Imágenes

A beautiful technique, that I always forget to do, is one I learned from Lynda Barry. When I do remember to do it, it's magic. At the end of the night, write 10 images from the day. It's important to write quickly, without editing, and without worrying about if they're good, great, or especially descriptive. It's practice in creating word pictures that make writing rich.

What I also love about this technique is it becomes a beautiful journal. The images take you right back. The first is a list I made in Oaxaca, two years ago, and the second I wrote in Albuquerque, just now.

• Soledad on a vintage post card, gold and diamonds, black dress
• Wild white lilies in the hand of the woman selling them to me as I ate entomatadas
• Band in the grandstand, white shirts and tubas
• Trays balancing on the heads of sturdy embroidered bodies
• Animal masks made of painted wood. Blue leopard, yellow spots
• Black high heels, wet cobblestones
• Krishna on the blue wall of "Casa del Angel"
• Heavy rain drops on glass ceiling, seen from savasana
• Pale orange squash blossoms, warm bread, green butter thick with herbs
• Silhouette of man, glow of glass lantern, courtyard, door shuts

• Puffy sacks under eyes in the mirror, me looking back
• Long brown hair of patient, barrette made of tape
• Dried scab on c-shaped scar, head on crooked pillow
• White gait belt around waist, hug goodbye
• Crumbs of scrambled egg roll down hospital gown
• Stitches on amputated leg of black man, white sheets
• Long handled shoe horn laying on my desk
• Guadalupe made of tiles, bricks in courtyard, stacked wood.
• Red umbrella, blue sky, here alone.
• Rusty white chair, spiral arms, sits in sun

Papel Picado

The memory of Egypt inspired little images, fragments of travel, reflections on language as I walked back from Sahara. I love the fluttering of images and insights that happen when walking.


When my nephew David was around four he had just learned about Spanish and seemed fascinated that there was a language other than his own. We were at Kingsland Bay, busy with a project of gathering dried seaweed on the rocks and dipping it in the water, when a Canadian couple drifted by on their sailboat. Over the water we could hear the foreign sound of their French conversation. David went still and stared as the boat passed. Then he turned and whispered in my ear "They don't talk regular like us, they talk Spanish."

Once, when I was in Paris, someone stopped me on the street to ask for directions and I was just delighted to be mistaken for being Parisian. Then later at a café, I used my high school French to order what I thought I was a drink and a pastry. When the waitress came back with two drinks and a funny look, I held my head high and sipped both of my beverages with an air of "Well this is how we do it in my country."

There was Ikeda-Sensei, in Japan, who told me it was only in English that she could admit that she didn't get up early to make breakfast for her husband who left for work before her. She said that, due to her generation and culture, her lips couldn't physically form the words in Japanese. On the other hand, there was Sato-Sensei who, when introducing me to his middle school class, translated my response to a student's question, "Do you have husband?" with the more modern day, "SHE TOO BUSY TO MARRY!"

Flora y Fauna

Sometimes, even when I know better, I'm convinced that when I want to get writing done, the thing to do is to focus, think, hammer away at it. When I can catch myself falling into that pattern, I know it's a cue to step away for a bit.

It happened just a little while ago, so I got up and walked from the Fine Arts library down Central Avenue to Sahara, for felafel and black tea with mint. I smiled when I approached Sahara and the silhouette of a camel and a sunset painted on the side of the building brought back an old memory of Egypt.

The first trip I took abroad was to Egypt, and was born from a commitment, after nearly dying in a fire, to really start living. I tried so many new things in Egypt, and one of those things was riding an Arabian horse. The horse was gorgeous, shiny brown, and we took off after a simple lesson in how to stop and go. I tried to keep up with my tour mates as they trotted across the wide open desert, but the horse I was on ran its own path, in wild circles, around and around in the sand.

I was at a total loss, and scared, when out from a cluster of rocks a man dressed in a turban and galabeya suddenly appeared. He wrangled the horse, calmed it down, and sent us on a straight path after the rest of the group and toward the Pyramids. As we rode away he called out, 

"Where from?'

"America!," I shouted back.

"Amereecaaa!!," he yelled, with a toothless smile, as he waved goodbye. "Say hello to Cleenton!"

"...and don't forget Monicaa!," I heard, across the desert, as we galloped away.

