Zocalo: San Miguel de Allende    

Photo: Lucy Nieto, Courtesy: Flickr 

My Sacher Torte with Wesley   

Dodging drums, the half-naked bodies and colorful feathered headdresses of the Concheros dancers celebrating in the zocalo, we hurriedly made our way to La Petit Four for a Mexican tradition of late afternoon caffeine and sugar, passing on hot chocolate and churros and opting for even richer French pastries.  Reeling from being flat broke and feeling the need to gripe, we decided to spend our last few pesos on the most mind altering combinations we could muster, espresso and Sacher torte for me, Wesley sizing up a cappuccino and éclair the size of a baguette with a glandular issue.

 

It was happy hour and the bars and cafes flanking the jardin were jolly with the semi-budget conscious and very thirsty dos-para-uno crowd.  But Wesley, readying himself for a serious weekend retreat at the local Buddhist meditation center didn’t feel he should arrive first thing in the morning with a mojito hangover.  Instead, bone grinding, barely legal doses of chocolate and caffeine, which would have the Maya hip bumping to Shakira on their mountain tiers.

 

He looked well but I could tell that something was amiss when my otherwise impeccably mannered friend stuffed a fork lift-sized bite of éclair into his mouth that wouldn’t allow for his lips to shut in a ladylike fashion.  “So,” I said, tossing back my oil thick espresso, “what are you going to wear to this meditation retreat?” I wanted to go, but couldn’t budget in the expense, meditating instead alongside a Sacher torte.  And frankly, with my limited wardrobe, I wasn’t at all sure what the appropriate dress code would be for a two day event.  There is something about Buddhists, or those in training, that has always intimidated me and wearing anything that might single me out as unenlightened, ill-fitted, or these days, stained, was worrisome.

 

This man, all sweetness and class, was still shoveling the first bite down his tonsils.  He managed to roll his eyes at the question although he looked more like he was experiencing a tantric sex moment and of the three “purposes” of the tantra, it was definitely not the ecstasy of procreation but rather, pure, unadulterated  pleasure of the cocoa bean and a chocolate cream torpedo that could double as shower caulking. 

 

“So, what DO you wear to a meditation retreat,” I asked again, the espresso kick-starting my annoyance button.

 

 “Robes,” he gurgled, barely intelligible. “What did you think?”

 

 I did my best Don Cicci, cocked my pinky just so and rested my empty demitasse on its saucer.  “I dunno,” I said, “all I have are jeans too tight in the waist for some reason and they might not be conducive to successful ohming and meditating.  I’m afraid if I did any deep breathing, I’d either pop the button or blow out the crotch.” I licked the last of my Sacher crumbs.

 

“Did I ever tell you about my months of silent meditation in a temple in Indonesia and the hot guru I then followed to the highest peaks of India and how a trio of us fled during the middle of the night ending up somewhere along the coast of Goa making love on the white sand beaches? If I only had audio, a decorative map, pointer, and stick drawings, I might have been impressed, but seeing the vision before me readying himself for a holier than thou retreat while sporting a pastry cream Soul Patch (or more appropriately, Bean Tickler) and even ickier due to a diminutive droplet that somehow reached his neck, a near Neck-dread of frothed filling, made my mind shift from holy shrines and selfless monks donned in thread-bare robes, to Bill and Ted and Kitty’s Excellent Adventure.

 

I relaxed a bit and figured if this guy could pass it off at a high falutin Buddhist retreat, the possibility of my snug fitting jeans blowing off my body like a denim mushroom cloud would fit right in.

 

 Henry David Thoreau sporting a neckbeard or Neck-dread (a dreadlock formed from hair grown on the neck.) * Please note Thoreau’s beard was not formed from a cream filling but from shoo-fly pie.  

Dark Side of the Moon 

 

Photo: Image Editor, Flickr

I live in rural Maine.  More appropriately, I live on Uranus.  I’m tired of hearing how beautiful Uranus is by those who only drop in for a short-term visit, the in and out crowd who cross the border into Neverland thinking they’ve found Nirvana. Yes, I know that all the billboards say “The Way Life Should Be,” but I’m telling you, don’t believe everything you read;  it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

 

Everyone has this romantic, warm and fuzzy notion of what life is like on Uranus. Granted, it’s tolerable for about eight weeks of the year, but try living there. It is dark and cold, and not all pine-scented.  And don’t get me started on the black flies.  

