Our guests are in shock

When Peggy, Rachel and Ayumi decided to come for spring break, none of us knew about Semana Santa. They are now talking about a shopping trip to Guadalajara this weekend. Exit, stage left!

Click the link in this entry and have a look at our cul-de-sac. The photo with the yellow hibiscus in front is taken from our front porch. Do a little more scrolling through Jeanette's blog and get the bigger story on Semana Santa -- the wonderful faces and happy people. Bruce and Jeanette are such caring, big-hearted, generous people. But so are our other neighbors! Paul and Bobby, Susana and Siro, Chuck and Wendy, Danny and Nancy, Dave and Ally, Keith and Sharon, Charlie and Mona -- all up and down Las Golondrinas: we are blessed beyond measure with the neighbors we have! I'll get some pictures of our gringo friends pretty soon and let you know what a great group we've got here! Right now, I've got to see about hotels in Guadalajara. From the looks of our beaches, they should all be empty!
http://jjinmexico.blogspot.com/2007/04/clogged-cul-de-sac.html

Simply....Life

These are some scenes from the plaza in front of the church in La Penita last night. The mass was going on inside -- a somber commemoration of the betrayal and crucifixion. Yesterday's Mexican TV news was full of Good Friday fulmination and self-flagelatory footage. (How's that for alliteration?) Not only did we have processions of penitents whipping their own bare backs, but lots of Catholic bishops eager to give their opinion on just what they think of the Mexican Parliament voting this last week to legalize abortion. It's like there IS no other news. Humanity is obviously going to hell in a handbasket, and Mexico is leading the way.

But in La Penita last night a quiet kind of happy carnival atmosphere prevailed. Nothing really raucus. A band would play now and then. There were games: foosball and shooting galleries, and places where you could throw three rocks at a line of empty bottles for the privilege of winning -- a beer! But from my observation, there was a lot more interest in blowing bubbles, watching sugar transform to cotton candy, and painting ceramics than in smashing and shooting things.

Life -- creation and creativity -- go on. Outside the church. In the plazas, on the streets and by beach fires and homefires everywhere. No by your leave or any official sanction is required. No one can impose Life, and no one can ever really stop it. That's just the way Life is. All by Itself.

Semana Santa has begun!

Two shots of the beach across the street from us -- in front of Jeanette and Bruce's place. One with friend Jerry from last week. Then the tents arrived last weekend. Haven't had a chance to read Jeanette's blog this week, but I imagine she's had something to say about the situation. Houseguests here. Taking them into PV today. Hilda comes tomorrow. Next group comes Wednesday. Hope THEY get a chance to see some sand on our beach.....maybe not! More from me later. Longing for that hamaca!

Hamacas mean STOP

I think this is my most favorite spot in the whole house. As I look back at one of the first posts on this blog, I realize how much our atrium and verandah have evolved....and how much I have evolved in the process. Evidently my friend thinks so, too. "You look so different!" she said when she saw me. "A whole new you!"

We've got our first houseguests from Orange County, Cynthia and Jerry. Cynthia and I talked Tuesday night before we were to pick them up Wednesday. "You were really wound tight," I said to her when we saw each other face to face. "Tight?" she said, "Tight!!! That was me relaxed! I was finally relaxed. You have no idea! That was me RELAXED!!!!"

OK. I believe that. Good start. I'm hearing echoes of my own voice just a short while ago.

Cynthia has a full time high pressure job selling long distance truck space, plus she does pet sitting for a whole raft of clients, PLUS she's got wonderful, patient Jerry waiting to marry her when she has a space on her calendar. (She's got that scheduled for next December). Cynthia makes Teresa look like a lazy lay-about. Teresa loved it here, "But," she said, "I'd be bored. This place is for retired people. I don't know what you DO all day."

Well, as a friend pointed out when we were instant messaging yesterday (I had mentioned that I thought Jerry and Cynthia had already gone just about everywhere there was to go, and done just about everything there was to do around here -- on foot, twice), Mexico isn't what you DO, it's what you BE. I may need to inscribe that into the concrete walls of our guestroom.

I find myself mentally getting defensive and verbally self-justifying. After almost a decade of racking up over 100,000 miles a year on American Airlines and moving through life with a cell phone attached to one ear, and the past year divesting ourselves of about three-fourths of our worldly possessions, establishing a new home, dealing with some major transitions for Mom and Dad, a few personal health crises thrown in, as well as adjusting to new neighbors, environment and culture....I honestly don't want to DO anything for a while.

Right now the high season is shutting down. During April we'll see most of our neighbors headed north. We've got a little social whirl going on with goodbye get togethers and such. It's not exactly a social whirl -- more like a gentle eddy. We'll be sorry to see them go, but I'm looking forward to seeing just how slow things can get. I've been saving up a few projects for doing while holed up in an air conditioned room out of the sun.

