Through the Looking Glass

Network for Good

"Oh, my big mouth."

"He sure did stick his foot in his mouth."

"I'm eating my words."

Sometimes expression can come at a price. Mostly, it's benign--a social faux pas that becomes water under the bridge. But expression is still risky, in whatever form it may take. There's a chance that one might offend, and then what will the offended do? Navigating formal and informal conjugations in Spanish-speaking cultures is a familiar expressive minefield for anyone deciding on how to address a person. Tú or Usted? What is the price if I slip? Again, those social situations can be readily smoothed out and rectified. Expression may have its pitfalls, but they often turn out rather insignificant.

But expression can come at a much bigger price, especially for those whose statements reach an important audience, with a message carrying controversy's potential. In Mexico alone, nine journalists paid the price of their lives in 2006 for speaking out about drug-trafficking and social violence. Others are missing. Some are burdened by accusations and threats. Lydia Cacho, having published Devils in Eden and subsequently exposing the involvement of powerful social and governmental figures in a ring of child pornography and prostitution, was arrested without a subpoena, sued for defamation, and threatened to be thrown in jail to be beaten and silenced by some of the very people about whom she had written.

Fortunately for artists, the risks in this country are much less severe, or perhaps they are only less documented. Freedom of expression has flourished considerably since Fox took office in 2000, but the dangers of freely speaking will likely never disappear.

And so it is in too many other countries, to much more worrisome degrees. Fortunately, organizations exist and continue to form with the determination to foster both free speech and safe lives for the speakers. And I'm speaking out for them, directing you over to this page's left-hand column. Beneath the quotes is a heading entitled "Network for Good," and a link to "My Charity Badge." By clicking that link, you'll be directed to freeDimensional's badge, a vehicle for donating to four charities that work toward expression at less-costly price. The opportunity for supporting these organizations is priceless, however, and I encourage you to investigate and choose to donate to their cause. Being connected more personally to freeDimensional Inc., it would be fantastic to see it's support grow.

And the badges that raise the most funds before the end of March will receive matching funds of up to $10,000 from Six Degrees.

It seems that Network for Good is allowing better freedom of expression to come at a monetary price, too. It's worth it. And pass the word on--it can do a world of good.

Raise it High

Don't we just love symbols? Something easily identified, standing in for a different entity, one that is larger and unwieldy when put into words. They can sum up the familiar, and with them, we can construct a world of reflected identity. They can remind us of who we are, and they may inform others about us, too.

It might be a logo. Maybe a cross. A letter, perhaps. Often, too, it is a flag, and this past Saturday, Mexico celebrated its own. That green, white and red banner with the country's coat of arms in the center, the flag we know today is one of the most recognizable symbols of Mexico. Some might say that the Virgin of Guadalupe finds herself as a deeper, more visceral symbol of the country, and she herself even found herself on early Mexican flags--a symbol of those who fought for independence from Spain.

But for me, the flag seen these days over landmarks and city plazas--reaching dimensions of monumental size--and sometimes found in miniature, suction-cupped to windshields, carries a symbol that holds meaning even for me; someone not born to pledge allegiance to what it means.

It's that eagle in the center, wings outspread, the serpent in its teeth and talons, atop the cactus in a small, lacustrine island. It is a symbol not only of Mexico, or of the Mexica (Aztec) people, who upon seeing it as a completion of prophecy, knew where they were to call home. It can also mean something for so many; a symbol of destiny connected with a sense of place.

Other symbols of Mexico were present on Saturday for us, even if Patricio and I don't have a Mexican flag to our name. The morning was spent preparing for a slow afternoon of paella, shrimp stew, opened bottles and sunshine, and the welcoming into our home of the most indisputable of Mexican symbols that I know--the cherished togetherness of family.

Flag day held its own meaning for me on Saturday, having nothing to do with military marches or a particular affinity with red, white or green. Now part of a family, I'm a part of Mexico, too. And that eagle in the coat of arms sure does speak to me of an identity somehow Mexican, of a destiny all my own, connected with a sense of place.

Black Is the New Red

At least two sides: they are there for a coin, a driver's license, a story. Even a point of view can be plural. Such is the case at home since Saint Valentine's Day, or the Día del Amor y la Amistad here in México. The holiday itself gives lip service to two things, similar as they may be, the lines between love and friendship an almost laughable sort of thing to draw.

Patricio loves dogs. Alisa loves cats. Patricio loves Alisa to be happy at home. She is. But now even more so. Because Patricio's love has more than two million sides. And now Alisa will no longer talk of figurative black kittens, the kind blamed for stepping through a mirror into a looking-glass house.

In this story, it was the red Jetta's fault entirely. Parking for awhile at one of the ubiquitous, guilty pleasures of a restaurant, Vips, the bumper slid silently over the blocky, cement wheel-stop. Backing out later ripped the bumper right off; red Jetta was in need of an immediate fix. So we drove it down to what we often call Canutoland, a small triangle of a Tlalnepantla neighborhood, where nine out of ten people are Patricio's cousins of some first or second stripe. Ermenegildo, or Mere, runs a small mechanic shop on one side. He soon had the Jetta jacked up and drills buzzing, busily putting our Valentine-colored car back together again.

