And in the end…(attributed to the Beatles).

(The Friday before I left)

This is the second to last blog post of this epic, written on the night (and early wee hours of the morning the day of) before I leave.

 

I don’t really know where to begin but would like to say that today has been quite strange doing all of the “last” things of my trip like going to Bagel Cafetín for the last time, seeing our friend Nikki for the last time in México, walking to and from our house through the square known as Embajadoras and past the shops from which came everyday (this one included) the unoiled groan of the tortilla assembly lines along with the voice of the middle age man who sits on the sidewalk near Bagel and plays his guitar as he screams out “How does it feel?” in his Dylaneque impression.

 

On our way back home today, I didn’t look back.  Wouldn’t allow myself to do so.  And I watched as everything disappeared from my periphery and worked hard to create a memory of everything I saw that I didn’t have to rely on my ability to turn around to be able to hang on to.

 

I thought about a lot of things today as our house was pretty much being torn apart by many people I had never met before though I’m pretty sure that all of them belonged to our host mother Queta and our housekeeper Ayde in roles of brothers, cousins, and other male relatives.  Over the past month our family has been moving out of their house, and we finished the most of it today, which gave me the chance to experience the closure of where I was living firsthand because I knew that I would not be returning home and neither would they after today.  It’s interesting to think of things as closing because you are leaving.  I know that’s not the case, but it just feels kind strange to watch the please I have called home for the past month be slowly dismantled and relocated.

 

A lot more than that was running through my mind, though, today.  I thought a lot about everything that has gone on since my last post.

 

We went to the Mexican state of Michoacán where I participated in a lot of firsts for my life including some of the most amazing experiences I have ever had.

 

I got the chance to hike with our group to two water falls:  the first was massive and we used a stone bridge to cross the river it fed before proceeding onward out of the smell of sewage and trash that accompanied the first along with what looked like prehistoric type plants with massive draping leaves and trunk breadth stems.  The second was the best though because it was smaller and we had the chance to swim in the clean water in and around it.  I hung my knapsack in a plant near the rocks the led to the falls and walked down carefully and barefooted into the cool freshwater where everybody was standing and screaming with delight as they pranced around through the falls and the sandy silt of the ponded river.  I hadn’t worn swim trunks, but I thought about it for a moment and decided that it would definitely be worth my while to take off my shirt and stand under the falls.  And I did.  And it was.  I only stayed there long enough for Taylor to get a picture, and when he sends me a copy, I will gladly post it.

The next day we had to be up and out of the hotel by 9:00 to go to a place that in my dreams I could not have had a better time.  We went to Paricutin, a volcano that some fifty years ago, erupted and buried an enormous church in ash and lava.  The church was visible from our starting point and the steeples stuck up our of the black chunk rock like the springs of greenery thriving in the richness of the volcanic dirt.  Horseback was our mode of transportation, and for those of you who know me well, you know that I’m afraid of horses and specifically their eyes (don’t ask why, I’m not real sure).  But, the ride wasn’t too bad.  My horse was an older one, and kind of stubborn, but that was fine.  He never tried to buck me or do anything really crazy as I witnessed happen to some of my other friends, so we got along just fine

 

I remember that as we approached the church on our horses and dismounted to walk up the mounds of hardened lava, the day was pretty warm and the smell of cooking corn wafted along with us as we passed the stands of people selling fresh blue tortilla quesadillas.  Climbing up into the lava trail that had engulfed the church was something out of a dream.  I could see black everywhere for miles around where we were standing and the church was huge and old stone, tan and red with a Spanish look to its columns and doorways against the black unforgiving stone that lay all around it.

 

By then, the day was already starting to darken with clouds, and after about 20 minutes or so we left.

 

We rode our horses for miles as the landscape became more and more mountainous, bare, and black.  Through deep piles of ash and rock our horses drudged, and we moved closer and closer to Paracutin, the mountain I had been watching since we arrived that in its peak contained an enormous crater, the mountain that loomed over the blackness the spread across everything in sight.

 

It started to rain half way there, and didn’t stop.  I donned my orange, garbage bag-ish poncho and road onward until we finally reached the point of departure when the rain let up for a few minutes.

 

I tied my horse to a tree and looked around, up at the volcano that was obscured by the clouds of the storm that had descended on us.  I could hear thunder from some where above, only slightly, but real enough to spook me, and the temperature had dropped a lot so I pulled my Alabama jacket on under my poncho.

 

We started to walk to the top, those of us who wanted to, and the rain resumed.  How long the trip to the top was, I’m not sure, but everything seemed to be trying to keep us from going.  Each step was lugubrious and weighty as we dug our feet in the rock and volcanic ash that blackened the world around us.  We would slide.  Fall.  Accidently knock dirt into somebody’s face.  It was tiring.  I got hot really fast and wished I hadn’t put my jacket on.

 

And then, half way up, I saw the lightning.  I had been looking out at the mountains around us when it struck, I saw it strike, and the thunder boomed above us enough to shake me a little bit.  Then there was another strike, closer, bringing light to a darkened world with crashes that made us all reconsider what we were doing as we continued to climb not only to the summit of a volcano, but into the heart of a lightning storm.

 

I didn’t really realize that we were in the storm until lightning struck about twenty meters from where we were, a point from which I could neither see the top of the volcano nor the safe, semi-flat ground we had left behind.  The thunder was instantaneous and we all dropped to the ground for fear that was the loud sound was the last we would hear as it enveloped the air around us instead of above us.

 

I heard Taylor behind me say, “I’m going back.”  His voice was muffled by the rain and gathering wind that all sounded so hollow to me through the hoods of my raincoat and poncho.

 

And I stopped.

 

Close to the ground I stayed to try and improve my chances of survival, and I thought about a lot in only a small amount of time as the lightning continued.

 

The rain pounded harder than before.  I was hot and sweating.  And I continued to watch lightning bolts strike ground not that far from where I was.  I could feel the thunder as though I was a part of its roar, we were so far into the storm.