But most of all I plan on following the directions that come with each hammock our friend Hala at Hamaca Maya sells: "Swing. Sleep. Repeat." Let's see if Cynthia can get the hang of that.

CAKE as a rite of passage

Cobbo has officially reached "la tercera edad." That's the Mexican way of referring to people 60 and over. You see centros de la tercera edad -- senior citizens centers -- but rarely have I seen anyone in them. It looks like all the senior citizens are still out on the job! See Jeanette's blog for moreabout this and some rather poignant pictures.

Actually Larry and I have never made a big deal about birthdays, but since his "special day" falls so close to my mom's, and since Mom was right here with us, it was a good excuse to have several parties and invite new neighbors and friends over. So that's what we did -- and it was a lot of fun.

But Larry also had another milestone going on his life. He was saying goodbye to his beloved surf mobile the very same day his personal odometer was rolling over two digits. I suggested to our neighbors, Jeanette and Bruce, that we take a lunch up to the petroglyphs and do some sort of rite of passage in the presence of VERY OLD stones to usher Cobbo into a new phase. They had a better idea, and it involved good food and cake. Sweet inspiration!

So last night, after we got back from taking Mom and Teresa to the airport, Jeanette came over to invite us to watch the sunset from their beach area. Little did Larry know what a great FEAST awaited him. Jeanette had asked about his favorite foods, and then improvised from there. We had heartbreakingly tender steak which didn't challenge Larry's dental work in progress, mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli with "special sauce" like his mother used to make (a combo of catsup and mayonnaise -- that's all), corn pudding, finely chopped cole slaw, and really soft bread. And for dessert white cake with white frosting crowned with six candles.

But this was not just any white cake. This was a tres leches cake, a many-layered confection more than a foot in diameter. The four of us barely made a dent in it. So early this morning, Bruce and Jeanette arrived on the front doorstep, with the cake cut in huge pieces, frozen, ready to transfer to our freezer in the basement. It's there ready for the onslaught of houseguests we're preparing for over the next several weeks.

Tres leches para la tercera edad: A three milk cake to celebrate passage to "the third age." There's nothing like white cake to mark life's important moments!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Teresa at rest. It’s like capturing the image of a hummingbird at a flower. This is my mom’s friend – her housekeeper and all-round helper for about 15 years now. She’s here to accompany Mom when she heads back to Lubbock on Monday.

Teresa moves through life at about mach 2, supporting a husband and extended family by cleaning houses and office buildings and doing laundry every evening for a sleep disorder clinic. This is supposed to be a sort of vacation for her. That was our intention. But Teresa doesn’t really know how to be still. So we find her in the laundry, or behind the ironing board, or in the kitchen just wiping down the counters. Last night I made chiles rellenos, a process-intensive project to say the least, involving frying pans, egg beaters, mixing bowls, food processor, lots of fiddly stuff. Teresa was at my side, and when everything was ready to serve, the kitchen was already sparkling. And when we had eaten….those dishes were gone.

I wish Teresa knew just how valuable her existence is, how we would enjoy her for her companionship alone. She is third generation Texan, but pure mexicana, as she told Chano the other day. She has a heritage of patience, forbearance and hard work. She also has a son in prison, put there by the spiteful and hardly credulous accusations of a fifteen year old girl. But credulous, evidently, to a West Texas judge. When Teresa asked her son if she should go to court with him that morning, should they get a lawyer, he told her, “No, Mom. It’s all a misunderstanding. I’ll get it cleared up and be home for lunch.” She goes to see him every other weekend.

The word respect comes from two latin roots which mean “to look again.” The more I “look again” at Teresa, at Chano painting our house detail by detail, Hilda with her bucket of Fabuloso, Maria across the street washing down the cobblestones and the driveway, the more my respect for them deepens. Precious dear faces, each with a story. I’m so grateful they are here and a part of our story.

It's ART, already

Just a heads up to friends and family before you visit. I've kind of gone nuts over the Virgin of Guadalupe. The interest has been lying dormant for a long time....and I'll write more about how it's sort of blossomed out now in a future blog. I think it has to do with my longstanding affection for Latin America and its people. Lupita and what she stands for just seem intrinsically woven into the fabric of life down here. The celebration we shared with Chano and Hilda last December (see that post and wade through it if you have the time) meant a whole lot to me. It was a real welcome to Mexico. So when you visit you're going to see her, and maybe a whole lot more "sacred" objects.

I was doing some research the last few days, seeing if I could find any of those petroglyph symbols at Alta Vista in my copy of The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. The compiler and author is Barbara Walker, and she sums it up nicely: “The study of sacred objects, past and present, provides insight into the minds that create them and respond to them. Such a study expands the horizons of thought, which may lead to better understanding of the self as well as the rest of humanity.”

Speaking of sacred objects, Larry is selling his surf van this weekend. More on THAT later. It's market day today, and I've got Mom and her friend Teresa rarin' to go shop!