Elizabeth Taylor, Shopping, and Homesickness

Elizabeth Taylor Died

I woke up on Wednesday to learn that Elizabeth Taylor had died. Felt strangely upset, sad, angry. Pulled a SoulCollage® card to better help me understand my feelings. The card is one I call:  “I am the one who is aging and afraid to die and forgets there is nothing to be afraid of.” 

Really Nothing to be Afraid Of

I made this card when my mother was dying. Realized that my sadness now was about the loss of my mother, of the same generation as Elizabeth Taylor and who shared her style of seduction.  And also about my own aging and resistance to acknowledging, accepting, and preparing myself for old age and death. Preparing myself psychologically, physically and practically. Physically means to me to continue to eat well and to be more serious about keeping my body strong through exercise. The practical I have been putting off: the necessary details of Living Will, Health Care Proxy, Will and health insurance here in Mexico.

Shopping for Sheets

This week I also decided to search for 100% cotton sheets, and found them at a fancy department store called Fabrica de Francia. The store was much like Bloomingdale’s or other more upscale US department stores. Discovered I could buy good cookware, and ceramic water spigot jugs, too, if I need them. The store is in a mega-mall which also has Office Depot and a multi-plex cinema and nearby there’s even a Sam’s Club. Good to know they’re there and I’ll rarely use them.

A Little Homesickness Creeps in

With my housing pretty much resolved, along with relief, I’ve been feeling a little unfocused and more lonely for good friends. This tone probably set by feeling the loss of my mother.

I drew another SoulCollage® card – “I am the one who stays always connected to Self and Spirit despite the sadness and shadows of life.” 

Always Connected Self

 This process of drawing SoulCollage® cards, like that of throwing the I Ching, using the Tarot, meditating, or any other method that taps into the collective unconscious and other streams of conscsiousness running beneath our rational minds, often gives me chills of recognition of the perfection and truth available to us all when we don’t think too much and try too hard and are able to access those deeper places. This reminder comforts me.

I’m also finally remembering fragments of dreams and have started reading a book I found in the Lending Library called, “Art is a Way of Knowing,” by an art therapist whose process of connecting to herself through imagery is very similar to mine.  The roots of connection to my inner world that is so necessary, exciting, inspiring, and sometimes frightening to me, are growing new shoots in Oaxaca. I see from the art all around me here that people in Mexico are also attuned to dreamlife.

Housing Update and Other News

I met new friends at the Pochote organic market in Xochimilco, on Saturday, which is across the street from a funky but charming apartment I saw last week. I wanted to show them the apartment and get a second opinion on acceptable degrees of funk. They both liked it! Validation is reassuring. The things we all like about it: it’s a compound, so there will be other hopefully sympatico people living there and sharing the huge, wonderful, wild tree-full (even a purple blooming jacaranda) yard. And views of the mountains. And a space for an organic garden. And a Temazcal, which is to the prehispanic cultures here what the sweat lodge is to the Native American culture. And the apartment has a large covered private patio and high brick arched ceilings and glass bricks in a couple of places to let in light, though not enough opening windows. But it feels good and I will move in there in stages. First to the apartment in the front for a month, until the rear apartment is available. This will also give me a chance to see if I am comfortable there before I sign a year’s lease.

In the meantime, I’m treating myself to a very comfortable bungalow, too expensive and too small for long-term, for the month of April.

I will be very glad to get finally settled somewhere and thinking about something else besides these details.

The next day, Sunday was Lorena’s birthday and several of her friends and I went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch. Good food and good company, but not very Chinese. Wonder what Liya, the Chinese student and great cook who lived with me last year, would think. Later on the same day, I went to hear a Jazz concert in the garden of a lovely B&B. Good music, and a very beautiful garden and buildings. They hold these concerts once a month and it is a treat to be there. www.casa-colonial.com/_our_garden

Monday I went on a tour of an organic permaculture farm, Tierra del Sol, about a half hour south of Oaxaca. Very inspiring and also a beautiful place. We learned a lot about permaculture, had a delicious lunch, and saw several of their buildings, which are all built in natural materials. Cob, straw bale, bamboo… learned about their water-collection and filtering methods.

