Through the Looking Glass

Seeing Things Clearly, Part II

True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable. So said the slip of translucent paper, wrapped around a Bacci chocolate that a true friend bought for me in New York. I believe in the quote, and I suppose it means that my blog and I are now very faithful friends. It's true that Through the Looking Glass isn't exactly a flesh and bone person, but it's close enough for me to let such a saying fit the bill; we've been maintaining a rather comfortable silence for over a month. I hope that you, reader friends, buy into my excuse for not writing as well.

I walked a lot in New York, something I don't enjoy as much in most other places, where I'm not as anonymous, free to walk in straight avenue lines for miles, or satiated by the constant eye candy of brownstones, shops and shady Central Park paths. I crossed many of the same intersections more than once while I was there. Two weeks lends a good stretch of days for retracing steps and seeing a familiar spot again for the first time, and for stepping and observing in silence, and for seeing oneself for the first time again, too. That is what happened, and it was a mostly happy thing.

Distance from my Mexico routine and the comfortable ease of my old city-walking one shed some light on a subject I'd soon be reading about: happiness. Orhan Pamuk, who I later learned was walking the same city streets, teaching at Columbia and only weeks away from winning the Nobel prize, is the author of my subway-read, "Snow," where "happy," among others, was a very key word. His characters found it to be a very fleeting thing, tainted by a reluctant apprehension of its imminent disappearance.

I know what he's talking about. The volcanoes here are often like happiness for me. I would like nothing better than to see them clearly on any given day, there on the southern edge of the valley. Almost always hidden behind a bank of thickish smog, I can't help but think that we do so much to thwart our own efforts in the realization of joy. When an extraordinary day of clarity comes, and the city's buildings take on sharp relief underneath those volcanoes, an acute yet heavy happiness settles up in my throat. I can't get enough of that view. Literally. I know it will be gone again within a matter of hours.

But I also know it will happen again, sometime, when heading down into the city. It seems that retracing the same, familiar roads--of habit, of commute, of revisiting the places one loves and where loved-ones live--affords a certain offer of happiness, if we're patient enough to let it happen.

I'm silently going to let it. I won't let go of the idea that full happiness can be a true friend.

They All Fall Down

I am so easily brought to tears. When seeing a Vermeer for the first time, or listening to Rachmaninoff's Vespers, or remembering Mimi, my Spanish-speaking, beautiful grandmother. But I didn't inherit that trait from her; she was a stoic in her heart, a clear-thinking master of her emotions.

Which is why I remember so clearly, standing in front of her at the Kansas farmhouse as she sat on the sofa and leaned back. I must have been nine, and asked about their lives growing wheat for so many seasons. Mimi said that it had saved their lives, not simply another way to make a living. She told me that because he was a farmer, Papa wasn't drafted for the war. And then she began to cry quietly as she remembered the day of Pearl Harbor.

It wasn't until September 11, 2001, walking our diminished class of nine-year-old boys to dismissal through throngs of changed-faced people an avenue block away, that I would begin to know what Mimi had felt, what made her tears fall only once in front of me, more than forty years after the fact.

It was a deep force of nature that hurtled itself inland, not a dive-dropped bomb or a plane, that brought down Mexico City buildings on September 19, 1985. Remembering that morning and the unimaginable days that followed is in many ways the same for those who lived here and lived through it's weight.

It seems that every generation is touched by a sadness that will leave an infinity of questions unanswered. But I wish that it would bring more people to tears. Mastering one's passions is one thing, being led to continued, future compassion is another. And clear-headed compassion is always precisely what we need.

El Nueve

Nine.

It's an industrious number, dabbling in the lives of cats, setting the cast of immortal Greek muses, and defining the limits of Aztec cosmic levels. It's the number of magnitudes on the Richter Earthquake Scales, of baseball innings, and of magical Celtic hazel trees. Beethoven penned nine symphonies. Jesus proclaimed nine beatitudes. Ferris Bueller was in the dog house for skipping school nine times, and The Searchers little bottle of Love Potion, well, it goes without saying what number was on the side.

It's also the day in this ninth month of September when I moved myself to Mexico, at the bidding of a love potion exactly a year ago. Tomorrow's the anniversary; number nine's working hard.

And I can easily list nine ways in which I've changed, a Celtic girl in an Aztec world of earthquakes, hard work, and plenty of inspiration:

1. I'm the new biggest fan of the liter-box of milk. I know I can go months without a trip to the store for more. And I know that poking a hole in the top will avoid it's bur-louping out. This, Patricio tells me, is very, very important.

2. In the best interest of our backs, I'd rather wash laundry in cold water than deplete our tank of gas in less than six weeks' time. Those steel tanks are heavy.

