Through the Looking Glass

Free Range

It wasn't often that I gave much thought to chickens when living in the U.S. I'm sure fond of eggs cooked enough to make the yolks run messy over a slice of toast. And it doesn't take much for the thought of chicken enchiladas in salsa verde to make my mouth water. That said, it's clear that unless I was thinking of chicken as a metaphor for fits of fearfulness, I usually thought of chicken in terms of something to stick in my mouth. Chicken, the bird, was a feathery shadow of abstraction. A time or two, the words "free-range" would come up, conjuring visions of bobbing heads and leathery-claw feet in the tall grass of, say, Nebraska. But free-range talk always happened with a fork near my left hand, transferring the "c" word quickly back from the bird category to the food one.

But the world has turned, and has left me where a rooster lives on the other side of the Shrek-colored stream bank. More often seen than heard, he hurls out his curdled call with a force an opera singer would likely envy. He particularly enjoys crowing out his pre-dawn sets, but an afternoon can just as easily find him bestowing a vocal moment upon the neighbors. And the house catty-corner behind us has their own hen. Less predictable than the rooster usually is, she clucks loud and clear when she's laid another egg. 

Their sound is a daily, if almost constant presence. I can't help but envision them--solid, feathered struttingness and all, because I always see the likes of them with every drive through town, up into the northern reaches of the municipality, like Cahuacán. Pecking about in their animal-cropped yards, and sometimes venturing toward the edges of the packed-dirt roads, they might not be in Nebraska, but they're as free-range as they come.

Chicken means "bird" to me now, as much as it does "main dish," their presence as unsurprising as a tractor driving down a small town's main street. Still, in the enjoyment of chicken or egg, it's the latter that certainly comes first. María, lovely neighbor that she is, sent a dozen huevos de rancho (ranch eggs) our way last week, and their runny yolks have been the crown jewels of my toast. I'd be lying if I said I could taste a real difference; had I not cracked them myself, I'd believe they came in a store-bought carton.

But it's their uneven sizes and their rosy earth colored shells that make me think of them as more than just food. I remember the early morning rooster, and the happy, maternal afternoon hen. And chicken becomes something more. Something real. Something to really think about.

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. 

Circus, Circus

There's always a circus in town here. Maintaining a level of popularity that doesn't appear to wane, circus troupes can be found all over the metropolitan area on any given day. A Texas-flag themed Circo Americano has its tent poking into the horizon by my in-laws' house, and at least three or four a year set up on the Corona grounds near our own place. The enormous Corona distribution center, or as everyone calls it, "La Corona," hosts a parade of functions on its small fair grounds next to the main street in Nicolás Romero, from politician's swearing-in parties to leather shoe extravaganzas from the city of León, in Guanajuato. But the most widely advertised and attended events are those nightly performances at the circus.   

Those of us found at home during the day always know when another circus has arrived. Cars roll their way slowly along every street, making use of perifoneo--megaphone advertising made of the blaring horns affixed to car roofs--streaming announcements from microphones or taped recordings. We've heard "Hoy, en la Corona!" fill the air around our house via car and plane, and it's foretelling of lions and tigers and bears has become code between Patricio and me for anything big happening soon.

And something big did happen on Sunday, though instead of happening in the Corona, it happened in the Carpa Astros, down south in the Distrito Federal. This something was, indeed, a circus. Or might I say, the circus, since its name is synonymous with the business in Mexico. We were graciously invited to the season's final show of Circo Atayde in the city, the oldest circus in the country, founded the year my great-grandmother was born. It was 1888 that the first Atayde brother, who'd run away from home to join the circus, returned to convince his brothers to form a company of their own. The second generation propelled their gymnastic bar act into the Guinness World Records. And 118 years later, Patricio were sitting with an Atayde descendant along the edge of the show's ring.

