Washing a Chicken

In economic melt-down times when everything seems out of control, it can be a relief to focus on daily details that make a difference in the quality of life. Like this guy attending to the personal hygiene of his chicken. Cleanliness is next to godliness, right? In La Colonia, it's also next to the highway.

Lots of good bye events, "last time" for whatever-s, and fond farewells these days. Gringos headed north, even though I hear there's still snow on the ground where a lot of these people are headed. I made some very good friends of some incredibly interesting people this last season. La Penita has become a place for writers, artists and creative types from the frozen latitudes to come down, thaw out and live cheaply over the winter. My friend Lupita and her husband Angus (yes, he's from Scotland) bought a bungalow hotel (kitchens included in each room). The tall wall that surrounds it hides a sweet little swimming pool, palapa-covered patio, and about eight small units. Renters pay one hundred pesos a night for pretty basic but extremely clean and more than adequate accomodations. Perfect for, to take one example, my new friend Becky who lives most of the year in a yurt in northern Idaho. Check out her book.

Today is Palm Sunday and the beginning of Semana Santa when most of Guadalajara comes to Rincon de Guayabitos to enjoy the beaches. I for one am headed to Guadalajara with a friend to enjoy five days of quiet. If there's internet I'll blog. Then I can tell you about our sailing trip on a 43 foot catamaran last Sunday, the exhibition at Xaltemba featuring surfboards as art -- all shaped by Cobbo. And -- just got a call from travelling companion. Her meeting this morning has been cancelled! She's going to be ready to go four hours early! Yikes. Adios! Hasta the next time.

Coming soon -- Poolside Yoga in Guayabitos!

Swaying palms, fishing boats and lots of early morning bird sounds. Ah, yes. And there's also Agneta. Now you can join the early morning yoga stretch sessions for beginners to intermediates that we've been having this season down on our pool deck. We'll have our last time together tomorrow morning before most everyone leaves for the season. But before Agneta heads north, we got it all on tape. The DVD's should be available soon, so look for a link. I'll keep you posted! (And no, that's not me holding the cue cards. I'm taking the picture!)

More to Mexico than you can imagine

My mom tells me her friends constantly ask her, "Are Larry and Susan still down there? How about all that violence?" In response, let me share this link. There is a LOT going on down here that you never hear about in the States.

Virgin Territory -- Introduction

Hooray! Two of my paintings have sold! The Face in the Crowd at Chichicastenango remains on display at Xaltemba, and perhaps may also find a home before the show closes on the 15th of this month. Today is market day, and I'm headed over in a few minutes to check it out.

In the meantime, I've been writing more on Virgin Territory. I had another reading last week, and those attending were enthusiastic. Also, their feedback was invaluable. I'm coming to appreciate the communal nature of creativity. Raise the rate of circulation and the work itself is invigorated. I've decided to start posting some of the chapters here on the blog. Here's the introduction --

In late 2006, my husband and I moved to the Pacific Coast of Mexico just north of Puerto Vallarta, having sold practically everything we owned in the United States. It was a decision made in a moment of either inspiration or sheer madness, but we have had not one regret. Our new home is in a rural area, though visions of a glitzy “Riviera Nayarit” dance in the heads of the governor and local movers and shakers. It hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps with the current economic meltdown, paradise may be safe for a while longer.

For me, like thousands of other gringos, Mexico these days represents a new beginning. It is definitely “virgin territory” in that sense. But our new beginnings are planted in the dust of ancient civilizations. Vestiges of those who have been here before remain in various forms and practices. Most notable of all is Our Lady of Guadalupe, “Goddess of the Americas.” She is an indigenous icon with origins that stretch back thousands of years, and her presence and influence continue to grow stronger both north and south of Mexico’s borders. Clothed with the sun, heavy with child, she graces more pickup windshields, notebook covers and shopping bags than she does church altars. Though appropriated by the Catholic Church, she transcends any religious denomination. She may very well be the reason women in particular feel nurtured and protected in a country that is so completely “other” from its neighbors to the north.

Christianity, in general, has not dealt well with the Virgin Mary. It’s sort of been “thanks for the baby, lady, now go get lost.” Many Protestants look on her with downright suspicion, like adoptive parents fearful of the claims of a teenaged birth mother. But in Mexico the Virgin, La Madrecita, is honored as no other place on earth. On December 11, pilgrims converge on the second-most visited Catholic site in the world, the Shrine of Guadalupe. The number grows exponentially each year. This past year there were over five million. They come to “watch” with her on the day traditionally celebrated as the anniversary of her appearance to Juan Diego on the hillside of Tepeyac outside of present day Mexico City. Smaller crowds, no less fervent, gather in other parts of the Americas from Anchorage to Tierra del Fuego. Where I live now, it’s celebrated in tiny, makeshift shrines in the dirt streets of La Colonia and La Penita – and it is celebrated exuberantly in Technicolor and surround-sound. Evidently Guadalupe loves fireworks.