3. Nouns leaving my mouth have a hard time escaping without an 'ito' or 'ita'--a diminutive suffix. When Patricio and I are reading, we're like sipping a tecito.

4. I take for granted the price of avocados, two kilos of mangoes, and freshly-baked bread. Those bolillos have effortlessly won over my heart. I'm spoiled right down to my produce-loving pit.

5. The 't' at the end of Wal-Mart has ceased to exist. It's "Val-Mar," now. Or even "Aurrera."

6. I consider dogs wildlife. If I squint, a Labrador looks a lot like a deer.

7. I can't imagine a meal without chile. In salsa, en escabeche, en nogada, toreado, asado, crudo, en polvo, relleno...

8. I won't take good bookstores for granted. Ever. Ever. Again.

9. When someone says, "chamba," "chafa," "chava," "chela," "chesco," "chones," or "chido,"** I know exactly what they mean; I'm practically a chilango.

I'm sure the list could extend on nine times nine, but I'd rather spare us all and simply celebrate instead, with nine sugared figs, nine kisses and my muse.

note on 9: **work, crappy, chick, beer, soda, underwear, cool

Find Out What it Means to Me

Harnessing and squeezing ideas into a single word is so deceptive, as if we can know just what the thing is by reading its word or hearing it spoken, as if it is the same thing for us always. Like home and self-control and hot chocolate and certainly joy. And I like that. I like expanding my personal definitions of those things, or observing how they evolve--and the feeling of epiphany that comes with knowing what they are again for the first time. 

I felt that way today when respect came to mind. Respect is heavier with meaning to me now; I respect Mexico City's millions of commuters in a way that's reached new heights.

Leaving the house just past 5:30 to drive to the Zona Rosa, we crept through incomprehensible traffic on long stretches of the trip. Less than twenty miles and over an hour and a half later, we walked toward the building where my kind-of job interview was held. The hours-long session, coupled with a brief stop at the Immigration Office, meant we made our way back home after the clock read two. The drive home took a much more merciful hour.

I'm beat. And folks do this every day, to get to school or their workplace or a hearing or a business lunch, only to make a meager living, paying bills and staying afloat. I'm still confounded by the average salary, and by the effort it takes to make it.

I now look at teachers' salaries in the U.S. with an entirely different lens. It now seems to me luxurious. And for chilangos, I hold my new definition of respect. I feel like I saw everyone today again, for the first time.

All that Jazz

Patricio and I drove up to the city of Querétaro late in the afternoon yesterday. Mitote Jazz, headed by our friends, Cipriano and Isabel, were scheduled to play at La Biznaga (the barrel cactus) downtown, and we didn't have any good reason to miss it; though 130 miles north of our place, in the same time span we often make it down to Coyoacán, well inside Mexico City itself.

And we adore Querétaro. Not only does Patricio feel a connection to the city--his grandmother having lived there for a year--it's also many things we miss here in Nicolás Romero: it's clean, safe, chill, lovely, easily navigable, cosmopolitan.

Stepping out of an Irish Pub where we asked for Biznaga directions, Patricio laughed at how difficult it was for him to pronounce that little word, "Irish." That funky diphthong of a long 'i'--with it's 'a,e' sounds squished tight together--make wrapping one's mouth around the next full, rounded 'r' a formidable acrobatic trick of the tongue. But knowing that I've got a share of sunburning-skinned, strong-willed, party-loving Irish genes frolicking inside, he persevered in practicing as we held hands together and walked up the street.

Ducking into La Biznaga, full of cactus, service as if they already knew us, and it's particular bohemian assemblage of stuff, we both began to savor a tingle of something most everyone takes pleasure in feeling. It's not even hard for Patricio to pronounce; up north in Querétaro, with friends and their music and plate full of spicy potatoes, we somehow felt like we were home.

In Public, As In Private

Rachel and I stepped up out of the metro station into the hurry of people beneath the presidential palace on Friday afternoon. Hedging our way around the Zócalo on the always busy cathedral side, our view of the square almost belied its existence; walls of PRD protest tents lined the space on every side. The heavy, gray stone of the surrounding colonial buildings became a muted, neutral background to the chaos of color it enclosed. The yellows, blacks and whites of the protester's tents, the reds, golds and greens of September's Independence Day, and the shifting stream of vendors and workers and people like us, walking our way to somewhere.

The PRD's protest of the presidential election manifested itself in our sightseeing for most of the day, but the quiet, ghost town feeling of the tents along Reforma avenue, where we walked toward the Museo de Antropología, seemed a world away from the hum of constant activity in the streets branching off from the Zócalo. The maze of tarps and forums and talks were a testament to a freedom that the protesters blessedly enjoy.