 

I sat there in the rocks and new mud for a few moments, and thought about life and death and the reality of what I was doing.  A lot of people turned around after that bolt struck so close to us.  I thought about the last thing I had said to my family, my girlfriend, and I thought about turning back.

 

But then I realized a few very important details:  I would probably never be here again and if I missed my chance to climb to the top of a volcano, I would be angry at myself forever, I was already three quarters of the way up and at this point, going down was just as dangerous as continuing onward, and finally, I was only going to be alive once and death loomed around every corner everyday in the form of almost getting run over by a bus as I crossed the street, getting some strange plague from the fruit I’ve eaten, or even the general death in which cause cannot be determined.

 

I prayed to God to guide me through it, to keep me from being struck, and decided that the best thing for me to do was to continue forward.  I knew, somewhere in me, that I wasn’t going to die, but I couldn’t help thinking that if I was forced to choose my way of dying, at the top of a volcano by lightning would probably just as good as any.

 

I kept going, though, because I could feel God.  A friend was waiting near me when I decided to proceed and she and I pushed forward until we reached what seemed like the non-existent top.  Thunder continued to barrage us with the shakes as lighting strikes dropped everywhere. 

But we made it.  I looked over the edge into the side of the gaping mouth of Paricutin and couldn’t believe what I was seeing, what I was doing.

 

The EMT of our group who had gone to the top in case anything happened told us to only stay for a moment because there was so much electricity and it was extremely dangerous, so we didn’t continue onward and upward to be able to see the entire mouth of the volcano.  We started to go down through the even deeper piles of ash that we practically slid through to get back to the bottom.  We were about calf-deep in ash and rock when the hail started briefly and then the storm all but died.  I had pulled my camera out to get my one picture and almost lost it in the rain.  I had even taken my glasses off to be able to see because the wind had started pushing the rain under the bill of my hat.

 

Watching as the world came into focus and the blue and orange splashes turned into ponchos and horses, I realized I had stood in the presence of God and was nearly shaking with excitement.  I had witnessed miracles and powerful forces of nature beyond anything I could ever comprehend.  I fought the fear of death and won there on top of a volcano with lighting crashing down all around me.

 

Needless to say, I was glowing all the way down.  I felt changed in some way.  Like something that had once had power over me had been vanquished and realized for the truth.  Since I was in tenth grade, when Branon Bradford died in a carwreck and proved to me that I was not immortal and that we could all day at any minute, I have been terrified of death.  Not because I thought it would hurt.  Not because I was so regretful of my life.  But because I didn’t want to think about leaving everybody behind.

 

But that day, on Paricutin, I realized that I didn’t have anything to regret.  My life has been amazing, and I was glowing thinking of how blessed I was to have had such a wonderful life growing, such opportunities, to have met the girl I knew I was going to marry, to be doing research on my first novel.  I realized I was twenty-one years and the past twenty-one years had been amazing, and if I was going to die then, I had no control over it at all.  So I let it go, and followed a dream to the top of the world and stood in the presence of God Almighty and never regretted a single second.

 

But I was so grateful to have made it back to the bottom alive.

 

***

 

Finished on the second of two flights home.

(The next Saturday)

 

This trip has been all about the discovery of identity.  I came to México to find out who the characters of my novel are, where they’re from, what their lives were like before they came to México.  But I got so much more than that.  I found out more about myself than I could ever have imagined.

 

In those final days as I watched the city start to fade way and the furniture of our house disappear, I looked at Queta, Julio, Cesar, Ayde, Nikki and Taylor as my family.  They are people I have come to know and love as brothers and sisters, people with whom I weathered a lot of craziness including Montezuma’s revenge, mild flooding, moving, laughing, playing, and just everyday conversations of life discussed at the dinner table.

 

Today, I came close to tears as I left.  I hugged Queta to tell her how much I would miss her and regretted that neither Ayde nor the kids were there in the new house to say goodbye to.  The separation happened too quickly, I felt.  We had all grown so close over the past five weeks just to say goodbye in a day, a minute.  I watched Julio drive off from where we were waiting for the bus, and wasn’t sure how to feel.

 

I was so excited to see my family.  So excited to see my girlfriend.  And yet, so sad to be leaving the place that had by all accounts been my home for five weeks.

 

But I’m so happy to have been a part of it all.  I start to feel sad that I’m gone, but then I think about the family I’m coming back to, my home in the South where everybody knows my name and I can call my bank (even from México) to ask for help and it will be there.

 

I also know that I will be going back.  Who knows how or when, but Guanajuato is a part of me now and will be for the rest of my life just like the South is part of the core of my existence.  It’s the feeling of community I get from both that keep my attached to them.  And from them, I derive my sense of place:  my heart as a writer.

 

There is only so much that I can put here in the literary-journalistic format to tell you of my adventures.  I am first and foremost, the vocal storyteller son of a storyteller, and second a writer.  I’m glad that these two roles have had a chance to meet here online so that I could share with you the amazing times I have been so privy to enjoy.

 

I don’t think I can ever stress enough how grateful I am for you, the reader.  Thank you for caring, for wanting to follow these stories, and know that this is not the end.  Where reality often is bound by the finitude restraints of time, the world of fiction blossoms and grows wild and alive, uncontrollable to the point it’s ageless and addictive in a way that only makes you stronger through indulgence.

 

Here at 30,000 feet, I look out on the heart of the South in Mississippi and Alabama and pretty soon, home, thinking about what Monday will bring in the world of fiction as I go to work full time.

 

And I must say, I cannot wait.

 

I’ll see you all so soon, and will be posting a parting post on Wednesday morning.

 

As always and with much love,

 

Lance

Viva La Vida (again, attributed to Coldplay)

Buenos Dias!

Hey all! Just wanted to catch you up on the week so far.