Lush Countryside at Tierra del Sol

Bamboo and Mud Building

 Tuesday.  I had a Spanish conversation class and was introduced to IAGO, a graphic arts library. WOW! Completely open to the public, free. Has a gorgeous courtyard with Bougainvilla vines overhead and long tables to read at, study at, use a laptop at, and a little cafe AND every art book you can possibly imagine!  A room for books on painting, a room for sculpture books, another room for architecture, another for graphic arts and design. And a bookstore where they sell the beautiful handmade paper made in San Augustine Etla. Heaven!

The next class Clarissa, my teacher, introduced me to the 2^nd branch of this library, which is for literature and music. It is equally as beautiful with amazing collections of fiction, non-fiction, poetry and a music room with a huge collection of world music and sets of earphones for listening. The floors are tiled with beautifully geometric patterned tiles of different colors. The bathroom is tiled walls and floor with frijole (bean)-patterned brown, black and white tiles. Very simple, very elegant, very peaceful space. Unfortunately, though open to the public daily, it is not used enough by people in Oaxaca. The art library is busier.

Week Two

Me standing amidst Jacaronda blossoms

March 18

I’m getting tired of house hunting, home hunting, not having a home. Today I walked and walked and walked in a new neighborhood, trying to find the address of yet another apartment. This is in the hills above where I live now. Steep!  I discovered another way of getting to a downtown neighborhood – climbing up into the hilly Colonia Azucenas and walking down steps right into the other neighborhood next to Basilica de Solidad, but never found the street I was looking for. After that discovery, I walked back up to Panoramico Fortin and followed it until it turned into another street and I had no idea where I was. Still no luck finding that address. Decided that I wouldn’t want to live where no one would find me. I took a taxi home.

Mole asleep in our apartment

Across the street from my building on Quetzalquatl

But I was still determined to find it -- just because. I looked up the address of the apartment again, googled the directions, and tried again. This time I turned the right corner and walked UP and UP and UP the hill and found the street, Primavera – but not the building – I was looking for. But no matter – although the cardio and pulmonary benefits of that daily climb would be great, I might never leave the house!

Turning the corner from Primavera, I discovered the Escaleras del Fortin – stairs that take you from near the top of the mountain, to the central neighborhood where I live right now. I walked down the steps – beautiful views, lots of charm. Going down wasn’t so bad, but…

Some things I love about Oaxaca so far:

Walking to dinner about 7pm, there was a gathering of people on the little plaza near the restaurant, La Quinque. A poetry reading. Sitting on steps, on ledges, on the stone of the plaza – some parents and children, mostly young adults, listening to several poets reciting their work. I finished dinner and walked home, they were still there and the crowd listening had doubled.

I crossed the street from the plaza and saw a father pointing out the huge, almost full moon, to his 2-year old daughter. I love seeing so often Mexican fathers holding their children so lovingly.

Sitting at dinner, a man came into the restaurant to talk with the owner. Coming and going he gave me a big smile and a “buen Provecho”  -- “enjoy your meal.”

I heard brass band parade music and left my apartment to see what was going on. A parade to honor the springtime, with small children dressed as animals, butterflies or flowers, riding bicyles or walking with their parents down Garcia Vigil to the Zocalo. The band played at the rear of the parade, which stretched for several blocks and held up traffic for even more blocks.

There are parades, fiestas, art openings, weddings, religious and secular events almost every day and evening.

 

Things I don’t like, so far: Not much.  Water shortage and small hot water heaters. Not finding the cat food Molly likes and the kitty litter I like. Exhaust fumes from cars. Polyester bed sheets. Haven’t yet found half & half, though I hear it's available in large sizes.