Lifting an old tire off to the trash, an employee dumped a dusty and unsuspecting kitten out, blinking into the sun and running fast back into the shop. Patricio saw it happen. Mere told him to take it. Looking up from a book, Patricio lifted the little thing into my lap. He was filthy as a grease-pump. I already knew he was mine. His side of the story might be different, but the ending was the same. He made passenger number three when the Jetta was set free.

We've named him Balam (pronounced like bah-láhm), which can't escape singularity, either. In Mayan, it means "jaguar," a black cat with a job that wasn't dark like its coat. The Balam were Mayan deities who protected people in their daily lives. The jaguars themselves would also protect a community from external threats. My little Balam serves as protection of a different sort, from too much solitude at home, from that need to hold and love another creature unlike myself.

But for some, Balam is also a three-headed demon, a duke of the underworld with all-knowing prescience. In the mornings, with little Balam waking us up by crawling around on our heads, I wonder if this is true, too. At the very least, though, he's as Alice said to Kitty, "A little mischievous darling."

I'm happy as a clam about him, and there are certainly no two ways about that. 

Carving

We all sculpt. Shaping, molding, fashioning our worlds, we may even learn to let a masterpiece take form. Our lives depend on it; the decisions made and the dealing with what happens next. Patricio and I carved out another detail of our own this weekend, hopping into Pedro's blue Mustang and going north toward Irapuato with the convertible top down and the stereo's volume turned most of the way up. I kept my hair from tangling with my gray, cat-eared hat, and we were all kept from boredom by thoughts beat out of wind and unfettered views.

We stopped along the way for gas, then barbacoa brunch, and finally took off on the free highway from Querétaro, driving past cow and goat herders in their fields to a town called Apaseo del Alto. Along the main street, outside the storefront doors, is evidence that residents do more than metaphorically sculpt out a life of their own. Workshop tables are covered with dust and angel wings, wax and tools of a trade. Wood carving defines the town by a common craft, fathers and sons turning roots, trunks and branches into Quijotes, holy Virgins, headboards and sacred hearts.

Leonardo Cardenas made me rethink the word 'workshop,' seeing that the individual elements in the compound word really coexist. Pedro remembered him from many years back, when he and his wife traveled up to buy furniture after reading about an international prize being granted to Leonardo for a carving he entitled "Diosa de la Primavera" (Goddess of the Spring). Pedro mentioned their meeting years ago, and the small, wooden statue that had impressed him and Laura so much. Disappearing into an alcove of a workshop of a room, Cardenas appeared again with the very statue in his hands. Sitting unnoticed on a shelf for anyone to touch, he simply said, "I just don't have the heart to sell it."

Never mind his uncanny resemblance to Caetano Veloso, the man still makes an impression. Unassuming but quietly sure, he talks about his work without either pushing it on a customer or feigning false humility. He has shaped, molded and fashioned a world of folk and traditional religious art. His life has depended on it. A masterpiece has come of it. In a way, being with him for a little while sculpted us, too.

We climbed into the Mustang with new thoughts for the wind to whip and fashion.

From T to V, Sans Screen

Checking into international flights, I've often wondered what fills the suitcase of a traveler. Is the cart of over-stuffed, trunk-sized cases full of gifts for the family in Mumbai? Is that duffel carrying candy, not found on the market in someone's new home base in Hong Kong? What is it that people value enough, so much that they deem it a worthy souvenir or a flavor craved far overseas? What will they sacrifice space for another sweater for?

If the TSA folks in Amarillo wondered at all about my just-under-fifty pound bag, they soon discovered the Celestial Seasonings tea is part of my return-trip equation. Lemon Zinger isn't something I can pick off the supermarket shelf here in San Pedro, and boy, I'd be willing to pack a whole Samsonite with the stuff to grace my teapot back here at home.

But as heavily illustrated and quote-laden those colorful tea boxes are, heavy they aren't. It's another coveted something that puts the pounds into my bag: books. Sometimes illustrated, but most often not, fiction and non is what I most look forward to bringing back from the States.

Good book stores are few here, the likes of Gandhi and Porrúa offering the widest selection of available titles. But books are expensive here, often double the price that the same work will cost in the U.S.--the price one pays when demand is down. Amazon now ships, it seems, through Casa del Libro MX, but our address makes package delivery a dubious enterprise, at best, and the shipping costs almost as much as the books themselves. In Spanish or in English, the right book rarely comes cheaply.

And the right books make keep the world recognizable, familiar, and full of both story and surprise. My suitcase came back with me with books I've read, and many I haven't. Books for friends, books for Patricio, and books for myself--for my groups that I love. Books' magic is that of taking us somewhere new. I'm now taking my own to a new place, to shelves that mean an adventure for them, too. The best part, though, is the places these books have taken me, literally: to homes of generous Mexico City friends, one in a place like paradise.

Before going north to the comforts of my family in Texas last month, I packed a bag full of overnight things to join the book club group in a mid-week escape to Valle de Bravo. A dear, delight of a member, generous to the nth degree, invited us into a world like a recipe for perfect. Women, walks, buoyed by conversation--one about a book--we lightened our figurative baggage's load, leaving everyday life in suspension.

Some travels take people home, some take us to visit family. Trips might be to someplace "real," or to a fantasy created to paint the world in colors of ease. Valle de Bravo might lean toward the latter, yet it still feels like a spot that's in between; a balance of light and heavy, like a suitcase of good books and some Colorado tea.

(Take a look at the photo album--if not up now, up soon in the right-hand column)