The going was slow toward the Palacio de Bellas Artes, where we were soon to meet up with Patricio. The road-blocking plantones are an onslaught to the senses, a bombardment of ideas and slogans and catch phrases being voiced for past two months. The issues seem blurry, the arguments, too. Sympathizing on both sides can trip a person up. But in spite of it all, there's an element of fun, of excitement in the mess, of reveling in the uncertainty of history in the making.

And its metaphor awaited out from under all the tents, right in front of the entrance to the Palacio itself. A public art installation made with thousands of suspended tubes, yellow and light and rubbery and smooth, held an attraction for everyone there. Moving into the mix, a type of malleable labyrinth, was the source of many smiles, no matter what the person's age.

There seems to be something about us that welcomes that experience, whether metaphorical or very real in our lives. Wandering through obstacles that are difficult to define, shaping the boundaries to fit our personal whims, and figuring out how to share all that space with the rest who are thick in it, too. It's strange and it's new, perhaps a source of anxiety but also of exhilaration, and no one can resist its allure.

For all the frustrations that this time in our country is causing, I was glad for a reminder that chaos can be okay. That it's possible to delight in the indefinable maze. That we all have the capacity to explore and to wonder, when given the freedom to see where it may lead.

the intangible elixir

there is a certain alchemy that i think is real, because somehow, something i'd dare call akin to panacea comes about. it's more than scientific, and the only base metals involved in the process might be found in an earring, a button, or a shoe. it's an alchemy of women, together, to talk.

yesterday morning, with a view of close-cropped greens and sand and heavy green branches, a little alchemy was practiced in a haven of atizapán. a book club, a golf course, and a constant stream of coffee. i left three hours later with a gift more valuable than gold: the generosity of mind and spirit, a nascent sense of community.

five years in new york meant five years of crowing over ethnic enclaves and their close-knit communities. little greece in astoria. little poland in greenpoint. little odessa out on brighton beach. the dominican republic up in washington heights. but until this book talk of vargas llosa's trujillo and his dominican domination, i'd been holding myself to a strange double standard; though less about ethnicity and more broadly about being foreign born, i'd spent a good year with no enclave at all. how silly, i realize, to isolate myself. i was ready for some alchemy.

i'm still sipping on the panacea.

three "i's" in "improvise"

i think i may have become a little more mexican today. it began with getting out of bed to go to the bathroom. and it ended with a clothes hanger.

it became very clear that the toilet wasn't going to flush when the handle started waggling like a see-saw. taking off the tank's top and looking down into the mystery, my barely discerning eye still managed to see that the lift rod and the flapper were no longer in a friendly, communicating relationship. the plastic chain that kept collaboration going was left dangling in a sad, completely severed state.

so i called upon that nifty standby of requisite do-it-yourself mexican know-how, and i improvised. and when i stepped back from the pot, having fitted the handle of a clothes hanger through the flapper's chain hole, pulling up on the bottom of the hanger to get a good flush going, not even once having to stick my hand into the murky-looking depths, i grinned. flushing may not be the prettiest of things to do around the house today, but with a lift of that lovely, inverted hanger, it's fabulously, improvisédly convenient.

i'd like to think that i'm that much closer to counting myself among the estimable ranks, the ranks of those who fix faulty phone chargers with a pair of pliers and a strip of duct tape, those who can rig up a good comal griddle with an old and discarded plow disc, those who protect their roofs' exposed re-bar by placing plastic coke bottles over the metal's protruding end, or even those who pick pears with a fully loaded shotgun.

surely patricio will immediately notice the difference--this developing facet of his improvising wife--even before he heads toward the bathroom. but even if he doesn't, i know i'll still feel it. it's awfully satisfying, much like flushing with a little hangar's lift.

boom

i already anticipated a boom in the kitchen. rapid proliferation of both warm and crisp scents would start to happen in between those two lemon yellow walls. patricio and i had returned from cahuacán on sunday with a pillowcase full of apples and giant, crunchy pears.

a return trip from the ranch is also what brought our kitchen counter, sink and stove to the house a year ago this month. when patricio began the slew of fix-it projects that lasted weeks and weeks and involved the need for a kitchen, he measured his mom's old oven-sink set that had was sitting in cahuacán, jobless and without a home. he rolled the measuring tape back up and declared it was ready for adoption.

it had allowed for more than twenty years of chopping and scrubbing and frying and simmering in my in-laws' house before its quiet retirement in the wake of a makeover. like most here in mexico, it's a gas ensemble, where the oven is mostly used for storing pots and pans and matches or lighters are necessary accessories. it boasts a few battle scars and remembers thousands of meals, but it still steadily simmers and sighs.

