Frankincense, Myrrh, and Barbies

"Get your Super Heroes! Cheap superheroes here! Muy barato! Three for ten pesos!” A woman holds up a plastic Superman, Spiderman and Batman in one hand, waving them at the crowd that squeezes by her towards row after row of booths selling toys: Pink baby dolls, Tonka trucks and tricycles, scooters and teddy bears. Games, puzzles, soccer balls. A virtual orgy of plastic and color. Things that beep and whir and spin and flash. Dolls in every shape and size, each with it’s own wardrobe.

“Hey, this doll only has one shoe!” one woman cries, holding it up to the weary seller. “What will my kid think, that those pinche reyes brought me a doll with a missing shoe?” Everyone around her laughs. It's late, and the mood is joyful and fun here at the all night toy market on the eve of the day of The Three Kings. For in Mexico it is they, not Santa Claus, who deliver the goods to children all over the country.

In the plaza the three kings themselves arrive on mounted horses sporting turbans and cardboard crowns, trailing their gold lame capes behind them, surrounded by costumed dancers in clown masks. Helium balloons are handed out to all of the children tie pieces of paper with their wishes on them to send up to the sky, asking Los Reyes Magos for what they want the most. Then it is off to the all night toy market with their families, where the dizzying array of offerings await. Vendors sell tamales and atole and steamed corn to the hungry shoppers. Kids squeal and point and plead after shiny new bicycles and dolls that wiggle and roll their eyes.

Off to the side a woman in a shawl sits on the pavement, holding out her hand to the passersby. Her young daughter lies asleep in her lap. When I stoop down to offer her some coins I see that someone has placed a brand new pink Barbie doll wrapped in cellophane on the girl’s chest. It is a surreal sight, touching and sad, yet I can't help but smile. It is still a gift given with humble generosity. And as in the giving of any gift, ultimately it’s the thought that counts.

***

Post Holiday Blues

Whew!

Well, the Christmas lights are half burnt out, the pinatas are torn and faded, and the nacimientos are getting dusty. Fireworks are blessedly absent, and children are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the three kings to bring them their gifts. The rest of us are all at loose ends, waiting for life to get back to normal, whatever that means...

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Happy New Year from San Miguel

New Year's eve in San Miguel de Allende
Sparklers, fireworks, salsa music and dancing.
All in all, a wonderful party and great beginning to the new year.
Photos by Jan Baross


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Art from Trash

I have been keeping an art journal here in Mexico, incorporating my writing with imagery.
Its a wonderful medium and adds a whole new dimension to the experience of place.
Now I have begun to pick up interesting trash from the street.
Not the safest thing to do considering the dusty condition of the streets here,
but hey, it's for arts sake, after all. And art, as you know, is a dangerous pursuit.
Here is a page from my journal made from a Faros cigarette pack
I found on a trail in the desert outside of town.

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Feliz Navidad y Prospero Ano Nuevo 2009!

Wishing you all a miraculous holiday season and new year
filled with abundance, hope, and joy in new beginnings.

***

Here Comes Jesus, Ready or Not

Wed, December 17th

On the street outside the schoolhouse old grandmothers sit and wait for their prey. They have set up little stands selling gelatinas and chili coated lollipops and chewing gum and potato chips under the shade of the Mesquite trees, where they gossip with their comadres until the schoolbell clangs and the children come spilling out like plaid confetti from a shoebox, pesos in hand.
Today I walked by on my way into town just as the bell rang and was suddenly surrounded by hordes of children of all ages streaming down the cobblestone streets. Each of them was carrying a hand made nativity diorama made from popsicle sticks, twigs, straw and moss, with plastic sheep and donkeys and figurines glued to cardboard boxes. Each had a miniature baby Jesus doll nested into matchboxes filled with cotton or moss. There were orange ceramic roosters wired onto crooked little rooftops, painted backdrops of the night sky with glitter for stars, and silver foil cutouts of the star of Bethlehem wobbling precariously from the tops of pipe cleaners. I was drowning in a sea of mangers weaving all around me. Unable to move, I stood and watched as my cynical heart melted just for a moment.
Just then a small boy squeezed by with his diorama carefully perched on his head. Among the plastic menagerie of animals and wise men and angels glued in a neat circle around the baby Jesus, he had added a pink flamingo and a snowman wearing a red Santa hat.

In the market, tables are overflowing with everything you could possibly want to make your very own Nacimiento. Baby Jesuses of every size and color are piled next to painted red devils and pink pigs. Marys and Josephs collide with donkeys and cows. Tinsel and crepe paper, fireworks and stars. Christmas lights beeping out Jingle Bells and other familiar holiday tunes.
And on the street the poorest of the poor sell little piles of moss and reindeer made from twigs that they have gathered from the countryside. It's almost enough to make you want to believe.

