Mexico Pix: Spring 09 (pt.2)

Hey!  Look at this!  Two fledgling doves in their nest.  They are able to fly on their own now, but haven't yet given up this place of refuge.  We've watched this nest since the mother bird first started sitting here....  very carefully, from a distance, with binoculars.

This time, with telephoto, and a bit too close (I might add) Robert moved in.  The bird on the left hopped out of the nest and fluttered clumsily off. Later, he was seen back in the nest -- which is located (by the way) right behind the construction site of our new wash-stand.

Ahhh, a delicious evening meal with Marta in her welcoming kitchen...  We share such a close bond with her and her family, through all these years.  This is the mother of Omar and Lalo (appearing now and again in pix and blogs).  Her daughters, equally fine folk, don't drop by our house and so don't make it into blog-tales.

This kitchen is wattle-and-daub construction, covered in adobe and whitewashed.  Airy, light,  and comfortably spacious.

And here, from the vantage point of my hammock in our new ramada (those are my toes), is a glimpse of how lush our property is becoming.  Five ever-blooming rose bushes in pots, ferns, papaya, and various citrus trees all shade the house and provide places for birds and lizards.  We spend many a morning on the porch, watching this "wide-screen TV."

 

And here's a glimpse into the yard of our nearest neighbors.  This is where our delightful Luis lived before he was adopted and moved to Zihua.  This little girl, Diana Laura, is his cousin.  Soon, I hope she will be independent enough to come play with the other kids on the porch.  As I wrote some time earlier, this family saga deserves a novel as large as "Gone With the Wind."  

The mango tree, by the way, is on our side of the fence -- one of four.  It was a great mango year.

Appearing on our wide-screen TV this day is our molting lizard.  He wanders all over our property, entertaining us with his antics.

The ever-vigilant "OWNER" of this papaya tree is the hummingbird.  While he chases off all other birds, butterflies, even bees -- he leaves this guy alone (he don't drink no nectar).  

We have a photo of the hummingbird at rest (where he often performs his bathing ritual), but he is very small in the photo, so I didn't post it.

Mexico Pix: Spring 09 (pt.1)

The Wedding Arch --  After the very classy wedding of Josh & Morgan, we posed for a sunset moment before the dancing began...

Here is the Dr. Seuss Table.  

While the top of it is delightfully warped (spilled liquids flow to the lower 2 corners).  The boards came that way -- and still(!), the table stands rock-steady.  A favorite creation from Robert's leisure time.  This is in our new gazebo/ramada 

-- a place for leisure, surrounded by beautiful blooming things,  and cooled by the sea breezes.

But no stay in our Mexico digs is safe from construction!

Below, viewed through a previous visit's carport construction (now bedecked with copious Copa de Oro vines), is our new wash-stand.  On the top will be huge water containers and below will be room for washing dishes, washing clothes, and a private shower...

Full Moon and Beeg Waves... and Widescreen TVs(two!)

(No doubt this is my last entry for this spring 2009 Mexico sojourn. The next entry will be from Durango and will be the posting of photos.)

FULL MOON and BEEG WAVES
We need to revise our viewpoint -- away from the concept of visiting here according to the solar months..... and focus instead on the lunar phases. The waves for both surfers and especially for boogie-boarders really jack up over the full moon phase. Let us say we are coming for two full moon cycles each spring and each fall.

Lately, as the moon rides high and full, we begin each day with a morning sesh. Then we come back for a sunset sesh (both of us on boogies for this one). We tear up the surf, screaming sideways all along the front of the wave, laughing as we fly...

...all the while bathed in the peach glow of sunset. The red ball that is the sun floats in the peach nectar just above the turquoise sea, but then exactly at the setting of the sun, the sky itself explodes into even more color, perhaps tangerine, drenching the sky directly overhead. Thus, the sea around us that radiance even as the blue and the white of the waves become more pronounced -- all in an intoxicating swirl.

Just last night I turned around and around and around in the swirling post-ride turbulence, taking in the shimmer of pastel light all around..

And then.... then glides the moon into view above the coconut palms, transluscent perfect pearl set in irridescent azure. It is exactly opposite to the peach and tangerine sky, both in location and mood...

Afterwards, in darkness, with just small headlamps, we walk quietly home through a jungly path, across the now lake'like river, to our humble casita amongst the flowers.

