Eudora Welty said: “We are the breakers of our own hearts.” She talked about how Southerners live their narratives in their connections to people, place and time.
Yesterday, a priest asked if he could stay in the Tin Shed to write because he needed to get away from his home to do it. I said, I know, I have to leave too. Three weeks ago, I flew to Mexico City to write, to work on a book that has been rummaging in my brain seeking air, breath, flight.
In my studio apartment overlooking the Palacio del Bellas Artes, I lay in my king-sized bed and looked at the moon through the glass doors, the full Flower Moon, and wondered about my writing.
I wrote dispatches to anchor the moments in time:
I woke up today and said Buenos Días, Mexico! You charm all my senses – the warmth of your people, the ancient architecture, colorful art, lively music, and yummy food across every square inch. I followed my GPS yesterday to the Soumaya Museum and to a restaurant in Polanco. The GPS kept recalibrating, and I was getting further away from my destination with every step. I walked for nearly two hours and although this was annoying, I looked down once in a crowd and noticed a woman wearing duck shoes.
I walked and walked till I got to Avenida President Masaryk (the Rodeo Drive of Mexico City) and began passing high-end shops looking for this restaurant I wanted to try, I was 650 feet away according to GPS. The luxury stores each had a topiary display and with throngs of camera phones snapping shots of loved ones as they positioned themselves as part of the display.
I weaved in and around the crowds, and looked down at my GPS and the restaurant was now 950 feet away – impossible to map. The heat and hunger grew louder. A man was walking towards me with two large golden retrievers on leashes, he smiled, I smiled, I glanced at the building with large metal numbers – 111 – and made a note. Robin from The Enchanted Fox in Boston had clocked the time when she was telling my future – “1:11” she remarked, “make a note.” Robin encouraged me to go where I felt most alive, Mexico City. She wanted me to wear a skirt like those worn in the Ballet Folklorico performed at the Palacio across the street from my apartment. She wanted me to go find love. “What is stopping you?” she asked.
The more I listened to what I needed, the more I pushed away my plans. My body needed rest. I continued daily visits to the Fountain of Venus in Alameda Square across from my apartment. Venus always wends herself into any conversation about me, my future, and my spirit. She is the Goddess of Love after all. One morning, I took the two red string bracelets I had been wearing – one from the indigenous Shaman I met in Mexico City last September who blew smoke all over me from a large conch shell, and one placed on my wrist with a prayer by my friend, Marian. Both bracelets had come off a few days before my trip – I dropped them in the fountain and whispered to her, do your magic.
I never did get to that restaurant, I passed Klein’s, a busy deli in Polanco, an historic Jewish neighborhood. I passed other eateries, focused on the very restaurant I was seeking because it had vegetarian fare, but the restaurant continued to elude me on GPS, and I was sagging under the weight of the past noon sun and an empty stomach. I doubled back and went into a place that looked like I could sit and people watch.
I ordered ribeye tacos and was amused to see the paper thin slices of aged roast beef in tortillas. The tonic or aqua quina, in my glass, the guacamole with circular chips sticking out to my right, the large opened windows looking out to the tree-lined street offered me the repose I desired.
It didn’t matter what I was seeking, I had found what I had come to Mexico City for – every day I woke up in this place, I fell more in love with my life, past, present and future. As corny as this sounds, this is true for me, I found L.O.V.E.:
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all