***

House of Light and Shadows

I love the peculiar way the light casts shadows on the chipped and broken surfaces of this old house on the Calle de los Muertos, street of the dead, where dust mingles with the afternoon heat and deep shadows poke out of dark and ancient doorways, carrying memories of those who were sheltered here before. Doorways to rooms that are now collapsed and open to the endless sky.
A thriving bougainvillea rises up from a hole in the courtyard, oblivious to the decay of manmade things. Its drying flowers swirl around the rubble like magenta butterflies.
Soon these walls will receive fresh coats of cement, reinforced with brick and mortar. Channels will be chipped into the walls to lay in the wiring for lights, televisions, and refrigerators. Pipes will carry water to boilers and bathrooms. Floors will be laid with terracotta tile and new concrete steps will replace this crooked iron stairway, inlaid with painted tiles. The bougainvillea will be cut to make way for the workmen, its roots buried beneath the new cement patio. Perhaps it will find it's way back, or a new one will be planted and their roots will mingle, joining the past with the inevitable future, twining the stories together into a mysterious continuum.
Meanwhile I stand on the rooftop and listen to the faraway cries of roosters, playing with the shadows until they disappear with the fading light.

***

Patterns in Chaos

At the Tuesday Market in San Miguel

used barbie dolls rusty wrenches chicken feet gorditas chili peppers home made honey a table made from railroad ties bootleg DVD's and CD's jitomates chicharones old frayed comic books baskets pottery tacos pizza plastic jesus plastic santos christmas lights underwear tee shirts used clothes socks dried flowers watermelons avocados incense cooking pots spray bottles speakers soap candles shoes candy hammocks dried beans corn pozole earrings sunglasses bull horns live birds including a peacock eggs cheese plaster angels camotes tamarindos herbs powder of the seven african powers amulets plastic toys brassieres sewing thread computer parts radios bananas mole in buckets canela licorice poodles gummy worms gelatinas a stuffed iguana kewpie dolls shoelaces chewing gum bunjee cords and a famed picture of elvis
et cetera

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The Virgin of Guadalupe

"Juan Dieguito"

San Cristobal de las Casas, 1990

I am wandering up the calle Guadalupe in San Cristobal under streams of plastic banners: red, green and white. Crowds of people growing thicker as I get closer to the church. Along the sides of the streets little stands are selling sweet bread and ponche, sodas and tamales. Popcorn, tacos, cotton candy, corn on the cob. Music blares simultaneously from mariachi and marimba bands as fireworks punch the night sky. Lights flash and blare from ferris wheels and bumper cars, A woman’s voice calls out the images of the Loteria games: El borracho! La sirena! El nopal! Enormous stuffed animals and plaster Jesuses and gold spray painted skulls are the prizes perched above the heads of hopeful players. Suddenly sirens begin to wail and a group of marathon runners clamber up the cobble stone street. ‘Para arriba, para abajo, a la bim bom bam! A la Virgen! A la Virgen! Ra! Ra! Ra!’ They shout in unison, carrying torches and flowers, the image of La Virgen stenciled in red and green across their sweaty tee shirts.
I climb up the steps to the church at the top of the hill, following clusters of Chamulan Indian women wrapped in dark wool skirts and blue striped rebozos, elegant Zinacantecan Indian men dressed in bright pink with ribbons streaming from their hats, and Mexican children in frilly dresses and little suits and shiny shoes. The air is filled with the smell of smoke and frying food and the aromatic carpet of pine needles beneath our feet.
Inside the church the crowds are huddled into pews and pressed into the aisles. Pungent lilies and dark red roses are on every corner and ledge, spilling out over the altar, where a larger than life sized plastic Virgin of Guadalupe rises up from the glow of a thousand candles, appearing before the astounded plastic peasant Juan Diego. Three green snakes writhe from beneath her feet, their tongues a string of flickering Christmas lights. Her cloak is dark blue like the night, carrying the constellations of the stars. Her white dress is tied at the waist with a knotted belt that symbolizes her pregnancy. She stands upon a dark crescent moon, rays of light radiating from her like great golden spears. I squeeze into a pew next to a woman wrapped in a dark shawl, and watch as Indians bring more candles to place at the feet of the Virgin. The floor is caked in pools of dripping wax. The Indians kneel before the altar, exposing their cracked and calloused feet. There among Indians and old folks and children and tourists, I suddenly begin to cry. I am surprised by the sting of my own tears and my heart’s sudden ache. Outside, I can hear the plinking of the marimbas. They are playing a tune that sounds strangely familiar. Then I recognize it as “Feelings” and laugh out loud, tears still on my cheeks. Once again I am caught up in the tragic comedy of Mexico, as the colored lights from the Virgin of Guadalupe blink and call to us from the altar.

