Staying Cool -- Mentally and Physically

I'm waiting. It's almost two weeks since we bought an AC unit for my office. Installing it involves cutting a hole in our six inch thick concrete wall and an iron cage for it outside so no one will steal it. Fernando, where are you??!!

He's working. Every skilled craftsman around here is up to his ears, getting ready for the rainy season. That's why we have a whole album of "Javier's pictures" under "Susan's photo albums." We're letting people up north know the progress of their construction projects.

We also have nine kick butt aluminum three-bladed Copacabana fans that are waiting -- still in their boxes -- to be suspended from our ceilings. They will replace the highly decorative but thoroughly ineffective ceiling fans which we currently have. Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy. The blades on these Walmart specials are literally drooping. When we do turn them on they perform sort of a dismal merry-go-round dance, and go creech, creech, creech and drive us crazy. So until we're better "conditioned" around here, we retire to the two rooms we DO have AC in: the bedroom and the living room. I read, and Larry watches television. So what else is new?

And sometimes we emerge to flag down the raspado man who ventures up our cul-de-sac every day. Shave ice they call it in Hawaii. Delicious is what I call it down here. And coooool.

It happened last night

RAIN!!!!!!! Tons of it. Sheets of it. Buckets of cats and dogs. Whatever. Lots and lots of water. And today: lots and lots of steam. We are living in Walt Disney's jungle boat ride. At least it sounds like it. Every feathered and furry fauna is squawking and screeching with delight. The flora seems pretty happy, too. I can almost hear things starting to grow.

I'm going to retire to our hermetically sealed air conditioned bedroom, dry out, and read the instructions for my scanner. I found the transparencies -- remember "slides?" -- that we took on our trip to Mexico in August 1973. Puerto Vallarta when it was quiet and undeveloped. Susan and Larry looking like two skinny kids. We WERE two skinny kids. Just finished reading Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck. One of the regrets she lists about growing older is that she didn't wear a bikini as much as she could have when she was younger. Yep. Me, too. More on THAT later. (I'm building up quite a little backlog, aren't I?) Later.

At Last...We've Got the Ganas

"No tengo ganas." That means, "I just don't feel like it." Ganas is the Spanish word for inclination, desire, get up and go. Larry and I haven't had a lot of ganas lately. Just getting up and moving through the day has seemed like a major effort. Witness my less than prolific output on this blog. Every system -- computer, bodies, weather, bureaucracy, ocean -- seemed to be operating in ultra slo-mo these last weeks. Heck, even the gas tank in the jeep had water in it, and when we DID get out, it was to sputter and bump around even more erratically than usual.

But yesterday Larry went surfing for the first time in months. The internet surf report SAID five-star waves at Sayulita. You can tell by the photos....they lied. But there was something about getting out and DOING it that seemed to energize us. No, I didn't surf. But I did get up at O dark thirty and go with him. So did Lucy and Sam (more about them later). We all went in search of, if not the perfect wave, at least any wave. We finally settled back at Sayulita, had breakfast at Don Pedro's, and by that time there was enough movement in the water to justify Cobbo getting wet.

And it finally rained yesterday afternoon. Not a lot, but it's like something's broken loose. Last night, Larry ran an AdAware scan on my computer and cleared out a bunch of tracking cookies. Things are gradually unclogging and gaining momentum all around.

So Cobbo's back in the surf this morning. I'm up and blogging, getting ready for Hilda and Chano, and then I'll go watercolor with my friends. We're getting our "ganas" back! I may even scan in "My First Virgin" for your viewing pleasure later today. More about THAT later! (Ok, ok. It's a watercolor of Guadalupe. I think I'm doing a series.....) Hasta la bye bye for now!

A Stroll Around La Zona

Posting pictures to this blog seems to take a really long time, so I've been uploading some of the shots I've taken to my "Collection" page on shutterfly.com. Click on the link to the left labeled "Susan's Photo Albums." The most recent album includes some shots I took while just walking around the neighborhood here. At first I put the names of our neighbors on the houses, but thought better of it!

Attaching names to houses does work sometime, though. We had a nice surprise Saturday evening. Our favorite surfing veterinarian from San Onofre, Doug Coward, his wife Nancy, her sister and one of Doug's staff showed up at our front gate! Their whole office is down enjoying Costa Azul, a resort to the south of us in San Francisco (San Pancho). They had a few hours free and thought they'd explore Guayabitos. They recognized our house from the description and pictures I've posted here. Hooray! Great spending a half hour with them. Next time stay a little longer!

Warp and woof....and prayer

When a Huichol woman begins to weave, she takes the hand loom from her back and ties it to a tree branch. With one end in the tree and one end anchored in her lap, she sets long strong warp threads. On these, line by line, the pattern of her piece emerges.

Stacy Schaefer’s To Think with a Good Heart explores the world of wixarika women and their weaving. She paraphrases the weaver, Gabriela: “[The loom] is life. When I want to weave and I tie the loom up above [to a tree], my life is also tied up to the sky.”