Cesar's (my two-year-old little brother) birthday was on Monday and we celebrated during the middle of an incredibly intense thunder storm that nearly flooded the driveway and got water all over the floor in my room. Cesar, however, was not present to enjoy the gooey chocolate cake and acompanying hot chocotale (Mexican style where a massive bar of Abuelita cinamon chocolate is melted into hot milk) because he fell asleep in the car in the way home and Julio and Queta knew that if they woke him up, he would probably be wild and awake for the rest of the night.

He opened his presents from all of us yesterday though: a really cool book with vocabulary hidden beneath little carboard doors, a Spider-Man themed notebook, and a pack of markers. Needless to say, his hands, pants, and the floor were red blue and green when he finished.

This is a busy week with papers, projects, and trips. I'm excited to be going to Cristo Rey tonight. And have also hit the underline button on this computer at school, and cannot figure out how to turn it off. But anyway, Cristo Rey tonight along with the completion of a project and then tomorrow, after class, I'll enjoy my last night in Guanajuato for a few days as Friday morning, we're leaving of Michoacan!

Look for another post tomorrow night before I go. Hope everyone has a great day!

Most Sincerely,

Lance

I put my summers back in a letter (attributed to Counting Crows).

Hello everybody!

 

I have for you today another journal entry from this weekend.  Enjoy!

 

Domingo el 15 de junio de 2008

 

6:27 pm, the patio outside our house where the floor is checker-tiled orange and White and the mailing is of stone that resembles terracotta.  The flowers planted around the top of the railing, in the top of the railing, are leafy green with pink stems that open up like balls of spider legs into red blooms.  I’m dodging Goofy, our over excited but friendly deck dwelling fluffy sandy dog (so many adjectives, so few commas….), by standing while I write.  The sun feels warm on my neck from the west and transforms my hand and pen into moving shadows across my arachnoid handwriting.  The mountains and neighborhoods are all visible from here on the other side of Guijas (our neighborhood), and as I look down at the full clothesline and working washing machine outside our neighbor’s house where workers lay bricks on the second story everyday but Sunday even in the rain, I hear music in Spanish from somewhere neaby that was, just an hour before, “Come on Baby Light My Fire.”

 

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I’m again, rewarding myself with time to write as a break from my homework.  Goofy keeps pushing himself against my calves and tickling me with his wet nose.  I tried to sit down, but he kept trying to jump in my lap and chew my journal.

 

The mountain peaks are strong and real from here, and this city feels so alive to me that it’s hard to imagine that soon I will not be here.

 

Yesterday, we went to Dolores Hidalgo and San Miguel de Allende, two important locations in México’s independence.  I almost spent a month in San Miguel for a creative writing class that would have been amazing, but I could only afford to do one trip and I decided that for bettering my Spanish and doing research for the novel, Guanajuato was the best choice.

 

(I was extremely sad to find out that the trip to San Miguel didn’t pan out because there weren’t enough students signed up  for the class.  I hope I can afford to go the next time it comes around.)

 

Dolores Hidalgo was pretty city that I only got to see for an hour or so before we had to leave.  We visited an enormous church whose name I can’t remember but was also very baroque in nature having an over all cross shape with the left side of the front made of pure gold faces and angels of the Bible, the right side of ornately carved wood (about 500 square feet), and the center an overly elaborate set of stone depictions of Jesus with surrounded by gilded columns.  I was interested to find out that the church had been build with an enormous patio in the front in order to make the church a more accessible and forcible religious place for the Aztecs when they were conquered because it resembled their temples.

 

I tried several different types of nieve (literally “snow” but really “ice cream”) because for some reason, Dolores is renowned for its multitude of strange flavored ice creams ranging from tequila to shrimp.

 

I did buy a small thing of tequila flavored nieve only to discover that it wasn’t tequila flavored—it was tequila infused.  While it didn’t taste bad, and I have no moral objections to moderate alcohol consumption, I decided not to finish it because my sickness had resurfaced during the night before and I was struggling to stay hydrated enough without the aid of tequila.

 

We next went to the house of Miguel Hidalgo, the father of México’s independence from France , where in a trip to the restroom, I unknowingly left my little black knapsack hanging from a toilet paper dispenser in the very last stall.

 

I didn’t realize this until after I had purchased my orange PowerAde, after we had gone all the way through the bus station and only a few yards before we got onto the bus where I reached to pat my shoulder in search of the black nylon cords to grab my journal only to discover that there was nothing hanging from my back.

 

I ran frantically to my literature professor and said, “¡Carlos! ¡Yo Dejé mi mochila en la casa!”  When we got there, a man was already bringing it out and I thanked him furiously.

 

After another long, rough and tumble bus ride (there were three in total for the day and one involved the guy sitting beside me having to furiously run up front after briefly saying, “Sorry, I don’t feel well.”  He had to lay down in the front couple of seats with his legs outstretched and raised high above his head as we processed each insane twist and turn of the highway), that I slept through, I work up to see the spires of a larger than life cathedral in the middle of San Miguel de Allende.

 

The city was so incredible and I was thankful that we were given not one, but three and one half hours to explore the city.  The major part of the city, we were told, was supposed to be the souvenir shopping in the markets.

 

We went to the markets, but I didn’t really buy much.  After walking through the entire market, I realized that most of the things for purchase there were also for purchase in Guanajuato.  Not to mention, I didn’t want to only remember the majestic San Miguel de Allende as the place where I lived out the capitalistic American dream of accumulation of more junk than I could ever need or want.  Thus, Taylor and I decided to explore the city instead.

 

We left the markets and went walking and exploring around the streets into café’s and bookstores.  The bookstore, however, was a bit disappointing in that it had not a single book in Spanish and the owners and clerks all spoke English to us as we entered—one lady even gave me a strange look when I gave my salutations in Spanish.

 

The café we went to was pretty great though.  It was called San Augustine Café and specialized in the serving of churros (the authentic and much tastier ancestor of the cinnamon twist of Taco Bell).  There, they were served with your choice of strong chocolate beverage in which to dip them.  Despite my enduring intestinal problems, I ate an order anyway with Chocolate Méxicano (strong with cinnamon, muy rico!) and loved every bite.