*

Tepeyac, Mexico, 1532

In December of 1532, in the hills of Tepeyac near Mexico City, when Spain had conquered Mexico and Christianty was introduced to the resistant Aztecs, an Indian named Cuauhtlatoatzin, christened Juan Diego, turned toward the sound of heavenly music and saw before him the vision of a woman beckoning to him. She spoke to him in his native Nahuatl tongue, asking him to gather the roses that were suddenly miraculously growing in the bare hills around him in the middle of winter, and take them to the bishop to convince him to build a church in her name. He gathered them into his tilma, or apron, and when he unraveled it before the bishop the image of the Virgin herself appeared on the cloth. She is called the Virgin of Guadalupe. Some say she is named after the Spanish Guadalupe from the Moorish name that means “River of Love”, whose waters were reported to have aphrodisiac qualities. Some say the name derives from the Aztec language of Nahuatl and the goddess Coatlique, the snake goddess. Or from Coatlaxlpeuh, Nahuatl for ‘That Which Crushes Snakes.’ Indeed, her appearance occurred after the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, whose god was Quetzalcoatl, the winged snake. In fact Genesis 3:15 alludes to a snake being crushed by a woman. She is thought to have replaced the Aztec goddess Tonantzin, the mother goddess. The time of her appearance, whether miraculous or politically motivated, served to unify the Spanish and the Indians under one faith. Her followers include peasants and presidents, nuns and thieves. She is the spiritual mother of Mexico, of Mexicans, and of anyone who chooses to embrace her into their faith. Her saints day, December 12th, is a time of celebration and reverence all over Mexico and wherever Mexican people live.

*

San Francisco, CA 1992

In March of 1992 I was caring for a dying friend. One afternoon I took a much needed walk down the streets of his neighborhood to try to come to terms with my grief and exhaustion, having spent the past several weeks involved in the difficulties and heartbreak of his illness. While I was anguishing about whether to stay with my friend or return home to Monterey for some urgent business that needed attending to, I passed a basement window across which someone had strung a makeshift curtain using a towel with the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe on it. As I stood there looking at it, I was suddenly filled with a feeling of great calm. My body relaxed and my head felt clear and at peace. Then I heard a voice in my head. It told me that there was no reason to worry, that all would be well. When I returned to my friend’s house I joined his wife and a few close friends as we gathered around his bed and held him as his breathing slowed and he passed away peacefully, released at last from his suffering, surrounded by the people he loved. I can’t say that I quite understand what happened that day, but ever since then I have held a deep reverence for the Virgin of Guadalupe. I like to carry the image as a talisman on my travels or tape pictures of her to my bathroom mirror or studio wall I don’t consider myself a religious person, and in fact am cynical at best, but sometimes I find myself sending out silent prayers to her in my times of confusion and sorrow, when I have given up on trying to solve the problems of my life and having to figure it all out myself. Somehow having a sense of faith in a loving being that is compassionate and wise relieves me of the burden of having to carry the weight of my life all alone. I suppose if one has faith in a higher power it doesn’t seem to matter whether the image that represents it is carved from marble or cast in plastic, woven in fine silk or printed onto a beach towel. It is still a reminder of my own humility and the miracle of the human heart.

***

The Real Deal

When I was a child growing up in the sterile manicured suburbs of Southern California we were fortunate to live on the edge of a wild canyon, where I spent a great deal of time climbing trees and fishing polliwogs out of the muddy creek and exploring the mysteries of nature among the danger of poison oak and rattlesnakes. It was a place I could go where I felt like I could truly be myself; wild and natural and free. Years later at age 23, I had a strong desire to travel to Mexico, precisely because of its danger, mystery, and wildness. Because it was so close, it was an easy choice. I have since returned many times, and each time I am enchanted by the experience. Though I didn’t realize it at the time, I can see now that in some ways Mexico was another version of the canyon in my back yard.
What follows is a short piece about one of my first childhood experiences with the Mexican culture...

*

The Garcias were the only Mexican family in the neighborhood, and the first I’d ever met. They lived down the block and across the street from our house in the suburbs of San Diego. Their house was different from ours; instead of a perfectly manicured lawn there were potted plants, an old wooden gate, spiny cactus growing outside the door. Inside, there was always the smell of roasting chilies and salsa and corn tortillas and meat, even when no one was cooking. There was always music playing, people coming and going and hundreds of things to look at. Little plaster poodles with gold chains next to figurines of the Virgin Mary and various saints and angels. There was a calendar on the wall in the kitchen with a picture of Jesus on it, his pleading eyes looking up to heaven, blood oozing from the thorns sticking into his forehead. If you moved slowly up and down he would open and close his eyes and a river of tears would stream down his sorrowful face. I had never seen anything like it, and would spend a long time bobbing up and down in front of the calendar watching Jesus in his infinite sorrow, batting his eyes for God.

