I have come to Mexico for three months with no agenda.
That is the remarkable part; that I haven’t set myself up for some huge expectations to accomplish something significant while here. I tend to do that, expect too much, leaving myself in a semi-permanent state of disappointment. Not good.
And I don’t like cold. It’s as simple as that. With the exception of ice cream, ice cubes and ice cold Canada Dry Ginger Ale, I can live without cold of any kind. Last year’s winter broke me. Record snowfall in Toronto, Ontario, where I used to live. Now I live on an island in the St. Lawrence River from May to October, visit Toronto fall and spring and generate some business, but sit out the winter waltz on the Mexican Pacific coast south of Puerto Vallarta. I take particular delight in listening to the Toronto weather on-line as they predict yet another 10-15 cm of snow coming soon to a neighborhood near you!
No expectations. No clear summation to the question, So, what’d you do down there for three months?
Nada.
At least I hope so. As little as possible. Only what I feel like doing; resting, reading, relaxing, writing. Oh, and eating whatever I want and sleeping whenever I want.
It has been a long climb. I must rest and ready myself for the next phase, whatever and whenever it comes.
This is my time.
* * * * * * *
Christina and I stop by Leo’s on the way to the beach. Leo lives on the beach. Actually, he lives above it in a very, um, contained second story two bedroom apartment which he snagged seven years ago for $2000 pesos ($200) a month. Has a twenty year lease at that price. His door is an imposing steel plate at the end of this small winding stairway. Not a shred of an aesthetic sense exists here. Not a plant, not any other visible proof of even an attempt at prettying up the entrance which could desperately use it. There isn’t a woman’s touch within ten yards of his place.
Leo is, to put it politely, a private person. Barrel-chested, late-fiftyish with tousled still-brown hair, he is methodical and disciplined; he ages his own tequilla in a small Oak barrel, makes sure there’s plenty of ice in his freezer, and waits until 5pm before lighting his daily joint. Ten years ago, Leo decided he’d had enough of the man in the good old U S of A, for whom he had fought in Vietnam, and from whom he now wanted absolutely nada. He was done. Made a plan, saved his money, sold all his shit and moved to Boca de Tomatlan with his steel door and blackened bedroom window. Leo controls his environment. Lives on ten grand a year and pays no taxes as a result. Owns a boat and if you get on the inside, he’ll take you out for a day on the water and eat magic brownies and smile and laugh and you just know that this is one guy who’s made his life work for him. Took fucking Vietnam lemons and made Mexican lemonade. Good for him.
His sala is opened air, as are most of the homes here, and he has a long wrought iron railing along the front of the entire room opposite the entrance. He has attached a yellow piece of fabric along one half so that he can sit at his table behind this barrier and see out over it to the beach, but no one can see him from the beach—too dark. Leo has a few security issues. Probably all well earned in the service of his country. He doesn’t talk about it, but the tell-tale signs of PTS are visible. Maybe that’s why I feel comfortable with Leo: he gets it. What I fight back every day, the rising panic that keeps you behind a steel door, the anxiety that is placated by it; that lets you not answer it when you hear the doorbell, to hide, stay safe, play dead.
I moved to an island. Leo moved here.
During the visit I remark that I’ve seen my first scorpion, a baby, in the shower. (Made me nervous: where’s the mother?)
“What color was it?” Leo asks.
”Yellow,” I say. Leo jumps up and gets the dried out remains of a black scorpion, about three inches long, tossing it on the table in front of me. Lovely.
“Check out this bad boy. Got him crawling across the floor last week,” he tells me with obvious satisfaction. I pick it up to see it more closely wondering how do you determine the gender of a scorpion, anyway? I hold the carcass gingerly and much to my own distaste, but to Leo’s obvious delight; I’m not too girly and this an important meta-message to send his way as I intend to ask Leo if he might allow me to join him one Sunday afternoon to watch some football. Leo has satellite TV. But not today, it’s too early to ask so large a thing and I want to develop some trust first. Leo is, um, choosy.
“Nailed him with my shoe. Not as nasty as those yellow suckers. Christina knows all about that.” He casts a glance her way, smiling.
Christina had been stung by a big yellow bad boy the previous year. They hurt worse than black ones. She’s pretty sure it had attached itself to her clothes when she was out in the garden and had assisted him inside unknowingly. She stripped to take a shower, dropping her clothes on the floor. When she got out she went to kick the pile aside and was stung. How’d you know it’s a scorpion and not something else? I ask. Oh, you know, she replies. Had to go to the nurse and get a shot in the butt—standard treatment, a needle and butt—then went to the hospital in Puerta Vallarta. Four hours of pain. And then it was OK. She wasn’t one of those poor unfortunates who have a really bad reaction. Some die, but the vast majority of people just get pretty sick. Everyone is wary of scorpions no matter what color and I’m a newcomer so Leo, seated again Tequilla in hand, offers me some hard earned advice.
“Never leave your clothes on the floor—they like to burrow. Love the heat.” Then Leo leans forward and offers up what is obviously an even more important piece of advice. I know this by the way his eyes bore into my head and, of course, by my fully functioning female mind-reading skills. His voice lowers and he says, articulating each syllable, “And always wear flip flops around the house at night. Always.”
Leo’s like that. He means what he says and says what he means. No more, no less. There is NO bullshit with Leo. You either get him or you don’t, and if you get him, and respect his boundaries (which are many) then you get in. You get inside. Once there I suspect he’s fiercely loyal. I really do think Leo would jump in front of a bullet for Christina, like a secret service guy, he’d just respond, react, instinctual, guttural, devotional loyalty. But you gotta’ earn your way through his steel door.