 

The funny part was that I left my hat there, and though the owners were nice and were saving it for me when I returned, I lost it again later for good.  But thankfully, it was only a hat and not my notebook.  Now, someone in San Miguel has been blessed with a hat that survived the flood of last week and the sun bleach and head sweat induced by the pyramids of Teotihuacán.

 

Exploring the streets of San Miguel was exciting.  Everything was kind f quiet and the buildings were stone textured and colorful like here in Guanajuato, though everything seemed to have more of a vibrancy of color than other parts of México I have visited.

 

For the most part, the people were really nice but were all really nice but were all speaking English.

 

The city was another reminder of why I like México so very much.  There is something about how real and yet surreal everything is that I can never tell if I am reading, writing, or experiencing first hand.  For this, I am grateful.

 

I think it is important to note also that while waiting with another student in the Jardín in front of the massive church where two weddings passed during our time in San Miguel, the student informed me that he/she was glad that Guanajuato was not representative of all of México and that San Miguel must then be representative of all of México citing reasons that Guanajuatans were rude and always in a hurry and that the people in San Miguel were super nice and never in a hurry about anything.

 

I must admit, I was a little taken aback and at a loss on how to respond.  Guanajuato, with its kind people and contact with the reality of the working people who live their lives here, has come to feel almost like a second home to me.  To hear that someone felt that this city was unwelcoming and in no way representative of this country was somewhat disheartening and disappointing.

 

But, I tried not to dwell on it too much.  When we got back to Guanjuato, however, during our cab ride home, our cabbie turned out to be the shining example of why I love this city.

 

He talked with us almost all the way home, and every time he saw someone he knew he would sop for a second to say hello and sometimes shake their hands though the window.  It was little bit of the South, a little bit of the community that I love so much in Georgia alive here in my new city.

 

He asked all about where we were studying and how we liked the city.  Taylor asked him if he was born in Guanajuato, and to this replied that he was one-hundred percent Guanajuatan and that this city was his heart.

 

Each day, I gain more faith in humanity because of the individual people that don’t even realize how much they’ve blessed me through simple and brief, and genuine encounters.

 

As with everyday, I thank God I’m here.

 

I go into the end of this day after receiving another perfect score on a paper for my literature class excited and ready to write for all of the evening.  I sadly have yet another paper to write (twice as long as normal), but I don’t even care.

 

This has been an amazing day for creativity and my book became even more reachable and real to me during class as I started to see where Jorge and his brother came from, what they group up in, and why they turned out to be who they did.

 

Through this program, I’ve been able to discover the history of the home of my characters, and to know so much more about them than I could ever imagine.  I hope that I get time tonight to write in between papers and projects.

 

In another news, I will be away from my computer and any method of communication from early Friday morning until late Sunday evening as I am heading to the Mexican state of Michoacán to ride a horse for six hours to the middle of nowhere in weather that will most likely be insane, in order to climb to the peak of a volcano.

 

For those of you who’ve known me since I was very young, you know that I can’t wait J.

 

Among the things that most fascinated me as a child (and still do, I admit) are in this order of discovery:  Spiders, Tornadoes, and Volcanoes.

 

Rest assured, there will be a bazillion pictures and maybe even a few videos.

 

Today, I would like to dedicate this post to Dr. Herman Spivey, who in his final words of incredible care and wisdom to his community, my community, said this:

 

“Take care of God's gifts and your gifts to each other.

 

Touch and feel.

Look and see.

Listen and learn.

 

Laugh, cry,--touch the gifts of creation for me...and perhaps, on occasion, remember me.”

 

I don’t think I can ever truly express how important this man was to me, my mother, and our community.

 

As you can tell by my constant mentioning of him, it’s hard for me to let go.  I can’t believe that this happened while I was gone.  But I’m thankful that I knew him.  I’m thankful that he was able to serve our community for nearly half a century, and thankful that God cares enough for us to share such wonderful creations.

 

Okay, that’s enough for today.  You all are so wonderful.  I can’t wait to see you.

 

As of today, there are only 12 days left.  I meet them with a mixture of joy and sadness.  But that’s the best way to meet anything.  With the richest emotions possible.

 

I love you all, and until the next post, I hope life miracles reveal themselves to you as they continue to do so for me.

 

With much love,

 

Lance

Don't you shiver? (this quote attributed to Coldplay).

Dogs bark outside our window where, just beyond the barbedwire topped fence surrounding our house a bicycle frame red and flecked from weather and time is at the top of a small heap of equally aged two-by-fours and red stone bricks.

 

It is Friday.

 

Friday is that magical day at the end of the week when Lorena starts our advanced Spanish grammar class late and ends it thirty minutes early, with a break in the middle to top that.  Friday is the day Carlos has brought my literature class into my favorite part of being a writer and an English major:  analyzing and interpreting the societal values of the short stories we are reading (completely in Spanish).  Friday is the day that I feel better, the sun shines, and I can sit back and briefly enjoy my city without worry of the homework that will surely com to call on Sunday.

 

I’m feeling so much better from my brief stint with food poisoning.

 

I thank God that the sickness and medicating times were brief, and that I was able to gain another experience in Mexico that I would not have otherwise had.  Yes, I am crazy.  But, you already knew that, so neither of us has to worry.  I’m thankful for each new experience that this trip brings, though I do I hope that the remainder of the trip does not include any more hospital visits or injections of any kind.

