Steam rose delicately from the summit of Popocatepetl, the smoking mountain, Don Goyo. The snow level from the afternoon's thunderstorms had pushed all the way down to the treeline, about 3500m and the whole top of the mountain up to the 5452m summit. Lightning flashes across the sky to the south, the deep gray clouds streaked in cracked lightning. The clouds rumble. The steam from the top of Popo curls down, pushed by the downdrafts into the cloud rimmed summit. Curtains of gray, alternating shades of rain falling, drift in to obscure the summit.
Mountains have a serenity about them, a measure of silence, patience. The way clouds move about their distant heights, slowly, deliberately. But the puff of steam rising from Popo changes quickly, mounded one instant, pushing back into the sky against the clouds in the next. From the top of the apartment building in Cholula, surrounded by the impatience and clutter of civilization, of dogs barking, cars roaring by, families laughing in apartments, the hum of the city. In the distance to the north and east, the rim of clouds ended and further in the distance the thunderheads climbed high into the reddening sky of sunset and at that distance motion began to cease.
The earth is in as much constant motion as us humans in our ant-like cities. Plates are moving, subducting, building up pressure, forcing up magma. Images from Chaiten in Chile this week remind me of the immediate fury, and looking at the silent Popo I know it will change. All around me in this city of angles, of rooflines, treelines, water tanks, doors slamming, horns blaring, tvs squawking all would cease and turn to flight if Popo truly came alive. I study the mountain for a quiet moment, the church in the foreground coming alive with light as night falls. The city begins to settle into night rhythms, but there quiet in the distance stands Popo, smoking in the dying light.
The earth always seems to surprise us. Earthquakes spring from only general assessments of threats and hazards of the plates moving, as only volcanic eruptions rise from swarms of earthquakes, subducting plates, and building lava domes. There are those surprises, like Mount Saint Helens in 1980, or Paricutin in Michoacan in 1943. Paricutin began as a fissure in a farmer's corn field that grew over nine years into a 424 m cinder cone. The farmer was said to have kept plowing his field as the rift widened and grew worse on the 20th of February. Mount Saint Helens had only the old man Harry Truman left at Spirit Lake by the time it blew, but when it did, it blew. Where were you when the mountain blew, ran the line on the t-shirt I got visiting my grandparents in Portland that summer.
The earth always surprises us. I read today in the LA Times an editorial by Bill McKibben, quoting James Hansen the climate scientist "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm." The feedback loops the climate scientists said existed, do. McKibben quotes Hansen again, "if there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." Silent, there stands the mountain, the snow creeping slowly up the slopes until the snow and the water that sustains this valley are gone. Will it be the rapid thunder of the earth's fire, or the slow build up of our ignorance?
A few errant raindrops scatter across the roof. More lightning runs through the underside of the clouds in the south, toward Atlixco. Popo stands silent as the gray rain clouds drift across the ghostly white slopes. I look at the church that rises in the night framed against Popo, built on the aspirations of religious feeling for the assumption of a better world. Built to worship all that is around and in us. In the darkness outside the window as I write, I hear the sounds of singing, of a congregation in worship. There in the night with the sound of crickets, the voices of a people united in song. The wind ruffles the trees, but the mountain is silent. Fast or slow, the world is changing.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Monday, May 5, 2008
Patzcuaro haze.
Like the swallows that twist and float around our house every evening, I feel like I’m still looking for something elusive. Like everyone who travels, it is partly something inside us that keeps us out, looking for something beautiful, remarkable, or meaningful. The tasty morsel of the small fly that the swallow snatches out of the air, but like the swallow I’m still out looking even with all I see. The struggle I have is being the tourist, the one with money, amidst so much poverty and genuine struggle. It is difficult to be the tourist, the consumer of cultures and places, when the cultures and the places are in such clear danger of being used up; and what then when they are?
For a bit of context, we have moved on out of DF and are now in a town called Patzcuaro, in the state of Michoacan. Patzcuaro is known for its day of the dead celebrations at the beginning of November every year. It is a town that reminds me of Flagstaff in many ways, not the least of which are the pine trees and the seven fires burning around the city. Fires here are under radically different set of conditions: they have not been wholly interrupted by the fear of fire, so there is not an accumulation of a hundred year fuel load. Instead they are lit on purpose in most cases and they burn slowly and deliberately across huge areas of the landscape. Those areas recently burned are obvious when the rains start because they are the first to green up, the vivid green bunchgrasses against the burnt landscape. The smoke that fills the town and hazes the sky into a golden light still burns my throat.
