Sorrows of the King

One of my favorite moments at the Pompidou Art Center in Paris is catching sight of Matisse's collage of paper cutouts.

Jenny and I learned a good museum trick from our Aunt Judy. Go at the moment of the museum's opening and race up the stairs to the top gallery, working your way backward chronologically. This way, you get some time alone with the sorrowful king.

I must reveal that Jenny was terrible in museums. She was compelled to rush from one room to the next, always wondering what was to come. And continually consulting the guidebook for relevant quips about what we were viewing. I'd implore her to just look at the art, and she said she'd be able to relax after racing through the whole collection. Then, she could return to her favorites. She was this way with books, too, often reading the ending first, so that the suspense wouldn't override her enjoyment of the earlier part of the story.

When we saw a beautiful Miro at the MOMA in New York, she lamented to me that, as soon as she left the museum, she'd begin to forget the painting. Was she doomed to return to her favorite paintings for a lifetime, to fight the forgetting? I told her to focus on one detail, sketch it in her mind, and that could hold the impact of the painting for her. It worked. And me? I've completely forgotten the painting. Perhaps some red? A fish shape? Come to think of it, we might have been at the Met.

The Persuasive Art of Rainstorms

is that they convince you that they cleanse you
of your past, the pains inflicted or received.
If I were to invite a rainstorm to a hand of cards
I'd find it difficult to bluff.
They know too much, and they take too much.

I prefer streetlights.

xoxo

To Jenny, My Sister

Jenny Makofsky

Tommorrow it's four years, and I've been taking lots of long walks so that I can have the opportunity to talk to you. I tell you how I miss you, I thank you for visiting me in my dreams (just this week there was one, and I can't remember it a bit, just that we were laughing and talking and it was easy. There were no questions about what had happened or how you had managed to find your way back into my life, everything was so free.)

February is my weakest month, where I really get to self-pitying, and I know you'd not want me going down that road. But maybe you'd let me do it a little anyway? Like what really burns me up is that it was only a month before you died that I was walking in the East Oakland hills and thinking about you and Steve and Max and I caught my breath because I realized how lucky I was. And I quickly crossed all my fingers to protect us from the Evil Eye or whatever it might be that is vengeful when you are joyful and everything's too perfect.

But there are things to be glad for. You went to Barcelona, Jenny, and stood on the roof of some Gaudi architecture. You drew a Beatniks comic strip. You wrote a one-woman show and knocked out the audience at the Climate Theater in San Francisco (not to mention 21 Grand in Oakland and The Works in San Jose). You helped raise little Max and make him a lover of stories. You sang "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around" at Grandpa Abe's funeral, when I couldn't even speak. You drank tea with Steve on the afternoon you died, and laughed with delight over the gay marriages in San Francisco. You wore gorgeous glittery hair clips and big black boots. So many people loved you and were lucky to know you.

When Grandpa died, you told me that the responsibility was on us to carry on his political work and recreate his energy for social justice. And then you left, too. What happens to all your stories and everything you helped to make so poetic and glowing?

I just wrote in your guestbook about tomorrow. Tomorrow we're going to Hierve el Agua, the petrified waterfalls outside of Oaxaca, where you ate too many tamales 10 years ago. I still have the picture of you and Steve and I that Abby took. We're laid flat along a crevice in the rocks where, deep underneath, water was flowing. That's how I try to think of you, somewhere beyond the surface of this shallow world, moving, changing, maybe singing, and if my mind could just make that leap in understanding the potential of the physical universe, I'd be there, too.

Bringing Down the Evil Louis Vuitton Empire

My story, "My Life is a Charade", about Jenny and I getting accidentally caught up in a Louis Vuitton handbag reselling ring in Paris, won story of the month at Expat Women! You can see the site and my story here.

The Great Wide Open

I think "The Great Wide Open" is actually a song by Tom Petty but, these days, it's the soundtrack of my life. With Genevieve at school (sort of) in the mornings and no teaching hours, I decided to make a go of finding and applying for some freelance writing gigs.

