hooking on the malecon

My friend Jonna over at blah ---, blah ---, blah ---, Ginger! posted a personal confession about two weeks ago. 


She is not a country girl.


If you have been following her remodel of a home in centro Mérida, you are already aware urban flows in her veins.  Cities were built for the likes of her.


But she also appreciates her slices of country -- as long as they serve a city purpose.  Her pond is the best example.  It has been a centerpiece of her garden since it was constructed.  But it is definitely a city pond.


I also have a pond.  But it is no city accessory.

 

Let me brag about it a bit.  It can be beautiful.  Like these water lilies in their natural state.


Jonna's pond constantly needs tending and maintenance.  It takes a lot of work to make a good pond look natural.


My pond needs maintenance, as well.  But it is wholesale maintenance.  Left on its own, it would die and become a field.


When I moved into the duplex in 2009, our little inlet pond was carpeted with a patchwork of water hyacinth and water lettuce.  It was almost impossible to see any water.


Because the vegetation floats on the surface, it was cutting off the exchange of oxygen between the water and the atmosphere.  The laguna was dying before our eyes.


And we were not going to let that happen.  At least, in the area where we had some control.


My land lady, a mutual friend, the maid for the duplex, a hotelier neighbor, and I took matters into our own hands.  (weeding with benito).


And you saw the results.  We opened up enough space at the end of the inlet to attract wading birds, fish, and the odd crocodile.  After hours of pulling out raft after raft of weeds.

 

That was over a year ago. 


When I finally returned from my meanderings through Mexico, I found our work partially undone.  Aquatic vegetation is like anything else in nature.  Let it be and it will return to its -- well, natural -- state.


So, out came the grappling hook and the rake.  There was weeding to be done.


After an hour or so of weeding each day over the past two weeks, this is the result.

 

It is still not a city pond.  But it is a country pond with enough wildlife to sponsor my own Audubon tour.


Now, I just need to come up with a way to improve my internet signal.  It would be great to sit beside the pond pretending I am some reincarnated shogun.


Water tends to do that.  We start indulging in delusions of adequacy.

bras and baskets

It is Wednesday.


In Melaque, that means the flea market has come to town.


Some people get upset when I call it that.  How about giant garage sale?  Junk dealers?  Tourist trap extraordinaire?


Here, we call it the tianguis.


Every Wednesday, cars and pickups stuffed with -- well, stuff -- descend on a five block stretch of our little fishing village and turn it into the Adam Smith Entrepreneurial School of Marketing. 


Blue tarps are stretched over poles, and tables appear like mushrooms.  The result looks like something between a Bosnian refugee camp and a fence convention.


On my first trip to Melaque, my land lady told me that I could not miss the tianguis.  It was "the market of Mexico."


I took that literally.  I had seen photographs of vegetables and fruits stacked in colorful mosaics begging customers to barter over dueling kumquats.  It was exactly the type of adventure that had drawn me south.


Well, that is not what I found.  Instead, I found table after table of items for which I had absolutely no need.


But that was over two years ago.  So, come with me as I once again try to find something to buy in "Mexico's market."


First, let's establish one thing.  Year-round expatriates and Mexican citizens shop here.  But the target market is tourists.  And they descend en masse to be charmed and to buy the perfect gift for the house sitter -- something unique, but typical.  And there is plenty of that here.

Perhaps a tray or a pot or a basket -- all made out of reeds?  Or a handmade duster for your niece?

Or choose from a crayola avalanche of ceramics for the perfect bowl to serve salsa -- probably out of a jar from Safeway.

These bra tables are beyond all male understanding.  But the shapes and colors together are enough to keep me fascinated.

How about filling the cosmetic bag with some pigments that have never been seen in nature?  Unless it was on some extinct bird unable to camouflage itself.

If your moral compass suffers from non-polarism -- and you are feeling a bit like an outlaw -- you can buy a pirated DVD or CD.  And, at the same time contribute to the drug cartels, who control most of the pirated market.  How often do you get to indulge two vices with just one purchase price?

Or you could dress an entire Cecil B. DeMille harem with these snazzy sandals.  Someone was even thoughtful enough to take the foot fetishist consumer into account -- with feet to go.  Mexico knows its niche markets.

And if you want to combine a love of jewelry with an interest in exotic wildlife, you need not look any further.

But my favorite tables are the hardware tables.  You can find almost anything you need to fix a crack, a break, or a blowout in any home.  You could almost rebuild a cooker with the pieces on this table.

Late in the afternoon, the vendors will pack up all of this stuff (at least the stuff they did not pawn off on consumers), take down their tents, and drive off to the next town -- where they will go through the same routine.  Until they return to Melaque on the next Wednesday.


In my two visits to the tianguis, I have come home empty-handed.  But, that is not true, is it?  I did get some photographs.


And a chance to talk with you again.

looking over my shoulder

I sit on the roof terrace as smug as the Norman conqueror.