Patzcuaro is also known for the massive Lago de Patzcuaro about 3km north of the town. The lake is a massive shallow lake that is known for the island of Janitzio, the town crowed by the 40m statue to the independence hero Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon. It is an odd middle-class Mexican retreat in the early summer. Ferries take you out to the island for 35 pesos, and the 50 person launch putters along across the oddly brown water. On a clear day the landscape of dozens of cinder cones that ring the lake must be stunning with the green mountains and red clay-tiled roofs of every town. But not today, as the haze from the smoke all but keeps your attention on the egrets that are balanced and strikingly white in the shallows of the brown water. A mariachi combo cracks out some Norteño tunes for the tourists from Sonora who ride over to the island with us, the drummer is clearly annoyed at me, the gringo who plugs his ear right next to the drum. They play a few songs and then pass the hat.
As we near the island the famous butterfly fisherman (known for their huge butterfly nets) paddle out in their canoes and sort of do a performance, showing off their nets and how they would fish if it were not for the lack of fish in the lake. Two of the men paddle up and hang on to the boat to ask for tips. Everyone obliges. Part of the show, part of the cost. It is especially sad given that the famous whitefish that the butterfly fisherman have perfected their skills on are now endangered, further threatening to make their display into more of an act. Given the number of boats that are beside the water as we circle the island, small flat bottom canoes in dozens of bright colors, the reality of overfishing is not much of a stretch. The island is covered in dingy brick and concrete houses built into every conceivable angle on the slopes of the island. Several young girls play in front of an empty restaurant.
Once we dock on the far side of the island from the little girls, the climb to the top of the island can begin. The streets are a narrow jumble of haphazard buildings built on top of and over each other, with the twisting and turning stairs leading in multiple directions at once, but always upward to the monument. The crafts are cheap and not authentic by any stretch. Their repetition draws us to conclude an Asian origin, the trinkets of mass production with only the name of the town different on them. It is the second sad display of our day. We venture that some racket must control the trade, as the trinkets do not change as we get higher and higher on the island. The paintings are the same, the keychains, the cheap boats of wood and colored string. All the same to the very top of the island. The monument at the top costs 6 pesos to even enter the gates, and is a statue of Morelos y Pavon, right arm raised, surrounded by more stands with more of the same trinkets. Given the line to enter the statue, we pass on climbing up to peer out of the narrow windows at the top of his fist.
On a clear day, the view of Patzcuaro must be stunning. The pine-covered hills ring the lake, rising in every direction to the rolling tops of mountains all around. Through the haze I count seven fires. The largest is to the southwest of Patzcuaro and looks to be making its way down toward the lake. The others are small and dot the landscape. There may be more, but they are not visible with the haze. Disappointed by the whole experience, we wind our way back down through the town, passing restaurants and bars and trinket stands in their endless repetition of the same. At times the dress of the women and the small fried fish and the man we pass knitting a real fishing net suggest a deeper authenticity of the town. The man’s hands dart around and back, around and back, knowingly knitting the net at a speed that remind us of a deeper unseen cultural memory. Besides, who am I to comment on the presence or absence of that which I’ve never seen?
On the boat ride back I wonder about the island, the center of the day of the dead for Mexico. After having seen so much beautiful and remarkable folk art in Patzcuaro it was a challenge to see so little on Janitzio. Was it simply the case that the classes were represented so clearly? The rich having province over Patzcuaro with its ornate artistry, the middle classes having only the cheap replications of that ornate quality? To be a tourist in a foreign land does confer a measure of objectivity, but it also does not always allow for intimacy except in rare cases. At the end of the day, I could see the cheapness of the popular art, the cheapness of the Asian replications of what in Patzxuaro had finally come to be so genuine. Was it simply a function of the conditions forced on Mexico, to be as Porfirio Diaz said, “so far from God, so near the United States”? To be now struggling with the free market as it cheapened and degraded what was once magical quality, with the very basic reality of survival at stake.