Well, in the past week, I've secured two new ongoing jobs as well as a great assignment from an old faithful source. So it happens that, all of a sudden, I enter a new phase of my life. I should say "I back into a new phase of my life" because, since Jenny died, everything feels kind of accidental, like I'm responding to things rather than initiating things.

It's coming up on the four-year anniversary of the accident. My dad's visiting from Beijing, which is nice because he has a way of bringing Jenny back to me, the way he's a fuzzy-visioned, argumentative genius. His multiple backpacks are just jammed full of stuff and there are papers everywhere--it's so like living with Jenny.

Last week, we went to see "Across the Universe" and Dad and I sat in the theater singing Beatles songs. I thought, this is the kind of thing I'd only have done with Jenny but here I am, sitting in the dark singing even though she's been away from me for four years. Who knows? Maybe she was sitting behind us, throwing popcorn at us to get us to quiet down, though more likely she would have been singing along.

First Day

Today, we dropped off Genevieve at school for the first time. She's 2 years, 5 months, and she just seemed very sick of her parents, so we thought we'd give this a try. Though the staff of our neighborhood park's playroom wanted her to attend their daycare, Max was incensed and insisted she attend the daycare at his school, Colegio Teizcali.

This morning as we straggled around retrieving backpacks and diapers, Max was micro-managing: "Did you pack Jenny's little yogurt cup?" "Did you put in enough diapers?" "She needs water, you know." It was actually pleasant having a third parent around, nagging me.

We walked the kids to school and then--I couldn't believe it--they said to just leave Genevieve, not to stay. It seemed crazy. All the daycares I've known in the U.S. have you stay the first day and even half of the second day. Sometimes there seems to be more parents than children in the classroom! But they said that Jenny seemed okay and that she would adjust better without us. I thought I misunderstood the Spanish, so I checked again. And again. And again. Until they just laughed at us.

So we left, and then the tears came. Mine.

Never Can Say Goodbye

I'm feeling sad tonight, because it was my last night of work teaching at the Cambridge Academy. It was so difficult to say goodbye to my students, who I'd grown attached to. There were so many little in jokes, like how my teen class wondered whatever happened to Hugo, the boy who asked to go to the bathroom and never came back. We always told each other to check for Hugo when we went to the bathroom. Three of my teen students brought me a giant ceramic candle holder with glitter and statuary, just the most classic teacher gift ever. Some things transcend cultural boundaries, and this candle holder is the last in a long line of jokey mugs, off-brand stuffed animals, and battered jewelry. My adult students all gave me kisses on the cheek and told me how I had helped them.

And to think this all came down due to a measly three hours a week! Because I taught only 16 hours instead of 19 hours, the powers-that-be decided not to pay for my work visa. Ah, you know how it is--you take on emergency shifts, you substitute for friends who need to go out of town, but, when it comes down to it, the administration worms out of paying whenever it can.

It's a shame because I know I was an effective teacher. On the other hand, the school doesn't need effective teachers, just teachers, so I was quite expendable.

So I've found other work now. Online work that may or may not pan out, but I am open to the next adventure. Just a little sad at the same time.

Dr. Manuelita and the Crystal Pendulum

I've never seen anyone write about how many colds you can catch when you move to a new country, confronting some new types of germs. It's ironic, because the winter is so gorgeously beautiful here, with highs in the 70s and 80s, and our whole family's had one thing or another passing around since Day of the Dead. It doesn't help that poor baby Genevieve seems to be going through her cycle of colds, just like Max did at her age. It's so challenging to be sick in a foreign county. We can't find our favorite remedies; we have no family around to help us; we can't always understand what doctors recommend.

As much as we hated to do it, we had Jenny on antibiotics in October and then in January. Of course, they didn't help her at all. And then my dear friend Gabby told me about Dr. Manuelita.

She's in one of the most simple yet beautiful little courtyard buildings I've ever seen, on Calle Humboldt, near Llano Park. A little signboard outside signals that it's a homeopathic pharmacy.