WIDESCREEN TVs (two!)
Yup. It has come to that. We leave them on all the time, and watch them both simultaneously every morning for sure... With fresh ground coffee, pastries, and fruited oatmeal, and very often visiting village friends.

One is always tuned to the Male Papaya Channel directly in front of our porch. The other is over by the newly finished ramada (gazebo, to you). It is the Sasanil Channel, which is the shade tree that puts forth purewhite transluscent pearls for fruit.

On the Papaya Channel, we are treated to the antics and passions of one hummingbird in particular (watching him as he dines on the multitude of flowers, stretches, cleans himself, rests, and passionately chases off intruders etc etc etc..... all very upclose and delightful).

With or without binoculars for closeup, we can also turn our attention at any time to the Sasanil Channel and watch a variety of local birds (in particular, a different variety of robin than in Durango, plus great kiskadees, and the kind of oriole we nickname the Mango bird for its coloration). I love how they will select a particular pearl, hold it in their beaks awhile (looking far too large for them to swallow)....and then they DO swallow it. I can imagine the explosion of nectar as they close their beaks over these pearls. I can almost feel the liquid flowing down my throat.

But now it is time to go. This is probably our last town visit as well. First, we must finish yet one more big cement project-- building an overhead cement platform (the posts and other supports are already in place) on which we will place our water tanks. This will become our shower room, and dishwashing and clotheswashing stand. It is located to the back and side of our home. All is in readiness for tomorrow, big work day.

Many more flowering bushes are now in place, many flower seeds are planted and ready to sprout... and packing up should flow easily, too. We have a number of empty boxes ready to receive the items now resting on shelves. Then we have three days drive if we do not take in sightseeing. It is all on our whim now. Jai Sri Ram.

Future Ghost

Whew. I have written so many rough drafts of these various observations of life here... too many observations, some intense, too much to read. I'll try exclamation points per topic instead:

!
When we first arrived at the Little Salty Place, village life was so reminiscent of living in Iowa in the '50s. Rural, even. Vehicles were rare. Folks traveled with a wheelbarrow laden with picnics down the road to the beach. All felt safe, family, peaceful. Still feels safe, family, peaceful but there are cars, trucks, 4-wheelers.... Cell phones, TVs... can't be helped but I wish I could warn them what is being lost byte by byte...

!!
The Ghost from the Future (that would be me) wanted so much to warn them... I did TRY to stop one friend from taking ALL the lobsters, even those with eggs -- to take only the largest... but he could not hear me. "Hay mucho" he said. His mother laments how few and how small they are these days, and anyway, her freezer is full. Still he brings more.

!!!
And there was no way I could ever stop the utter destruction of an entire ecosystem right before my eyes. Money is far too strong a pull. The last vestige of jungle and lagoons that stretched along the shore when first we came here was bulldozed two weeks ago. The last lagoon was filled in. In its place are truckloads and truckloads of dirt, building up a platform for yet more tourist rentals. The villagers comment how beautiful it was before... with all the tropical birds everywhere, and the giant iguanas. All gone.

Despite the Biblical warning not to build your house on sand, Rogelio will build not only on a beachfront, but this last one is right at the river mouth... which will flood violently in the coming monsoon season as it always does. He is building on what was a lagoon, for goodness sake!

!!!!
And every single earlyearly dawn, Robert and I lie on our mats on the porch amazed by the cacophany of birdsong (think RJ Lurtsma - WGBH)... and then eat our breakfast with birdbooks and binoculars on the table. The spectacular tropical birds are gone but what are left are still beautiful... And right now, one of our large canopied trees is covered in small fruits that look just like transluscent pearls, beloved of ALL our birds... So when two of our favorite kids showed up one evening, pointing at the treetops in our jungly backyard, we thought nothing of it... til we saw the air'powered slingshot and their excited gesture at a "hit"!!

I came out with my very best Spanish (well, all I COULD come up with in my horror) and yelled out, "!Ya! !No mas! Adios! !ADIOS!" They were having fun killing songbirds.

!!!!!
And for those of you, if there actually ARE any of you, following the threads of these entries... Guero is back and in full form, threatening the LIVES of his targets, now. While out in the lineup for the waves ("Voy a matar'te..." or whatever... even though he speaks fluent English he pretends he knows only Spanish). He's working on one person in particular just now -- starting in with hateful insults for others to hear, then he brings his surfboard right up beside his intended victim and sneers a death threat face to face. Bad juju, very very bad juju. We are keeping a very low profile ourselves, under the radar, quiet and unobtrusive, going about our business, keeping as much separation as we can. Robert is out there in the line'up, but stays unobtrusive.

