Hey, friends!
I know it's been a while!
The truth is that I don't want to spend too much time on the introspection right now, but let me tell you, it's been the most awesome month ever! First I had an awesome friend-time with Ali, and then I had some more productive work-y type-thangs. Then, I went sorta-fancy backpacking through the Mexican Isthmus. Who gets to say stuff like that? The truth is that this Flickr set is a pretty good narrative of the adventure, so I'm gonna leave you folks with that until I can get myself together.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/marinmakespictures/sets/72157623725098580/
I hope you are all well, and I send you many hugs.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Sunday, March 7, 2010
siempre supe pero no hice caso
What a weird week! Since I last wrote a lot of funny things have happened! And I have been thinking too much for my own good!
You should listen to this while you read, because I don't care if it's so two-thousand-and-late, it's my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdK3YGXwDOI
For one, the cookies I was going to make? Here's the story: one of the failures of NAFTA is that random goods are not consistently readily available in Mexican supermarkets. (Okay, that's a joke. Sort of. Come on, NAFTA. Go big or go home. Seriously.) But for some reason, last week at the Soriana, there were roughly 50 bags of chocolate chips. Chocolate chips! These do not exist in the Mexico. So, I, being the eternal fool that I am (but always learrrrrning...), only bought one measly bag, assuming that the presence of the chocolate chips meant that they would be carrying them from then on. Already I shake my head at my silliness. Next time, and for you out there, let me do your learning for you: if it will not spoil quickly, buy it by the armful. It's like communism or some shit. (Okay, it's not. But kind of. Right?)
As I was standing there in relative shock in the supermarket, a man walked up to me and asked me if I was from New York. I am not. Then he said, "Oh, you look like you're from New York. I've been there." At this point I was beginning to cringe inside, but then he said the magic words: "I've also been to North Carolina." At which point we became BFF. Well, not really, but I stopped cringing a little. Anyway, he talked my ear off for a while and then we agreed to hang out at some point in the future.
Then, a friend called and asked if I wanted to bake at the migrant house and I was all TOTALLY and so then I borrowed Maida the landlord's handmixer and marched myself to the migrant house, where I baked cookies and discussed hairstyling and migration with the totally awesome women there. Then I came home, did Pema reading group and baked cookies for the house and ate chilaquiles (with cheddar! the opulence! the Tex-Mex-ness!) and then ate cookies. Best Sunday ever, is what I'm saying.
The week progressed equally well, with me finally being able to redirect my attention to shit like new research (health indicators) and meeting folks from other organizations about delegations. There was yoga class. Oh shit, that was after Monday and Tuesday, when Niños Heroes got shut down! Niños Heroes is a huge, many-laned feat of engineering of a road. Instead of just having the "coming" lanes on one side and the "going" lanes on the other, like most roads, on Niños Heroes they swerve around, alternating, so that you don't need four-way intersections. It's kind of brilliant and also kind of insane. Also, there are amazing jugglers and fire-eaters and unicycle-riders on the road most of the time. This road also neatly cuts off the northern border of the center of Oaxaca, so it's pretty vital to travel on it to get to residential neighborhoods and whatnot. Anyway, a coalition of leftist groups blocked it. No harm done, but it was amazing how quiet and calm the road was, still full of people but everyone just hanging out, eating and laughing. On the road. So we missed Monday yoga and decided to have wine instead. Then we found the dumbest graffiti in the world and did a photo shoot:
Me trying to make an adequately dramatic face. The graffiti says "I want to write something, but I don't know what." Real nice, Neruda.
Me and Tony being a pair of cagapalos.
So, yeah. Wednesday yoga. Then on Friday, I did a lot of meeting with partner orgs and whatnot (wherein I agreed to all sorts of shit! Farmwork! Salsa-dancing! Skill-shares!), and found my way to the Zocalo for what I hoped would be my last such meeting (no-show), and ended up running into some artist collective kids that were doing a public art thing about ending violence against women, as part of a bigger event. They invited me to make a painting myself, so I got all paint-covered and did that. Then I zoned out in my house for a while (did I mention it was HOT out?), went back out to a poetry reading as part of the same event, drank some coffee and went to a movie about the Juarez femicides that they projected outside near the Zocalo (Bajo Juarez, which is pretty good but also sad).
Yesterday I mostly lazied and read, and then today my supermarket friend and I went to Monte Alban, a huge Zapotec ruin that is featured in the cinematic masterpiece that is Nacho Libre. I started feeling a little gloomy, so I went to the market and bought lilies (regular-type) and calla lilies (two of my favorite kinds of flowers) and also a strawberry licuado, and came home and arranged the flowers. I think I am about to make some chickpea cutlets.
So! Things I have been thinking about.
For firsters, I have been reading the Pema, and there's some stuff in there about just feeling your emotions and not using them. I think I've been interested in this general idea for a while, but I think I also don't really get it. After all, isn't my anxiety a feeling? When I tried to "enjoy" my anxiety and just feel it and be okay with it, "settle with it", it didn't make for very good relationships with others. I'm not sure I'm a good little Buddhist. Meh. It's a journey, right? The reading on tonglen, on breathing our bad feelings in and breathing out a sort of prayer that there not be that same bad feeling for people everywhere, is kind of compelling.