The challenge of Mexico seems so clearly to be its humanity. From the perspective of the United States we are apt to be grossly racist, or blame it on corrupt politics, or simply on our ignorance. The Mexico I am discovering is one that smiles even when begging on the street, who clearly appreciates being treated like a human, even if the act is as simply as saying, no gracias señora. The humanity of Mexico is in the artistry and beauty of its people, its culture, and land. For me, the struggle of being a tourist and of having so much amid so many who do not have anything, is in not objectifying. I am an outsider and will forever be outside the magical history of Mexico, but as I learn more about this country and its history I cannot but feel a sense of kinship. No longer do I feel we are so far apart. But I am careful not to suggest this in a paternalistic fashion, for paternalism has brought all the great problems to Mexico. Instead it is in the humanism of concern for a people I wish well, that I wish a good life to—in that is the first step toward a kinship and a recognition we are not so far apart.
For a bit of context, we have moved on out of DF and are now in a town called Patzcuaro, in the state of Michoacan. Patzcuaro is known for its day of the dead celebrations at the beginning of November every year. It is a town that reminds me of Flagstaff in many ways, not the least of which are the pine trees and the seven fires burning around the city. Fires here are under radically different set of conditions: they have not been wholly interrupted by the fear of fire, so there is not an accumulation of a hundred year fuel load. Instead they are lit on purpose in most cases and they burn slowly and deliberately across huge areas of the landscape. Those areas recently burned are obvious when the rains start because they are the first to green up, the vivid green bunchgrasses against the burnt landscape. The smoke that fills the town and hazes the sky into a golden light still burns my throat.
Patzcuaro is also known for the massive Lago de Patzcuaro about 3km north of the town. The lake is a massive shallow lake that is known for the island of Janitzio, the town crowed by the 40m statue to the independence hero Jose Maria Morelos y Pavon. It is an odd middle-class Mexican retreat in the early summer. Ferries take you out to the island for 35 pesos, and the 50 person launch putters along across the oddly brown water. On a clear day the landscape of dozens of cinder cones that ring the lake must be stunning with the green mountains and red clay-tiled roofs of every town. But not today, as the haze from the smoke all but keeps your attention on the egrets that are balanced and strikingly white in the shallows of the brown water. A mariachi combo cracks out some Norteño tunes for the tourists from Sonora who ride over to the island with us, the drummer is clearly annoyed at me, the gringo who plugs his ear right next to the drum. They play a few songs and then pass the hat.
As we near the island the famous butterfly fisherman (known for their huge butterfly nets) paddle out in their canoes and sort of do a performance, showing off their nets and how they would fish if it were not for the lack of fish in the lake. Two of the men paddle up and hang on to the boat to ask for tips. Everyone obliges. Part of the show, part of the cost. It is especially sad given that the famous whitefish that the butterfly fisherman have perfected their skills on are now endangered, further threatening to make their display into more of an act. Given the number of boats that are beside the water as we circle the island, small flat bottom canoes in dozens of bright colors, the reality of overfishing is not much of a stretch. The island is covered in dingy brick and concrete houses built into every conceivable angle on the slopes of the island. Several young girls play in front of an empty restaurant.
Once we dock on the far side of the island from the little girls, the climb to the top of the island can begin. The streets are a narrow jumble of haphazard buildings built on top of and over each other, with the twisting and turning stairs leading in multiple directions at once, but always upward to the monument. The crafts are cheap and not authentic by any stretch. Their repetition draws us to conclude an Asian origin, the trinkets of mass production with only the name of the town different on them. It is the second sad display of our day. We venture that some racket must control the trade, as the trinkets do not change as we get higher and higher on the island. The paintings are the same, the keychains, the cheap boats of wood and colored string. All the same to the very top of the island. The monument at the top costs 6 pesos to even enter the gates, and is a statue of Morelos y Pavon, right arm raised, surrounded by more stands with more of the same trinkets. Given the line to enter the statue, we pass on climbing up to peer out of the narrow windows at the top of his fist.
On a clear day, the view of Patzcuaro must be stunning. The pine-covered hills ring the lake, rising in every direction to the rolling tops of mountains all around. Through the haze I count seven fires. The largest is to the southwest of Patzcuaro and looks to be making its way down toward the lake. The others are small and dot the landscape. There may be more, but they are not visible with the haze. Disappointed by the whole experience, we wind our way back down through the town, passing restaurants and bars and trinket stands in their endless repetition of the same. At times the dress of the women and the small fried fish and the man we pass knitting a real fishing net suggest a deeper authenticity of the town. The man’s hands dart around and back, around and back, knowingly knitting the net at a speed that remind us of a deeper unseen cultural memory. Besides, who am I to comment on the presence or absence of that which I’ve never seen?