On Saturdays when most fathers were mowing the lawn or washing their cars I would go down the street to the bright green house with the bicycles in the yard and eat tamales at Dona Lupe’s crowded table while her husband Carlos sang along to the Spanish songs on the radio. I would play in the backyard of overgrown weeds with her daughter Sylvia, who was the same age as me. One day I asked her about the Jesus picture and the words that were printed in Spanish beneath his painful portrait. What does it say? I wanted to know.
“It says ‘Carniceria Gonzalez; Freshest meats in town’. “It’s from a butcher shop in Tijuana,” she said.

At our house the décor was Japanese. Rattan furniture with little fan patterns on the cushions, straw tatami mats on the floor. A little brass Buddha incense burner perched on the coffee table and prints of airbrushed Jaguars prowling through exotic jungles adorned the walls. It never occurred to me at the time to wonder how my cockney English mother and Jewish father from the Bronx had ever come to embrace this mishmash of Oriental decor, but this is how it was in the suburbs of southern California in the fifties. You bought a tract home in a development called ‘Cinderella Homes,’ chose an interior motif based on a fantasy, and there you dwelt in the environment of a culture you knew nothing about. Anything tropical and exotic was in, and we attended countless neighborhood luaus where we would sip Hawaiian punch under the light of tiki torches as we watched our drunken parents bump their chests on the limbo pole to the tunes of Chubby Checker singing the Limbo Rock. “How lowww can you gooo?”

A few years later we switched to Early Colonial American. Heavy dark stained notched wood with brown Naugahyde cushions, brass eagle lamps, prints of autumn landscapes and horses, braided rag rugs in Avocado Green and Harvest Gold. The Naugahyde would stick to your skin in hot weather and make strange squeaking sounds when you moved. I wondered how those early colonial people handled it. We traded our Formica table for a larger one made of faux carved wood where my mother would serve up spaghetti with canned sauce and frozen chicken pot pies and pizza and ground beef with packaged taco mix in perfect molded hard taco shells. We took on the flavor of other cultures and periods of history and made them our own. We embraced them as if they were a ride at Disneyland.

But at the Garcia’s house, everything about it was Mexican. Mexican food. Mexican music. Mexican language. Even the chachkes were Mexican. The photos lined up under the rabbit ears antenna on the Zenith TV set were of Mexican people. Grandparents and uncles and cousins and nieces. Girls in frilly white dresses and men in cowboy hats, all with dark eyes and brown skin, peering out of their ornate plastic frames like a silent crowd of ancestors watching over their progeny. These people were the real deal.

Sometimes Sylvia would come over to my house and we would play on my swing set or in my room, which she couldn’t believe I had all to myself. It was decorated in lavender and pink with ruffled curtains and matching wallpaper that my mother had chosen for the little girl she wished she had. The floor was strewn with little plastic army men and baseball mitts and super hero comic books. Sometimes it seemed as if the rooms of our house were decorated for someone else's family. They just hadn’t arrived yet.

Years later, when I was seventeen and my parents were divorced and we had sold the house to live in separate condos, (my father said that he always hated having to mow that lawn on his days off) I ran into Sylvia at the Kmart. She was pushing a shopping cart with a small toddler sitting in it. She said she didn’t know where the father was but that it was okay, because her mother and sisters were helping her out. In her cart were several bottles of Coke, a large box of Cheerios and a package of Pampers. She told me how they had moved into some apartments on the other side of the freeway, where a lot of other Mexican families were living now, and how she had a part time job busing tables at Shakey’s Pizza. Her eyes were lined in black and her tight blouse revealed her now full breasts and the paunch of her belly. Suddenly the baby began to shriek, kicking his feet against the cart. Sylvia rolled her eyes and said she had to go.
For some reason I remembered the Jesus calendar, and with the memory came the spicy smells of the kitchen, the ayayay! of ranchera music, and the vision of bright red pepper plants sprouting up amidst the weeds like painted fingernails. I laughed out loud.
“What?” she asked. She had taken the child out of the cart and was bouncing him on her hip.
“Oh, I was just thinking about that Jesus picture,” I said. “Remember? The one where the eyes opened and closed?” She looked at me over her shoulder, her penciled eyebrows raised, and said she didn’t remember a thing about it. What she did remember, she said, was the feeling of riding high on that swing in my backyard. How she loved looking down from the sky like that, for just a second, before chain jerked you back to earth again. Back to the bittersweet green smell of freshly mowed grass.

***