Apartment pictures

Nuestra apartamento

Nuestra casa…este apartamento arriba. ( our home, this upstairs apartment )

We have been in this apartment for three weeks now. This will be our small two bedroom, one bath home for the next ten months. After living with Mexican families in Guanajuato and the first weeks in Oaxaca, this place gives us comfortable independence and privacy that has been missed. And yet, this benefit comes with the sacrifice of less communal and social interactions.
The gain for us, is the ability to depart into private space for refreshment, study and reflection. Part culture of our origins and part individual temperaments, we have come to understand and appreciate more of this need within ourselves. This home helps us to balance our personalities within a highly social Mexican culture. And the home gives us the opportunity to bring in guests for a night’s rest.
We rent the upstairs portion, which is in the back of the owner’s large house on the front street. Separated by the garden area, we also enjoy a bit more dilution of the city sounds of life and commerce of taxis and traveling street vendors selling tamales, purified water, ice cream, propane gas, flowers, etc.
Actually, our neighborhood is quieter than most, as the street in front is not a main road for cars or buses. It is a small street bordered by a pedestrian walkway always sprinkled with families strolling in slow motion, students chatting energized opinions, lovers and sweethearts kissing and embracing with passionate emotions, dogs prancing in new-found liberation dragging broken ropes of past imprisonment.
So, when we are refreshed by our apartment solitude, we re-enter the social stream of the walkway and are carried off on our next daily adventure.
Our usual adventures are still very local…language school, markets for fruits and vegetables, internet cafes, churches, a few museums. But even these short jaunts in town bring on moments of thoughts and actions, that for me are currently framed-in by a line that repeatedly comes to mind….Enchantment and exasperation are inseparable twins in Mexico.
We are slowly changing from vacationers to long-term residents. And an emotion that requires adjustment is exasperation. We are really living here now, and there is a lot we don’t understand. But this adjustment is helped along by an understanding and comfort with mystery, with absurdities and enigmas.
This is the process of falling in love with a foreign place, and making it a home. A process of being awake, sensitive and vulnerable to enchantment.
Nuestro processo…nuestra vida in Mexico. Que Milagro! Adios!

La Iglesia de Merced

The cool stones of the church brought me in. The afternoon was warm, and in a blink it was my sanctuary. Quiet and cool, this place felt as reverential and educational as a library in my youth. Only five of us were inside away from the chores and traffic in La Iglesia de Merced….the church of mercy.
One worker up on scaffolding, was deep in his craft re-painting stories of fallen angels, the blessed poor, and a risen Lord. The man appeared focused with commitment. He looked as though he had been painting for hours or days. Perhaps he has never left his ladders. I like to think he dipped into his bucket for strength as well as paint. I never saw his face, he was busy communing.
A woman sat up front. The mercy she was absorbing perhaps came from the glow of gold from the grand altar. I never saw her face, since I was behind, but she was touched I’m sure by the stories and instructions that came to her in the quiet. Twice her hands rose to wipe tears. I don’t think she was sad, I like to believe she was smiling.
Another man with ragged clothes in an alcove, sat on the edge of his pew, and in animated whispers and gestures spoke to Saint John, the statue, as an old friend. They were just catching up on old times. Of course, this fellow seemed a bit lacking mentally, but the cool stones and statues of this mercy-place gave him all the companionship and listening ears he needed. I could see Saint John’s face, I like to think he was smiling.
While walking out, the snoring of the last man stopped me. He was completely laid out on his pew bench bed receiving the blessings of sleep. A workman on siesta? A drunk fast asleep dreaming of confession and absolution?
La Iglesia de Merced had begun its first chapter and lesson on me. A snoring man in a church would get no judgment from me. All of us were here, and quite at ease.
The spiritual is very natural when it comes in the form of quiet and cool mercy.

The End

All together now, keep your eyes open beyond yourselves, see the margins of the world, where those who are different from us are waiting to demonstrate that they are as human as we.
Reconize yourselves in he or she who are not like you or me.
Carlos Fuentes
The above story of the IGLESIA DE MERCED is a way to make contact with something significant, even if not entirely sure what that something is. but hopefully these encounters become parables of how interconnected we all are in our individual journeys. Common denominators are more important than differences.

The grace of imperfection is worth more than graceless perfection.
proverb
This saying will be the lense through which we will try to see and write a grouping of story-impressions to be called...........Encounters with Grace in the Margins.

People and places just out of sight, the bitter and the sweet, the poor in finances and some in spirit....these we are beginning to see and befriend. Many of our activities are grand tourist days, and others will begin to be on the edges...the hard, the enigmas, the conflicted aspects of Mexico that we have not understood yet.
But also we have always felt a beautiful courtesy and tenacious spirit here, even in the margins.
Here we have encountered grace.
Adios, Dios le bendiga ( God Bless )

More pictures-August

Resting...sort of...

Resting...sort of...

How beautiful it is to do nothing
And then rest afterwards.
Proverb

Last Sunday, Katy and I strategically attempted to stay at home and follow any demands of any activity list. Total slack.
Our days are so full…so tiring…walking, absorbing, listening and planning…that the upcoming weekend had never looked so necessary and inviting. And as the photos show, we managed to recharge and reflect individually through simple and small actions. ( As you see, my actions were much simpler than Katy’s, but I was blogging in my mind )
We need to slow ourselves, learn smaller lessons, and not go so long before tiring.

