Imperfect Tense

Ring the bells that still can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.

I quoted this Leonard Cohen song recently, on my Facebook page, and it has stuck with me. I think it captures the essence of Oaxaca, a place so messy and imperfect, filled with music and, well, with cracks in everything. And the light gets in.

I'm wanting to stretch out my hand for Jenny to hold as I watch the river fade to a creek in Huayapam, as I see the new graffiti damning URO and PRI spring up on walls in the centro, as I watch my children run through the parks and the streets of the place they call home.

I feel regretful for not having made a more cohesive tribute to Jenny in these nearly seven years since she died. I wanted there to be this great epiphany, this moment where her stories and folklore and humor and art came together and told me what to do with all of it. But maybe I need to let go of the perfect offering and be thankful for the bits of light, the flashes of memory I've had recently...

Whenever we had an extra seat in our row on an airplane, we'd call it the garage and throw tons of stuff in there.

Jenny valued sleeping in a hammock more than almost anything.

Brandy reminded me that Jenny tracked her tiramisu samplings at various restaurants.

She bequeathed her leather motorcycle jacket to Max. It's hanging in my closet.

She was always torn between going back to the places she loved and visiting new places.

She kept lists.

We ran on the giant sand dunes, and watched the breeze change their patterns.

Whenever I did crunches, she got on the floor, as close as possible to me, to do crunches, too.