!!!!!!
Last little Future Ghost entry... That was ALMOST me! So it seemed at the time, anyway. NOT connected in any way to the swine flu hullabaloo, I apparently ate some unrefrigerated cooked chicken. I was in no pain, but my stomach rumbled all night (Robert says). Early morning, I stumbled off the porch and headed into our jungle path to the hole-in-the-back.. but barely had I entered the jungle when the ground pulled me down. I could NOT stay upright. It was all in slow motion, so I recall realizing I was going down, and the thought passed into my head that perhaps I was actually dying (from the bad food). Very calm, noticing the early morning light on the jungly leaves, thinking this might be my last vision.... I do not recall reaching the ground. I do not know how long I lay there. For the next three days, while still never in pain, I was rarely awake, rarely conscious..... just rolling around a bit, while flattened on my sleeping mat. Then it was over with no repercussions.

Robert just showed up. End of entry. We off to get a licuado or whatever! Town trip, town trip! Love to all, y hasta la vista amigos. BTW, we plan to head north around mid June. How is that for a firm date.

The Malformed Dolfin

The surfers are out there on their boards, riding the waves sideways.  Not my sport.  Mine is to leap up just as a wave crests and dive over it, toes pointed as I disappear into the water beyond.  Over and over.  Or to be rolled sideways in the wave, enjoying the dizziness.  Or to dive under the wave and luxuriate in the bubbles all around me, tickling my skin everywhere.  I like it when the crashing wave pushes and pulls different parts of me in different directions.  I let the wave have its way with me.

I also like to ride the wave backwards...  that is to say, while lying on my back.  I catch it as it crests and shove off with my fins and ride along the top....

My fins.  There.  I said it.

Way back in, was it 1974?   I have the journal, kept in a zippered tote bag, stacked with all my other journals.  I could look up the year.  The bag is on the closet shelf in my newly claimed project-room  (guest room to you).  Written in that journal is a list of.... well hell, even though I was still in my 20s when I wrote it, it was my "Bucket List."

Last time I checked it -- in 1992 -- I saw that I have done everything on that list, except swim with dolphins.  Sensually,  up close and personal, that is.  

I've had this desire for such a long time.  It was reignited by the enchantment I saw in the eyes of a friend who had just returned from swimming with dolphins in the wild.  It was 1988.  She  spoke of it in soft hesitant tones, now and then closing her eyes to re-experience it.  "It's like making love," she whispered.  "They circled around me, gliding gently against my skin, my front, my back, my arms, my legs -- and then dashed away, then returned with a teasing approach.  One female kept rubbing up against me, displying her slit, slightly parted, as if inviting me to enter her.  It was....  I was...."

You can understand why my having paid $75 in New Zealand to share a very cold-water swim-tank with three captive dolphins does not count.  The dolphins never left the bottom of the tank.

Later, I braved the depths of a Hawaiian cove where a friend of mine -- she lives there -- said she swims with the wild ones, calves included.  The couple of days that I tried it, there was not a fin in sight.

And now here in Mexico, where I swim daily, I've yet to see one...  And so...  I swim like one.  I make pure love to the ocean.  We play joyously together every day.

The ocean is very forgiving.  Well it knows that my fins failed to form correctly and that my tail mysteriously bifurcated, but it pays no mind.  I am simply a malformed dolphin.

I am a malformed dolfin.  No es doloroso.

"...gone to flinders."

A flotilla of pelicans had settled on the shallows above the coral.  Where the coral gives way to a seabed of sand is where I settled in.  With my boogie as an armrest, and the ocean up to my armpits, I was there to simply be nearby, to watch.

I've been a watcher all my life, but am re-inspired by Craig Childs.  Read anything he's written, and listen to him on NPR.

Closer to shore was a small army of barechested nationals, splashing about, so I was hardly deep in the wilds.  Worse, one young man took an interest in me and crept ever closer, staring....  From the look on his face, he seemed slightly retarded if not outright demented.  Just then, I sensed, and then saw, another guy creeping up on the other side of me, looking equally demented.