On the boat ride back I wonder about the island, the center of the day of the dead for Mexico. After having seen so much beautiful and remarkable folk art in Patzcuaro it was a challenge to see so little on Janitzio. Was it simply the case that the classes were represented so clearly? The rich having province over Patzcuaro with its ornate artistry, the middle classes having only the cheap replications of that ornate quality? To be a tourist in a foreign land does confer a measure of objectivity, but it also does not always allow for intimacy except in rare cases. At the end of the day, I could see the cheapness of the popular art, the cheapness of the Asian replications of what in Patzxuaro had finally come to be so genuine. Was it simply a function of the conditions forced on Mexico, to be as Porfirio Diaz said, “so far from God, so near the United States”? To be now struggling with the free market as it cheapened and degraded what was once magical quality, with the very basic reality of survival at stake.
The challenge of Mexico seems so clearly to be its humanity. From the perspective of the United States we are apt to be grossly racist, or blame it on corrupt politics, or simply on our ignorance. The Mexico I am discovering is one that smiles even when begging on the street, who clearly appreciates being treated like a human, even if the act is as simply as saying, no gracias señora. The humanity of Mexico is in the artistry and beauty of its people, its culture, and land. For me, the struggle of being a tourist and of having so much amid so many who do not have anything, is in not objectifying. I am an outsider and will forever be outside the magical history of Mexico, but as I learn more about this country and its history I cannot but feel a sense of kinship. No longer do I feel we are so far apart. But I am careful not to suggest this in a paternalistic fashion, for paternalism has brought all the great problems to Mexico. Instead it is in the humanism of concern for a people I wish well, that I wish a good life to—in that is the first step toward a kinship and a recognition we are not so far apart.
Teasing Mayahuel.
I was the lone customer in the bar, the sound of the rain that had driven me in still pounding at the door. The walls of the Bar Reforma were covered in the paraphernalia of a life spent gathering Coke and Pepsi advertising, beer posters, Marilyn Monroe and Pancho Villa posters, posters promoting tours to Grecia, and still more Marilyn Monroe posters. From the ceiling hung an array of plastic hibiscus flowers in every color, oddly faded in the fluorescent light. The rain kept up at the door as the sound of passing cars and trucks whizzed and splashed by.
“Hola, buenas tardes.”
The bartender paused in his cleaning ashtrays to acknowledge me. I order a glass of mexcal, Milagro de San Diego. The object of my search, of my fruitless journey to Atlixco, to my getting soaked and to my eventual return to the only bar I knew carried it. The bartender and I talked with my stilted Spanish, he correcting my bad pronunciation of every Nahuatl town name I tried to spit out. “No one I know sells it here.” “Sorry, but we get it directly from the producer.” “This is the last bottle we have, or I’d sell you one.”
“Quien sabes?” Who knows. He’s right, who knows.
With the pace of the world, with the fact that I can hop on a computer and call my family anytime, it seemed such an anomaly that I couldn’t find a bottle of Milagro de San Diego anywhere in Mexico. With the globalization of everything, it seemed odd to have every liquor store owner look at me with such an uncomprehending look, with a “what the hell is this gringo talking about” written on their face. Still, nothing worked and nobody had it. Eventually, I chased the company down on the internet, trolling Google until I finally cross referenced it to a small town about an hour from Cholula, site of the Bar Reforma and where I was staying. On Google Earth it was easy, a short 30km bus ride to Atlixco, then out to Tochimiltzingo. Easy.
The bartender leaves me with orange slices and chili-salt along with a small bowl of peanuts. He moves off to continue cleaning ashtrays. The owner of the bar, obviously the father of the current bartender sits behind me at a table writing letters long hand with a black marker on lined paper. We sit in utter silence. The rain falls outside. The mexcal is smooth, so unlike any other mexcal I’ve had. It finishes with nutty overtones, the scent of smoke, not the raw burst of most mexcals, but delicate. I am alone in a bar in Mexico staring at the bottle of mexcal I cannot have and cannot find.
Part of me wanted desperately to see the farm, the neat rows of agave lined out with the stacked stone walls, to see the fields in some recognizable pattern of pastoral perfection. Part of me was calculating in wanting to talk with the farmers, the distillers, to know their secrets and then divulge them to an audience, so that in my own greed to keep on traveling through Mexico I could share this beautiful mexcal. But when I got on the bus finally in Puebla, after already sitting on a bus for an hour to go from Cholula to Puebla, then rode another hour to Atlixco, my prospects were dimming with the sunlight. As we dropped into Atlixco, the reality of 80,000 people, of an unknown city began dawning.
