Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

I was set to write about you, Love –

packed the computer, cord, notebook

scarf and jacket for the late afternoon winds I now expect

housekey that remained only once while I explored for hours

headphones for the rare treat of music centuries newer than

stone streets laid in 1554

the address for La Erre – Sopeña 10 – it would be so easy to find

except it wasn’t.

Except that I walked out the door and turned my customary left

made it only halfway down the first jagged leg of the callejon

when I heard hoof steps

an overburdened burro

bulging white sacks on both sides of his saddle

his sombreroed leader

skin baked brown, wrinkled

an image from a movie

from a stereotype

but no.

Two flesh and blood creatures

muscles, breath straining with the effort to ascend

stopping in a gesture of deference and respect

“Pásale,” the ubiquitous statement for pedestrians, cars, dogs to pass in front of you

giving this flesh and blood creature

unburdened by weights that sway my spine

muscles, breath refreshed and ready for a day of writing –

about you, Love –

the right of way.

I thought I had learned what it meant to live here

live alone

live with a people whose history I don’t share

-how different can people be?

-we’re all just people, aren’t we?

flesh and blood

going to work or school or the market

carrying our sacks in the hatch of a Pacific Northwest Subaru

or tied to a Mexican burro

but no.

This moment

we three unlikely to meet anywhere else

reminded me

this is a land of paradox

of messages sent in duality

we are well and we have little

we feast with our dead and limit options for the living

we are warm hearted and stray dogs roam

we revere our elders and toothless old women beg from tourists.

I thought I’d learned the tracking signs of the local dogs

I guess I have

the man and his burro must have gone up and down

the callejon several times before I encountered them

I now understood the unusually large droppings

outside the language school earlier this morning

I hadn’t factored in burros ascending.

I didn’t have lunch at La Erre

walked past thinking it would be between

Sopeña 8 and 12, or 9 and 11

sequential as I’d once known street numbers to be

but no.

I continued to El Chahuistle

at the three-way corner of

Del Campanero, Manuel Doblado and Cantarranas

a simple, traditional lunch

three tacos

flan in a two-inch plastic cup

pulque* sweet and milky

which I drank until the bee landed in it

and the mesero and I watched for a while

making a joke about “La Borrachita” – the drunken little one

until he asked another server to bring a spoon

she gracefully removed it from the sturdy glass

left it for me to continue enjoying

we made another joke about how

maybe the bee didn’t mind dying

after being drunk on pulque.

Another chance meeting.

I walked home sated and contented

even though I hadn’t written a word

about you, Love.

Imagine my surprise when I found La Erre

almost at Jardin de la Unión

kitty corner from the town’s iconic landmark

next to Sopeña 1

the very beginning of the tributary

exactly as it was when I walked right past.

It’s like this town

to invite chimeras

ghosts

ancestors already dead

visitors and ex-pats

men with burros

mariachis

street performers

beggars

poets who write about love, death

the death of love

who sometimes write nothing at all

restaurants open one day

shuttered the next

Another chance encounter.

I went in

ascended 4 sets of steps to the rooftop terrace

fancy, this place

one glass of Casa Madera Rosé cost more than

all of lunch

it was here that I brought out my computer

to capture the magic

of chance encounters

of burros in callejones

bees in pulque

the sheer joy

of life alone

on a sun-baked terrace

under the kindly gaze of the Teatro’s Greek muses

with a backdrop of Mexican love songs

an accentuating staccato

hoof-clacks on stone

vaqueros sitting tall, regal

saddles atop colorful blankets

riding through the labyrinth of tourists on Sopeña.

Another thing that kept me from writing about you, Love.

—————–

Notes:

CALLEJON: (pronounced Kah-yay-hone) the narrow passageway between the shoulder-high barrier around a bullring and the wall of the grandstand. Also used to describe narrow alleys or side streets/passageways between houses or stores.

PULQUE: (pronounced pool-kay) sweet and milky, slightly foamy, fermented beverage made from agave like it’s powerful cousins, tequila or mezcal. It has a low alcohol content, and is mixed with fresh juices – here, guava, pineapple, strawberry, mulled with a bit of cinnamon.

MESERO: waiter

VAQUERO: cowboy

TEATRO JUÁREZ: Construction began in 1872 in Guanajuato for this grand, neoclassical theater considered one of Mexico’s most beautiful, with a roof crowned with large bronze statues representing the muses of Greek mythology.