No one, once on the inside, couldn’t not feel safe and protected by Leo.
As we leave it occurs to me: Leo, the lion. Michael, my eldest son, a Leo. And my penchant for collecting lions (stuffed animals, figurines, pictures) since I was a child. And my life constellation which I formed in the shape of a lion back in 1997.
Well, I think, maybe Leo will make it through my steel door.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
I am in!
Leo has agreed to let me watch the Ravens game on his TV. It’s the NFC championship. This is especially propitious since that same evening there is to be a birthday party with all the town gringos for Dacker, a craggy old man whose daughter is here from Paris with her family and I’m sure she thinks she’s supposed to do something for him since she’s here and he’s turning eighty-five and has had the balls to just camp out next to the river in a rusty old RV for like twenty years. It’s Federale land and every so often they come by and shoo him away. Dacker pulls up his hammock, grabs the dog, revs up the decrepit RV and heads fifty feet in another direction.
Everybody in town seems to have a Dacker story. We’re supposed to bring one to the party and tell it as a “present.” I have met the man once. I have no story. I met them a couple of times. They are nice enough people, but I don’t want to go. I will be required to smile and talk and make nice. But I have kindly been included, being a friend of Christina’s and the right skin color and all, and so an excuse is necessary.
And then Leo comes through by allowing me to enter the holy sanctum of the male Sunday football feeding frenzy! Many have asked—few have been granted. I am truly blessed. But there are some rules, Christina tells me. She has made the direct request on my behalf. (The politics of small towns; I of all people prefer to do my own communicating, my own asking. I abhor triangulation having been raised with it, the price of a large family. But I wanted to watch the game more than I wanted to preserve my integrity that day so I asked her to ask him. A complete coward, I am.)
She lists the conditions for me, ticking them off on her figures: No aimless chatter—yabbering, he calls it; call as I’m leaving (it’s a four minute walk); ring the bell three times in a row and then wait; tell no one where I‘m going, this is a secret; and finally, wear a disguise. I can handle the first four, this last presents a challenge. I hope he’s not serious, but I’m afraid he might be.
Day of the game, after a week, I finally wash my hair. I still don’t have hot water in the shower (sinks work fine; Luis shrugs his shoulders and says yo no sie) and that’s fine for an evening rinse off but not for the lengthy chore of washing my hair. Which is why I wash it once a week; it takes forever to dry it. People say, oh, my god, I have to wash mine every day, or whatever, and I look at them and say, you have thin, fine hair. It shows the dirt and oil. I have thick course hair. It’s doesn’t. I can go a good five days. (The additional two are just me being lazy. I generally wear it plopped on top of my head, clipped, and there it rests pretty permanently pretty much all summer long. Given that I’m working on a perpetual summer season, it’s not often that I wear it down.)
So I take a really nice, long, hot shower at Christina’s and actually blow dry the mop, something I haven’t done for a month, and can see that it has become quite lightened by the sun and looks, well, pretty with a little styling. All this effort for a football game, I think, but I really don’t know the guy, this is a big fucking favor he’s granted, and the least I can do is take a shower and wash my hair. Have to do it sometime I rationalize. If only to offset the nagging feeling that I’m dressing up for him and given that I have sworn off men forever, I take extra pains to wear baggy old clothes to offset my stunning mane.
I pack up some munchies—Brie, crackers, apples, salsa, wine (hey, it’s my football experience, OK?)—and head over. As I’m walking, I think, Now about this disguise thing…hmmm…I start up Leo’s stairs and the landlord who lives below, a local guy, says (en espanol) in essence, if it’s about the rental you need to go over here, and he points to the opposite side of the building. Without stopping I keep on climbing and say No, I’m on my way to Leo’s and glance over at him. And that’s when I realize that he has no idea who I am though he’s seen me plenty of times—with my hair up and usually under a baseball cap. With my hair down (and clean), I look like a hot city girl in baggy clothes. (I can tell he’s thinking this by the look in his eye and the intrinsic female sonar system by which minds are read.)
Leo answers the door, wide-eyed, dressed in his perpetual oversized southern tourista shirt and shorts and flip flops. Looking me up and down he says, “Where’s the disguise?” I guess he was serious. But I’m already thrusting my bag of goodies toward him and besides, I have an answer: I washed my hair, I say. Not a soul recognized me since it hasn’t been down once since I arrived in town. And Leo bursts out laughing. I’ve passed the second test, the first being the scorpion skeleton. The vault door swings wide and I’m waved inside.
Leo has made some furniture purchases this year, the biggest and best being the shiny new refrigerator. I hate to think how many guys it took to get it up here. He’s also gotten a couple of new chairs. One has been pulled over for me in front of the television next to the lounger, which is obviously Leo’s chair: the remote control rests on its arm.
We have a lovely evening despite dismal performances by both our teams, and I thank him profusely, especially for the safe hide-out from the party. “You gotta’ set your boundaries, lay your lines early with the gringo crowd,” he tells me. “Like me. Everybody knows I don’t answer the phone, the door, or leave the house on Sundays. Everybody knows that. That way I don’t get bothered on Sunday.”
