Transitions 2

Autumn in Mexico

Welcome back to Gringado, where we hope to once again enlighten and entertain you with our adventures and observations in Mexico.

We have been back in San Miguel for a whole week, and it is as if we never left.

The sky is still blue as a dagger, the roof dogs greet us from every corner, happy to annoy us once again, and the cobblestones are littered with bougainvillea blossoms.

This year we are taking 'The Big Leap,' and are planning to stay in Mexico indefinitely (yikes!) 

So after selling most of our stuff and  cramming the rest into a 10X10 storage space, we packed our essentials into several overstuffed worn suitcases. Tubes of paint, canvases, yoga mat, thick soled shoes, and of course a mind boggling amount of beer  equipment, which to me could have easily passed for suspicious bomb making supplies. But as usual the customs guy just grinned with amusement. Home made cerveza??? ¡Que bueno!  And only then could I breathe easily and take the Mexican air into my lungs- that earthy, smoky, early morning desert air, and realize that we have finally done it. 

We have crossed over to the other side. 

Whatever that means. 

We will try to keep you posted.

Meanwhile, a prose poem, written after the flight...

Some Personal Items May Have Shifted During Flight

Some personal items may have shifted during flight,

during the time that your wheels left the ground

and you became suspended in a place

between the one you have grown tired of

and the one that you fear but must go towards.

It could be that your heart is not where you left it,

It may be jostled and nudged into a far corner or split open

From the pressure of the flight.

Open the overhead bin carefully, lest the loose ends of your life

find a foothold in someone else's luggage.

Lest you accidentally grab someone else's stories by mistake,

and forever lose your own, which have taken so long to collect.

Some items may have shifted during flight.

Perhaps your personal bits of ephemera

have been tossed and unsettled from unforeseen turbulence

and what you once held dear is only so much fluff in the wind.

You had best check the contents of your luggage

to see if it is lighter or heavier than you remember.

If it is the latter then be sure to toss out a few unnecessary items

so that you will have space for new ones.

If it is the former then lucky you, you may proceed with joy.

Some personal items may have shifted during flight.

Your memories, for instance, or your fear of death.

Worries and concerns may be lost and unfounded. 

It could be that your neatly organized opinions

have turned over or smashed into shards of broken glass

Perhaps you open your suitcase to discover

that all that has meaning is in fact invisible,

transparent as a ghost.

Syllables may have been added to your name

And your reflection might be of someone you hardly recognize

In the hollow space where you kept your fear

you may now find fragments of hope,

And perhaps few twinges of excitement,

And one lone crazy  red sock.

Some personal items - your agenda, your state of mind,

may be altered beyond recognition

as you find yourself disembarking

on a new land that feels strangely familiar

yet foreboding all at once.

Perhaps the sequence of things seems a little scrambled.

Suddenly there is no longer a forward or a backward, 
Only this: A gentle expansion and contraction,

the simple tug and pull of muscle and desire,

pulsing to a beat so universal, so primal,

it becomes your own simple heart beating

to a rhythm you recall 
from a time before wings.

-Susan Dorf

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