It had been years since either of us had gone to see a circus, but it only took seconds to realize why they can't help but enchant. Circo Atayde creates a world of the implausible, a fantastical reality that kept our eyes open wide. Natalia's aerial dance, the brothers of Rialcris Trío's acrobatic balancing act, along with hoop dancing, magic, simpatico clowning, and elephants, tigers and horses (oh my!), all pulled us under their spell. The skill involved is extraordinary, like that of my two favorites--the Marinof couple who perform their own type of trapeze work, a graceful choreography of hanging in the air, often by the strength of Mr. Marinof's own teeth. And without so much as a net underneath. Mexico already lends itself to magical realism, and the circus seems tailor made for the tendency.

The ringleader and his mother, both Atayde folks themselves, were in justifiably high spirits after the show. As the tents' dismantling efficiently began, they talked of moving on to Puebla, saying goodbye to some of the performers and animals as new contracts are fulfilled. The circus is an almost constant current of change, with artists' origins spanning the globe, an international showcase of the amazing.

There may always be a circus in town, and some may even bill themselves as "Atayde," but there's only one real Circo Atayde Hermanos, a true Mexican original.

Dog on a Hot Cement Roof

I've known just a little about what it's like to feel trapped. My brother once latched shut the old wooden icebox door after I'd so curiously, naively stepped inside. He was two. I was four. It was terribly embarrassing, and dark in more ways than one. And in Chinatown one afternoon to see the New Year dragons twist and wind their way down Mott, Rachel and I were forced to consider an impossible escape to the roof of a Canal Street bus stop, mashed and pushed and bizarrely trapped in a mass of mostly elderly, Chinese women. They were gruntingly relentless. God bless their assertive souls.

I've felt trapped here in Mexico a number of times, too. Between Patricio's fears and my considerable lassitude, both directed at taking the chancy, traffic-slowed microbus trip to the centro, my haunts are primarily limited to our home, and cabin fever has a way of flaring up in its edgy restlessness. Accustomed to so much liberty--and safety--and subway stops nearby, I've now been learning to make a universe of a neighborhood, trying my best to transform feelings of enclosure into something much less confining, like the freedom to surfeit myself on books.

I know that my position isn't really all too dire. Patricio eventually arrives in his shining white horse (well, red Jetta, and really, what's the difference?), and whisks me away to see new people, new places and an infinity of interest-piquing things. It isn't freedom like I knew it, but it's a freedom, nonetheless; it's in my power to suggest where we might go.

But having slushed around that muzzy boundary that lies between license and restraint, I feel a twinge when I walk toward the store or the market, passing between the rows of houses that often have a dog kept on the roof.

It's so common to have a dog. Or three. And not walk them. Ever. Some have the luxury of a front or back patio, or even a yard. Some are let to meander through the streets, grouping together in spots of shade like the neighborhood kids. Those dogs on the roof, though, are what really make me sigh. They're often large, big-pawed dogs that work as well as a house's alarm, padding around back and forth and watching the street for anything strange.

Heaven knows I'm still a cat person, preferring their liberated, freedom-loving ways. Yet I can't look up at a single roof dog without wishing a heavy wish that I could take it for a run, let it bark for sheer pleasure, come home satisfied and slow.

But up here where we live, in Nicolás Romero, the dog culture doesn't involve that yet. I'm not certain it ever will, trapped in a different way of thinking about the way one's dog should live. At least, I suppose, they're well out of the way in case a Chinatown New Year crowd comes pressing down the street. I'm not so sure those feisty little women would be willing to cede them their space, and where they sit, they'd certainly be--for once in their lives--top dog.

a good musical arrangement

we have a hedge. i still love thinking that small sentence to myself, loving the green fence that lines two sides of our little yard. the thick weave of slim branches and ficus leaves is lovely to me, because i still get tired sometimes of barely glimpsing roofs over the top of tall, cement walls. the hedge is protective, though it's tiny pockets of space and vulnerability to strong clippers make it feel less like the wall it's really meant to be. it's alive and quiet, and the untrimmed side we share with a neighbor lends its space to a party of songbirds.

