| Samantha 的个人资料Postcards from Mexico照片日志列表 |  工具  帮助 |
|
5月22日 Last PostcardI smell like I've walked through the perfume section of a department store, from all of the hugs and kisses today. The goodbyes have been tempered by promises of visits to Canada and Mexico. I'm almost packed, but can't say that I'm ready to let go.
I have lived the most beautiful, authentic, and unique life that I could choose for my self up to this point. I have embrased being an artist, a language learner, a happy spirit, a wanderer, a thinker, and a leader. I grew the most by being a follower though. I would do all of it a million times over, without changing a thing- I always wondered if I would feel that way at the end of my journey.
I've proved that I'm not afraid of change and I'm not afraid of me. I only added, never lost.
VIVA MEXICO! Thank you. I love you.
5月20日 Adios AmigosThe word adios doesn't come up often in my conversations in Spanish, because it signifies saying goodbye to somebody for a long time. Normally, we say hasta luego, or, see you later. Sadly, the time has come to start saying adios.
I've said adios over lunches, parties, coffee, and walks. Over jazz, reggaeton, and mariachi music. I've been talking and laughing and crying so much that I've lost my voice as a result. The voice is overrated though, when one can have a bear hug with another.
In general, the surrealness of my life has multiplied the past two weeks. An on-again off-again flame decided that he loved me, and another man reminded me that his marriage proposal was still open. Three of my friends hooked up with three of my other friends in one night. I've seen who will just be passing through my life, and who will be there to stay.
Last night we went to party at my favourite club, Gendarmeria, in Polanco. It was the perfect venue, the place where everything began, where I met my favourite people and sang at the top of my lungs with the band. This last time I was arm in arm with all of my friends on the dance floor. There was a song about saying goodbye, and everybody was pointing at me, smiling and singing along. I was a wreck! It seemed the only thing to do was dance as much as possible, until the crowd thinned out, until my feet blistered and until my mouth was dry. My Mexican sister Monsey brought me home and stayed over. Both of us fell asleep until we heard the explosion of fireworks being set off down my street.
Despite waking up bone tired, I remind myself that this isn't really the time to sleep, I can do that in Canada.
5月13日 The Honest LawyerWhile waiting for my bus, I looked at some music at the pirated CD stand. The young guy working at the stand told me that he thought I had moved somewhere else. No, I replied, I´ve just been busy. We conversed a bit more, and he revealed that he was a law student at UNAM, the prestigious public university.
¨So¨, I said, ¨you´re studying law and selling illegal material?¨
He glanced up, surprised. ¨Yeah, you know how it is¨.
¨But don´t you have to have some morals?¨, I promted. ¨I don´t think I would want you to be my lawyer!¨
He laughed... ¨girl, things are different here!¨
At least he was honest about that. 5月12日 If I Were to Run to the Border| have been fixated on what it will be like for me to leave Mexico, but of course, there are fabulous things to look forward to at home.
#1. I miss my family. Living in a culture where family is the centre of everything makes living alone pretty sad sometimes.
#2. I miss really intellectual conversations. Most of this need stems from conversing in my intermediate level of Spanish.
#3 I also look forward to sharing some particiular liberal ideals with a mass of people, including environmentalism, social justice, and feminism. I crave a recycling system. I miss people who believe that everybody is equal, no matter their race or income. The system isn´t perfect, but it exists.
#4. I salivate for international cuisine, finding food from Mexico, India, Thailand, France... I also look forward to being able to afford these culinary luxuries, because in Mexico they can burn holes in your pockets and wallets.
#5. I will enjoy reasonable phone and internet rates, but miss a more interactive community around me.
#6. The thing to look foward to the most in Canada is the understanding, tolerance and encouragement to continue living this bicultural life. 5月11日 Power Off, Brain OnWe´ve had daily power outages in my neighbourhood, from ten to twenty minutes at a time. Sitting in the dark has given my brain even more time to reflect, it´s almost in overdrive.
I was ready to leave Brazil after a year, the place wore me out. Leaving Italy wasn´t hard, I didn´t really attach myself and found the people could be rude to foreigners. And Mexico? It pulls at my heart, equally with Canada. I´ve stopped sleeping at night.
When I think about what I will bring back with me from this time in my life, it won´t take up very much space in my suitcase. I don´t want to pack the pottery, Mezcal, paintings, or silver. I will have some photos and mementos, but the thing I will hold closest is the memories of friendship, the richness of the language, and the new way of seeing the world.
I can tell you without hesitation how I´ve changed for the better. I´m more outgoing and friendly with people I´ve just met. I am more patient with the things that I know I can´t easily change. I live more for the moment, because the future is so unpredictable. I´ve continued to work hard (too hard), but I´ve also learned to really make use of my spare time, rather than let it just pass by. I´ve learned to get the dreaded ¨serious Canadian look¨ off of my face, and you wouldn´t believe how much more approachable that´s made me. I´ve convinced myself to be much more adventurous and spontaneous, but still use caution and follow my instincts, I really like the balance that I found in this regard.
I don´t understand everything yet. Participating in three hour meetings at work is still torture. I just want yes to consistently mean yees. And why can I find three sizes of plastic spoons, but no knives, anywhere?