"What are you guys up to?" I cleverly blurted out in English.  They both turned away, back to their own kind.  I looked around for a sane-looking man who would be their counselor.  There was none.  All of them must simply be drunk on a Sunday afternoon.  Shortly after, the lads all launched into a hearty game of keep-away, or aerial soccer, in the water, and my pelicans drifted farther away over the coral.  Rats.

Then.... a wave!  A rogue, ridable boogie'wave.  I went for it, sporting my own demented look... because this wave would take me right through the middle of this cacophany of young men.  No matter that I missed the wave.  The following series of breakers cleared the lads out.  

I was now alone with the pelicans, as well as the hovering cloud of small local seagulls.  With no one but me in the water nearby, the flotilla drifted closer, and I remained quiet, observing.  I liked how one pelican -- instead of holding his long neck vertically with his long beak parallel and pointing down to the sea -- how this one pelican lay his long neck down along his back, with his beak resting atop that long neck.   Ahhhhh.

Then came the black underwater cloud advancing rapidly towards me in the deep green sea. Ever closer, the water transformed into a roiling leaping frenzy of tiny silver fish.

I was surrounded.

I was at Ground Zero.

I was at the apex of my goal.

The white cloud of small gulls was suddenly directly overhead, swooping and scooping up the fish all around me.  I was in the eye of a hurricane -- green, black, silver, white, blue -- all in swirling motion, water and sunshine all mixed together.

And, but one breath later, came the pelicans from above.  One after another, they plunged headlong from some calculated height, into the sea all around me.  They dove in "with all the grace of an orange crate gone to flinders."   Source:  Robert Dana, in his poem, "Fog."  Here is the stanza from which I quote:

…the gliding pelicans with their great 
beaks and bags, and the broad cape
of their wings, and that incredible collapse
into the sea, a dive with all the grace
of an orange crate gone to flinders…

"Love in the Time of Swine-Flu"

Full credit for the clever title above goes to Jude Gardens who coined it as he officiated at Josh and Morgan's wedding on the beach. The full moon in April just happened to coincide with the warnings of the deadly pandemic swineflu. Yet here in Paradise, while some guests panicked and hid in their U.S. homes.... for example, there was a gap where the two attendant bridesmaids were to stand..... yet and still, it sure looked as though EVERYbody ELSE came. Ilianet's restaurant area was filled with guests who flew in despite all the hoopla. The Maid of Honor stood in her place by the Bride, and all the Groomsmen were there beside the Groom...

And best of all, everyone in the bridal party, while dressed beautifully, were--all of them--barefoot in the sand.

It was one class act from the large flowered arch framing the waves, under which they took their vows, and the white cloth covering all tables and chairs elegantly, to the flowers everywhere, and including the reallygood food and drink. Great live music by a locally hired group of fine musicians, dancing into the night. The First Waltz, well, they are one star-struck couple. What can I say. It was romantic.

Jude, who is also the groom's brother, was warm and welcoming and funny as he officiated the wedding, and by gum, he even gave away a glimpse into the courtship of Josh and Morgan, including (and I quote) "He used the the best pick-up line that he could muster, 'Wanna snuggle?' "

And, just like the ending of the book, "Love in the Time of Cholera," we are all still here on this beach while the panic of pandemic pandemonium swirls around us, not touching us at all.

NEWSFLASH: For those of you following my ongoing updates on little Luis who I knew before he was born, and then who was simply abandoned by his overwhelmed mommy, and who was so traumatized that he still doesn't have all his speech skills in line at three....... My little next-door neighbor who comes over for his big hug and swing-around and kisses all over and then free time to play with all the toys I have on the shelves, and who loves to lie on his back while I play the dulcimer....

....He has been adopted by his mommy's cousin and is now living in Zihuatanejo. He now has a mommy and a daddy and two sisters in a nice house. Daddy is involved with a garden nursery and mommy is a professional schoolteacher specializing in little kids, and I think I heard that she runs a kiddie nursery. I bet she has the patience and skills to help him learn to talk... as well as introducing him to all the other gems of early childhood, but most especially a mother's love. He got to hang out with his new family awhile before he went to live with them, and was very happy to be with them... This adoption by a relative does sound good. Other villagers nodded to me that they are good and loving people.

Meanwhile, the surf has been consistently big and steady. The other day, Robert went to the surf-waves and I to my boogie-waves, and neither of us emerged from the water for just about nearly 5 (five) hours... but who's keeping time?