“We’re looking for Christmas lights,” my Canadian neighbor says, speaking in the clipped, exact tones of her native South Africa. “White ones that don’t flash.” We’ve met in the tianguis, the Thursday market in La Peñita on the American Thanksgiving Day. “Tupperware Alley” is what gringos call the extension of the market which stretches away from the Indian handwork and colorful displays in the main plaza. Here vendors spread the more mundane items that are needed on a daily basis – plastic dishes, clothes pins, pirated DVD’s, patent leather sandals, some of the most formidable padded bras I’ve ever seen, and now, Christmas decorations. There is not a white light to be found. Guadalupe likes color, and preferably color that flashes.

Very shortly after we moved to Mexico, both my parents had major health crises. My mother sent my sisters and me notes she’d made for obituaries -- hers and dad’s. My father’s ran on for pages; hers was no more than a paragraph. Mom, who had always been there. Dad, who even when physically present was mentally preoccupied with something other than the child before him. I received the notes when I opened my email the morning after the night I’d spent at a velada for Guadalupe, an all night watch which I’d left at midnight. Scrolling through the pdf attachment written in my mother’s still strong and legible hand, I felt vindicated for our move to Mexico. Here I was in a country that honored La Madre, that told and retold her story, celebrated her appearance each year with hot chocolate and tamales and fireworks at two in the morning. Mothers matter in Mexico, and Guadalupe is the archetype.

Not that Guadalupe is the only virgin in Mexico. Oh, no. She appears in many forms and places, a great variety of virgins – the one at Talpa, at Zapopan, as well as others. The dust of Mexico is heavy with stories of how and when she’s graced humanity with her presence. In the New World, it is usually in a field, usually to a peasant farmer, and usually the virgin asks for a shrine to be built so the indigenous population can convert their pagan worship to a more institutional form. Telling other people how they should pray is a time-honored tradition that continues alive and well today.

And yet there is a growing tendency to refuse religion in a box, to resist having one’s spiritual content accounted for with the detail of Nutrition Facts on the back of a cereal carton. Perhaps this is why Guadalupe’s influence is growing. More than any other icon, she epitomizes a popular religiosity unconfined to any institution. An unmediated experience of divinity is no longer the privilege of an ordained few or of a specific gender. And Guadalupe isn’t just for Hispanics and Catholics any more. She is a current symbol of an ancient ethos, a touchstone for what is colorful, primitive, and free-flowing.

In 1810, Mexico’s Father Hidalgo raised a flag emblazoned with the Virgin of Guadalupe to encourage rebellion of the indigenous classes against the despotism of the ruling Spanish. Guadalupe still symbolizes resistance to “the man.” Her image has been appropriated for better or worse by street gangs in the States and narco-traficantes plying their trade across borders. But she also provides a rallying point for creative rebellion. For anyone at odds with engrained church doctrine and tradition of any denomination, she offers new mental and spiritual landscapes to explore. For the hurt or wounded, the mentally, physically or spiritually abused, she reflects an image that is unbroken, unharmed and intact. And for anyone who longs to claim a unique identity and an intrinsic value above and beyond conventional roles and relationships, the Virgin embodies a one-in-herself-ness, that says “YOU are complete and worthy right now, just the way you are and just because you are.”

For anyone who longs to reclaim their own inner virgin, I dedicate these pages.

Women Who Watch

As I promised -- Here are the three paintings I plan on putting in the opening this coming Sunday at Xaltemba Restaurant and Gallery.

"The Virgin on the Jetty" -- oil on canvas 11" x 14" (28cm x 36cm)

La Veladora -- Keeping Watch -- mixed media 12-1/2" x 15-3/4" (32cm x 40cm)

Face in the Crowd at Chichicastenango "14-1/2" x 18-1/2" (37cm x 47cm)

And here is the accompanying narrative:

The series “Women Who Watch” evolved from observing those who are present but often unnoticed –

The Mayan flower seller, sits hunched on the steps of the church at Chichicastenango, watching the colorful mayhem of market day. Who looks into her face when her flowers are so vibrant, her clothing so arresting?

A velador is a night watchman, but veladora is the word for “nightstand,” a piece of furniture that often goes as unnoticed as the prayerful constancy of the woman who waits alone, thinking of child, husband or friends absent from her life. Is she the watcher – or the watched over? The quotation is a Spanish translation from Mary Baker Eddy.

The Virgin on the jetty at Guayabitos has her back to the tourists, but engraved beneath her feet is a misspelled assurance of protection for the fishermen and sailors who leave Jaltemba Bay. She is cemented there, assaulted by sea spray and splotched by pelican poop – keeping watch.

