Back in Mexico. There's a smile in my Spanish when I speak here, a gentleness that overtakes me. Also, I have this heightened awareness of the absurd circumstance of being a gringa in Mexico. Mostly it feels like people regard me with a sort of bemusement, above all. Many are incredibly helpful; some seem to think that good luck rubs off of me like I'm a chimney-sweep or something; still others are just straight up curious about me. Two reporters chased me down yesterday to ask a foreigner how she celebrates Christmas, and seemed a bit disappointed when I answered that it's a time to practice a bit more good will, tolerance, patience and kindness toward others, hang out with your family, and eat. I guess my answer wasn't very exotic -- on the upside, I might wind up on the six o'clock news for all the right reasons!
Stop me if you've heard this one, or just indulge me instead: there's a game I like to play here an ex-pat friend of mine taught me. It consists, very simply, of spotting the incongruence. The theory is that, wherever you go in Mexico, at any given moment, there's something completely, totally, obviously out of place within your field of vision. A costume shop at the bus station. A truck driving along with its rear-view mirrors lit on fire in honor of the Virgen de Guadalupe. A man painted silver from head to toe. And if you can't find the incongruence, you're probably it.
Mexico assaults the senses. It's a loud, bumpy, spicy, bright place and it always smells like something, whether the sting of diesel exhaust, the heady fragrance of frying chiles, or the slightly ammoniac smell of fresh tortillas. Much of it is homely; some of it is sublimely beautiful, and it's all jumbled together: encimado, they'd say here. On-topped. You have to adjust your vision in order to shut out different kinds of noise, to become blind to different types of visual interference, in order to find the beauty. It takes practice, but when you manage it, you're richly rewarded.
It comes home with me, too, this gentleness. Greater openness to chance experiences and encounters. La entrega: a giving over. With it comes greater patience for unexpected setbacks, and renewed faith that things - all things - have a way of working themselves out. If your problem has a solution, a Mexican proverb says, why worry? And if your problem has no solution, why worry? If I'm mindful I can sustain this state of mind for a time. Three years away though...I was definitely due for a re-charge.
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