This, of course, has nothing to do with it being a Sunday. It’s all about the football, all the time. Leo takes his football very seriously, which is why he has a TV in the first place and Skye Satellite in the second, and why I was there at all, especially since I was a) not a friend and b) a female, which simply couldn’t be helped, but thankfully c) I came highly recommended and vouched for by Christina. He likes Christina, she’s on the inside, and he had someone to complain to in case it all blew up. But it didn’t and I think I’ll be able to join Leo for another game. Maybe the Superbowl, though really, who cares with the Eagles and Ravens out, but then again, it is the Superbowl and traditions must be honored, else what good are they?
During the entire game, Leo’s phone had been ringing. Over and over again. He never answered, but I could tell it was starting to piss him off that whoever it was on the other end of the line thought he/she was so far in that he/she could interrupt his Sunday sanctum. I kept saying, Don’t you think you should pick it up? No, he says, Whoever it is ought to know better. Finally I offer to answer and really freak them out. Oh no, he says, tongues would wag.
Later someone began howling Leo’s name and pounding on the door. Leeooooooooo! A local voice wanting some of Leo’s tequilla stash. Drunk already and wanting more. The Mexican equivalent of drinking and dialing.
So much for clear boundaries.
The two of us turn down the volume and like teenagers caught making-out in the house when they hear the sound of the front door, we get very small and quiet. This of course prompted the teenage giggles and I had to clasp my hands over my mouth to stifle myself (ah, those were the days, dingbat). I can’t be sure, but I think we both felt a little naughty, hiding, yet safe. The disembodied voice howled itself around to under Leo’s balcony one floor below, still whining, his voice now taking a more plaintive tone, Leeoooooooooo! Eventually whoever it was howled himself away under the moon and left us still whispering from behind our hands.
As for yabbering, well, Leo did his fair share, and we saved most of the talking for commercials. Trading life stories, relaxing into falling in like, testing the surface strength, like thin ice, a toe at a time. Occasionally he’d lean over and touch my arm to emphasize a point. Meta-messages. I could tell he was impressed with the little football knowledge I actually possess as well as my willingness and gasp! ability to silence myself as soon as the commercials ended, this due to training by my first husband, a former quarterback who didn’t like yabbering during any kind of game.
On my way out, trusty flashlight in hand (one of my best brought-with items), I’m leaping down the steps like I’m hopping lily-pads (the steps around here are mostly boulders and large rocks rolled in proximity of each other) and the landlord is still there and says something to me. I play dumb (no habla espanol) and steal another glance. He’s looking at me in a strange way; I’m betting he thinks Leo has a new squeeze. I’m also betting that pretty soon the town will be talking.
Such an elegant lady coming from Leo’s. Surely that’s what he’s thinking. I grin from the absurdity of it my trusty flashlight in hand and continue home, tripping over a small stone on the path in full view of the landlord, landing sprawled-eagle on the ground. Good thing I worn baggy pants that covered my knees.
So much for elegance.
Como se dises “shit?”
* * * * * * *
I take a good poop this morning and discover that the toilet won’t flush. No hot water, no toilet. Como se dices “Fuck!” But Martin, the plumber/electrician from Puerto Vallarta is coming tardes, and the kitchen sink works. So it’s OK. Or will be. All of this is communicated by Silvia. There is much gesticulation on both our parts. I understand four words and am able to get the gist of what she’s saying. With only four words: tades, martin, y agua caliente. (Technically that’s five words for you perfectionists who count one fucking letter as a word worthy of the effort it takes to catch caliente.) I feel quite smug when we part. Spanish ain’t that hard.
I love the way they say my name down here, drawing out it out, making the “i” sound like an “e”: Ceeentia. I feel elegant when I hear it.
Not such much when I trip. I wonder if I tripped while someone said my name, if they would cancel each other out, elegant and clumsy? And I’d be left feeling just, well, like me, whoever she is? Ah, come on, that’s too convenient and facile. I know who I am, I’m just taking a break from her, taking a sabbatical from myself to find my deeper self again. The still small voice of truth. Which makes sense to me, but then I do this kind of deep psycho-spiritual-emotional work with people professionally and so I tend to over-analyze everything and dig for my own answers, or at least enough of an answer so I can wrap it up and put it aside and move the hell on. I’m still learning how to “chill” after a drama-ridden formative childhood (oh, hell, and for several decades thereafter. Okay, until a few years ago.) I’m just looking for a calmer, happier, more playful person. I’m sure she’s in there, just lacquered with an over-burdened sense of responsibility for people. Eldest child of alcoholic father, dysfunctional family systems, blah, blah, blah. Done the programs. I know my own shit. Doesn’t make you immune, on the contrary, it’s made me painfully aware of each magnetic pull back to old mind-fucking patterns, especially with family—the double-edged sword of love.
Note to self: You chose them.
But developing a peaceful spirit takes a tenacious one. Living a peaceful life takes effort. It doesn’t just happen. People say, oh, you’re so lucky to be off to Mexico for three whole months! And I say, Luck had nothing to do with it. It takes purpose, planning, and perseverance predicated on a clear vision of the kind of life one wants—and far more importantly chooses. I chose warmth. That was it. And my choices were certainly restricted by revenue, so please don’t say, must be nice; I live month to month like 98% of the world.
But like a growing number of people around the world, I want a simpler, less cluttered way of life. I want freedom more than security, based on results. I want autonomy more than intimacy, based on results. And based on results, I simply chose this simple, solitary, rustic existence, on a crystal clear evening in a blindingly clear moment under a full moon.