Librería Grañen Porrúa

I adore the Grañén-Porrúa book store. It's a blend of my favorite things; art, books, beautiful design, and good food. I often did my homework in the cafe after school with a cup of te de manzanilla. Pictured above is a tlayuda; made of black beans, quesillo, and avocado, on a corn tortilla baked on a clay skillet, ordered here without the lettuce and tomato that make tourists nervous.

I love the sculpture and paintings and prints made in Oaxaca, and things made of clay and wood. The contrast of colors, festive and bright, earthy and deep, and the courtyards made of stone and light. When you first arrive in Oaxaca it feels like a city of painted walls. Soon you find yourself stepping over thresholds into the open spaces and secret gardens behind those walls. I loved the courtyards, the feeling of being both inside and outside at once.

Inner worlds, outer worlds.

La Bilingua

A block away from Solexico is Cafe La Antigua, a great place for an after school snack. I love Oaxaca's chocolate caliente, hot chocolate mixed with cinnamon and chile. It went perfectly with crepes drizzled with cajeta, a goat's milk caramel.

I ran into Deborah and Cheryl, my American classmates, one afternoon at the cafe. I told them about a Spanish class I took in Albuquerque, where, during a break from a particularly difficult lesson, I turned to a classmate, wide-eyed, and said, "Spanish is HARD!"

"It's terrible!" she said. "I'm 67 years old and I've been struggling to learn it for years. But I'm not giving up. I will be damned if my gravestone doesn't say, 'Here lies Donna, she was bilingual.' "

My new classmates loved that story and when we exchanged emails at the end of the class, Deborah signed underneath her name, "La Bilingua."

Mirar y Ver

I loved the way afternoons rolled out. School would end and I would wander. I learned new words in class, like hoja (leaf), disfraz (costume), or goma (eraser), and I'd spend the rest of day just hoping I would hear someone use one of those words.

As I walked, the rumble in my mind over the frustration of el and le and lo, and not knowing where to put them, gave way to all there was to see. Balloon vendors, a vintage photo found in the post office, the Iglesia de Santo Domingo, people and pigeons in the zócalo. I loved the shape of stone metate, used to grind corn for tortillas, and how they looked lined up in the rain.

The walk usually led back to Hotel Azucenas, where I would settle in for afternoon siesta, falling asleep to the sound of the fountain outside my room. Waking up later to the glow from tin lanterns, I would remember that mirar (to look at) is active, while ver (to see) is passive, then head out to find dinner in a city that came alive at night.


***Am having a terrible time with some of the new changes at Blogger. My posts are written about two weeks ahead and the formatting I originally used is not fitting with the new system. So posts may be looking askew (like here) until I have time to figure out what to do.

Conversación

Spanish class went from 9 until 2, with grammar in the morning and conversation in the afternoon, separated by breaks long enough for tacos and quesadillas. Conversation started with topics such as holidays, current events, or Hollywood gossip, then would take off on its own natural course depending on who showed up.

It reminded me of the "English Club" I went to in Japan, where the favorite subject for conversation was Ann Landers. The Japanese were shocked and delighted at how Americans would put their personal problems right out there in the newspaper, and it inspired long and fascinating conversation to the sound of fluttering dictionary pages.

One day our teacher, Magaly, took us on a long walk to an organic farmer's market, and we talked about things we saw along the way. Conversation was always too fast for me, I would think a thing, then end up with a mouth full of marbles when I tried to say it. I seemed forever relegated to basic phrases like "How much?" to the vendors of honey, agua fresca, and quesillo.

Once, when only I showed up to class, our simple conversation turned to tea. Magaly said she knew a place that served good chai, so we left school and found ourselves at a nearby cafe. We drank from beautiful pottery set on tiled tables, and I learned the words for "bee" and "annoying' as they swarmed around the sweetness.

Solexico

I studied Spanish at a small school called Solexico. The way we learned at Solexico is the way I like to learn. A few students and a teacher sitting around a wooden table, door open to the courtyard outside. Breaks were real and relaxed, and you knew they were over by the ringing of a big metal bell. Our text was nothing more than a spiral bound workbook. It felt good to just learn the language and not have to struggle with technology.

My classmates were from Germany, Australia, Switzerland, and the US. Around the wooden table we would get into conversations about life and things. One time when our Spanish conversation turned to cheese, and what was the kind with holes, we all said "Swiss!" as the student from Switzerland shouted "Emmentaler!"

