Out Cold.

These guys.

I passed out cold while I was teaching on Tuesday morning.  (Turns out I’m anemic!  So that’s fun.)  One second I was saying, “Okay, chicos, close your books and go back to your seats,” and the next moment, I wasn’t.  For the time it took to go from standing to lying on the floor with a desk on top of me, there was no I. 



When I opened my eyes, the sun was streaming through the window, and one darling, bossy little girl was shouting at some of her classmates, “Didn’t you even notice that La Teacher fell down?”   No, no they didn’t.  The teacher was gone and life went on. 

I’ve been doing some work at Matador U recently, and one comment I find myself making over and over on student writing is, “The subject of almost every sentence is ‘I’.  See how the focus changes if you go from ‘I notice a bird flying’ to ‘A bird flies’?” 

Soon I won’t be here.  Soon I’ll be somewhere else.  And here, the shadows will still play over the hills.  Chicks will hatch, and some will die, and some will live to peep and scratch and chase bugs.  The chayotal will send tendrils racing up the adobe wall, if the damn rabbit doesn't chew through them first.  The rain clouds will roll in, and sometimes pour and sometimes leave the hard red soil thirsty.  My little students will dance and trade tazos and tell Pepito jokes and learn the English past tense from someone else.  The good folks in immigration will make some other gringa cry.   

I won’t be here to see or notice or observe, and it won’t really matter.    

See how the focus changes, Teresa?  See how everything important goes on, even when you’re unconscious or far away? 

There’s nothing to be scared of.  (I’m so scared.)     

El Mangal

In La Colonia nothing seems to change.  The generations slowly shift, but today’s 18-year-olds cook over wood fires and have too many babies, just like their great-grandmothers did.  There’s no cell phone signal—there’s one phone in town, in the centro; if you get a call, they announce it over the loudspeaker and you run.  Everything revolves around corn.  Tortilla is a verb: tortillar.

The mango grove has been there as long as my mother-in-law, the indomitable Doña Charo, can remember, on a remote piece of land that belongs to nobody.  She came here with her brothers and sisters when there was nothing to eat at home.  The huge mango trees rustle and whisper in the breeze just as they must have forty years ago, when Doña Charo was Chayito, a girl with long golden ringlets and an empty belly.  

One thing has changed, on this trip: the road between the town of Cintalapa and La Colonia, which had always been dirt, is paved: a long straight avenue planted up the dividing strip with magueys.  The avenue is named for a rich local man.  It’s a name Doña Charo recognizes: when she was fourteen, and this man was in his thirties, he wanted to marry her.  

She was beautiful, and she had nothing: no money, no father, a step-father who drank and hit, a steady stream of younger brothers and sisters to take care of. 

This wealthy man told fourteen-year-old Chayito that he would set her up like a queen, that she would never want for anything.  She said no.  He spoke to her mother, offered her money.  I imagine Doña Catalina—pregnant, probably, patting out tortillas in the smoky adobe kitchen—saying, “M’ija, marry him, go on.”  Thinking that it sounded like a damn good offer.   Chayito said no, and no again.  “Nunca me voy a casar con un hombre de por acá,” she said.  I’ll never marry a man from here.     

When she had a chance, she left.  She’s not a queen, not even close.  She’s wanted for things, since she left La Colonia.  But her life is her own.

The mango trees reach and moan and whisper.  “I never imagined I would come to this place with my son and my grandson,” Doña Charo says, peeling a green mango.  She’s not blonde anymore, but she’s still beautiful.  The most beautiful. 

“I have such nice memories of these trees,” she says, “but I don’t have a taste for mangoes anymore.”      

The Color of Chocolate

It's ironic but true that in Mexico, where the vast majority of people are not this color, this color is still known as "color carne": flesh color. 

Last week in Isaias' class, they were coloring paper dolls of their families.  The teacher asked what color skin is, and the children chorused: "COLOR CARNE."

But Isaias said, "NO.  Mi papito es de color
café.  Mi papito es el color de chocolate."  My daddy is brown.  My daddy is the color of chocolate.

His classmates laughed.  Many of them are, themselves, brown.  All of them have family members who are brown.  And they laughed. 

Isaias insisted.  He would not color his papito the wrong color.  His papito is the color of chocolate.  Finally his teacher said that he was right, and told the children not to laugh.  And he colored his papito brown. 

He didn't stay inside the lines.  But I think he did a beautiful job. 

 

Things I as a Non-Mexican Will Never Understand: #43

We have had this conversation at least two dozen times. 

Ibis: I'm hungry.  I'M SO HUNGRY.  I haven't eaten ALL DAY.  I'm going to die if I'm not eating something within five minutes because I'M SO INCREDIBLY HUNGRY OH MY GOD.  What food is there?