and booms.

after bubbling up the beginnings of an apple pear sauce, and following inspiration that i took from orangette, i pulled out the lighter and prepared to light the oven. and i thought back to our week out at ghost ranch.

scraping and rolling and pressing our clay into bowls we'd polish with little round stones, we talked, but also listened to the blacksmiths close by. clinking their mallets and sizzling up steam, they'd also grace the hollow with an explosion or two as they built up pressure over red-hot coals. the boom would echo, unannounced and shakingly strong, making us bounce on our benches with an "oh!"

it would inevitably take us off guard and by surprise, but it was still a familiar sound to me, in spite of it all. the boom always reminded me of my little kitchen that could; it's the sound my old gas oven will make when i light it up for baking meringued apple sauce or pie.

it's been a booming week in the kitchen.

that other kind of cold

patricio took me to see the doctor for the first time on friday, and over the course of the car ride, the realization unfolded that i'd made it almost a year here without feeling under the weather. granted, the memories of a couple of bouts of food poisoning are waving around their nasty little arms, desperately hollering, "but what about us?" well, i'll have to tell them that i don't think they count, and that they get their own category all to themselves. last week i finally had a cold--my first case of catarro here.

i also admit to seeing a doctor in the first month after my move, when all this began to go down. a kind, unassuming gentleman who still makes a lot of house calls, he did the favor of chatting with me after my father-in-law's checkup. my mother-in-law repaid the favor with a plate piled high with freshly-sliced fruit and a big, hot cup of coffee.

and caffeine was most definitely on my mind friday morning, as i zombied my way into a presentable state to head into tlalnepantla. the night before was the crowning achievement of my body's efforts to sear the throat and produce as much phlegm as possible, right at the spot where surgeons perform tracheotomies. clearing my throat of loogies and sounding like a rusty machine gun is antithesis to sleep, and the phlegm won out, quite handily.

we were staying the night at cahuacán, in hopes of watching the wee-hour meteor shower. but the sky was spanned with clouds all night, leaving me alone with the loogies. i felt the situation growing dire.

somehow, patricio managed to sleep through four hours of the harrumphing barrage, when i finally decided to distract myself by alternating my face hovering over a magazine and over a pot full of steaming water. patricio, knight-in-shining-armor that he is, rubbed his eyes and came to check on me, soon bringing in a bundle of eucalyptus leaves to make the steam more deliciously de-congesting.

and then he drove me into downtown tlalnepantla to see his doctor.

attending to a patient in his office, the waiting room was empty except for the receptionist at the far end of the room. patricio knew her, too, introducing us and then jumping into conversation with her about her husband and their ranch. when patricio raised hogs, he'd struck a deal with the discount department store, aurrera (now owned by wal-mart), to buy all their day-old bread for a pittance. after feeding it to his pigs, he'd sell the surplus, and the receptionist's husband was one of his willing customers.

she took me into one of the office's two consulting rooms, happily chatting about how many centimeters taller i am than my husband as she took my name and blood pressure, all those precursory tasks. while she was bent over her pen and paper, i admired the ceiling's vigas, or roof beams, and their tri-scalloped brackets that reminded me of northern new mexican churches. and my gaze then fell on the medieval weapon's decorating the opposite wall. i knew then i was about to visit a doctor with a good sense of humor, and  a few minutes later, my suspicions proved true.

it seems he knows most everyone who lives or works near the center of tlalnepantla, and remembers enough about them all to keep the conversation lively. charismatic, efficient, and with decades of experience, he decided what was needed to rescue me from the phlegm, and sitting behind his enormous hardwood desk, he typed up the prescription on a sheet of letterhead that wound through his old, sturdy typewriter. typed. he even saves the pharmacists from having to decipher his handwriting.

a visit to his office costs a good deal more than the two dollar consultations offered at many discount pharmacies and health centers, but only twice what my insurance co-payment would have been in the states. part of me was delighted, while another part of me was aghast at how little that meant in terms of a doctor's annual salary here. i still, unfairly, think in terms of what one would make in the united states, throwing the balance terribly askew. but in a way, i still think it is. the cost of living in mexico city's metropolitan area may be less than that of major american cities, but it isn't cheap. our next door neighbor is also a doctor. one afternoon his wife, maría, said to me in an exhale, "sometimes, alisa, it's just hard, you know?"

but much like the food poisoning, that kind of malady rests in a category all its own. whether or not there's a cure, in the meantime i'm enjoying the fruits of the 'town doctor's' knowledge, saying goodbye at least to that pesky catarro.