But what gives Dr. Manuelita the honor of this Harry Potter-sounding blog post title? Her crystal pendant which she swings like a pendulum, North-South then East-West, over a piece of paper with the patient's name written on it.

As she rotates the crystal she describes the patient's trouble. In Jenny's case, her whole bronchial system was suffering and she needed something to strengthen her immune system. Jenny was delighted with the news, or perhaps the pendulum, and decided to sing and dance for the doctor.

Then, Dr. Manuelita and her assistant labored for an extraordinary long amount of time to type up tiny labels that said "JENNY" and apply them to seven tiny bottles of pills and a dispenser of drops. Jenny was to take four from bottle one, wait an hour, then four from bottle two, and so on, until she ran through all the medicine.

That night, she didn't wake up shrieking at midnight and require watching The Teletubbies to chill her out. And, in the morning, Steve was allowed to walk away from her without causing her to cry. She was happy, playful, energetic--just like the old Jenny.

Next October, as winter approaches, the whole family's going in for the crystal pendulum treatment.

Max and the Baby Jesus

Well, here we are, atheists adrift in Christian-landia, for it is Three Kings Day, the day of the Epiphany. I should begin, though, by saying that this year was my first experience of this holiday traditions, and I loved it.

All over Mexico, people are baking and sharing the Rosca de Reyes, which is a round, sweet bread with candied fruits, sort of like fruitcake. There are little plastic baby Jesus dolls inside the cake, representing the need for the baby Jesus to be hidden to be protected.

Each guest slices into the cake and examines his or her piece to see if the baby Jesus is inside. Well, there we were at our neighbor's store and, wouldn't you know it, Max scored the baby Jesus. He paraded through the street holding the tiny, eerily white baby over his head. Receiving it means good luck for the year!

Receiving the baby also means that Max is the money behind a party he must organize on February 2nd. The Feast of the Candelaria requires Max hosting a tamale party and putting up the funds to purchase tamales for everyone who was present at the cake-slicing.

By afternoon today, the zocalo was jumping with Three Kings chaos. Blocks in four directions were closed and filled with market stalls. I saw many many wonderful things, such as wrestler dolls in a wrestling ring; Pink Panther patches; three tostadas for a dollar; light-up roller skates; and Powerpuff Girl socks (purchased!).

There were calenda processions in the zocalo and, to Max's delight, cascarones-smashing. Max loves buying these eggs filled with confetti and then cracking them on our heads. I have to admit, the day felt...lucky.

First joke of 2008

Overheard:

"I accidentally put on my underpants with a sock in them, so it looks like I had a big poop."

Books to look forward to...

Now that Maxito reads in Spanish, I am trying to read to him in English every night, from books that are beyond his picture books. So we began with "Pippi Longstocking" which, with the cultural stereotyping edited out by me, was enjoyable.

Next up was "Alice in Wonderland" and tonight we finish "Through the Looking Glass" (a little tedious, though I have always liked "The Walrus and the Carpenter". The chapters run long and there are too many parenthentical asides. I wonder if I should be critiquing parentheticals when I am within one?).

Then he will choose our next book, probably "Mary Poppins" (which, if I recall, will also require some editing) or "The House at Pooh Corner". I keep trying to sell my personal favorite, "Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth" by the almighty E.L. Konigsburg (who can forget "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler"?), but so far Max is not persuaded. Other possibilities: "The Wizard of Oz", one of Jenny's folklore collections, or "Sideways Stories from Wayside School". Or, the Bible...ha!

POSTSCRIPT:
Well, here it is two days later, and I thought I should update this post to share Max's choice. "Garfield Takes the Cake". Not exactly what I was aiming for.

A New Year in Mexico

You know it's New Year's Eve, or New Year's Day, or Christmas, or Dia de Independencia, or the week before them, or the week after them, when you hear bomb-level fireworks going off around here up until 2am and starting again around 5:30am. And so it is New Year's Eve, and Max demanded that we all wear yellow underpants because his Boing! Boing! magazine said that would bring money in the year to come.