In the end, the good far outweights the bad, because I´ve stayed true to myself. I´ve changed but haven´t given up a bit of my authentic self. If I could package the value of that, it would fill the plane. NewsThis week, the attack of another Canadian hit the northern news. The police say he fell off a balcony, the family says he was assulted. It´s hard to speculate. I side with the Canadians with the fact that I don´t trust the police (the chief in the balcony incident is being investigated for narco connections himself) but I´m so tired of hysterics in the news. You´ve read this rant from me before.
One thing I couldn´t help noticing in all of the stories that I´ve read is the presence of alcohol. Being drunk in public here is a big no no, an embarrssment... and yet I´ve seen so many foreigners stumbling around the cities behaving stupidly. You do have to take basic precautions here, and you can´t do that while oozing booze.
The rest of this weeks news is pretty standard. A mere 10 000 Mexicans got naked in the Zocalo of Mexico City on Sunday morning. Naked protests are popular in this modest city, but this was for a Spencer Tunick photo shoot. Some very revealing (but tasetful) photos are located here: http://fotos.eluniversal.com.mx/fotogaleria/wfg.html?gal=3559.
Meanwhile, the narcos continued to attack each other (they are dangerous), Mexico City legalized first trimester abortions, and the pope said that the lawmakers who passed this should be excommunicated (a comment later edited by the Vatican to sound tamer).
In some ways it´s just another week, an in another, it´s amazing to see how much this country changes month by month. 5月6日 Wedding CrashersTen hours of sleep the night before? Check. Comfortable sandals? Check. Formal dress dry-cleaned and ready to wear? Check. Date? Check. I was ready for Gaby's wedding.
I was floating in dream land, when the distinctive ring of my phone alerted me that I had recieved a text message. The screen lit up, letting me know that it was 5:40 in the morning, and that my date was going to miss the first bit of the wedding. I hastily wrote back "Alex, I don't believe it! Fine." and annoyed, tried to go back to bed. When I woke up I remembered that the wedding was out of town, and I had little time to find an alternate way to get there. After many phone calls to friends (who were sleeping and didn't answer), I ended up running to the house of a colleague and yellwed her name for 10 minutes until she came to the door and agreed that of course I could go with her.
The wedding was at a well known chapel in Tepozotlan, almost an hour from the city. After a beautiful service, we went to a sunny garden and were served delicious traditional Mexican food and fruit dipped in chocolate. The conservative style of the wedding surprised me, because Gaby is always very chic and Urban.
Weddings here always seem to require that you have a date, and it took me a while to realize why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that so many of the dances here require a partner. Fortunetly, Alex showed up just in time, and he's a fabulous dancer. Since I just learned how to dance two weeks ago, I wanted to dance to EVERYTHING, and the poor guy eventually made us sit down and have a tequila. I jokingly reminded him that I had gone to see him at the Nike 10k race, but let up until he had recharged.
Gaby's wedding started at 12:30 in the afternoon, and was still going strong at 10pm. However, Alex had a friend who was also, coincidently, getting married in Tepozotlan, and he wanted to go and meet up there. We didn't have an invitation, but I figured if Oprah could crash weddings, I could too.
It was strange to attend another wedding, which looked completely different, but had similar people dancing in similar dresses to the same songs that we had danced to for 8 hours before.
As I was dancing, a booming voice came up behind me, shouting, "Guerita!". I whirled around, and started into the chest of my friend Red. It was wild, because Red and I been trying to make plans the day before, until we realized that we both had weddings to attend.
I had a number of guys who were happy to dance with me at wedding number two, and we stayed until the lights amazingly flickered on and the wedding was called to a close at 2:30am. What surprised me more than the early closing was my energy level- I could have gone on for another fourteen hours. 5月4日 Free to a Good Home?The person who said they wanted to take care of Xempa apparently played the "yes means no" game with me, because the past three times they were supposed to pick her up, they didn't.
There isn't a lot of time left, so I thought I would post an add for her on Craigslist Mexico City, until I read this...
It's worse than my friend's offers to turn her into a tasty stew!
5月1日 ¡Ay, como me duele!Preparing to leave a country is almost as hard as preparing to get there in the first place, with all of the paperwork, packing, organizing... what nobody really talks about is the heart ache. I feel like I´m going through a really slow break up. I wish that none of it was so complicated- family and money vs. colour, history, and surrealism.
Last night, somebody said to me, ¨In developed countries, you can live comfortably. In Mexico, you can be happy¨.
So I´m trying to balance all of these feelings on my past, present, and future. There have been days where I refuse to think about any of it, completely avoid reflecting on anything that I see, knowing it will just depress me. There are other days where I feel a desperation to make as many of my visions stay in my head as possible, whispering to myself that I will never forget what I experience. There have been days where I want to try everything that I see (and subsequently don´t fit nicely into my jeans), and others where I don´t feel like eating anything, and shrink back to size. It´s been stressful. Really stressful with work on top of that.
Top these mind wars with the constant voices of, ¨Sami! No te vayas¨, ¨Sami, don´t go¨. There are so many beautiful, fun people here that I love, and that love me in return. The friends I´ve made here are one of the things that I´ve come to value most. It hurts me more to say goodbye to them than the people at home, because I don´t know when I´ll see these ones again, where the people at home were always sort of a given.
Currently, I´ve rebelled agaist the local tendency of trying to have as many goodbye parties as possible. I want life to continue like normal, with normal parties and normal dinners, until my last weekend. Otherwise, there are just too many tears that well up in my eyes.
|
|
|
