Impermanence & Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

Nothing is permanent:  neither the dry spells which have seemed like I’m crossing the endless Altiplano desert, nor the downpours when love seems to rain down like hail and bonks me on the head. 

So I can’t get caught in either of them – thinking I’m nothing, thinking I’m everything.  I am neither, I am both.

Tonight at Amore Café with my English Salon group I felt a soft, warm rain.

I’d been resistant to starting this group.  The locals had been hounding me ever since I arrived in Rioverde:  Why am I not teaching English?  And I always reacted poorly:  Because that’s not why I came to Mexico!  For one thing, I had little free time between my two SEMARNAT Viva Viveros sustainability projects in the distant indigenous communities.  For another, and since the beginning, I’ve had this slight moral dilemma:  Isn’t teaching English sending a message that we are better, that you Mexicans must assimilate, versus taking pride in your local customs, language, culture?  

But more and more I’d been meeting Rioverdenses that already spoke English – it’s just that they didn’t speak it well and didn’t have much of a chance to practice.  And maybe learning English would not really decimate their sense of pride – just add to their toolbox of options – allow them to be a more effective part of the global economy which, admittedly, was being dominated by English.

Okay, so I’ve given in a little.  I’m not teaching formally – I refuse to prepare lesson plans. I want this to be fun and spontaneous and not a huge burden on me or the participants. So I’ve started leading this English conversation group on Monday nights – an early session for teens and a late one for adults – just conversation among people who already speak.  They had to be able to read and understand the flyer in order to participate.  Are you out of practice, have a limited vocabulary, or lousy pronunciation?  We will work on those things – as well as increase you confidence to converse with others.

At the first meeting we went around the circle:  where did you learn your English, I asked.  Some of them, wetbacks who’d worked on El Otro Lado, learned in the restaurants and on construction sites; others took intensive classes in one of the Easy or Fast English schools here in town; one fellow, Hector, learned by reading Hillary Clinton speeches!  The kids learned from TV, Internet and video games.

After a month of Mondays, I’ve found myself looking forward to these salons – they give me a chance to practice my English too!

Tonight we played Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.  How did I dredge that game up from my past? 

The idea just popped into my mind as I was organizing my backpack this morning and brainstorming internally about what to do with the group tonight.  Such rich words in and of themselves – animal, vegetable, mineral - categories within which to fit other words – and the chance to practice questioning.  

And it was a real hit – not just with the teens but the adults too.  I had chile gumball prizes leftover from my burro piñata for the winning team.  Patty and Mau were the powerhouse with only four guesses both times – once for turtle (animal), the other time for gold (mineral).  The hardest one was ant – David and Eric could not zero in – they were fixated on a furry animal and were not thinking of the insect world.  Omar and Carlos took a totally different path, skipping the first basic categorizing questions:   Is it an animal? Is it a vegetable?  And it took them 11 guesses to get to pumpkin. They got the boobie prize.

Some of the new words we posted on the flip-chart during the course of the night (yes, my facilitator flip-charting skills coming in very handy in this workshop) were:

·         Guess – guesser
·        Yummy =delicious
·        Zucchini = squash
·        Pickles ~ cucumbers (cukes)
·        Path
·        Clue  = hint
·        Capable
·        Cheater
·        Alley
·        Fur – different from fear
·        Feathers
·        Beak
·        Bee
·        Cockroach
·        Ant =/ Aunt
·        Octopus – octa (8 =ocho)

We wrapped up close to 10 pm. I felt the exhaustion settling into my bones, but a satisfying kind after a long, productive day, envisioning more check marks on my PCV Trimester report. 

Patty the owner was trying to get the chairs on the tables and the floor mopped; I was trying to get my backpack packed and zipped up.  Her little son Nicholas was insisting I read his train book with him. And when Nicholas wants your attention he gets he. He gently touching your cheek and guides your head where he wants you to look. Look, he says in English, the salon lessons rubbing off on him too.

Meanwhile, Hector was chatting away in my other ear about photography. He’s so serious about his Engleeesh – his accent is so strong, but he's determined to master this language and take advantage of every second he has to practice.  

Finally ready to head out, I'm stopped by Patty who's paused her mopping to tell me in very nice English that I am so funny and the class is very funny and thanks so much for being our teacher. 

This was a surprise, a slap out of the trance of checklists and the long desert stretches of striving to get where I am going, and underneath the unworthiness.  

AM I funny? I ask.  Yeeez, she answers.

When people are learning, connecting, conversing, having fun themselves, then I am having fun, and I am funny.  I feel worthy and the desert is not dry.

When they are sad, bored, walking dead, or worse, passive aggressive, manipulative, dishonest…then I get disappointed, exasperated, and disillusioned – and this camino across the semi-arid lands of Central Mexico feels endless.  

Maybe beneath it, I do fault myself:  I could be doing more, better. When maybe…that’s just the way it is.

Note to self:  for the next class I need to teach them the difference between fun (divertida) and funny (chistosa).  Maybe I'm both!

Real Plaza Blues

Looking down over concrete blocks from the 9th floor, this San Luis skyline is one of hard, monotonous angles. But purple bursts like gifts adorn the cobblestone streets, peek out over protective walls, soften the sharp corners of the city. The jacarandas are in bloom - their contorted grey trunks can barely support the canopies laden with lavender. They remind me it's Spring in this desert place that seems to be in eternal Spring - no definition between seasons, warm, warmer, hot, hotter, and cool nights like autumns in Washington.

I miss Washington today. There the cherry blossoms are blooming. Pink, playful canopies like parasols ring the tidal basin, line the lucky streets. My friends are having their traditional champagne picnic under their blooms by the Jeff Memorial this week. The wind tosses confetti into the air and children dive to catch it.  I almost ache to be part of that scene – always still a little chilly in March, so we shiver on our blankets, before optimistic picnic spreads, peeling shrimp with frozen fingers.

 

And Sunday mornings, Chantelle’s yoga class meets at 11:30, her opening inspirational readings and graceful routines and lavender oil ending.  I miss.

I even miss my Sundays after class, all relaxed, in the lonely Van Ness Starbucks doing my writing, the smell of coffee hanging in the air, the whoosh of the latte machine, and the movement of tourists going down under, embarking on the Metro for a day of sightseeing.

I miss my Sunday Washington loneliness, knowing I will have dinner with my friends that night.

I miss a life of connections – and I know I romanticize it from a distance – from up here on the 9^th floor of the Real Plaza where they put me up on weekends so I can teach classes at the university. 

But saudades is a kind of missing that I love. I learned in Brazil to celebrate the missing with a bossa nova beat. The feeling is warm inside my belly.  It’s a form of grasping, I know.  Be in the here and now, the Buddha says.  But at least I know it – I see it – I am putting my curious attention on this feeling and recognizing that it’s something that I create.  

I need not cling to those visions, but simply appreciate them as …joy, mudita.  Can we have joy for the past happiness of ourselves? And our potential happiness, appreciation, for going back to that life we left behind?  

I think the Buddha would be okay with that.

Bienvenidos 2012 - Terminal Central, Guanajuato

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 40^th 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.

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