




I’ve been in Mexico 6 months, mas o menos. I came with the intention of learning the language and culture. I can only claim to have completed a small section of a Mexico for dummies course, but I like it here.
I’m still a scavenger. Not that I dig through the bastura. Isn’t that word better than garbage? Bastura. But, like yesterday when I saw this nice reed basket…it’s seems a shame to pass up something perfectly lovely or useful just because someone else didn’t like it. Think about it. The luckiest of us will never outlive our usefulness or beauty and hopefully we’ll be used over and over til we wear out. And, I nabbed a cool, wooden box for a night stand.
It seems everyone dances here. Dance-bailar: salsa, tango, and maybe the it’s the Mexican two-step I see the abulitas doing in the park to the spunky sounds of the official city 12 piece orchestra playing in the gazebo. The kids start young. Friday evening as my friends and I sat around a table on the sand watching the sunset, a little girl, maybe 6, danced on the pier. Moved by the Brazilian blues quartet playing in the open air restaurant near by, she dipped & twirled. It was only when she partnered with the lamp post that we glimpsed an even wider range of possible dancing options to choose from.
And sing-cantar. Drunk or sober, good or bad, anywhere, anytime, Mexican people lift their voices in song, especially the men. Arias, boleros, mariachi, or cantos de amour: a capella, or accompanied. It’s a wonderful thing.
“Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.
“Do you know there’s a road that goes down to Mexico and all the way to
Panama? And maybe all the way to the bottom of South America where the
Indians are seven feet tall and eat cocaine on the mountainside? Yes? You
and I, Sal, we’d dig the whole world with a car like this because, man, the
road must eventually lead to the whole world. Ain’t nowhere else it can
go-right?” -Jack KerouacPaz en tierra.-ruby
I love you Ruby. Someday I am going to be just like you.
Hilly
Ruby, I want to be just like you when I grow up!