in the colder months, they sang with astonishing punctuality, striking up at seven in the morning and again at six in the late afternoon. now they sing all day, turning our open windows into transparent speakers, white squares of sparkling, soprano, free jazz-like sound. i'm as fond of them as i am of the hedge; like the garden snails, they're easy pet company, needing only an adequate place where they can make a little home.

a fondness for birds is something often seen--and heard--in the neighborhood here. almost every street has a house with a songbird cage, hung like an earring from a concrete eave, housing a pet that preens and sings out its simple company.

i have also visited at least one home where the collection of caged birds were colorful, talkative, beautiful, and almost certainly not legal. it seems that the predilection for feathered friends with pleasant voices can also reveal a darker side, beyond the restrictions of a too-small cage; bird trafficking is apparently no small business.

still, most birds singing for their caretaker's pleasure don't share such a shadowy history. theirs, a long one in latin america, seems to speak more toward a desire for ambiance and company, or beauty, or both--and i immediately think of books. hernán cortés wrote of the aztec rulers' hundreds of birds in well-cared captivity, and the most unforgettable novels of garcía márquez include caged birds in their magical character casts. isabel allende is one, as well, to breath life into pet birds, sharing a bit of action with them inside her sensational stories. my mother-in-law asked me once if pet birds were as popular in the united states as they clearly seem to be here. i had to say no, both in reality and in that other world called fiction.

i'm glad my new reality includes our own band of birds, glad to form a tiny part of this long songbird tradition. but i'm especially glad that i don't have to keep my singers in a cage. instead, we have a hedge. i love thinking that small sentence to myself.

the snails' earth day feast

earth day: patricio was stricken with remorse about starving the snails. he gathered them all up after breakfast and placed them on a pile of cantaloupe innards, pineapple outards, with some strips of mango peel to boot. i can tell he feels better. i can tell the snails do to.

on this day, though, it's a little hard to keep one's chin up. over ninety percent of mexico's potable water sources are contaminated. the mexican health secretariat says that more than a third of mexico's disease burden is a result of environmental factors, the most serious of which is air pollution*. mexico is one of the most ecologically diverse countries in the world, and it's estimated that over 2,500 species of plants and animals are now endangered*. i try shying away from being a voice of gloom and doom, but the situation is critical. making environmental protection a priority would be a wise and far-sighted decision on behalf of the government. and it's absolutely necessary. patricio and i are thinking hard about what we can do, too.

because in the end, we still like the snails.

*country analysis brief  *world wildlife federation

caracol

around these parts, almost no wildlife is left. not even doña julia, the woman who looks after the ranch in cahuacán, remembers ever seeing a bear--and she's lived in the forested town of cahuacán for close to a century. birds have somehow managed to escape the deer and coyote's fate; the sound of ducks this time of year is as close as we'll likely get to sizeable, wild things.

but life still marches ahead in small-bodied form. our yard somehow beckoned to snails near and far, and we've found eight so far who heeded the call.

patricio wasn't keen on the idea of sharing his garden with the snails, so he  plucked them from their new outposts and delivered them to the back patio. i think the idea is a nod to his days of ant destruction, since he's really just starving those snails out on the tile floor and concrete walls. i guess the snails will be going the way of the bear.

so i was glad to see that yesterday they enjoyed a triumphant evening on their slow road toward demise. just as patricio predicted, the rains came tumbling down, and they kept on tumbling. and in the water's wake, the snails stretched out from underneath their shells and started to play. i know they're a garden's nemesis, but that didn't stop me from marveling for a while as they slid quietly along the lengths of the patio walls and the faux stone floor.

click here to grant a humble snail a minute of fame. if fifteen of you do it, the snail and i and andy warhol's spirit will be grateful. lechaim! to (wild) life!