 

I envy those from Venus or Mars or Mexico who get out once in awhile and enjoy some sunshine without hip waders and earmuffs.  I was going to post this paragraph into the descriptive sales ad for the listing of my home, but figured it might be better to let prospective buyers seek out their own little piece of paradise without my tarnished two cents.  Yes, Uranus’ beaches are dramatic, rocky and mussel-strewn, but at times, as with life, they can be littered with a lot of flotsam and jetsam.  One man’s Uranus is another man’s heaven.  I think I’d rather wade through Mexico.

 

 

Rear Window ~ Front Terrace  

 

Photo:  xinecj, Flickr 

On the terrace, watching lightning flashing in the distance and behind the 16^th century chapel spires, bats with three foot wingspans dart from the Parroquia towers and through the brilliant sparks of green, red and white fireworks celebrating the closing of the annual Cuban festival in the jardin.  I sit alone in shadows with my red wine.  From across the street I see a vision of a woman in white.

The vision seems to float up the spiraling, wrought iron stairs that begin somewhere below in a hidden interior garden and curve their way up to its terrace.  Her white gauze dress and lace shawl billow in the stiff breeze like sails on a ghost ship. There is little light, only that of dim streetlamps, fireworks and the sporadic flash of lightning. 

 

She makes her way to the lip of her terrace, her shadow and outline of thin cotton resting against a coral painted cupola. From where I sit, hidden in my shadows but for one flickering candle, her stance seems precarious; her frame, small, and the winds fuerte.  I see the soft glow of crimson as she drags from her cigarette.  She faces the cobalt sky as colored sparks drop down like rain.  

 

From the small light of her cigarette I see her glance across the street, briefly, at the shadow that sits in partial darkness, in and out by the dictates of a candle flame.  Neither of us speaks but we are aware of each others presence.  I sip my wine; she takes another drag as her shawl billows around her body.  The moment is magical, surreal.  Nothing seems to fit, yet everything is in its place.  The fireworks continue to explode, the lightning bolts flash behind holy shrines, the street lamps glow a faded gold, her cigarette still burns red.

 

Later, I return to the terrace to turn off a small exterior light.  I glance across the street.  I see the woman stepping from her shower, her small oval window facing my terrace.  She stands before the vanity mirror, naked, wrapping a white towel around her wet hair.  From her bathroom mirror and through the beveled oval window, I glimpse her reflection for the first time.  She turns to face the window.  Mortified that she would see me standing in the dark from across the narrow cobbled street and looking in her direction, I disappear into the rear shadows of my terrace.  Only by chance, and for a moment, did I see her as I went to extinguish the terrace lamp.  One always feels guilty when inadvertently witnessing a private moment believed unseen. 

 If the floating image in white gauze who stood at the lip of her terrace beneath an exploding sky and seemed to sail into the fireworks reads this, I was not watching you.  But in catching your filtered reflection in the mirror, it was beautiful just the same.   

Same Solar System, Bitchier Side of the Moon 

Photo: ComputerHotline, Courtesy: Flickr  

The Full Moon is my nemesis; cursed, bloated orb, get some Pamprin.

 

She does not serve me well.  At this time, nearly a year ago to the day, during a sultry Mexican night of full moon and raging hormones, I gave into temptation and had an insatiable itch scratched. I’d like to blame the mosquitoes but they only bit about my ankles.  Full moons and itches don’t suit one another.  Just look at its pock marks.

 

If I had been stronger, not weak like Fredo, I would have taken another in a series of cold showers, followed by a liberal dose of Benadryl cream and fastened a chastity belt of which I would have swallowed the key.  But La Luna always wins and the sad thing is she should be on my side.  But she is fickle, that pale, irritable temptress, and mean-spirited, too, if she feels a twinge of envy or water weight gain.

 

Lesson Learned:  Never have an itch scratched during a full moon, it will come back to haunt you on some moonless night, and might even leave a scar.  

  

Dogs in the Hood   

 

Menacing drug cartel, or “dog cartel” member in San Miguel de Allende, awaits delivery of pastel de chocolate before heading out on nightly spree of wanton terrorizing and aimless urinating.