The garden is mine; the roof is the territory of the upstairs renters.  A line as clear as the one Mason and Dixon drew 250 years ago.

But, for a month, there are no other renters.  And I am not one to let a temptation pass without at least a taste.  So, I altered my evening routine by storming the roof -- I could have been a Chinese soldier on the Spratlys.

The world is different up here.

My garden is the realm of dwarfs.  Shadows and good solid dirt.

The roof is the kingdom of elves.  Light.  Tree tops.  Wide open spaces. Where the world is yours for the looking.

I managed to get up here just in time to see one of our Spring sunsets -- more abscess yellow than colorful.  Without clouds as a backdrop, the sun sets behind the western hills with as much charm as Leona Helmsley.  All celebrity.  No stage.

 

But there is more to the evening than sunsets.  Sounds take on a brilliance of their own at this height. 

A group of young boys joyously wreak havoc on an ever-pulpifying cardboard box.

A wizard's black coven cloud of grackles race by at rooftop level -- hoping speed and numbers will protect them from the evening's raptors.

Followed by another flock of much smaller birds I have never been able to identify.  But their massed wing noise startles me each evening on the malecon as they rush home.

And always the ever-present percussion of the ocean fisting the steep shore.  Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield duking it out to an eternal draw.

All of it -- the birds, the boys, the beach -- weave a perfect tapestry for my evening's reading.  I am in the midst of Billy Collins's latest collections of poems.  Ballistics.

It could not be a more perfect night for poetry.  Those of you who have been been reading this blog for any time know that I am very fond of the work of Billy Collins.

He knows his craft.  How to take a sauté pan filled with notions and reduce them to the essence of daily existence.  Lines of poetry capable of piercing the heart, pinging the brain, or tickling the funny bone -- sometimes simultaneously.


Let me give you a brief example. 


In August in Paris, he sets the mood by looking over the shoulder of an artist to see what he is painting.  He then ponders why he cannot similarly see his readers looking over his shoulder as he jots in his notebook.

But every time I turn around
you have fled through a crease in the air
to a quiet room where the shutters are closed
against the heat of the afternoon,
where there is only the sound of your breathing
and every so often, the turning of a page.

As I read those lines on the roof terrace, my thoughts turn to you -- my readers.  And I wonder what your day has been like.  Whether you saw the red ball on the neighbor's lawn.  Or heard the children laughing.


And just what we would talk about if I turned around to see you there -- catching you just as you tried to disguise the rolling of your eyes.

drifting off on boulevard st-germain

I never dreamt of retirement.


I have friends who have been planning for retirement their entire working lives.  When.  Where.  How many resources they would need.


Not I.  I gave no thought to retirement -- other than socking away money for medical expenses.  But, where?  When?  How much would I need?  Not a thought.


They never entered my mind because I come from a family that is not genetically inclined to think about such things.  Dying in the traces is what my people do.  Retirement is for quitters.


That changed one weekend three years ago. 


Two people I knew died on the same day.  Those deaths reminded me that for several months, my professional journal included obituaries of attorneys half of whom were younger than your correspondent.  I had no desire to go like that.


Right there, I set a retirement date -- with Mexico as my target destination.


I started thinking about that this morning as I sat at my usual table in La Rana (The Frog) -- my neighborhood restaurant.


Visions of sidewalk cafes on the Left Bank danced in my head as I imagined fashionable and edgy Parisians parading past.


And I chuckled.  I was conjuring up a dream that was never mine.  Even though retirement in Paris sounds nice, I was happy with my current view.


A sandy cobblestone street.  Young women on bicycles.  A fruit juice vendor.  Rustic buildings.  And a feeling I was where I should be at the moment.


And that is not a bad feeling at this stage of my life.

in the garden of good and evil

Morning is a time for light and shadow in my garden.


As mysterious as the garden is at night, it is at its best as a creature of the day.  Especially the morning.


I am a creature of both.  I prowl until 2 in the morning and then get up around 7.  The candle quickly grows short with that schedule.


The garden knows nothing of such behavior.  It merely is.


In our more sentimental moods, humans like to project our own Jekyll and Hyde concepts on nature.  It makes us feel liberal and benevolent.  Especially when we side with the prey over the predator.


And the dark does hold dangerous predators -- of all sizes.  Violence.  Sin.  Creatures die with terrible shrieks in the loneliness of the night.


But the light is filled with butterflies.  Hummingbirds.  Enticed by nectared flowers that appeal equally to human and beast.


Eden.  Manichaeism come to life in my back yard.


But that is how children think about life.  And that is rank reductionism.


It is easy to get stuck in that Weltanschauung with the cow's breath summer breeze cooling me in my hammock.  It is all there.  The sun.  The birds.  The flowers.


It is always good to remember, though, that just as certain as there will be another Adam Sandler movie, every Eden has a serpent.


This morning (or yesterday in blog saving time), I watched one of the little garden lizards zag through the purple queen in search of some unwary insect.  The lizards pay me little heed.  Probably because my movements seem glacial to them.