On March 21 of last year while sitting on Christina’s top veranda facing the mountains and watching a full moon rise above them, I placed my order. It happened that it was a very big day in the heavens: a full moon, the vernal equinox, and a planetary grand cross in the sky to boot (this was a honking big stellar day, like a once every decade kind of thing)
I had been awaiting clarity enough to place an order on such an advantageous night as this. I had known about this evening’s cosmological and astrological significance: some times are better than others for starting projects, for example, or placing your order. Sort of like traffic patterns; at certain hours you take certain routes. This was one of those times.
I had come last year not yet divorced (uh, that would be the second—and last—husband), still recuperating from a near death calamity, wound and wired and wondering what my future looked like, or rather, what I wanted it to look like. To let you in on a secret: I still don’t know what I want it to look like, only what I want it to feel like. I trust that compass more. I did know what I didn’t want: to be in debt, to be anxious, to work so hard, to feel like every ounce of my energy had been sucked out of me with the effort required to fight my way back from accidental carbon monoxide poisoning.
Oh, I knew what I didn’t want.
Given that so many common desires had been relinquished through attainment—marriage, children, career— figuring out what I did want was a more difficult task. You wouldn’t think so, but deciding what one does want is a far more weighty endeavor than figuring out what one doesn’t want—that’s easy.
So I came to visit my dear old friend, Christina, a five foot nine inch blond with legs that’ll put a thirty-year old’s to shame, in her recently completed, absolutely magnificent home in Boca de Tomatlan, for two whole weeks. With her able cancer-survivor influence I hoped to take stock somehow and gain a glimmer of clarity.
For a week I transitioned, slowed down and began to notice a stirring of something distantly familiar. A deeply lodged desire, like a long held breath, a bursting forth of stemmed dreams. I started to remember what I liked. What I use to do. I use to write. I use to draw. I use to dream.
I realize that this is perhaps the thing most dear, most precious to me: my former willingness to trust. It was stolen, that natural assumptive aspect to joyful living, stolen by an insidious sightless gas. I have not dreamed of anything save getting through the present moment and whatever challenges it held. A return to physical health, psychological clarity and emotional balance, this last the place where the effects were most immediately apparent. I was like a house with a mislabeled electrical fuse panel for a good two years or longer; throw the switch to the living room lights and the dishwasher would blow. Nothing made sense. That made me distrust myself. My own emotional reactions, my ability to process information, to access words and then pronounce them correctly, left right brain communication, all these things were my daily reality. It was exhausting, like trying to herd cats. So I am cautious now. Perhaps not inappropriately so, but still, a thief entered my heart and ran off with a piece, the piece called plans for the future. Christina went through her own struggle and built a new future. I am here as much to learn from her as I am to vacation.
But on that night, March 21, 2008…
We sit watching the moon rise over the picturesque mountains between which Boca is nestled, the river that cuts the pueblo in half reflecting the moonlight, twinkling its way to the ocean. It’s a postcard-perfect shot. And I stare at the beauty of the natural surroundings and try to take it in. Really take it in. So I concentrate. I have been waiting all week for some sense of solidity, something on which to stand, a clear direction. Instead, I go to the beach and stare at the ocean and five hours pass and I don’t really know what I was thinking about, only that I enjoyed my time and that I don’t know what time it is. All I know is that I like the life my friend has created for herself, and while I don’t want to buy it from her, I wouldn’t mind borrowing it for a season or two.
What do I want? I like wearing flip flops, I think pathetically, gazing at the full moon now almost completely revealed from behind the mountains. I’ve got to hurry. Clarity! Yo necessito clarity! I like being warm in the winter. I’m listing what I like, not what I want. I like wearing comfortable old clothes. I like sunshine and blue skies. This is ridiculous. Like a kid making his case for all the reasons he should be allowed what he’s asking for, my internal tone was one of justification. I’m really pleading now. Is that OK? To just want a simple life in a simple place? A simple, warm place? I almost want to cry I feel so stupid and needy. But I want to be warm, I silently whine. It’s all I can think to ask. I feel like a kid caught with too many choices, pissing off the adult who offered to get them whatever candy bar they wanted from the fifty or so available choices in the grocery store; I am overwhelmed with the plethora of choices.
And then it happens!
The moon breaks free of the mountain top, her full magnificence filling the sky, and town, with the kind of moon shadows Cat Stevens sang about. And a genuine message from la luna shoots into my brain (beam me up Scotty!), a certainty that whatever I ask for will be granted. Doesn’t matter what it is. And that not wanting to ask for something (oh, I don’t know, like world peace, or to end poverty, big things, things I ought to want, indicates it’s not for me.) I am Cynthia, Goddess of the Moon and CLARITY is mine! I have received the transmission! Speak your truth. What do you want? And from somewhere deep, deep inside the dam bursts, the long held breath releases, I’m gulping in new air and with it naked self-honesty. And I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I want only one thing in this magic moment, and I utter the long desired desire:
I want to be warm.
Even as I send the suddenly sharp-edged thought toward the sky I wondered if I had a right to want something so small, so basic, with no intrinsic value to anyone else save me. I really dislike winter—snow sports are long a thing of the past. I don’t like shoveling snow, or driving in it, or walking through it or having to dress for it. I don’t like minus thirty degrees—Celcius. I like flip flops. I like walking around with barely anything on. I like the way I eat and walk and live in warm climates. Is that OK, I queried to whatever intelligence it is in which I place my trust.