I guess the most important thing for now is that nothing is the end of the world. Even when I feel like something is a life-or-death situation, usually I just breathe and get through it eventually (this may be my special "shield of crazy", huh?) and everything is fine until the next time. One of my good friends wrote me an update about his life this week and said he was starting to just do what he wanted and not worry: damn the torpedoes, he said. This is my new battle cry--it makes me feel awesome and brave every time. I used to have this fear that if I took everything one day at a time, I'd forget the big picture, but that's dumb, I can't because that's just not how I roll. The big picture is just always breathing, changing. Thank God.
You should listen to this while you read, because I don't care if it's so two-thousand-and-late, it's my favorite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdK3YGXwDOI
For one, the cookies I was going to make? Here's the story: one of the failures of NAFTA is that random goods are not consistently readily available in Mexican supermarkets. (Okay, that's a joke. Sort of. Come on, NAFTA. Go big or go home. Seriously.) But for some reason, last week at the Soriana, there were roughly 50 bags of chocolate chips. Chocolate chips! These do not exist in the Mexico. So, I, being the eternal fool that I am (but always learrrrrning...), only bought one measly bag, assuming that the presence of the chocolate chips meant that they would be carrying them from then on. Already I shake my head at my silliness. Next time, and for you out there, let me do your learning for you: if it will not spoil quickly, buy it by the armful. It's like communism or some shit. (Okay, it's not. But kind of. Right?)
As I was standing there in relative shock in the supermarket, a man walked up to me and asked me if I was from New York. I am not. Then he said, "Oh, you look like you're from New York. I've been there." At this point I was beginning to cringe inside, but then he said the magic words: "I've also been to North Carolina." At which point we became BFF. Well, not really, but I stopped cringing a little. Anyway, he talked my ear off for a while and then we agreed to hang out at some point in the future.
Then, a friend called and asked if I wanted to bake at the migrant house and I was all TOTALLY and so then I borrowed Maida the landlord's handmixer and marched myself to the migrant house, where I baked cookies and discussed hairstyling and migration with the totally awesome women there. Then I came home, did Pema reading group and baked cookies for the house and ate chilaquiles (with cheddar! the opulence! the Tex-Mex-ness!) and then ate cookies. Best Sunday ever, is what I'm saying.
The week progressed equally well, with me finally being able to redirect my attention to shit like new research (health indicators) and meeting folks from other organizations about delegations. There was yoga class. Oh shit, that was after Monday and Tuesday, when Niños Heroes got shut down! Niños Heroes is a huge, many-laned feat of engineering of a road. Instead of just having the "coming" lanes on one side and the "going" lanes on the other, like most roads, on Niños Heroes they swerve around, alternating, so that you don't need four-way intersections. It's kind of brilliant and also kind of insane. Also, there are amazing jugglers and fire-eaters and unicycle-riders on the road most of the time. This road also neatly cuts off the northern border of the center of Oaxaca, so it's pretty vital to travel on it to get to residential neighborhoods and whatnot. Anyway, a coalition of leftist groups blocked it. No harm done, but it was amazing how quiet and calm the road was, still full of people but everyone just hanging out, eating and laughing. On the road. So we missed Monday yoga and decided to have wine instead. Then we found the dumbest graffiti in the world and did a photo shoot:
Me trying to make an adequately dramatic face. The graffiti says "I want to write something, but I don't know what." Real nice, Neruda.
Me and Tony being a pair of cagapalos.
So, yeah. Wednesday yoga. Then on Friday, I did a lot of meeting with partner orgs and whatnot (wherein I agreed to all sorts of shit! Farmwork! Salsa-dancing! Skill-shares!), and found my way to the Zocalo for what I hoped would be my last such meeting (no-show), and ended up running into some artist collective kids that were doing a public art thing about ending violence against women, as part of a bigger event. They invited me to make a painting myself, so I got all paint-covered and did that. Then I zoned out in my house for a while (did I mention it was HOT out?), went back out to a poetry reading as part of the same event, drank some coffee and went to a movie about the Juarez femicides that they projected outside near the Zocalo (Bajo Juarez, which is pretty good but also sad).
Yesterday I mostly lazied and read, and then today my supermarket friend and I went to Monte Alban, a huge Zapotec ruin that is featured in the cinematic masterpiece that is Nacho Libre. I started feeling a little gloomy, so I went to the market and bought lilies (regular-type) and calla lilies (two of my favorite kinds of flowers) and also a strawberry licuado, and came home and arranged the flowers. I think I am about to make some chickpea cutlets.
So! Things I have been thinking about.
For firsters, I have been reading the Pema, and there's some stuff in there about just feeling your emotions and not using them. I think I've been interested in this general idea for a while, but I think I also don't really get it. After all, isn't my anxiety a feeling? When I tried to "enjoy" my anxiety and just feel it and be okay with it, "settle with it", it didn't make for very good relationships with others. I'm not sure I'm a good little Buddhist. Meh. It's a journey, right? The reading on tonglen, on breathing our bad feelings in and breathing out a sort of prayer that there not be that same bad feeling for people everywhere, is kind of compelling.
I guess the most important thing for now is that nothing is the end of the world. Even when I feel like something is a life-or-death situation, usually I just breathe and get through it eventually (this may be my special "shield of crazy", huh?) and everything is fine until the next time. One of my good friends wrote me an update about his life this week and said he was starting to just do what he wanted and not worry: damn the torpedoes, he said. This is my new battle cry--it makes me feel awesome and brave every time. I used to have this fear that if I took everything one day at a time, I'd forget the big picture, but that's dumb, I can't because that's just not how I roll. The big picture is just always breathing, changing. Thank God.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)