Adios, Oaxaca

One last stroll through the city, one last pan y chocolate caliente. Santo Domingo cathedral and a palm tree reflect on the window of a restaurant where blue glass ornaments hang inside. Early in the morning, just after sunrise and before boarding my plane, the Cloud People showed up to wave goodbye.

For the last four years I've been struggling with migraines. I've been to doctors, neurologists, optometrists, acupuncturists, massage therapists and more, all who have found nothing concrete. After one neurologist diagnosed me with "mysterious headache," I went to see a shaman. 

The shaman told me the headaches were a spiritual problem. She said that I came from an ancient lineage of women who held the gift of healing but, unfortunately, I had once  been born into a lifetime where women were killed for having that kind of gift. She said that in that lifetime I had the power to block my own power, so in order to protect my body I shut down my soul. And that is what, in this lifetime, was causing the headaches.

We are here to move through the fears that keep our souls from liberation, the shaman said. The anticipatory fear that keeps us from making a move is an illusion thousands of times greater than the event. The shaman pointed out that killing the soul to protect the body looks different in these modern times. What was once fear of being burned at the stake now comes in a different form, like the fear of not having health insurance or retirement, a certain type of house or job or perceived protection from any future discomfort.

At dinner the other night with my friend Heather, our conversation turned to fears and the question of how much of your present you should mortgage to protect your future. Heather said with a sigh, "You know, what if we do end up old and poor? Wouldn't we just deal with it like we have everything else?"

Wait, I thought. No one ever thinks of it that way. The image we try to protect ourselves from is the one of being broke and alone. But, if it does turn out that way, wouldn't we just deal with it like we have everything else? Because really, after all, I would finally have that sense of time I keep longing for. I could spend entire days in the library pulling books from the shelves with both hands, depending on whatever title or color caught my eye. I could sit with a cup of chocolate caliente all morning long and really listen to the clouds, or the sun if it came out, or the rain or the leaves or all those things my younger self longed to have more time for. I could finally finish my Solexico workbook!! And then, when it's all said and done, I too could rest in peace under a gravestone that says, 'Here lies Anne, she was bilingual.'