 

This evening, I wanted to share with you a little of the montage the past week has been with some commentary by me and few clips and observations from my journal.  We had, this week, the chance to recover from food poison, inundations with rain that resulted in the flooding of parts of the city, grades given back to us, and of course a Callejoneada which consisted of a band of Cervantino dressed musicians who led us through the streets of the city playing, singing and dancing.  This week has been quite an adventure:

 

First, a few notes of the flood as remembered directly from the pages of my journal:

 

miércoles 11 de junio de 2008

 

6:36 pm, Bagel Cafétin, with some saucy nineties music in the back ground, quiet, soaked from my jeans down and a spot on either side of my shirt where the rain leaked through my Alabama jacket, amidst the other studying students who quietly glance up from their books and laptop screens to face the gray that has, at this point, taken the life of at least one person in the tunnels that carry traffic like water underneath the city.

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My laptop is nearly dead and I can’t get to a plug at the moment, so I’m taking a break from homework to catch up on my writing.  Bere and Sandra (the owners of Bagel Cafétin) greeted us with smiles as always as we came in.  The evidence of our trip was all but obvious as we huddled under the door way to move out of the river on the slanted street and sidewalk next to the café.  I smiled at Bere as I began to remove the jackt that had helped to transform my backpack and I into a tall, turtle looking figure (Taylor looked like that too, I’m sure we were fun to watch as we ambled here through the torrential rivers and down pours).  We had passed through torrents of pink soapy water, lightning, and rushing umbrella-toting-scragglers, and one guy in particular who, bless his heart, was walking slowly and soakedly without a jacket or umbrella with a laptop case in one hand and a backpack in the other.  We sloshed through the streets to get here with the rain giving no promise or indication remotely that it would let up.  The image of Miguel de Cervantes met us outside the Quixote museum, stone still and darkened by the water pouring over his stolid frame.

            I’m glad we’re here, though.  My pants are soaked, my shoes are soaked, and a familiar cold that normally only comes around in the winter has begun to creep in around me.

            But I’m so happy, through this adventure today, I look at everything with cherishing eyes because the trip has reached the halfway point.  Halfway started or over, I cannot say.  I’m a writer and choose not to force myself into an opinion on that.  But I know, and I knew today, walking past the tre traffic lines of green and white tazis, and the quare stone tiled streets that were obscured by the rushing pink and gray water, that I will miss this place so much.

            Each day is a little fuzzy and blurred as I wake and move through my life as I am told to do so by my schedule, and then as I choose to do so, by my purpose.  I wonder if when I leave, this place will become like Korea: a constant recurring dream that I can’t delineate between reality and fiction.  I hope not.

            Though Guanajuato, with its lake of primary colored square houses washing up the sides of the mountains from the valley will be a place I dream about and visit often—if not in the physical then in the metaphorical and in the window of the page in which I am the explorer, the alchemist, and the creator just as my Father before me.

            Perhaps one of the greatest blessings and curses of being a writer is that you can never really leave anything.  All experiences, places, and people contribute to the flavor and texture of the soup that is the mind and the soul—the lake that Stephen King and others continually refer to that we keep going back to drink from, sometimes cautiously with our hands, and others face first, depending on our faith in ourselves and in our God.

            There’s a girl across the room from me at a short pewter gray table sitting on an orange square bench talking to her boyfriend on her webcam.  She has a headset with microphone pulled over her ears and around her black hair and just a minute ago she got up, carefully cradling her computer as she toted it to the door and leaned the camera out to show him the flood of the street.  I could see his face on the screen as she did, and hers as she came back to sit down, arranging her cords and smiling the smile of a girlfriend talking to her boyfriend who is thousands of miles away—a smile that can be felt and that makes me miss my girlfriend even more.  It’s a smile you do with your whole self, one that gives off this warmth to all the people who see it because they can feel the connection, the reality that though you are thousands of miles away from that other person, there’s nothing in between you but the smoldering coals of the fire that keeps you both from getting cold.  Yeah, I’m missing Becky a lot.

(End journal entry)

***

We also got two sets of grades back this week!  In my grammar class I got a 93 on my first test and in my literature class I got a perfect score on my first essay which made me extremely happy!  Spanish is something that feeling like its improving for me everyday.  I even fought off my fear and spoke up today in class about an abstract concept!  I was so happy!  I’m sure I sounded like a four year, but I don’t care.  It made me feel confident.

 

Last night, our program, ISA, had a special Callejoneada planned for us (a street party kind of thing complete with musicians and all manner of excitement), and it was moved into the auditorium of the Escuela de Idiomas because of the potential for rain.

 

But, after the band played for us for ten minutes or so, the leader cried out that it wasn’t raining and we needed to get out of there into the streets!  So, the band kept playing and dancing as they walked out and we followed them into the patio, then down the zigzagging alleys into the streets of Guanajuato where we blocked traffic and danced and sang!

 

At one point, we created a huge line through the street with each pair of people that went through attaching to the end and standing on either side with their hands held high touching palms.  The band would stop in random historic street corner points where the leader would give us a bit of history followed by another rousing song that sometimes was Guantanamera, Besame Mucho, and tons of others!

 

Marching through the city, blocking traffic, cruising through the ever setting dusk of the evening in the enchantment of Guanajuato, I became all too painfully aware of how little time is left here in the city.

 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m looking forward to going home.  I miss taking walks with my mom and talking about everything under the sun, hanging out with my dad and listening to his fun, often hilarious stories, sharing adventures with my girlfriend, and cutting up with my brother.

 

When I get home though, I still be walking through the streets of Guanajuato putting a few pesos in the hat of the women holding her baby as her younger son plays his accordion, smiling at the older gentleman in the cowboy hat who sits nearly asleep every morning surrounded by his little green squashes for sale, ordering my latte enamorado from Bere and Sandra at Bagel Cafétin and talking about class and life in my broken Spanish, and being in awe of the massive churches and statues of Plaza de La Paz just past the Jardín Unión where the trees all grow together in a triangle around the center.

 

How I ever got so blessed to be able to come here, I don’t know, but I offer thanks to God, the family of the late Alice Richards, and Prof. Michael Mejia for getting me here.  After this, I don’t know that my writing, or my life will ever be the same.