And I kid you not, it was though two invisible hands pulled back the moonlight, stuck a head out, and like a growingly impatient waiter standing table-side while entrée orders are chosen by an indecisive group, communicated words I’ll never forget. After all this searching, and wanting, and digging, a confirmation from above!
“IT’S ABOUT TIME!” As is “What took you so long?” Whoever it was had obviously been waiting a while for me to release so simple an order.
And that was it. I wanted to be warm? I’d get warm. I suddenly, distinctly, and irrevocably understood a simple truth. What did it matter to the waiter whether I ordered rare or well done? It’s all the same to him.
Insight: The universal intelligence doesn’t give a fuck what you want, as long as it doesn’t harm another.
And everything else fell into place because a) I decided what I wanted, instead of what I didn’t (vision); b) I knew the reason why (purpose); c)I made a plan and (plan, duh) d) kept putting one foot in front of the other (guess) and here I am now. Under a sunny Saturday sky, eighty-five degrees with a light breeze. Heaven.
Luck had nothing to do with it. Prices were paid: I sold everything I owned, gave away precious books and cherished trinkets. I disappointed people who had different visions for my life. There were plenty of times when I thought to myself, what the fuck are you doing? But I had decided to simplify. I chose to exit the fast lane, and while certainly not off the grid, I am nonetheless both reducing my carbon footprint while increasing my sense of freedom. I haven’t had air conditioning or a dishwasher since 1996. Don’t foresee having either ever again. No need.
But where am I headed? What’s the next phase of my life? I’m fifty-five and done with babies and diapers and schedules and husbands and sex (at least for now) and cooking dinners (forever) and working my way up the ladder. I love to write, I still lead programs, the ones I want to lead, when I want to lead them, I still do some corporate work (only enlightened ones), but is this it? For the rest of my life? No drama, no crises to solve in order to feel important? What on earth will I do?
And the answer resonates: Whatever you want.
Oh, yeah, that.
* * * * * * *
But back to my poop (yes, elegant) and the no flushing toilet.
A good poop is, as anyone over a certain age knows, often worth celebrating. I have friends who only go every couple of days, for heaven’s sakes, and have to take pills and such, just to take a crap. I have been fortunate, thank god: regular as a clock, every morning of my life as far as I can remember. (Except when I travel—anyone else have trouble pooping in public restrooms? I certainly do. At any rate, most days just hand me a cup of coffee and a cigarette and I’m ready to go. Pun intended. )
Of course, there are also times when it is far from celebratory. (But then, that wouldn’t qualify as a good poop, now would it?) Last year, my next to last night here, I ate some shrimp cooked up on the beach by a local. Bad mistake. It was the tail end of Semantos Santos (Easter week) and all the locals had set up huts, putting out plastic tables and chairs, serving the touristas, most of whom were from the interior of Mexico and for whom this was an annual beach vacation. Mucho dinero generated for family incomes. People sell the same fish, or tacos or seveche for the same price, five feet away from each other. Territories are delineated by tablecloths: god help you if you cross local political lines. You have to make your pick, and then stick with it. Loyalty is HUGE down here. Gringos usually align themselves with one particular vendor and return to his or her tablecloths daily. My friend does the same, frequenting the brother of her best local amiga. I learned the ropes and ordered several lunches from him. Delicious. But that particular day, the shrimp weren’t quite so tasty.
I returned to the house around 5:00 pm feeling, well, not sick, but not right. By 6:00 I was in bed thinking maybe I’d gotten a touch of heat stroke or a bug or something. By 8:00 I had a fever and suspected food poisoning. By 10 there was no doubt. Those shrimp were a day over-due and I was stuck paying the tab. I stayed in bed (well, and the bathroom) until I left Boca 36 hours later, when I had to get on a flight which could not be delayed, stopping at the neighborhood nurse’s office to get a shot in my ass. This I did as much for the poor people who would be seated in whatever row I was occupying on the flights back to Toronto as I did for my own sorry ass. Besides, a shot in the ass is the standard prescription.
That was the one time I can proudly say that I had no problem pooping in public bathrooms. I know every airport bathroom in Puerto Vallarta, Atlanta, and Toronto. I arrived back to my own bed completely drained. Literally. Took a week to feel normal again. You work a lot of core muscles—something I gave up for Lent at least five years ago—puking your guts out in a trashcan as the rest of you explodes out your butt.
Sorry to be so graphic, but come on, we’ve all been there at least once
So, not all poops are alike as Dr. Oz has now educated the world. Grown men and women, all of us peering over the toilet to see if our excrement forms the highly sought after “S” a sign of our well-being floating ever so proudly in the Porceline Goddess. See how healthy I am! But after my first and hopefully last case of food poisoning, that first firm poop—now that was a celebration!
Now, if only I could get a good flush to go with my good poop.
And agua caliente.
* * * * * * *
Boiled some beets for dinner. Beets and broccoli. Am already feeling thinner and healthier. I like eating this way: fresh veggies and fruits, juices and water, cheese and crackers, soup, cereal, yogurt. Yep, I’ll leave this place in three months and go home disgustingly healthy, firm and fit. I can already climb Christina’s stairs, all 100 of them, in one go. Well, almost. I take a little break mid-way. But when I arrived, I had to stop twice. Gasping for air. Now I don’t gasp hardly at all. But my thighs do. Yep, definitely going back north healthier than when I arrived. For sure. And I’ll be fucking perfect when I stop smoking, which I am once again considering, though I have gotten down to the lightest of the light and a precious few each day. Hey, that’s a step in the right direction, isn’t it?