fatal attraction 2: dark demise of the fruit fly

though i haven't yet begun to master mr. miage's chopstick style, i am growing more adept with the hand clap method. i've been getting a good deal of practice. and i no longer care if i'm breaking st. francis's heart.

fruit flies are in a state of blissful confusion around our place, wondering if they've died and risen up to their sweet, ripe mango hereafter. it's an illusion, though, because they die for real between my palms when i get the timing just right.

i remember thinking, not long after moving here, that i'd do everything possible to keep those critters out of my kitchen. never having seen them in a house before, i'd witnessed, one time too many, the fruit fly invasion that descended upon my in-laws' bananas. a silent, unanimous vote from the me, myself and i triumvirate ruled that bananas were right out. i've only broken the law once.

but those sneaky little insects didn't follow the yellow banana road to our house. they stumbled upon the far more satisfying alternate route that is eau de compost, the scent of fermenting apple cores and onion peels. not long after we initiated in earnest our dually beneficial gardening strategy, leaving less for the garbage truck to pick up and more for our calla lilies to grow lovely, the fruit fly lord and his minions arrived and feasted in jubilant abandon.

we, in turn, have opted not to abandon the compost pit, deciding that we can improve our reflexes and hand-eye coordination as we hold the tiny enemies at bay. we've got our work cut out for us; i learned from a kentucky extension agent these frightening tidbits: "the reproductive potential of fruit flies is enormous; given the opportunity, they will lay about 500 eggs." it doesn't stop there, because, "the entire life-cycle from egg to adult can be completed in about a week." oh, dear.

the good news is that they seem much happier around the compost mother lode, rather than settling for the comparatively disappointing discovery of a ripe mango in the kitchen fruit bowl. the bad news is that we have a mini-fridge, encouraging fond memories of living in new york, while discouraging the placement of multiple pounds of fruit in an already overstuffed space. so the fruit will continue to occupy counter top bowls, given the present conundrum, and i'll continue to practice my fruit fly assassination skills. i hope that their hereafter is, indeed, sweet. the mango i've just saved from their minuscule mouths certainly is.

with silver bells and cockle shells...and bags of mulch

in a lot of partnerships, both people often assume different but complimentary roles. i often hear of administrative partners where one is the "idea person" and the other is the "implementor," or couples where one is "organized" and the other is the "balance of mess." the world would be a terribly boring place if there were no longer any sibling pairs, one being an "instigator" and the other a "defender." and, of course, i'd be remiss to leave out the classic example of dj jazzy jeff and the fresh prince, i.e. "he's the dj, i'm the rapper."

patricio and i are putting together a rather fabulous partnership of complimentary roles, which has made us feel like pretty clever inventors. clearly, developing a good marriage involves a lot more--nor are we reinventing the wheel--but we are getting to choose the colors, shapes, and sizes of the parts, if you will. and in matters regarding the house, our double platinum album would be called "he's the gardener, i'm the decorator." the title doesn't quite have that hit record ring to it, i know, but we like it anyway.

and that's how it goes: i putter around inside, deciding where to hang mirrors and place lamps, and he reigns over the yard out front, yielding hedge trimmers and the garden hose. he's got his compost a-fermenting and is now cooking up plans to level out our little spot of lawn. he absolutely loves it, which makes me very glad. i confess that as great as my fondness is for a lovely garden, i don't ever naturally think to myself, "ooh! i'm just dying to get out and water the grass!" i guess he might not, either, but at least he takes a lot more initiative to do it. thank goodness.

last saturday morning, while patricio was out watering the bleeding heart and the calla lilies, a man passed by the gate, leading his donkey by a rope and hawking bags of mulch. the two haggled over the price per bag for a few minutes, patricio claiming that the stuffed white sacks weren't worth twenty pesos, since they were filled with mulch instead of earth. in the end, i think he still paid forty pesos for the two bags he bought, but we both know that four american dollars spent on covering all the garden plants with a thick layer of dried leaves, grass and moss is not a bad deal, by any means.