Zack and Friends

I'll answer the question before it's even asked. Cody has a really short haircut right now and is getting special treatment for an itchy condition. So he's not doing spa trips at present. Instead he's getting a bath twice weekly with something that smells antiseptic. But fuzzy furry Zack gets a day out once every three weeks. Couldn't resist taking this photo with him and his friends and putting in a plug for friend Melanie's place in Lo de Marcos. It's doggy day camp and they love it. Cody will be back soon with his playmates.

Travels with Susan -- North, South and Center

This looks like a great big time machine, doesn't it? I'm not sure what it's called, but it shares part of the plaza in front of the Shrine of Guadalupe. It depicts all sorts of ways to keep track of time. I'm putting it here as an acknowledgement that I have indeed let time get away from me. But I'm ready to remedy that right about . . . now:

I started traveling after Christmas, mostly short trips like up to San Sebastian and Mascota in the mountains back of Puerto Vallarta, into PV itself for a few days at a friend's time share (ah, the good life!), up to the Four Seasons at Punta Mita to visit friends staying there (ah, the very good life!), and another trip to Tepic to introduce more friends to that great vegetarian restaurant, Quetzalcoatl.

There was also a recent trip north to Lubbock to check in with my Mom and Dad. That was a five day trip going and coming, as I drove to Phoenix with a friend and did Lubbock as an airplane side trip. Won’t be doing THAT too often! But Ann and I had no trouble at all with our trip through “tierra caliente,” which is what the Mexicans call the Sinaloa corridor along the Pacific Coast from Mazatlán to Nogales that's been in the news so much lately. There were lots of checkpoints and the occasional Mercedes or Suburban with dark windows and no license tags whizzing by. And there was that hotel in Los Mochis with a machine-gun-toting uniformed guard on every balcony. No I don’t know who they were or what was going on, but we decided to find some place else to stay. Nobody bothered with two middle-aged white ladies in a Toyota RAV4. We’d bought some apples for the trip and kept lying to the agricultural inspection guys about not carrying fruit or vegetables. After about the third time I didn’t even break a sweat. We might be ready for some big time smuggling sometime in the future, but don’t bet on it.

I spent several days in Mexico City right after the first of the year. My time there was jampacked, thanks to my friend Jorge, his family and friends.

Jorge and his wife Irma are friends of mine from San Francisco. Irma was back home, but Jorge was in town visiting some of his five brothers and five sisters. Sounds like my mom's family!

My first evening in town, his brother Wilfrido joined us and accompanied us to the northern part of the city to introduce us to Wilfrido's friend, Horacio, an expert on the history of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Horacio's office, tucked back into a rabbit warren of rooms filled with relics and treasures, is stuffed to the rafters with memorabilia from his studies and writing.

He is not only an expert on Guadalupe, but on popular religiosity and traditions throughout the world. Horacio has written three books about the legend of Guadalupe, its origins and its significance. He received a gold medal and citation from the Pope for his work separating fact from fiction about the history of Juan Diego and his encounter on the hill of Tepeyac. OK, so the fiction prevails in popular thought. I'll tell you more in Virgin Territory. I AM still working on my book.

Horacio, was very generous with his time, and it was the wee small hours of the morning when we arrived at Armida's house far to the south of the city. Happily there isn't as much traffic in the federal district at one in the morning!

The next day I explored the Dolores Olmedo Museum with Pimplo, another friend of Jorge's family. It is near Xochimilco, only a short distance from where I was staying.

A haven, an oasis, a paradise -- I don't know how to describe this 400 year old hacienda and former home of one of Diego Rivera's last lovers. She was more than his lover. She was his patron who collected his work and then converted her home to a museum to house it and some of the work of two other women in his life, Angelina Belhoff and Frida Kahlo. There are also temporary exhibits featuring current artists, and an extensive exhibit of Mexican popular and folk art. One visit is practically the equivalent of a semester at an art institute.

So, fired up and inspired, on my last full day Jorge and I painted, I with borrowed canvas, brushes, and acrylic paint. Painting seems to be the primary Perez family passtime. Another family friend who I never knew by any name other than "maestro," maintains a workshop/studio, which is filled mainly with work from Jorge and his sisters.

Armida collected us late in the afternoon, and the three of us headed north of the city once more, this time to visit Guadalupe’s basilica. I wanted to see the new one, as one whole chapter of Virgin Territory consists of my visiting the old one back in 1957 when I was eight years old. I figured there might have been a few changes. There were. Lots more scaffolding in and around the old shrine. But the new yurt-shaped basilica was worth the visit, and like I say, more about that in the book.


Traversing the city southward once more, Jorge wanted one last visit to the Zócalo, the main plaza of the Federal District.

It was magic, the last hurrah of the holiday season before all the decorations come down and the lights go out. A good place to spend my last evening in the heart of Mexico.