I am the queen of rationalization.
Yeah, going to consider it strongly.
Manana.
Tonight, I will simply sit in my sweet, rustic kitchen with a small lamp I had packed—perfect for this space and another great bring-with item—listening to some swell iTunes I carefully collected. A special Boca playlist. The moon is full and rising behind the mountains directly across from the kitchen window in front of which I sit. Below me the town twinkles in the muted tones of evening . It is a blissful scene.
I feel one with the world, one with this place, one with nature. Ah, mui bonita…
Suddenly, I hear a very odd noise! Wh-what? A fluttering, but loud and somewhat frantic. A flapping. A bird, a bat? Here? In mi casa? I look up and over my left shoulder toward the noise behind me and see something whirling about the ceiling near the light. It careens toward me, swooping down in great sweeping half circles.
It’s a moth! A HUGE moth, the biggest moth I’ve ever seen, a big motherfucking moth! This guy’s wing span is an easy eight inches (they all say that!) and out for a Friday night. If he wanted to go the kamikaze route (it must be a ‘he’ I decide, just like the scorpion, but I wonder how you tell the gender in a moth?), he could take me out. Blind me at the very least.
The moon’s full and I, nueva tourista stupida that I am, have left on both the bathroom and bedroom ceiling lights. Open-air spaces. Last time that’ll happen. This sucker thinks he’s hit the big time! Like entering Vegas.
Insight: BIG moths are attracted to BIG lights.
After slinking my way toward the light, dodging and weaving and ducking my way and pulling the string of safety—darkness!—it occurred to me that now I couldn’t see him. Can moths see in the dark? Did my kamikaze have night goggles? And then it was the bathroom light; I heard fluttering and then silence. Shrinking around the door jamb, I dared to look up and sure enough, there he was, stretched out at the bar, waiting on the lovelies, several of whom (of a smaller, daintier fashion) were hanging out on the wall next to the light. Another pull and all was darkness. I tiptoed way, closed the door and prayed I wouldn’t need to pee until morning.
Maybe it was the HUGE MOTH or maybe it was the darkness, whatever, I slipped into my flip flops and continued moving toward the kitchen.
Another potential crisis averted. All is well.
I heard a crunch. Figured I had stepped on a cracker, or something next to the refrigerator. But it didn’t feel crumbly—it felt sticky, and it sounded less like a crunch and more like a pop.
Afraid to turn on the kitchen light, the KILLER moth still in residence, I lit a candle and bent down, very carefully, as carefully as I had when handling Leo’s scorpion, and examined the floor. There was a large dark pool of something that I had apparently tracked across the floor. I lifted my foot to examine the sole of my sandal. My curiosity got the better of me and I turned on a dim light. Then I cleaned off my shoe with a wet paper towel. What on earth? A grape? Too sticky and thick. And I hadn’t bought any grapes.
Now I was really curious. I knelt down on my knees—carefully—and looked at the point of origin. There was something grayish white on the fringe of the biggest dark blob, maybe an inch in diameter. The white thing was the size of a big toe nail. I got a flashlight and could finally see that this was a tick. Yes, little teeny-weeny legs protruding from this grossly stretched body (former body) of one of some dog’s permanent residents. Must have fallen off, bloated beyond capacity to grasp. Lovely. And if I hadn’t slipped on my flip flops, I would have stepped on it with my bare feet.
Note to self: Leo was right.
To emphasize the point I go to bed that night fully clothed and wearing socks.
* * * * * * *
I’m starting to look like I belong here. It’s the tan. The kind of tan that oozes into places a two-week vacation can’t reach; the under the armpits, between the toes and fingers, more than skin-deep kind of tan. The kind achieved by actually living in a warm southern climate. Not sunbathing, not tanning, living. Walking to and from tiendas or the beach. Going fishing out on the ocean. Hanging laundry. Living.
Say what you will about the effects on the skin (I lather on sunscreen everyday!), everybody I know looks better with a tan and says they feel better, too. I know I do. But I came from British bloodlines and so brown isn’t a word used to describe the color I get when I am tan. It’s more like toffee colored. More yellow that brown. There’s only so dark I get. Not enough melanin in the skin.
But there is a tan, which I’ve now got, that says, I’ve been somewhere sunny and warm for an extended period of time (the implication being, and ha ha, you haven’t). And after all these years I now know why I never had a tan like this: I’ve never lived in a warm climate. I’ve only visited warm climates. It’s not the same.
Sunlight is like a salve to my wounded winter white soul and my body must be making vitamin D like crazy. All I know is my mind is sharper, my body bolder and my heart happier.
Course, it could be the copious amounts of Christina’s magic brownies I’m consuming.
* * * * * * *
I got the bargain of the year today. On our way back from Vallarta and another CostCo adventure, Christina and I bump into someone else she knows, a local gal selling plants off the back of a truck on the main drag in Boca. The main drag is three blocks long. No sidewalks, no curbs, just a dusty cobblestone road. Turns out it’s, yes, Christina’s flower lady. And the deals! Now I know why she said “wait for my flower lady” when I tried to get a couple of plants in town. I got a gardenia plant with two open blooms and ten buds that I could count! Stands about two feet. Cost me 45p. That would be $4.50. You heard me. A gardenia bush for $4.50!