March 19

Went to the Jalatlaco neighborhood to look for a health food store. Found it, and bought citronella cream to discourage the mosquitoes, lovely face cream and best of all, across the street at the Church there was the most amazing sculpture exhibit by a woman artist I had never heard of, Helen Escobedo. The exhibit is called Exodus and is larger than life-size figures of pieces of fabric, walking across the balcony in front of the church, down the stairs, and onto the plaza in front. So powerful, wrapped, appearing blindfolded. I looked up the artist, and she was of the same generation as my mother, and an environmental artist in the same tradition as my mother. Wonderful work. 

Her website and another favorite work:

http://www.helen-escobedo.com/pages/or_tlayacapan.php?image=0

Helen Escobeda Exodus

Exodus

First Days in Oaxaca

March 10-19, 2011

Thursday March 10. I’ve been in Oaxaca 9 days. My cat Molly/Mole (as in the specialty of Oaxaca – yum!) is lonely for her feline friends and feels she’s in prison in this little apartment. I let her out in the courtyard and hung out with her as she explored the potted geraniums and vines. Then I looked up and staring down at us was a huge tough orange tomcat. He’d eat Mole for dinner.

I don’t feel imprisoned in this little apartment, but I feel oppressed. I can hardly turn around without bumping into a wall or a window or some furniture.  And  also lonely for my human (and feline) friends. But I can leave this apartment and explore. So far I’ve met about a dozen people, mostly Americans, and more than half are permanent residents here.

I’ve found and lost one apartment – a lovely apartment and friendly neighbors, but no garden to sit out in and far from the neighborhood that I am feeling more and more at home in. I obsessed about whether or not to take it for a couple of days and then was told the owner had changed his mind and didn’t want pets. I’ve looked at a couple more that I definitely don’t want, and have a few more to look at this week. if I don’t find what I want for April, I’ll move to a bigger temporary place and keep looking. We’re heading into low season now and the snowbirds are leaving. I’m particular, now, about the location and size.

Last night Armando, who manages the art studio a block away (where I plan to rent space), had an opening in a wonderful bookstore/restaurant two blocks away. Shots of mescal, a yummy hummus made from lentils. Met several new people and several I had met before. Earlier in the day I went to a “Spa Day” event organized by the Oaxaca Lending Library, to a fancy resort in San Felipe, a nearby suburb. A relaxing massage and wonderful facial and hanging out by the pool which, unfortunately, was full of leaves and too cold for me anyway. But fun to hang out with new women.

 Tuesday night I had dinner with an artist who is a friend of a friend – they both live in San Miguel de Allende. Agnes and her daughter Caron are in Oaxaca for a couple of weeks. One day next week I plan to go with them to a nearby pueblo that has a Museum/art institute and houses a papermaking workshop.

I’m getting by with my Spanish but barely. Am eager to get settled and start really living here – taking Spanish classes, doing art.

I have been pulling a SoulCollage® card once or twice a day -  like doing a very personal Tarot card reading for myself. (See www.dreamlifearts.net for info on SoulCollage®.) The process is to pick a card and ask it to speak, in the format: “I am the One Who….” At night, I ask who will help me dream and remember my dreams, and draw one card from my pile of about 75 cards, right now living in their gallon-sized zip-lock travel bag. I close my eyes, gently feel through the bag of cards and wait until my fingers are drawn to one. In the morning, I ask who will help me with the task of the day or help me with the emotion of the morning. Here is one of the first cards I worked with here in Oaxaca:

March 3:      The morning of my second day in Oaxaca I wake excited, anxious, and overwhelmed by all that I need to do to make sure some details of my Tucson life are closed while opening the details of my Oaxaca life. 

Council Card:  BALANCE

 I ask a general question: “Who will be with me today?” I put my hand in the bag, wait until I feel my fingers tingle when they rest on a card, and withdraw my Council (Archetype) card for Balance. 

“I am the One who helps you gracefully maintain equilibrium and grounding in yourself”

 I breathe a deep sigh of recognition of how much I need this reminder to be present in myself and make sure that I do the things that keep me balanced:  eat and sleep well, use all my senses to feel this new place, connect with people…