fret at the ticket counter, like the
old days, searching for a way around the problem – if I got to Silao, there’s a
connection to SLP. Ah, no seat. If I went
via Leon it would be longer, but …STOP, I decided. Take what you get. 5:30 departure, getting in 8 pm, then
connection to Rioverde…depending on the delay there I should be home around
midnight. Ni modo, so it goes. As I
setup camp next to the Virgencita altar, I realize I could be killing time in
worse places. It’s new years day – good day to do nothing but recover from the
bad champagne hangover from last night. (Bad champagne, not a particularly bad
hangover.)
It’s your basic
Mexican bus station, all seem to be build to the same blueprint – though this
one has quite an extensive gift shop, final chance to make your Mummies of
Guanajuato t-shirt purchase. There’s a Comida Mexicana ‘Restaurant’, more like
a snack counter, with a tough senorita behind the register who’s been telling
customers ‘sorry, no tenemos,’ for years. There are four ticket stalls, twice
the size of Rioverde Central: Vencedor, El Norte, and the elite Primera Plus
which we do not have. The overlit waiting area has ten rows of connected seats
all facing in the same direction, toward the WCs with the killer metal turn-styles
and standard 4-peso entry fee. Trying to get me and my bags through is always a
Survivor feat.
I’ve got a snazzy glass-top
table and four chairs to call my own in front of the Restaurant. I try reading
my book while I await my order of tacos.
But I can’t help glancing up to watch the people approach the altar to
say their travel prayers, gazing into the nativity scene pensively – lips
barely move, then they cross them with a thumb and seal it with a kiss. The
ninos bound up wide-eyed, like they’re ready to dive right into the scene and vistit
with Baby Jesus. I finally take a peek
over the plywood wall and discover this baby jesus is a huge doll dressed in a
nightie with scores of farm animals gathered ‘round, and of course the three
wise guys, but diminutive in proportion. There’s a soft floor of curly tree moss
the Mexican’s call pastle (sp? not in the dictionary) – this time of year, the camposinos sell grocery bags
of the stuff the collect in the forest for 10 pesos a bag so you can decorate your own
altar.
I just read in a
Guanajuato tourism guide that Mexican kids their get presents from the wise
guys, Los Reyes Magos. They have to wait until the seventh, a week after Christmas,
just as the Baby Jesus had to. And they
eat a cake called Rosco that’s baked with little plastic baby Christs
inside. If you get a Christ in your
slice you’re responsible for making tamales for everyone at the next fiesta.
On the other side
of my encampment is the Minerales Sante Fe shop – now this is something we
don’t have in Green River. This Guanjuato area was a rich mining area – the
city in fact is a maze of underground roads that utilize the old mining tunnels
and give the place a unique feel – at the same time claustrophobic and
enchanting. The shops sells elastic
bracelets strung with colored rocks, like candy, quartz crosses in three sizes
and various pastel colors, masks carved out of stone, and polished stones of
all color and types piled in wood barrels…tigers eyes and turquoise and
topaz. Reminds me that I was a rock
collector in my youth; how could I almost forget. I’d have gone crazy in this
place to find new pieces to add to my collection. I never had my own rock tumbler, but the
Robbins brothers next door did and we’d spend hour polishing and organizing and
identifying our specimens. Jeff Robbins died in a motorcycle accident a few
years back. He was a daredevil kid and I wasn’t too surprised he went that way.
I never even had a chance to friend him on Facebook.
A soothing hush
fills the terminal, the quiet anticipatory energy of travel. Then a pack of tardy
travelers breaks the silence, dashing through the hall, roller bags
clickety-clacking across the tile floor, anxious voices, this way, vamanos. They
disappear through the glass doors. If I
see them again I’ll know they missed their bus.
I bite into my mystery meat tacos – as naked
and sad as I’ve ever seen a taco – but at least they’re warm and
salty. My body craves anything that will
absorb the volatile esters of last night’s New year’s binge – beer, wine,
bubbly at the stroke of midnight, and the bag of 12 grapes, one for each second
counting down to midnight. Thank god I stopped short of tequila shots. I had a little bit of sense entering 2012.
Maybe this bodes well for my new year, my new empty journal of musings, a clean
slate, and penned into the first page: my
aspirations for a 2012 of creativity,
connection, y corozon.
I look up from my
snack, my book splayed open on the table, and there’s Regina and her friend
Luz, two tables down from me, now heading straight toward me smiling behind
movie star shades: a late night for them
too. We failed to connect last night –
my text message never reached them – so we were meant to run into each other at
the station today, obviously, just before our departures from Gto.
We share new year’s
greetings and kisses, all agree there’s a karma to our last-minute rendezvous that
we need to honor. We recommit to seeing each other in 2012 – in Leon, where Luz
lives, or in DF where Regina lives, or perhaps in Michoacan where’s she’s
starting her project. But please not Green River. I tell them one of my new
year’s resolutions is to escape Rioverde as frequently as I can and connect
with other people and places of Mexico – so when I finally go home home (wherever
home may be by the end of the Peace Corps chapter), my picture of Mexico will a
bit more complete. I take the
opportunity to share this possibility aloud with the muchachas, in clear, plain
English, which makes me more accountable to live it.
It occurs to me, how
open and free I’m feeling at the very start of this new year. Looking back,
seems like I
spent the entirety of 2011 closed off, closed in, protecting myself. I wonder if this has been going on for some
time, the last few years, maybe forever – and I’m just now noticing it. Noticing
it because …I have some distance from it – at this moment anyway. So I’ll try to explain it: I protect myself from the disappointment of
people. My quiet survival strategy over this past taxing year has been to seclude
myself. Tired of reaching out, I’ve decided to just stop showing interest,
becoming ever more independent, self-sufficient, and in turn isolated, though
protected from the inevitable disappointment.
Huh, I’m wearing one of Octavio Paz’s Mexican Masks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavio_Paz). Maybe
I AM becoming Mexican, going native, adapting to my surroundings like a chameleon. They say children of alcoholics
learn to do this well. And how convenient a mask – hiding as I make my way down
the street each day, so conspicuous – the people eying me – I feel their sideways glances - what’s the gringa
doing now? Running?! In this heat? Is
she loca?!
The problem is: the mask doesn’t work for long. Perhaps I needed the distance in 2011 – time
to reflect, recharge, reorient – so I would survive this experience. But that
can’t last forever. I can’t just turn-off
my need to connect with others – like it’s a light switch and I’m saving
energy. Humans energize me; they are a
life force. (And yes, they also sap me.)
So I need to be more choosey – I can listen to my intuition
about situations – and I can deal with the disappointment that will likely come
by acknowledging it if it does come and not making myself wrong for ‘caring’ so
much. But I can’t turn-off such a
vibrant part of me to protect myself from those feelings of sadness and loss
that are inevitable.
How do I work with them creatively, appreciatively,
lovingly?
Yes, this is the stance for 2012.
Thanks for Regina
and Luz’s presence in the bus station to help me articulate that. Thanks to Karen’s warm energy for
illuminating this for me too. Thanks to
Gabriel at Todos Os Santos Hostel – and to Jeffery and Monica the black and
white couple who invited me in to help celebrate their 40th wedding
anniversary that coincided with new years.
I had a chance to see during these final days of 2011, in Gto, what I
want for myself for this coming year.