So, not only was I able to snag a deal, but I also re-entered a world I relinquished nine months ago when I sold all my stuff and moved to the island—the world of caring for living plants. My place used to be full of plants, but seasonal living spaces are not conducive to plant maintenance and I gave away all my babies to good homes.
I had a love affair going with an orchid a friend gave me on my fifty-third birthday. Bloomed nine different times. Almost in constant bloom for eighteen months. Hated to hand her over. And I adore lilies and tulips, but gardenias…ah, the fragrance seeps into the frayed corners of my heart and smoothes rough edges. I carried a bouquet of gardenias on my wedding day, the one where I wore a long white dress and walked the aisle with hope in my heart and faith in the future.
Gardenias… They say scent travels quickest to the brain of all the senses. The neural pathways will send you vaulting into your past faster than hearing any old song. Trouble is, it isn’t like you choose the ones you remember. The ones that blindside you. The ones that sneak up on you in the middle of a dusty road, from the other side of another country, from a distant corner of a forgotten life. No, those assault your senses with a baseball bat and send you hurtling through time, thirty-three years disappear in an instant and you’re dreaming of the future. Gardenias! Who knew? Out of the blue I know clearly something else I want: To tend a garden again. Who plants a seed beneath the sod and waits to see believes in God.
The brief fluttering of faith in the future.
For only four dollars and fifty cents.
What a bargain.
* * * * * * *
Luis been on a bender. He’s slept on the beach, at friend’s, who knows where all he’s been, but he hasn’t been home.
“Ola, Luis,” I wave when I see him while walking to the beach one day.
He weaves his way toward me. “Ah, Ceeentia! Buenas dias. Como estas?” It comes out sounding like “buiniiiiiiis des comstes.” Thank god for my increasing command of the Spanish language. Not.
“Bien, Luis. Mui bien. Y tu?”
“Oh,” he looks down and shakes his head, a sorry little boy. “No bien.” He lifts his hand as in a drinking motion. “Pocito tequila..”
At least the guy tells the truth. I could do worse for a landlord. But he’s smiling. He stumbles his way up the stone stairs to the walkway on which I stand above him. The walkway is maybe two feet wide and I notice Luis is standing quite close, leaning into me. He’s drunk, but not too messy about it. I haven’t seen him in, maybe five days, a week? Since he started the bender. Even I had heard he was on a binge. Everybody knows when he goes on another one. Everybody knows everything here. Who’s drinking and when, or whoring and with whom.
“Ah, pocito tequila,” I say nodding my head indicating I understood his no-bien-ness.
“Oooo, Ceeeentia… mucho tequila...” Yeah, I knew it was more than a little tequila.
Luis reaches out his hand. My hair is down. “Oh, bonita…”he murmurs as he lurches towards me. And then he strokes my hair! Or attempts to. His hand sort of waves its way in the general direction of my head. Great. Fucking hair! I can’t believe my landlord, who’s shorter than I am, not to mention married, oh, and very drunk, is making a pass. On second thought, it’s probably his twelfth pass of the day.
Several more strokes oooo, bonita, mui bonita, and I’ve repositioned myself to be outside the stroking zone. Christina has caught up to us on the walkway and joins in the conversation. I fill her in on the substance of the exchange. She can see him leaning toward me, going for the hair again, and says something in Spanish I don’t quite understand. But he turns away from my head. Christina says merrily, “Y ella no tienes agua caliente.”
This I understand. “Si, yo no tengo agua caliente,” I say equally as merrily. Ha, ha. No hot water. It’s all good.
“No agua caliente?” His eyes get very large, but he’s having trouble focusing them in harmony. It’s obvious he means to convey alarm that such a fine lady as myself should suffer with no agua caliente! Oh, the indignity of it! He’ll get right on it. What do you think is the problem, Christina asks.
“Oh, yo no sie” Luis shakes his head again and goes for the hair again. “Ah, bonita…mui bonita…”
(See what happens when I let the mop hang free? Fucking locals want to pat me for christ’s sake!)
I extricate myself and start walking again. He won’t remember any of it I’m sure. At least I hope so. Christina joins in and remarks that between Martin, the electrician/plumber, who’s also been on a bender and is currently out of commission, and Luis, who’s wandering through his own tequila journey, my chances of getting hot water in the near future are slim to none.
“You’re going to need to schedule your maintenance items between their binges,” she says thoughtfully.
Windows of opportunity for scheduled functionality. I can’t help but laugh.
But she’s serious, and that’s what’s so funny.
* * * * * * *
I arrived four weeks ago today. How can so much time go by so swiftly when one is doing nada? It’s a Monday, so I pretend it’s a work day and make some check-in, touch-base kind of calls, but basically it’s just another day in paradise with me sitting outside typing away while repeating my mantra: I’m the happiest girl in the world.
Course, I have no gas this morning. Had to stumble over to Christina’s barely awake and make myself a cup of coffee. A real boon, having a BFF next door. Fortunately, the gas man comes with filled tanks on Mondays and Fridays, so thank you that it emptied on a Monday and not a Tuesday. I’ve alerted Sylvia but so far my tank sits in place, requiring a man to unhook and carry it down to the other side of the river. Luis isn’t around. He’s gone on a bender—hasn’t been home for a few days. He’s the sweetest man, and even a sweet drunk. A binge drinker, he wouldn’t hurt a fly. It’s a sad testimony to the reality of genetic predisposition to alcoholism (all those cousins!). But he’s also not around to carry the damn tank down to exchange it a full one and I don’t want to walk to Christina’s to make coffee tomorrow.