Me: There's chicken/rice and beans/spaghetti/eggs/(insert some other perfectly adequate food product here). 

Ibis: Are there any tortillas? 

Me: No. 

Ibis: I'm not really that hungry. 

Here, now.

Driving home. 

It’s early evening, and the sunlight sifts between the hills in golden sheets.

In a field of long grass, some horses are grazing: one spotted, one gray, one white. 

And on the white horse’s back, a white egret is perched.  The curve of its neck a question with no answer but this valley, sliced by light. 

Why, Mama?

“What is it, Mamá?”

“It’s sheep poop, my love.”

“Why, Mamá?  Why do we want sheep poop?”

“Because we’re going to make compost with it.”

“Why, Mamá?”

“Because the plants like it, my bird.”

“Why, Mamá?”

“Because it has good things that they need to grow.”

“Why, Mamá?”

“Well…because everything is a circle.  The sheep eat the plants, and then their poop helps new plants grow, and then they eat the new plants, and poop again.  And some of the plants go into the compost pile, and they turn into compost too, and help new plants grow.   Like that.” 

“Why, Mamá?”

“Because the worms and other little bugs eat the sheep poop and the dead plants, and turn it into compost, and the compost is like food for the plants. See?  Here’s a worm, look!”

“Qué bonito!  Pink!”

“You’re right, es bonito.  Do you want me to put it on your hand?”

“Yes.”

“Oooooooooooooooh!”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

***

Late afternoon, walking through the cemetery with Isa’s hand in mine.

 It’s been a long day of sitting still and being quiet for a three-year-old, and we’re not immediate family anyway; though I'm truly sorry, I honestly can’t even remember having met the guy.   Ibis can represent the Alonso Ponikvars for a while. 

November second is only a few days away, and many of the graves are decorated, already, with marigolds and the magenta flowers called “cock’s comb”. 

 

I want to stop and look, read the old-fashioned names—Delfina, Tomasina, Natalio, Heriberto—see who’s been remembered and how.   But Isaias pulls me along, back towards the entrance, towards the promise of chicharrines and gelatinas and all kinds of junk food for sale.  On one grave, someone has placed an opened bottle of Coca-Cola.  You have to open it, see, so the spirits can smell it, when they come. 

I buy my son a bag of chicharrines.  As usual, he requests salsa, and then requires me to eat everything that it touches.  We sit on a bench next to a large, seemingly random wood carving of an owl grasping an amorphous rodent in its talons. 

“Why, Mamá?  Why does she want to eat her?” 

“Because owls are carnivores, like T-Rexes and tigers, and they need meat when they’re hungry, and meat comes from other animals.”  

“And from other dinosaurs, right, Mamá?” 

“Right, my love.  Dinosaurs, too.” 

“Why, Mamá?  Why do carnivores need meat?” 

“Because that’s how their bodies are made.  They need meat to be strong and grow.  You’re an omnivore, so you can eat meat or fruit or milk or chicharrines , but carnivores need to eat meat, or they won’t be strong.”

“But why, Mamá?  Why does she want to eat her?”  (Why do we have to die?) 

“Because she’s hungry, my bird, and she needs to eat meat.” (Because it’s all a circle, because that’s the deal, that’s all.)

Quiet.  Crunching on chicharrines.   The hole is being filled.   The father and the son of the man I don’t remember meeting cling to each other, crying.  Mounded marigolds seem to glow with their own light, guiding the spirits back to this world for a day.

“I love you much, Isaias.” 

“I love you much, Mamá.”       

Three Good Guys

At the end of this Seemingly Endless Day of Nonstop Bullshit, I would like to acknowledge three random strangers whose miniscule acts of kindness somewhat mitigated my desire to bash my head against a wall until I lost consciousness:

The young man at the Oxxo minimart who observed my crestfallen expression when I realized that the coffee machine was being serviced, said, “Just for you, ma’am” and hooked it back up, so I could get a hit of liquid caffeine and sugar. 

The man who took my picture for my immigration document, who laughed heartily at my joke, and didn’t even raise his eyebrows when he saw my terrible, terrible photo. *

The gas station attendant who filled up my flat tire and called me “my little queen,” even though I didn't have any change with which to tip him. 

Señores: gracias. 

 

*Terrible, but fortunately not in accordance with the trend of increasing terribleness. The first year in Mexico, I looked ugly, but dignified, in my FM2 photo.  The second year I looked like a man.  Last year I looked like a sad zombie.  This year, I figured I would end up looking like...what would be worse than zombie?  Lindsay Lohan after a binge, maybe.  Instead, I'm going to look tired and pissed, which is at least accurate.