Another tradition around here is to eat 12 grapes as the clock strikes 12 and to make 12 wishes for the New Year. So we all ate raisins around 7pm. I imagine that, if our wishes come to fruition, they may be dried out renditions of the original wishes because of the raisin substitution. So, instead of world peace, perhaps we'd get a treaty signed or something. And my wish/resolution to write every day might be watered down to writing grocery lists or emails. Not that I'm complaining. I'd love the raisin version of my wishes to come true.

How to get to Yagul

Yagul is a rather remote, less-visited archaeological site that is on the road to Mitla, which is a more major site. To get to Yagul, you take a MITLA bus from the second-class bus station, by the Mercado de Abastos. You ask the driver to let you off at Yagul, and then you climb up the mountain to the ruins, about 1.3 miles.

That's one way to get to Yagul, and how I did it 10 years ago. Another way is to wait forever for the bus and decide to rent a car and drive there, which is what Steve and Max did today, to my chagrin, because the car rental negated the money we were earning for getting the photographs.

But Steve tells me Yagul is as dramatically beautiful and eerie as ever. There is a labyrinth in the center, and the mammoth cliffsides around, all seeming to have faces and skulls carved into their recesses.

How do you bring back the dead?

I've been reflecting on the philosophy that, during Day of the Dead, the veil between this world and the afterlife is lifted, and the dead visit altars dedicated to them. I've always made altars for loved ones, especially for Jenny. I try to follow some of the traditions, incorporating flowers, candles, foods, water, pictures, and mementos. And I add my own elements, like alebrijes, paintings, favorite books, masks, vinyl tablecloths, Max's drawings, tissue-paper roses, and medallions from bread of the dead.

But it's an atheist's altar, beautiful and, in some ways, meaningless. It's a hedge, too, just in case I'm wrong about my belief that there is no afterlife. I know, though, that, if she could, Jenny would only visit something that I deeply believed in, so I've explored some options.

I rented a DVD from Netflix on how to communicate with the dead. They recommended writing a question and meditating on the the dead person and, somehow, the answer will appear. I went to Ecstactic Dance and tried the same thing--posing a question to Jenny at the beginning of class and hoping for some kind of inspiration in her voice, her persona during the class.

Recently, though, I rediscovered the best way to bring Jenny back. We were on a long drive and I started to sing to pass the time. The songs were all Jenny, all her silly fantastic Ethel Merman operatic ballyhoo and pathos and hilarity. It was her "Scrappy Doo" song, sung to the tune of "Desperado". And the themes to "Mary Tyler Moore" and "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air". Old-timey stuff like "Red River Valley", "You are My Sunshine", and "Clementine". Jenny had a way of belting out a story song--"Killing Me Softly" "I Will Survive" even, sort of, "Like a Prayer". She always sang loudly, which made up for our shared trait of lack of staying on key.

So, I'll lift the veil and bring back a little of Jenny tonight. Here are the lyrics to her "Scrappy Doo" song. You must sing it loudly, to the tune of "Desperado":

Scrappy Doo, when will you stop chasing crim'nals?
And start singing hymnals,
Just like you used to do?
Scrappy Doo, you've got that pu-u-ppy power
to catch crim'nals by the hour...
But have you forgotten Saint Jude?
Scrappy Doo, you have left me in a lu-urch
So get your dog ass back to chu-urch
What do I have to do?
Scrappy Doo, when will you stop chasing crim'nals?
And start singing hy-y-y-ymnals...
Just like you used to do?
Scrappy...don't.

Los Arquitos

My new favorite neighborhood in Oaxaca is Los Arquitos, or The Archways. It is a colonia located beneath and behind the city's old aqueduct. All sorts of secrets hide beyond the archways, like the Friday and Saturday El Pochote organic market. Steve and I scored a couple lovely plates of fresh vegetarian enchiladas in mole sauce, for about four dollars.

There is also a free film series which, someday, I will attend.