 

Tomorrow, we will be heading into the cities of San Miguel de Allende and Dolores Hidalgo for a chance to walk around, buy some souvenirs, and apparently eat some amazing icecream.  I can’t wait to go to San Miguel to see all the expatriates and artists and the amazing city that I have heard so much about.

 

Also, I will be compiling my postcard list this weekend.  If you will send me your address to freelancefiction@gmail.com, I would love to send you a post card from Mexico!

 

As always, I hope that this post finds you happy and well.  I ask that as you go through your day tomorrow, you remember the families of Dr. Herman Spivey and Nancy Warren Simpson.  Please also, if you would like, say a prayer for the Myers family of Trion.

 

Thank you all so much for reading!  And please feel free to leave questions and comments!  I would love to hear from you all!

 

Until next time, my wonderful friends and family,

 

Much Love,

 

Lance

It's our experiences that define us.

I come to the written world tonight after cooling not one, but three scorpions and after receiving my final of four shots that were not administered anywhere above my belt line. A great day to be a writer, I must say.

The past week has been filled with an inundation of insanity and craziness the likes of which cultivated in a brief trip to the hospital on Sunday and ended tonight with the final prick of the needle on the part of my gracious, though all too happy-about-her-task, host mother.

Last week, I tried the free salsa dance lessons on Tuesday night for my first and last time, I think. My partner had been taking dance lessons for several years, and was already quite good and I felt little bad that I, Mr. Used-to-be-in-marching-band-and-should-know-how-to-move-his-feet-on-different-counts-but-doesn't (what a title, I'm not so sure that will fit on a business card), ended up being her partner. All in all, it was fun to watch other people salsa and fun to listen to the music. I will, however, leave salsa to those who can and want to do it.

Also, we had a paper due this week and a group presentation! Oh dear...but, they both got done and I believe, were both quite good. We'll see what my professor, Carlos, thinks. But, after my long discourse on why I think that the problem with the Spanish conquest of Mexico was that all the world could only see in black and white and that dichotomies are the downfall of humanity, I think my grade will be safe.

Saturday, I woke up with little red dots all over my feet that itched and looked vaguely like hives...I've still yet to figure out what those are an they are, at the moment of writing this, still present and somewhat itchy.

This weekend, I travelled with ISA to Guanajuato's premier, Museo de Las Momias! Picture if you will, a building filled with low lit rooms containing illuminated glass case that boast the dead and unburied of Guanajuato whose familes couldn't, after five years of burial, afford to pay for their funeral plots. There were men who still had beards, women whose eyes were hanging out liked poached dust, and an innumerable number of babies among which resides the worlds smallest mummy....Yeah, okay, it was kind of disturbing. As you can see, I did take a few pictures, but after so many, it got a little difficult. I've learned through my literature class and by visiting this museum, that in the Mexican culture, death is almost an obsession. It's interesting to think about, and another interesting idea to add to the book....

Despues, we went to the Hacienda del Cochero which in the outside is an unassuming little church-looking place with pretty stone crosses proudly growing throughout gardens of roses and other greenery. However, on the inside and through the descriptions provided by our gothic guide with this long slicked back black hair, his black and read robe, and whispering voice, we found out that the Hacienda had actually been a place of horrific torture throughout the Spanish Inquisition.

 After seeing the iron maidens, human spinning wheels, and other dismembering apparati, I was very much ready for the trip to Valenciana we had next which was much more uplifting than the other two spots visited. We were able to climb down into the old mines one stone step at a time, which was fun, though a little claustrophobic. Then, we toured the church next door where my host mother and father got married. The church was very Baroque with its enormous (we're talking 20 by 30 feet) tall portraits of events in Christ's life including a bloody portrayal of the turning over of the money changer's tables in the temple. The pulpit area was gold and monstrously huge with hand crafted figures of Christ and angels and Mary and an enormity of other celestial beings.

Afterwards, Taylor and I hit up Dominoe's in Plaza de La Paz for some good ole pizza and ketchup, Mexican style, and then caught a flick dubbed in Spanish at the Mega (mall) across town.

It wasn't until we got back from the mall that I started to feel really kruddy. I had kind of been feeling a little bleah since we had left Dominoes with my stomach saying to me, "You know, I'm not quite sure how to feel right now, but I'm guessing this may not end well." And of course, it didn't. Saturday evening brought inumerous trips to the rest room, though I eventually was so tired that I was able to konk out for the night. The next morning, I woke up feeling as though I had fallen from several stories with my body creaking and groaning in what I was quite sure was dehydration, though my attempts to drink water were all nearly failed as it just didn't want to even enter my lips, much less be swallowed.

I found out, too, that my roommate had been sick all through the night with similar symptoms. Our host family looked worried when we talked to the them, and called the head of our program so that we could be referred to a doctor. Being that doctors' offices aren't really open on Sundays, and there aren't that many in general anyway, we went to the nearest hospital which was ironically, in Plaza de La Paz next door to the Dominoe's we had both eaten at the day before. By this point, we'd gone over everything either of us had eaten in the past day and the only thing that was the same was the pizza from Dominoe's. So...

We walked through the hospital doors which are large and wooden about the time the doctor pulled into the area in front of the doors with his car, where someone had been washing the stone floor that extended from within with soap and a water hose. The rain started while we were inside, sitting on a strong wood bench, looking up at the plastic, translucent roof over head as the drops pounded harder and harder. The gaping stone room was gray in the rainlight and echoed with each and every drop. I tried to move my foot to avoid the pooled soapy water until the doctor came and told us he was ready.

The three of us, Queta, Taylor and I went in at the same time and I got to have my first experience telling a medical professional in my second language what was wrong with me.  The doctor was very patient with us and spoke slowly to make sure that we understood.  As he spoke to me, he asked my name and age and typed it all out along with a list of prescriptions on a tiny manual typewriter 

After Taylor and I both laid on the evaluation table and had our tongues and palms looked at, the doctor typed a prescription out with his little mini, manual type writer and we went on our way to the pharmacy to get, what I hadn't realized at first, was to be four sets of "injectable" medication.