That was probably its undoing.  Lizards are rather low on the food chain.  And this fellow discovered that to his cost.


In a rush of feathers, a bird was on him.  A false catch.  Another strike.  A couple of tosses in the air, and it was over.  The predator escaped with the prey.


The victor?  A male house sparrow.  It was almost as incongruous as Don Knotts wrestling an anaconda.


But the sparrow was as effective a predator as any leopard.  And the lizard was just as dead as any taken gazelle.


The garden is free of good and evil.  Amorality reigns.


We humans are the moral agents.  It is our actions that require the choice of doing good or evil.


And the best I can do, as Voltaire advised, is not to rest, but to cultivate my garden -- and let it grow.

not your grandmother's rock

Leslie Limon of Motherhood in Mexico has challenged the blog community to show her our Mexico.


I always thought that was what I was doing. 


But I know what she means.  She would like us to introduce her to our daily lives.


So, I will.  Let me start by introducing you to my laundress, Anita.


OK.  "Laundress" is not a Spanish word.  It is a good old Norman term that gives a worthy title to people who do real work -- and do it well.  Like butcher.  Or wheelwright.


A long-time friend criticized me recently for taking my dirty clothes to a laundry.  "I find it odd when any healthy man cannot do his own household chores."


I could easily wash my clothes.  The duplex has a very good washing machine.  And a sunshine-drenched line for drying.


It is the latter part of the paragraph that drives me to Anita.  Sun-dried is great for tomatoes.  But not for clothes.  The process makes them too stiff for me.

 

I am not certain what Anita does to my clothes, but she always returns them to me soft, sweet-smelling, and folded as if a retired Marine works in her back room.


All of that for twelve pesos a kilogram.  That is about 45 cents (US) for each pound of wash. 


There will undoubtedly be some reader in Mexico who will point out that I am being robbed -- that his laundress pays him to do his wash.  But, for me, it is a bargain.  Simply to avoid stiff shorts.


By now you should be asking, "So, where is Anita's photograph?"  The answer is simple.  She is a craftsman, not a model.


When I asked if I could take her photograph, her answer was as clear in Spanish as it would have been in English: "No."  But she allowed me to shoot her machines.

 

I told her what I was doing, and she rolled her eyes while shaking her head.  I can only imagine what she was thinking.


So, Leslie, that is a start of what my Mexico looks like.


It is skilled.  Humble.  And bemused by her expatriate customers.


Do you want more?  I have plenty of neighbors.  And most of them love the camera.

finding the best in us

Even when you know sad news is coming, it still hits hard when it arrives.


I met my neighbor Adrienne and her husband, Ken, through our dogs.  And not even in our neighborhood.


We would regularly see each other at the dog park several miles south of our houses.  I could not call Jiggs and Foster buddies.  They simply had different interests at the dog park.  But they always acknowledged one another.


I was later surprised Adrienne and Ken lived a half block from me across the main street in our neighborhood.  We would often run across each other in the neighborhood while walking our dogs in the evening.


I also saw Adrienne several times in the State Capitol when she worked with the legislature.  It always seemed a bit odd to see my neighbor handling the technical side of a hearing while I was testifying.


While I was in Salem during my return-to-work stay, I saw her and Ken heading to our Saturday Market.  We caught up on a few things -- including the death of our dogs. 


She then informed me she had been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer.  And jokingly commented she was not certain she wanted people praying for her.  Every time they did, the medical diagnosis was worse.


That was Adrienne.  Always turning bad news to good with a wry wit.


Some of you may recall her comments on this blog.  She was constantly reminding me that life was to be lived, not to be twiddled away.


And that is how she lived hers.  She and Ken spent a good deal of time in Hawaii -- a place they both loved.  They were there when I was in Oregon in early March.  And I was sorry to have missed her.


On Thursday evening, I received an email that Adrienne had died on Sunday.  In his email, Ken added some poignant notes.

About half way through that 4-week plan [in Hawaii], she began to feel that she was going downhill faster, and insisted that we come home before she became too sick to fly.  I resisted that for a while, knowing that she really wanted to be in the warmth of the Islands, both physically and emotionally.  She prevailed, of course, and we came back to Salem 9 days early.  After we made the flight changes, we had our tsunami adventure, but we were safe, as the condo was 120 feet above the water.


We flew back to Salem late on March 16, stayed at an airport hotel, and returned home on the 17th.  She started hospice the next day.  While her decline kept progressing, we all thought we had another week or two to finish many of the plans we were making.  She and I had planned on Sunday to write lists of the music she was selecting for her service, items that she wanted to give to certain people, and gifts she wanted for the charities we support.  Now, I will have to make those lists without her direct guidance.

I will miss Adrienne -- a lot.  She always added a bit of spice to my life each time I saw her.


And it is true that by knowing her my life has been changed for the better.


What more can we ask of our friends?