One of my favorite teachers was Hugo, who told us to truly listen to what locals were saying. He said that foreigners tend to get fixed in a way of saying something, when there is actually a more natural translation being spoken all around them. He pointed out that at the school cafe, students always use "Me gustaria" (I would like) when they want to order something, while the teachers and other locals use "Me regalo" (Gift me) or "Me vende" (Sell to me).

He told us never to say "Please take me to..." when speaking to a taxi driver, as it translates to asking for more than a ride. Use llévame a (carry me to). He said that lo siento, which most beginners use to say "I'm sorry," is actually a very serious sorry, while disculpe is usually more appropriate for average sorriness. I still feel drawn to using a serious sorry when what I want to say is, "I'm sorry for destroying your beautiful language."

There are answers all around you, escuche, escuche (listen, listen), Hugo would say.

Azul

As I walked out of the Basilica this tiny girl in a beautiful blue dress walked in. She seems old for Baptism and young for Confirmation? I'm not sure what the occasion was but it appears to be some sort of rite of passage. Looking at the photo now, the color and ruffles of her dress bring to mind my grandmother's blue glass bowl, and how the letter in my dream written in Spanish.

Blue. Rites of Passage. A flooding of images and connections. I remembered learning how the seven Sacraments of the Catholic church correspond, symbolically, to the seven chakras. The chakras are subtle centers that align along the central nervous sytem of the human body. Shaped like a wheel or flower, they radiate and receive life force energy that affects our physical, mental, and emotional health.

The third chakra connects us with our sense of personal power in the world, where we step away from tribal belief into what makes us uniquely who we are. Located in the solar plexus, its element is fire and its color yellow, with petals as blue as the center of a hot flame. It corresponds with sayings like "Go with your gut" and "The fire inside." The third chakra is "All of who you are." The Sacrament of Confirmation, performed at the age of reason, is an act of moving from Baptism to making an individual, mature commitment to the Catholic church. Symbolically, it is an act of stepping into what you believe.

The Sacrament of Confession was originally meant to make you conscious of your decisions. Giving voice to your actions, confession allowed you to see where you were out alignment with your Higher Self, so you could call your energy back. The fifth chakra represents giving voice to our beliefs, communicating our truth to the world. It's where we surrender our will to our Higher Self in order to express who we truly are. Located in the throat, it gives rise to phrases like, "Choking on my words" or "Finding your true voice." It's element is ether, the element of the sky. Its color is blue.

The fifth chakra, called Vishuddha in Sanskrit, translates into English as "Purity." The third chakra, called Manipura, translates as "lustrous gem" or "city of jewels." My journey of collecting gems, sparkling longings, gathered together to become whole, filled like Fatima's tiny treasure chest.

The courage to live a story, the courage to tell the story, with blue glass appearing at just the right times, like lanterns of reassurance, along the way.

Virgen de la Soledad

I couldn't wait to explore on the day after I arrived and before my class began. A few blocks down the hill from Hotel Azucenas is the beautiful Basilica de Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. I felt very drawn to the Virgen de la Soledad, the patron saint of Oaxaca. It was one of the first places I wanted to return to.

I love that she is called, not "Loner" or "Spinster," but the Virgin of Solitude. With a radiant crown of gold and encrusted with diamonds, her quiet presence illuminates the Basilica. I love too that there are bands and dancers and parades, pilgrimmages and prayers in her honor. Ice cream and elote is sold just outside, and intertwined teenagers make out passionately on the Basilica's steps.

People turn to her for miracles, or understanding, or maybe simply to be heard. Reflection and celebration, I love how it all whirls together, these elements that make life whole.

The photos I took of her did not come out, adding to the mystery.

La Buena Vida

Two years ago, after mornings studying Spanish and afternoons learning about remedies and philosophies of local healers, I was free to wander the colonial city of Oaxaca in the evenings. Dinner was enchiladas with mole, homemade corn tortillas, and hot chocolate mixed with cinnamon and chile. I was swept away with the colors, palm trees, cobblestone streets and courtyards.

For my year abroad in two weeks, I wanted, in particular, to return here. To explore more deeply a place I'd once fallen in love with. Breakfast in the rooftop garden, happy turtles stretching in the sun. The ceramic hands of Soledad holding white lilies.