Entonces, Taylor and I had to go back to the hospital with the medicine and syringes we had just purchased in order to pay the nurse two dollars apiece to have the shots administered. Taylor went first and said that when he asked the nurse if he was getting the shot in the arm, she just laughed. Needless to say, the procedure was a bit painful and resulted in us taking a cab home being that Queta had had to leave early to go begin preparing supper for us and our new house companions one of whom arrived on Friday, another who arrived Sunday afternoon, and another who arrived Sunday evening. We spent most of the day watching The Pursuit of Happiness, drinking gatorade, and eating soup.

Though, there was a brief incident where everyone in the house was freaking out because our final housemate had not yet arrived and no one could find him. After Julio searched everywhere, it turns out that he wasn't far away and had been given our family's old address and had, during the past several hours, been over at the neighbor's house trying to figure out what to do.

An interesting comment by Julio did come, however, as we got out of our cab before entering the house on Sunday. Julio was outside waiting, and we asked him how we would be able to receive our next shot at 11 that night. He only laughed, tapped his fingers against each other and said, "Sopresa Sopresa!" (Surprise Surprise!)"

As it turns out, Queta used to be a nurse and has experience administering shots. She showed up in our room around eleven with a bottle of rubbing alcohol, some cotton swabs, and a smile. I think one of the most disturbing things anyone has ever asked me took place when she said, "Qual pompis?" For those of you who don't speak Spanish, you now have the opportunity to look that one up.

Today was filled with a lot of things good, bad, and interesting. I have, during this day, shown my backside to two nearly complete strangers so that I could receive injections of a medicine which apparently is strong enough to fight off things like ecoli and salmanela...I'm feeling a ton better by the way, though it is hard to sit down. I also killed three scorpions this evening: the first was pretty large and was made known when Taylor shrieked and I looked over to see a brown scuttling critter on his red comforter. We pulled the bed out a little and my Teva shoe, which I have nicknamed the Matador, killed the dude with just two good whacks. The other two scorpions were, quite scarily, babies---one on each bed. But, after shaking down my whole bed, I'm confident there are no more for tonight!

On a different note, indeed, early this morning, I found out at about the same time that my scholarship was going to help fund the computer through which this blog is being written, and that my family doctor, Dr. Herman E. Spivey, Jr., had died.

Since I've been in Mexico, my cousin Nancy Simpson Warren and my doctor have both passed away, both after struggles with cancer. Dr. Spivey has been my mom's doctor since she was somewhere around five or six years old, and my doctor for the past several years. He was the epitome of hometown courtesy and realism. I've never met anybody who was so willing to take care of other people.

I just hate it that I couldn't be there for either his, or Nancy's funerals. But, perhaps it's better that way. Funerals are always so dark. Their lives were amazing. They fought so hard.

I would like to say here and now, that I thank God for being born a writer and for letting me have some of the most intriguing and amazing experiences that I've ever had.

And as always, thank you for reading. Without you, too, none of this would be here.

Check back later today for the revised version that will be complete with pictures of mummies and the like. Good day to all!

Most Sincerely,

Lance

Buenas Noches everybody!

 This evening, I wrote in my journal for a while with the intent to publish, so I would like to present my post to you tonight in the form that I wrote it.  I hope everything is well with you all, and as always, that you enjoy.

  

lunes el 2 de junio de 2008

 

8:34 pm, the bedroom next to ours again, my newly coined writing room where little Cesar daily comes to rip a hole in the garbage bags filled with old toys so that he can gradually cover my bed with special gifts that he finds there, which today included a clown with a parachute and an invitation to someone’s first communion.  Feeling, well, down, but better now that I am writing again. Listening to Train’s first album.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Today was a medium Spanish day in terms of speaking and understanding.

 

At lunch, there were a lot of people who came over to eat with us including some friends of Queta’s that have two exchange students from Southwestern University living with them.  The students were beginners at Spanish and it was nice to be the exchange students who knew that most Spanish at the table for once—not to undermine or insult our newly made friends who were very nice and knew Spanish very well and I should point out here too that my Spanish is not where it needs to be at all…but anyway, Taylor and I were even asked to translate several stories for them, which felt cool.

 

We walked them to the ISA office and then wlaked around some for a little while before heading to meet some friends at Bagel Café Tin.  I bought a hat because I sunburned my head on Saturday at Teotihuacán.  It’s khaki and makes me look like an old man, but I don’t really care.  I like it.  When we went to Bagel Café Tin, we got there early so we waited outside for about thirty minutes or so for our friends who never came.   We sat out in front of the café from about 6:30 until 7:00 next to a statute of Miguel de Cervantes, with our back to the Quixote museum, next to where an officer was standing with a rather large automatic weapon.  A dog came by also, walking like a dirty ball of white stringy yarn and left a mess under the bench beside us.  Several ISA students walked by, and some even came up to talk to us.

 

Bagel Café Tin was fun, and I wished that I had brought my notebook with me to inulge in the artistically stimulating ambience of the place with its windows opened to the free evening air and its happy primary colors.  The owner is a short woman with spiky gelled hair.  She came over to ask us wah we wanted and carried on a nice conversation about where we were studying and the professor from Berry who recommended the café to us.  I got a chocolate enamorado that had caramel, thick cream, espresso, and of course, it was amazing. 

 

It was funny that as we were sitting there, the coffee smell and tast took me back to Summerville, Georgia over four years ago at the bar or at behind the drums at The Percolator there on Main Street enjoying something real and vicid that was all but a memory that I could touch and feel.  That’s when I started missing home and my girlfriend and my family.  I wish they could all be here experiencing this enchanted place that is a city and a small town at the same time where faces daily become more and more familiar as we traverse to and from class, down and up hills in that order, through the smells of coffee and sometimes sewage, past the woman who sits under the bridge that houses Santo Café who throws out her red bent baseball cap to everyone who passes by as her son plays the accordion in the back ground and the old man next to her peddles CD’s and DVD’s from a box on the sidewalk.