 

 

Photo: Baalands Courtesy: Flickr 

Naturally, as all Mexicans and their pets are part of the lawless, gun toting, drug running rule of the land these days, these dangerous dogs in the hood are most assuredly leaders of their pack of drug lords, or Dog Lords as they’re known, and if Bill O’Reilly is to be believed, they may sport tiny weapons strapped to their scrotum sacs that are brandished when their owners take them out for walks, pistol whipping smaller dogs and threatening to kidnap and mutilate curb vermin if they don’t agree to running as drug mules.  But mostly, though, they just use their weapons to relieve themselves wherever they damn well please.

What most U.S. citizens don’t realize, is that much of the illegal drug trade is carried out by dogs and assorted vermin - rats, curb mice and occasionally armadillo (who, by the way, resent being referred to as vermin and thus are especially dangerous when detained and strip searched) as they can easily cross borders without being detected.  The drug lord dog population has everyone very nervous these days and most of us walk the streets prepared with defenses of ample wet wipes.

Don’t Eat the Freshness Packet 

Photo: Jamie Goldenberg, Flickr 

I am not a religious person but being Easter week, or Semana Santa as it is called here in Mexico, I’m beginning to think that a higher source is trying to tell me something. Recently, I have had two “warnings,” which may have disguised themselves as benign instructions tucked inside innocuous packaging. 

I was given a box of earplugs as living next door to a nightclub has Friday and Saturday nights sounding a lot like my terrace is being used as a Helipad.  Bored one eve, I decided to read the tiny instructions written inside the earplug box.  Strangely enough it read: Do not insert.

 

Do not insert, I thought.  Really?  Because I thought the “clues” of ear and plug might indicate that one would insert, to a matter of degree, said plug into ear.  Or did the manufacturer find that most who purchase earplugs actually have a moment of uncertainty where they plug or insert them into places not appropriate for earplugs, say in a nostril or keyhole?

 

I let it slide until another strange occurrence the following morning.  I was opening a new bottle of fish oil capsules and found inside my vitamin bottle yet another cryptic message: Do not eat the freshness packet.  Was I being singled out? Was I in imminent danger of doing something truly moronic?  Worse yet, would I ever be that hungry?

 

Or is it possible that someone such as the Dalai Lama or Archbishop Desmond Tutu, or some one or thing hiding behind the jungles of blessed palms, actually writes these messages we find in our vitamin bottles and on earplug labels and inside the foil wrappers of Dove chocolates, that just the other day told me that good things come in small packages?

 

Maybe they’re not literally saying, “really, don’t eat the freshness packet, dude,” as much as advising, “Don’t be stupid, girlfriend.  Don’t do stupid things. K?”

 

As humans, we do stupid things.  We can’t help it.  Maybe once in awhile we need someone to remind us not to eat the freshness packet.

 

 

Saturday Night Solo with the Buena Vista Social Club 

 

Photo: Kuyman, Flickr

As I do most nights, and thousands of nights before, I prepare my meal.  Tonight, whole wheat tortillas from the Tuesday market stuffed with fresh ranchero cheese, salsa and a homemade slaw, steamed local asparagus.  My date is Ibrahim Ferrer, the Afro-Cuban musician, once part of the Buena Vista Social Club.  We dance on my cold stone floor, candles lit and wavering behind a single glass of red wine.  He holds me close, his firm brown hand against my waist.  I feel his breath against my cheek.  The stone heats.  

If you are so fortunate to have next to you, even if only for the moment, someone you love or someone to love, grasp that passion with both hands.  Pull it close to your flesh and feel all it is to be human.  Let two hearts beat as one. Caress the moment as if your last.  Let Ferrer take you to places that are yours alone.  Be thankful for bodies moving side by side.  This moment is yours, and yet never guaranteed. Let Ferrer sweep you off your feet, be swooned, dipped, twirled, laughing, loose and carefree, living for that precious moment.  Live the beat. Make love.  It is fleeting and may never return as you once remembered.

 

Memories are like ghosts ~ just when you think you’re living, alive again, they come back to haunt you, draping across your skin like gossamer; thin and veiled, nearly weightless, but enough as to feel yesterday breathing against your skin.

 

Absorb the moment like a drunk savoring the last drop of tequila, a young widow living south of the border longing for a body to dance with, side by side, if only to remember.

 

To you, Ibrahim, dancing no doubt, cheek to cheek.  Saludos.

 

Postscript:  Only heed the above advice if not an evening of full moon, otherwise, all bets are off.  And keep the Benadryl handy.