Steve and I wound through several of the alleys in an attempt to find a house for sale. No such luck, but we did meet some friendly neighbors who admired Jenny's wild hair.

Looking for the Light

When things go wrong around here, it exhausts me. It's not just the language that gets in the way, but figuring out how things are done.

Last Sunday, turning on the coffee maker caused all the power in the house to go off. And stay off. We called our landlord's assistant and they immediately sent a maintenance man (on a moto) to check it out. On a Sunday afternoon. So I was feeling very fortunate for how things work in Mexico, with people available immediately on a Sunday afternoon.

The problem was, Juan Carlos couldn't fix it. He tried and tried, scaling the side of our house and teetering along the roof by the wires. He plugged and unplugged things. He removed fuses and changed them. He took apart the refrigerator. He called around and decided we needed a new...something...it looked like a cable in a box. He asked if I could get one and I said I probably couldn't because, well, how could I? And what would I do with it if I got one, anyway?

So we tipped him and he returned the next day with the thing. But still it didn't work. We had half our lights and no refrigerator.

Four days later, all our food went bad and stinky and I felt a little desperate. In the darkness of the late afternoon, we accidentally locked ourselves out of our own bathroom and had no key. Max was doing homework outdoors, trying to catch the last rays of sun.

The mommies at Max's school, who I cherish and who love to advise and chide me (thank goodness), told me I would have to visit The Commission. Oh god, I didn't like the sound of that. It's the Electric Company, but Mexican government style, surrounded by guys with big guns.

Instead I called my landlord's staff again. They said to be patient. I went next door to the little store I love that is attached to our house. I shared my troubles with Julita, the proprietress, who said, "For the rent you're paying, you should get better service."

She gossiped about my difficulties to a neighbor, who took it upon herself to come over and instruct me in how to call The Commission. Which I did. The repairman came within an hour of the call. He backed his immense truck and crane into our driveway, trotted up to the wires, and had all our power on in five minutes. And just like the difficulty of having no electricity had loomed so large in my life for five days, having it fixed seemed nothing short of a miracle. Even though, all told, I had involved twelve people in my problem. Gossip--that's my kind of Google.

Dead Head

It's Dead season around here, and I'm lucky to have a 6-year-old son who can show me the ropes for some of the more key traditions. First: chocolate. Oaxaca is known for its chocolate factories, and they hit full hum around Muertos. The chocolate is other-wordly--perhaps that's why it's put on altars. At the factory, you can see the cinnamon, chile powders, nuts and such that they add to the various flavors. I also love to see the mole sauces, many made with unsweetened chocolate and ground pumpkin seeds.

We had a feast at Max's school. It was very challenging to stop myself from eating a mountain of tamales, pumpkin in cinnamon sauce, arroz con leche, homemade chocolates, and fresh tortillas in mole. All of this at an elementary school party; it really puts my old days of hot cheetos and Hawaiian punch to shame.

There was a calaveras poem contest where the children had to write about their dead selves. Although it sounds macabre, the children find this practice very entertaining. Max: Habia un calavera Maxito, quien fue bien chiquito. Tuvo un gatito que tambien fue calavercito.

Oaxaca is trying very hard to woo tourists back and had many extra frills for Muertos this time around. The zocalo was the stage for a series of altars, each representing different regions. And there was a giant sand tapete, essentially a brilliant painting done in sand, flowers, seeds, and glitter, depicting Frida Kahlo, in the grand Municipal Palace.

We made visits to a couple of cemetaries and set up an altar for Jenny. I made sure it has popcorn and Mayordomo chocolate. Max added an orange and marbles. The cemetaries were filled with families and flowers, orange and maroon, flickering candles, copal incense, little framed pictures of saints, and children drinking soda and running around the gravestones.

Riding the bus home last night, I thought about how I have happened upon one of the world's most beautiful places, at one of my favorite times. It's such good fortune that I sometimes feel as if I am rising out of my body, like I can't quite touch the ground. Jenny called it "living life like you're in a movie", and she was right.