 

To be able to share this in more than words is, indescribable.  But, as the Brothers Gibb once sang, “It’s only words.  And words are all I have, to take your heart away.”

 

In the time that I have been writing this, the sun has finally gone down and twilight has ceded pass to the blessed night.  I love sunny days, dawn, and the night but something about the lighting at dusk incites and orange depression that I have never been able to understand or describe.  It’s been there always since I was a child:  a fear of twilight.  Maybe because my vision doesn’t work at all during that time…I don’t know.

 

Today the lighting problems coincided with my homesickness which brought me into a more vivid homesickness that left me a bit restless and disoriented.  Not to mention that there was no internet available to communicate with my family or my girlfriend, all of whom I miss dearly.

 

But as I write this and listen to m music, I’m fading into a feeling of homeostasis and even happiness that will carry me through the evening into the sunrise tomorrow, and with that, I’m okay.

 

I love you all and hope to hear from you soon!  You can email me  by clicking on the envelope shaped link below!  Buenas Noches, mis amigos!

 

Most Sincerely,

 

Lance

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

Buenos Tardes a todos!

As my Mexican mother, Queta, says, today is Dormingo (in Spanish, Sunday is Domingo and to sleep is dormir), and I celebrated by sleeping in until about ten or so this morning.  After yesterday's exciting events, I think I deserved it.

We had to be up and ready to go at 5:15 yesterday morning to take a five hour road trip from Guanajuato to the the state of Mexico to see Teotihuacan, the Aztecan ruins and pyramids, which were...amazing.

Teotihuacan is something straight out of Indiana Jones or Star Gate or any number of movies that have tried to recreate the mystery and power the surround the legacies and homesteads of ancient civilizations.  There, in intimidating majesty, live the stone pyramids to the Sun and Moon...and Taylor and I climbed the pyramid to the sun and stood at the very top!  It was little difficult on the knees (and my fear of heights) to get back down, but it was so worth it to be able to see that I had climbed to the top of a pyramid and to have been able to see everything for miles and miles (an allusion to The Who only slightly intended) around us.  It' s a situation I can try to but never fully succeed in describing.  I'm so thankful for the opportunities that this trip has presented me.

After the pyramid, however, and all around Teotihuacan (literally almost anywhere you could walk) are peddlers of random "aztecan" obsidian junk that can and will, at any moment, accost you with their merchandize claiming, as in my case, that this is their first sale ever and they must make it today.  Taylor had to rescue me from one guy who saw me buy something from someone else, and continued to follow me and follow me despite my constant replies of "No Gracias."

The trip, for me, however, served as more than just an in-imaginable experience and study of the Aztecan culture.  I learned a lot more about the protagonist of my book.  As we were driving down the highway through the middle of nowhere outside Guanajuato, Irapuato, and Salimanca, I watched the number of fields and farms start to grow more and more numerous.  There old, box shaped buildings bunched together growing out of the desert floor every so many kilometers that were usually brown and faded, home to hundreds or thousands all stacked up and smooshed together in a beehive of working people.   Row upon row of small green plants with lazy long leaves dangling in the new morning sun signified the heart of the country, the work the people do here, and brought forth to me the life of my protagonist before his journey into the United States.  The agave plants, that from which comes Tequila, were ancient and almost sepia against the cafe dirt back ground of a land that sports small sharp mountains on one side of the highway, and flat infinity on the other.  I could see Jorge out in the field with his brother Lupe before the would leave for the United States.  I could see the sweat on his face as he moved across the field planting over forty new agaves each minute,his young eyes already parched and worn as he works to keep his family alive.

The past few days have been filled with great experiences including trips to cafe's across the city and even catching a play one night before bed.  Taylor and I have been on the cafe tour since we have been down here, and have thus far visited Cafe Atrio in the atrium just behind the central Jardin, Bagel Cafe Tin, attached to a municipal, orange church looking building, and Santo Cafe, that boasts seating in a bridge over the road we pass through every day to school.  The play also, was very interesting.  I think it was called Mediana Naranjas, but I can't remember exactly.  It was, kind of sexual in nature, but odd and quirky at the same time.  I only caught about fifty or sixty percent of what was said, but I think it was good for my Spanish all the same.  I hope to catch many more shows before I leave and at 20 pesos a show with my student ID (only two dollars!!!!), I believe that will be a reality.

Today, Queta fixed pancakes for breakfast which made me think of, and miss, home because every Sunday morning after church my momma makes pancakes and bacon.  We didn't have bacon, though.  It was a very spicy sausage that was very similar to spaghetti meat sauce, but much much much more picante.  I liked it, though, and ate enough that my body was begging me to observe "dormingo" and take a nap.  Instead, Taylor and I went out to go do homework at Cafe Atrio where I, again, ordered a chocolate frio and worked on the page I had to write for my Gramatica class about my first week in Guanajuato.

In terms of language adjustment, there have been good days and bad days.  Friday kind of sucked for me, and I'm not sure why, but I just could not speak that day.  However, the weekend has proved to be more and more progressive in terms of my being able to think in Spanish and respond without stuttering or desperately searching for words.  The words still try to all fly away when I speak, but I am able to catch them before they are gone sometimes now. Oddly enough, it seems that early in the morning Spanish is much easier to process and produce, further proving to me that I am a morning person and should start going to bed and getting up much much earlier.  After only one week in Mexico, I think that my Spanish has come leaps and bounds (or oodles and scads as my high school biology teacher used to say), though it still has a long way to go.

 hope for all of you that this message has found you basking in the happiness of the blessings God has given you (that's what I'm doing right now :) ).  As I always, I can't wait to see you for hugs and the sharing of the stories in person.

What would we do without stories?  See you soon, my faithful readers.

Also, for those who would like to see pictures of the trip, you can go here and see them organized by the dates they were taken :).