Do you see why I longed for this? Do you see?

Hotel Azucenas

As soon as I landed in Oaxaca, it felt right. I stayed at a small hotel that I just adore, called Hotel Azucenas. I discovered Hotel Azucenas when I stayed there with friends before the class we took in Oaxaca, two years earlier.

The class, on curanderismo, was an elective for my graduate studies in occupational therapy. We learned about ways of healing that were somewhat familiar, such as massage, sweat lodges, and medicinal plants, and also those less familiar, such as limpia (spiritual cleansing), sadness as an illness, and susto, extreme fright that can cause the spirit to leave the body resulting in symptoms described in the Western medical system as post traumatic stress disorder.

I loved being back at the Hotel Azucenas, with its rooftop garden and fountain right outside my door. For the next two weeks, it would be my home.

Oaxaca, Mexico

The sun sets on the plane's wing as we approach Oaxaca. I had two weeks before I needed to begin my journey West in order to get to Los Angeles to start my internship on time. I thought about heading North, to see Montana, Idaho, the Dakotas. I thought of heading straight to California to spend extra time wandering down the coast. But there was another longing I wanted to attend to, one last gem. I always wanted to have that junior year abroad. I wanted to learn a language other than my own.

It made sense to study Spanish. My internship was at a county hospital in LA and I would need it. I knew of a good school in Oaxaca, one I discovered two years earlier when I went there on a class trip to study curanderismo, traditional Mexican healing.

But there was another reason I chose Oaxaca, something I couldn't get out of my mind. It was the dream I had last Spring. The one that carried me, that I turned to and trusted in the moments on this trip where I felt lost, when things did not make sense. The dream where I saw the Virgin of Juquila from the window of the city bus.

Goodbye, Vermont

Goodbye waterfalls and tea house and farm stand. I love you and always will. Sometimes I can't believe how lucky I am to have landed in this, like I fell into a painting. I can't stay, it doesn't feel right to stay, but it doesn't feel right to leave either. Not happy, not sad, but definitely alive.

I wrote that just before leaving Vermont to head out West for the final stage of my journey. On my last walk around the Triangle I found the first fall leaves, and the sun set on summer as I said goodbye. Vermont was the hardest place to write about because it goes so deep and spreads so wide. I didn't take as many pictures there because that happens with places you know well, yet the images in my mind are abundant. So many stories to tell, what to put in, what to leave out? The Vermont part is vast because it's my original place.

Your first landscape is no different to your being than your very own limbs. It's how you see things as how things are, what you'll grow up to compare each new experience to. From that oneness you set forth and an inevitable separation occurs. Then a longing, a returning, but the returning isn't a returning exactly, it's a moving through.

Robert Johnson writes about the stages of moving from a childhood paradise into a necessary separation, developing one's independence and sense of personal self, before moving through to a deeper union, reuniting with the oneness of God.

There is a constant pull back to the sense of unity from which we came...a regressive pull in all of us to quit this business of winning independence, to escape the painful human process of becoming a distinct, separate personality...you cannot put back together again that which has not been adequately differentiated. Consciousness must separate before it can reunite...when people come to my consulting room with a drug problem I tell them they are addressing the right problem but in the wrong way. They are trying to go back to a paradise when they need to go forward to a paradise.

My blog was born from a remembrance. A remembrance of the feeling making art gave me as a child. A floaty, timeless, alive feeling that deep in the well of me I did not think should have to be over simply because I grew up. From a natural oneness a separation occurs, then a remembrance, not a turning back but a moving through to deeper union. To where the mountains are mountains again, the rivers, rivers, the sky simply sky.

Ceremony

The day before I left Vermont, I had a ceremony with the lake. I had done the same for the ocean, just before I left Maine. I wanted to thank them for calling me from the desert of the Southwest to their watery edge, from the way I thought things were, to the flow of the way things could also be.

I went to one of my very favorite places, the point at Button Bay, and brought my traveling Japanese tea ceremony set, two roses, and my grandmother's blue glass bowl. I made tea for the lake and it accepted in waves. It was early September, overcast, late summer turning into fall.

That night I dreamed the lake wrote me a thank you letter. It was written in Spanish, in black ink on shimmering water and air. I could read "El mar y yo" (The sea and I) and "Muchas gracias por el regalo" (Thank you for the gift).