Yo no tengo agua caliente y no gas.
Look: My first full sentence in Spanish.
* * * * * * *
Sylvia comes by to address the no agua situation. She explains it all, but after the four (count them, four!) glasses of cheap white wine I consumed while watching the super bowl game at Leo’s (which turned out to be a good one after it looked like the Steelers would walk away with it), I’m not really following her. Lots of game, Leo said at the end of the first half. And the Cardinals came back and then lost it at the end. But it made for a better game, hence the fourth and final glass, which firmly secured my buzz-on, a nice controlled buzz—I know my limits with alcohol. But four glasses is pressing them pretty hard, which is why whatever Silvia is trying to communicate to me first thing in the morning completely bypasses me.
“Pero yo teines agua caliente?” She asks hopefully. But I might have some water? Hot water at least? That I understand.
“No,” I say shaking my head, “no agua caliente.” But I’m smiling at her.
Silvia is pensive. She turns and looks out the kitchen window on the east side of mi casa above which the water tanaka is located. Brightening, she turns back and says, “En Marzo mucho agua caliente. Mucho sol—mucho agua caliente!” In March water in the tanaka will be made toasty warm from the sun each day. She smiles at me, a big warm brown grin, this small sturdy woman. I want to reach out and wrap my arms around her, show her my appreciation and affection, make her life easier. Give her more reasons to smile. Her youngest child, a beaming nine year old boy who won my heart the minute I first met him when he looked me straight in the eyes and grinned braodly, is only a few years older than her eldest grandchild. She has done nothing but work hard all her life, without complaint and with fierce determination and goodwill. She is a proud woman, steeled by life’s hardships. She is a devoted mother and friend. She is loved in this community, and more, she is respected: Silvia can see through bullshit.
She returns in the afternoon to clean my small casa. It doesn’t really need it, but it’s money much needed in her household and I am happy to contribute to their well-being with so small a gesture. For $150 Pesos ($15) she spends an hour and a half cleaning the bathroom and kitchen, washes the floors and removes the trash. She also does my laundry each week as part of the fee. Another gringa lifted a brow at that. Most of them get $5 an hour, she tells me, And that’s a good wage. I have been chastised. I am over-paying, being taken advantage of.
I paid Silvia twenty bucks that week. Just to spite the gringa.
Mostly I like the way my place smells after Silvia leaves; it smells clean and the dust is gone, at least for one day. And she takes pride in her work and I let her, never correcting or informing her. She does it her way and that’s good enough for me. I think she respects that I acquiesce to her expertise.
The water has not returned yet but Luis has brought up a bucket full to carry me through. Silvia brings another bucket for her use while cleaning. I go into the bedroom to get something and see her standing in the bathroom, sweeping. She looks at me as I enter and says mucho sol oy.
“Si,” I respond,“mucho sol. Bonita sol.”
She stops her sweeping and looks at me. “Tu es contenta?”
I stop moving too and return her gaze. We are standing directly across from one another, four feet apart. Unexpectedly, my eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Silvia, yo es mui contenta aqui!” sweeping my arms open and then I point to my eyes as if to indicate the extent of my emotional honesty.
But Silvia’s intense gaze has already divined my sincerity. “Luis y me estos mui contenta tambien,” she says evenly, dry-eyed and equally sincere. I imagine that Silvia’s eyes fill only in private moments.
And—oh, the glory of it!--I understand every single polabra! As they are uttered, as they leave her mouth, they compute in my mind! I understand what she is saying—and more. I understand what she’s really saying. She’s saying I am welcome in her home. That she’s open to a long-term lease if I want one. The offer is laid bare in her eyes. We are locked on each other and my eyes are glistening. Nothing else needs to be said. Not that I could, I don’t know that many palabras yet. Certainly not the ones I’d need in order to convey my sense of honor. Nor enough to acknowledge the meeting of kindred spirits. For in that moment we are not landlord and tenant, we are not Mexican or American or Canadian, we are not from different worlds with different expectations, hopes, or dreams. We are two women, two mothers, two sisters, aunts, and yes, cousins. We have given birth, tended and cared for infants, shaped and molded young life, born the same pains, shared the same loves, hidden the same fears. In that moment the silent meeting needs no interpreter.
Insight: Emotion requires no translation. It stands naked, proudly, before logic rushes forward to cover it.
I couldn’t care less if I have hot water. Silvia’s acceptance in enough for today.
Hell, it’s enough for the entire trip.
* * * * * * *
* * * * * * *
Luis is home. Leaned over his railing to wave as I walked down the path in front of our attached homes. “Ola, Ceeentia!” He’s showered. All cleaned up. Looks…sober.
“Ola Luis! Como esta?”
“Ooo, bien,” he says looking slightly like Mattie in that moment: chagrined. “Pocito crudo.” He shakes his head, but maintains the grin. He continues, apparently anxious to engage, re-root himself after days of lost
Yeah, I bet he’s a “bit hung-over.”
“Bueno, Luis. Yo va Vallarta…Adios!” I turn to continue hopping down the stairs (One can’t really walk. It’s more like a lift-hop-skip thing to navigate the steps and paths.)
“Adios, Ceeentia!” Big wave and grin from Luis. He’s leaning over the railing watching me make my way below. Just grinning from ear to ear. If I didn’t know better I’d think the man was stupid enough to get a crush on me. He’s dear, a gentle grinning man, but he ain’t what anyone would call quick.
At least I was well outside the stroking zone.
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