For the last five months, I have had the privilege of living in a colonial village in the highlands of central Mexico. Deferring the astronomical cost of heating oil for my home in Maine, made possible this journey south of the border. It has become far more than escaping the wrath of an elongated snow event, but an unexpected reevaluation of priorities and a much needed reaffirmation of life.
One of the things that I have loved about being in San Miguel de Allende is the often progressive, liberal attitudes of not only many expats but natives alike; the no holds barred honesty they imbue, particularly the locals, and the exuberant celebrations of both life and death – the enviable weeding out of false fronts and that of which is not necessarily important in order to focus on what is real – both joyous and painful.
I have found great pleasure in stumbling into small tiendas selling anything from paper products to piñata candy to fly swatters that also have makeshift tables sporting "Pinche Bush" buttons and pins. "Impeach Bush?" I would ask, incredulously. "Si!" they'd respond as if I had asked if an armadillo sh*ts in the desert.
The Friday before Easter was the annual Judas Burnings in the Centro jardin. Hundreds showed up and we were treated to life-sized effigies of some of the most despised persons on earth, strung up and systematically blown up with firecrackers and mini bombs scattering papier mache body parts across the ancient cobbled streets. Needless to say, the obliteration of the Bush and Cheney effigies got the loudest howls and applause of all the other traitors blown to smithereens. Somehow, in my gentle "reaffirmation of life" I found this rather endearing.
Politics aside, I have found that when I've let my defenses down, reluctantly back-seated my political frustrations and anger, I have opened myself up to life experiences however fleeting, that have had tremendous impact on my days and more than likely, my future as well. When the sun sets, there are hopes and dreams and desires that secretly we carry to bed with us and that have absolutely nothing to do with elections or misunderstood religions or geographical borders. Perhaps this is when personal survival mode kicks in, but whatever it is, it rounds us out, I think, balances the incongruities of life, and gives us a surprising glimpse into all that is being human. It does not mean we are uncaring or unaware. It means only that in order to fully process we have to be honest with ourselves.
In the jardin and on a few occasions, I ran into a tiny girl, all of nine or ten, working a dozen hours a day selling fabric dolls from a garbage bag. She was bright, alive and always smiling, but more so, cold and tired and hauling more than a trash bag of dolls, but the weight of the world. When she would see me she'd run toward, remember my name with a grin, asking for nothing other than the very miracle that I would remember her name and say it out loud. We gave Veronica loaves of cornbread, a warm sweater on a cold night, a bit of chocolate. She was a child. And then she disappeared.
Selfishly, it made things clearer. Sometimes the tragedies of others make our lives all the more transparent and our angst and scars, smaller and less tender.
The reaffirmation came again in the meeting and interaction with a young teen who had been taken from her family after her mother had doused her with lighter fluid and set on fire her face and chest. After multiple surgeries to her face, mouth and throat, this beautiful young woman offers nothing but smiles and hugs; she holds tight to her breast a stranger, even when I am unsure as to what she is clinging, but I do know that she is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit – life itself – and somehow she knows that I love and admire her, and as good fortune would have it, she returns this gift to me. She'll make it. Many do not.
Alongside these images of what is real and often painful, and at the same time as I learned of the suicide of one of my closest friends, entered an old friend from long ago who just happened to be living in this village with her family. This reconnection has only confirmed that hand in hand with our darkest hours of questioning, comes these unexpected gifts of light that remind us that we are not walking this path alone – there are others who want to join us on the journey.
The older I get I realize that living this life is nothing more than a series of leaps of faith. And while I am more skeptical to make these leaps, I continue to jump, and though some of the connections with old friends and new, as well as strangers, are frightening because we expose our vulnerable selves in ways that open us to being hurt all over again, in the long run I have found, and here in Mexico, these confirmations of life whether lasting or fleeting, with small hands gently shape us into being more accepting, alive and hopefully, grateful for all of those who pass through.
For Purple Leaf.
A native Californian, Jan Baumgartner is a freelance writer currently living in Maine. Her background includes scriptwriting, comedy writing for the Northern California Emmy Awards, and travel writing for The New York Times. She has worked as a grant writer for the non-profit sector in the fields of academia, AIDS, and wildlife conservation and anti-poaching for NGO's in the U.S. and Africa. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous online and print publications in the U.S. and internationally, including the NYT, Bangor Daily News, SCOOP New Zealand, Wolf Moon Journal, Media for Freedom Nepal, and Banderas News in Mexico. She's finishing a memoir about her husband's death from ALS and how travels in Africa became one of her greatest sources of inspiration and hope. She is a Managing Editor for OpEdNews.
We need more of this. Otherwise we can get into depression. But..
'They say the seeds of what we will do are in all of us, but it always seemed to me that in those who make jokes in life the seeds are covered with better soil and with a higher grade of manure'
E. Heminway. The Movable Feast
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Mark Sashine (51 articles, 19 quicklinks, 244 diaries, 3455 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 12:42:07 PM
OK, that's it, I'm getting a ticket for San Miguel de Allende.
"Pinche Bush", haha, I love it! Of course, when I travel south of the border, I will have to wear my International American Travelers' Shirt, (cafepress.com) which proclaims in the six official UN languages, "Pido disculpas porque mi presidente es un idiota. No vote por el." (I'm sorry my president is an idiot. I didn't vote for him.) I dyed it pink, for Code Pink days. In airports, I have received lots of comments in languages I couldn't understand - but the foreign words were translated for me with a "thumbs up", a grin, and sometimes even a hug! I mailed the shirt across the country so my daughter could borrow it for her trip to Europe, for "protection." Ah-h-h-h, that George, his actions have inspired an abundance of cross-cultural, language-barrier-transcendant, global, camaraderie, at least he gets credit for that! (Wouldn't it be funny if he ended up being the inspiration for world peace?)