Anchored in the sky. Held taut between earth and heaven with long strong cords. The pattern of a life waiting to be woven across the strings. Could this be my life?

The Hebrew prophet Hosea quotes the God of Israel caring for Her people: “I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love.” Cords of a man. The original Hebrew chebel can mean umbilical cord. Following that cord I find Mother God.

Babies in rebozos, outside of the womb yet still at rest. My hamaca cradle swings on the verandah. Is it possible that I am held in such closeness to my Mother God?

Another woman weaver, Yolanda, speaks: “You have to want to learn weaving. You have to think that the work you are doing was done by Takutsi Nakawe [Grandmother Goddess of Growth and Creation]. You have to ask for these thoughts.”

What are my thoughts? Where do they come from? Do I trust the great Mistress of Weavers enough to cast the warp and woof of my life into Her care? Do I hang my loom in the sky? Or shall I selfishly hold my crude instrument close to the ground, anchored on a handy stone where I can closely inspect every fiber, agonize over each perceived irregularity, stain the work with tears, sweat, and dirt?

Takutsi Nakawe, this name is new to me, but Your love I’ve known forever. My loom is in Your hands. I am throwing it way up to the sky – hooking it on the stars. I trust You to secure each knot, choose every thread, and pick a pallet of colors that will make my life sing. Quiet grays. Raucous reds. It’s Your choice. The divine science of my being – that design of Yours which has conceived me and everyone else in one big web of Life -- is consistent, integrity intact No seams. No rips. No tears. Only underlying strength and structure. You know what You’re doing -- the purpose for which I am being fashioned, my own unique pattern. You won’t find me second guessing.

Now, please make me flexible, pliable, like one of those rebozos from Santa Maria. Eight feet long and three feet wide they can be, yet they fall through a wedding band like water through a pipe. Let me be that fluid. And let me keep these thoughts – Your thoughts – embedded on the loom I carry on my back. Your wixirika weaver, Gabriela has it right about the work: “You have to remain careful, thinking all of your life.” Amen.

Cocina con Fusion!

Here's an e-mail I got last night from friend, Linda Youcha -- Emily's mom from Emily and Luke's blog. Boo hoo. Looks like we'll have to wait on a good Thai dinner!

"Hi guys,I am realllly sorrry, but we are going to have to call off the dinner for sat. night here. We have no water! A guy came tonight to check the bomba, pump but doesnt know if he can fix it tomorrow or not......So here I sit with a kitchen full of dirty dishes! I have been cooking most of the day,,,,making fresh coconut milk from scratch, mango lime sorbet from grated limes and fresh lime juice, and fresh mangoes,,,,,just getting ready to skin and debone the chicken for the musman curry chicken, using that wonderful fresh coconut milk I just made (thick and thin)....but cant do it now.. It is best to make a day ahead.....so, now even if he came tomrrow to fix the pump, our kitchen and house would be a disaster and we would be behind schedule with all the cleaning up to do and cooking..."

Thai cooking and Mexican cooking share so many of the same ingredients: rice, coconut, coconut milk, mangos, limes, jalapeno and serrano chiles, cinnamon, cilantro, fish, fish, fish, shrimp and more fish, any number of fresh veggies. Other Thai ingredients that are here for the picking, if one were so inclined (most Mexicans are not) are lemon grass, mint, turmeric, ginger. It's all in how and IF you put them together! Are we drooling yet?

Mango Haiku

My friend Michelle Karlskind recommended The Haiku Apprentice: Memoirs of Writing Poetry in Japan. It's written by Abigail Friedman, a U.S. diplomat stationed in Tokyo. It seems an odd book for me to be reading in Mexico, but Abigail found in haiku a means for synthesizing moments and personal feelings in the face of a foreign culture. I would classify it not only as a "how to" book, but a spiritual autobiography as well. I've put a link to it in the column to the left.

Haiku has rules -- which people who "do" it feel free to ignore. And of course "doing it" in Japanese is somewhat different than in English, because in Japanese you get the visual impact of the symbols, as well as the written text. But basically in English you aim for a 5-7-5 syllable pattern. Only seventeen syllables! Every one of them should count!

Abigail's book has inspired me to take a stab at haiku. My friend Bettye Givens tried to strong arm a bunch of Lubbock, Texans, to give it a try a year ago a celebration for my niece's graduation. I just didn't get it then. Neither did most of us. But I think I'm sort of opening up to the whole concept. Thanks Michelle, Abigail and Bettye. For you: here are some Mexican (i.e. I wrote them in Mexico) haiku of the season:

Baby yellow mangos
Splattered open on the rocks –
Ripe sunshine with seeds.

Rusty red leaf-scythes
Protect mango civilians.
Green shoots. New troops.

Overripe fruit bombs
Cluster ready to drop.
Watch out below!

Mangos, bananas
cinnamon and vanilla --
Liquid pumpkin pie.

The month of June
Suspended like a mango
Waiting for the rain

Roadside seduction:
Wood crates of baby mangos.
Take us home with you!