Just because you wear a sexy bikini doesn't mean you don't have gas

Genevieve had a fever, so we took our first foray into the Mexican health system. That's right, a visit to Farmacia Similares, also known in these parts as "Dr. Simi", a chain of pharmacies with doctors on staff who will do instant consulations.

It was Sunday afternoon when we circumnavigated the giant inflatable doctor and arrived at the closed door of the pharmacy. "Why did I think it would be open?" I asked Steve, and then decided to ask at the drug counter if there were any doctors on staff. The women told me to knock at the door and wait.

A few minutes later, Dr. Simi (really Mario) popped his head out and invited us in. He interviewed me extensively--using far too many irregular verbs and indirect objects--about Genevieve's symptoms and then went into rapid-fire explanation about what he was going to do if I could only, unblame him please, wait five minutes, unblame him, while he ran over to the store.

While we cooled our heels, I inspected the room and found an interesting framed certificate on the wall. "Steve, our doctor is licensed to kill cockroaches, fleas, flies, and mosquitos." Alas, it wasn't so--the room had recently been fumigated and received a certificate of approval.

But Steve was otherwise absorbed with the Dr. Simi advertisement hanging from the ceiling. It was a cardboard mobile of a sexy bikini lady sitting next to an inflatable Dr. Simi. In the corner was a small box of medicine for indigestion. "This," decided Steve, "was the low point of her career."

Dr. Simi came back with batteries for the ear inspection tool and spent a long time peering into screaming Jenny's ears, checking her pulse, listening to her breathe (and scream), taking her temperature, all the while asking about her sleeping, eating, drinking.

In the end, he wrote two pages about Jenny's little cold and reviewed the information with me. He jotted down his home number in case Jenny got sick during the night and I wanted him to pop by. He warned me, though, that his mom might answer the phone, but that she would be sure to give him any messages.

Then we paid him the 25 pesos ($2.50) for the visit. We love you, Dr. Simi!

Walking with the Bulls

I'm not the Ernest Hemingway type (though Jenny always cited a favorite Hemingway passage about his lamenting eating hot french fries too soon and burning the roof of his mouth, but being unable to wait for them to cool down). And the whole "Running of the Bulls" tradition in Pamplona is unappealing to me.

But, yesterday, as I was taking a shortcut to get to Maxito's school, I found myself on a dirt alleyway facing a couple of bulls. It was somewhat astonishing to see them on the open road, rather than behind a fence or in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Bulls! They are massive and extremely muscular--I certainly entertained the idea of running away.

Then I saw the man walking alongside them. He fell into step next to me and began a conversation. So it was that I wound up walking with the bulls to get to Max's school. They pulled at roadside vegetation as they walked, dragging down branches, even uprooting small plants. Sometimes they wandered into the middle of the cobblestone road and, once, they kicked up a little dust trying to chase a red VW van that chugged by.

As my party and I approached Colegio Teizcali, the man pointed to a pasture, filled with detritus and bramble and barbed wire. He told me he and the bulls were heading through the pasture and, if I wanted to, I could join them. He assured me that it was a short cut. I looked at gnarly tangles of roving weeds tied around bits of trash and thought of how Hemingway and company were so macho and bold on those winding thoroughfares of Pamplona. But I'm no Heminway. I took the long way.

The Teachings of Don Juan

Now here is something I remember from living in Mexico before. You become desperate for casual reading material. So it has come to pass that Steve and I are both reading old paperback copies of Carlos Castaneda books about...transcendence? Vision?

I'm halfway through mine, in a chapter about water rats, but my mind keeps wandering. Ah, but maybe Don Juan wants it to wander because it is in that sideways movement of thought that you encounter the great epiphany!

I'm excited to report that I've just unearthed a couple of Vanity Fair magazines, and one of them is from 2006--pretty recent! In the meantime, Steve has shared one of Don Juan's teachings from A Separate Reality in which our protagonist expresses fear of eating street food in case he gets sick. Don Juan responds, "Once you decided to come to Mexico, you should have put all your petty fears away."