Great piece, Jan, I look forward to more! Keep jumpin'! (Ribbet!)
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Meryl Ann Butler (43 articles, 42 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 345 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 12:49:30 PM
with all the despair and attention to the dread....
....this gift we each have been given, to walk in this garden, is that we are not alone. If we would only notice. As you have, and as usual, so eloquently.
As Mr. Sashine states, we need more of this. It is our task to remember that love wins. How simple to realize. How difficult to do.
Applause. Thanx Jan.
peace
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mikel paul (10 articles, 1 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 395 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 4:34:00 PM
are with strangers, had me recalling my wonderful experiences south of the border. I spent 3 months on a bicycle riding the peripheral of Mexico in 1995 after a car accident killed a lady-friend of mine.
I too was given a lot of food and shelter by strangers who had very little to share during troubling times facing the Mexican people.
I have lived in China the past 4.5 years teaching English to university students who come from villages similar to what you would find in Mexico, and am treated with the same warmth of heart by these lovely souls.
Only in my bicycle travels across the US was I spit upon, forced off the road by truckers, and heard rude remarks about my endeavor. Which makes me wonder about the intelligence of the average American.
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Stanimal (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 493 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 4:56:13 PM
Thank you to all above. I can't tell you how much it warms my heart to read these comments. An OEN reader once said to me, "continue to write sweet." At first I wasn't sure what that meant and felt I couldn't just "write sweet"- there were things I wanted to say that were anything but. However, the more I thought of his words, I understood what he was saying. Sometimes we just need a break and a gentle reminder that in all the chaos and heartbreak in this world, there are real moments of joy and connection and we have to let these truths in -- in order to balance all the rest. Thank you!
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Jan Baumgartner (52 articles, 136 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 249 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 5:53:07 PM
It warms my heart to read about your stay in Mexico and how it has affected you. I've been living in Mexico for ten years. It took about two years to calm down and recover from a life of over-stimulation. You beautifully describe what happens when we slow down. Congratulations on such wonderful writing.
Caren Cross
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caren cross (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Friday, May 16, 2008 at 8:31:27 PM
I don't know why you'd have astronomical heating bills in Maine, what with "global warming" and all, but my question is how many brutal, violent, communist dictators were burned in effigy at this anti-American orgy you attended in Mexico? You get all excited when the leaders of the FREE world are burned in effigy, yet no mention at all of brutal, violent communist dictators burned in effigy?
....and why do the Mexicans hate Bush/Cheney so much? Because they don't want to let the gangsters sneak into America illegally with their heroin? Come on, we all know that the productive, civilized Mexicans take the legal route, and no one is opposed to that. Is that really too much to ask?
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shielah jones (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 72 comments)
on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 8:27:35 AM
I did not see any anti- american orgy mentioned in Jan's article. As for the communist dictators, ahem- there were only three so far-Stalin, Mao and Castro, others even if leftist were not communists. BTW, the rightists were much more: Truchilio, Duvalie, Pinochet, Bolivian, Columbian, Argentinian juntas,Greek Junta, you name it.
And as for Bussh/ Cheney, I would advise to read my ' Species 8472' to see how they 'help' the productive Mexicans.
won't bother to respond too much to your misplaced anger or what appears to be a reluctance to find certain joys or a sense of peace or god forbid, irony in life. Sad, that with all else that was mentioned in this short essay and the fact that perhaps another human being or beings were enjoying all of this sweet life, your bitterness could only focus on one small passage which I believe, you blew way out of proportion in context with all that was expressed. What a shame, life is too short.
And Mark, thank you. I am so grateful that I walk this life without blinders on and am able to see the light along with the shadows.
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Jan Baumgartner (52 articles, 136 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 249 comments)
on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 9:49:58 AM
Please excuse me for getting off your Mexico subject, but
in response to an earlier post, can anyone please name a country that has followed Karl Marx's version of what Communism is where everyone is treated as an equal?
China under Mao and the USSR under Lenin-Stalin were NOT Communist, they were oligarchy's. N. Korea, is a dictatorship as is Cuba.
The US is NOT a democracy, it is a republic, and with career politicians is also an oligarchy, which the Constitution framers didn't anticipate.
Presently we are no longer a republic, but a dictatorship with Bu$h & Co having made the balance of power in Congress irrelevant. Much of the judicial has signed onto the Bu$h doctrine, negating its role as oversight too.
And if you support what the Bu$h cabal is doing in the world, why are you being a chicken-hawk still in the US, and not in Iraq or Afghanistan where the War Of Terror is?
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Stanimal (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 17 diaries, 493 comments)
on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 4:20:53 PM
Wonderful essay Jan.Expressing how you took a leap of faith and experienced a shift in your spirit, in your thinking and how to see things differently. Isn’t that the point of growth? Some of the comments you received were interesting. I read your essay as your personal journey and one of personal growth. Many are so angry in this country, for good reason, and I believe they read it with a political eye. So be it, but my eyes read an essay about a woman that experienced a culture and it's people and saw herself in them and from that, connected and grew a little stronger. I hope we all have those opportunities. Thanks Jan.
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James Callner (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 7 comments)
on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 9:12:10 PM
Nearly all who responded here did understand what this piece was about - they got it - interpreted it with like eyes, and for that I am very grateful. While this piece was from the heart and about the human spirit and its resilience, there is a political factor involved in the sense that we must try to accept that we are all one, borders are invisible, and in many ways, meaningless in a world where all of us need compassion and understanding and open hearts. We have to stop seeing others as different or foreign and focus on our commonalities as human beings. At the end of the day, it's all we have.
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Jan Baumgartner (52 articles, 136 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 249 comments)
on Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 1:35:08 AM
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