the man said he comes from the mountain town of transfiguracion, and i'd like to interpret it as a good omen. since repainting the house and replacing the windows, the garden has suffered more than its share of abuse; we're hoping that the mulch will help transfigure the withered ferns and stumpy callas, coaxing a little more elegance to sprout up from their roots. my faith is the only thing i'll be using to fertilize those plants, though. the rest is up to patricio. and while he's out there with his silver bells and cockle shells, i'll be making sure our sofa pillows are all in a row.

escuincles: hairless dogs and rugrats

If you're still looking for an unusual but endearing pet, or struggling for the right adjective to describe your rug-ratty little nephew or next-door neighbor's daughter when they get on your nerves, I've got the word of the day for you: escuincle.

(Or escuincla, if of the female gender--pronounced "es-queen-kleh" or "es-queen-klah," respectively).

I'd heard lots of people refer to kids here as "escuincles," and had also heard of a breed of dog called the "mexican hairless," but i'd never put the two together until a couple of weeks ago. Patricio and I were visiting with our friends Laura and Pedro after our first salsa dancing lesson and subsequent lunch of barbacoa, when Pedro started talking about an escuincle that he almost ran over with his minivan on a family vacation. Somehow, his tone of voice didn't carry the gravity of nearly hitting a small child, so my brain switched into overdrive and the light bulb came on; escuincles were also dogs! And a very mexican dog, indeed. iIstill can't admit to finding them adorable. As a cat person who finds it hard to love any canine except for the wiener dog, the odds are already stacked against me. Nevertheless, i'm finding escuincles pretty fascinating.

First of all, get this--they're vegetarians. Apparently, they can learn to eat meat fairly easily, but the fact that they are born herbivores is undeniably cool. Secondly, their function in ancient indigenous societies is also interesting. Clay effigies of escuincle dogs have been found in countless archaeological digs of mexican burial sites all over the country. It was believed that the escuincle helped dead spirits cross over the final river into the underworld. Why? It's all in the name, derived from the Nahuatl xoloitzcuintle, meaning "dog of xólotl," a reference to Quetzalcoatl's twin brother, Xolotl. Xolotl was the god of various things, among them the evening star and the underworld--and he was represented as a dog.

Functioning as helpers in the afterlife wasn't the only job escuincles filled, though. They were also raised for culinary purposes. Yes, the ancient Mexicans prepared escuincle for dinner, too. Admittedly, it gives me the willies to think about it, but as vegetarian animals, I suppose that they were a pretty healthy addition to the diet. Escuincle taco, anyone?

Pedro, in talking about the escuincle he almost hit, mentioned that the owners of the dog wouldn't sell it at any price. Although they'd been on the brink of extinction in the past, their fate took a turn for the better in the hands of concerned and interested nationals and foreigners, and now they can be worth a pretty penny. Like talavera pottery or tequila, escuincles became symbols of mexicanidad among artists in the 1930's (think Diego Rivera and crew), but there seem to be breeders all over the world now, from Cuernavaca to Russia. They're also known as xoloitzcuintli, mexican hairless, tepeizeuintli, xoloitzcuintle, or xolo. ("xolo" is pronounced like "show-low").

In my brief google session, I wasn't able to find out when "escuincle" became used as a synonym for a little squirt, but it's not hard to understand how the word made such a linguistic jump.

I can easily think of a few examples of kids i've known (or perhaps even the kid I once was) that can be summed up with this picture of an escuincle to the left. Come to think of it, I still feel and look a little like that when I have to wake up earlier than I'd prefer. I guess I haven't lost all my escuincle-ness after all, and that's probably not such a bad thing.

Here are a couple of sites about escuincles then and now, as well as a couple more images, just for kicks. And if you're feeling really brave, take a look at this: http://www.resourceinvestor.com/pebble.asp?relid=10958

http://cabinetmagazine.org/issues/6/hairlessdog.php

http://www.xolos-mexico.com/present.html