Each day try to find a few minutes of that blessed
solitude which you so much need to keep your interior
going. Josemaria Escriva

Clocks slay time…only when the clock stops
does time come to life. William Faulkner

We are quite behind on these journals, I know now that they will perhaps never follow in correct chronological sequence. Some experiences will be told soon because they are fresh; others will appear later after reflection and digestion. Some events are just deeper in the soul and ambiguous for now. Others have just happened and are enjoyed wonderfully and superficially.
Such as the Saturday night before our Slacker Sunday.
But first, an overdue UPDATE: we have found a very cozy apartment to rent…but more info. and photos on a later blog.
So, on this Saturday we again hiked with 11 months of suitcases and cold-turkey knocked on the iron gate of a stranger whose only existence in reality to us was that they were enthusiastically recommended by our new language school.
And again!…It happened!…so far, readers, do you see a recurring blog theme lately? Another stranger has come into our lives and showed us hospitality and grace! We are so thankful and blessed, and wonder how long this will last.
This new hostess, Ruth Montellano, a Oaxacan native, has endeared herself to us and we will be forever grateful. We have already laughed, cried, talked and communicated in smiles and warmth.
Well, as I was saying, the Saturday before our Sunday of Solitude….Ruth decided that a party was in order. Just because she had a gut-reaction that elements might be at hand in order to spark a fiesta.
Here is a run-on sentence of how her intuition played out:
(sorry, no photos, we got caught up in the evening and forgot )
Katy and I played mandolin and guitar in the courtyard while another housemate Father/Son traveler team from Switzerland made and served spaghetti and sang John Denver and German hiking songs while also joined on guitar and voice by a gringo from Philadelphia versed in the music and words of Black-American Jazz and Blues and progressive political and labor songs of the 20th century, while Ruth was directing/producing the night and making the oddest and most wonderful drink of cerveza, lime juice, Worchestershire and Tabasco sauce with the glasses rimmed with salt and chili powder, while we all spoke an international comic and patient mix of weird but somehow communicable late night languages.
And so, this how our Sunday began. A day of few chores, few words, quiet with only a few motions…exhausted but full.
Slow. Quiet. Reflect. Rest. Content.
That’s it…nada mas, Adios.

Stop talking! What a shame you have no familiarity
with inner silence. Polish your heart for a day or two:
make that mirror your book of contemplation. Rumi

wah-HAH-kah facts

OAXACA - Quick facts.

Climate:
Despite its deep southern latitude, and the city of Oaxaca’s elevation of 5,110 ft., cooling summer breezes and summer rain moderate the heat of the plentiful sunshine. Most of the state, except the remote mountains, experience the tropics, never feeling the bite of frost.
In Oaxaca’s coastal areas, winter days are usually warm and rainless, peaking at 82-88 degrees. Summers are warm up to 90 degrees with afternoon clouds and short cooling showers.
Oaxaca city has midwinter days of mild 70-75 degrees average, with cool but frost-free nights between 45-60. Summers with afternoon highs of mid to upper 80’s.
May is usually the hottest month. The rain comes in June and tapers off in October and doesn’t return until the next June.

Land:
Oaxaca is Mexico’s fifth largest state, as big as the U.S. state of Indiana, or the country of Portugal. Mountains are dominant with 20 peaks above 10,000 ft. The tallest peak is Cerro Quiexbra at 12,300 ft.

Population:
The state has approx. 3.8 million. 50 percent of the total are 16 indigenous or native groups, with 16 separate native languages spoken in Oaxaca. The largest group is the Zapotec, then the Mixtec, Mazatecs, Chinatecs, etc. Spanish is the most common and market language.

Flora and Fauna:
Mexico is one of the most biologically diverse countries on earth. Home to 1,041 bird species, 439 mammals, 989 amphibians and reptiles, 26,00 plants….in each case, about 10% of the total number of species on the planet on just 1.4% of earth’s land.
The southern states of Oaxaca and Chiapas has some 10,000 plant species, more than 600 bird species (twice as many as the US) and 1,200 butterfly species (more than twice as many as the US/Canada combined).
The most extensive vegetation zone in the state of Oaxaca is the cooling zone of the pine-oak forest. The pine above 6,000 ft. is the white or Aztec pine. And often in the same territory are the oaks…the ahuehuete..( ah-waa-WAY-te) or sabino, a type of cypress tree, Mexico’s national tree.
The tropical rainforest in the south of Oaxaca has mahogany, chicle or chewing gum tree, and the cacao tree- chocolate.
The mountain cloud forests above 7,000 ft. have liquid amber trees, dogwood, beech, tree ferns, bromeliads and orchids.
Mammals-- armadillos, fox, coyote, coatimundi (raccoon-like). Bats are widespread in Oaxaca, home to 2-3 times as many bat species as the entire U.S. They pollinate flowers, eat gnats, mosquitos, mice. In the remote mountains and jungles are the spider and howler monkeys. Jaguar still live on the southern coast and Sierra.

Oaxaca city:
Approx. 300,000-400,000 people. 5,110 ft. The Aztec settlement here, after the takeover of the Zapotecs, was called Huaxyacac--meaning “ in the nose of the squash” from which Oaxaca is derived. The Spanish laid out a new town around the existing center plaza in 1529.
Oaxaca city is the state capital and only sizable city , with a colonial heart of narrow, straight streets with historic stone buildings. Oaxaca is very relaxed but stimulating, remote and cosmopolitan. It’s dry mountain heat, manageable scale, old churches, broad shady plazas and cafes help slow the pace of life. A capital of the modern Mexican art scene.