Why do we get attached to things, memories, or mexcals? They linger on and give some measure of meaning, but they also serve as touchstones, points in time when we experienced life to some greater degree. To a degree outside the bounds of normality, outside of our habits, the usual measure of days. I took another sip, savoring its burning warmth and the twitch that went right to my head. I smiled at the pleasure of Mayahuel, the goddess of the Maguey, the mexcal.
It is unquestionably odd to step off a bus in a totally foreign town, totally alone: the odd sensation of being a lone gringo. Atlixco is a busy, dirty town with narrow streets and crowded narrow sidewalks. I emerged from central bus station, quickly assessing my location by memorizing the cross streets: Independencia and Avila Camacho. I turn and walk quickly up Independencia toward the zocalo in the distance. There is an unnerving amount of police, especially as a loaded truck of police is followed down the street by a Humvee filled with army soldiers, replete with machine gun on top. I look away into a store filled with plastic crap, it interests me all of a sudden. The low rumble of the diesel engine passes on, I walk toward the zocalo.
Try awkward: sitting in a bar in Mexico alone. No one will talk to you, especially once you whip out the pen to write. I finish the short glass as the bartender puts on soft piano music that collides with the rain. The bass of an errant vehicle rattles the bar. I am alone and staring at my empty glass. I ask for another glass but the bartender laughs. He pours me a third of a glass. I have finished the bottle. He leaves me the bottle to study what might have been.
School as just let out in Atlixco and I am moving back and forth among the swarms of kids in the array of school uniforms. I step to the edge of the zocalo and pause, there are several more soldiers, these ones now recruiters. The banners extol service to La Patria, the fatherland. No one is anywhere near the tent except the army. Near the soldiers is another gaggle of police dressed in their black fatigues. Their automatic weapons always creep me out. I cross the street and walk on into the square and don’t stop until I have found a seat, so discomfiting is it to have all eyes on the güero. From my seat in the zocalo, I get my bearings before starting out to find a collectivo (small bus) that might take me to Tochimiltzingo.
I turn the bottle in my hands, happy even to examine it. It seems utterly silly to have come to covet a bottle of something. United Agave Producers of Tochimiltzingo. More than 200 years of tradition, this is a completely organic mexcal. It is glass and a pretty label, just like all of the twenty or thirty other brands of mescal or tequila on the glass shelves. But like the ancient cash register that dominates the center of the bar, stuck on 9 pesos 40 centavos, it is from another age. An age when you couldn’t order it on-line or find it in every store, or any store for that matter. Pride in artesianal production.
Each of the four directions I went from the zocalo proved fruitless. There were small combis (even smaller buses) and even a few collectivos, but nothing to Tochimiltzingo. I was stuck in Atlixco. I began to go in and out of every liquor store, asking for Milagro de San Diego. In every store my ability ask got better and the story elaborated. Still, no one had heard of it. I began to loop back around toward the bus station. Looking, looking, into one store, sent to another, sent back. Then on to the next, the next. No one had heard of the brand, the makers and yet there fifteen kilometers away it was, unknown.
I finish the last sip, cluttered amid the remnants of peanut flavor. The bar mirrors and neon and lights are reflected in the last sip. All the moments of my day distilled down to this multi-layered reality, all the pieces the feelings, memories, ideas, here. Now. Message in a Bottle comes on the stereo. I laugh as I pack up my bags, the rain now stopped. “I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle.” Mayahuel toys with me, teasing.
“Hola, buenas tardes.”
The bartender paused in his cleaning ashtrays to acknowledge me. I order a glass of mexcal, Milagro de San Diego. The object of my search, of my fruitless journey to Atlixco, to my getting soaked and to my eventual return to the only bar I knew carried it. The bartender and I talked with my stilted Spanish, he correcting my bad pronunciation of every Nahuatl town name I tried to spit out. “No one I know sells it here.” “Sorry, but we get it directly from the producer.” “This is the last bottle we have, or I’d sell you one.”
“Quien sabes?” Who knows. He’s right, who knows.
With the pace of the world, with the fact that I can hop on a computer and call my family anytime, it seemed such an anomaly that I couldn’t find a bottle of Milagro de San Diego anywhere in Mexico. With the globalization of everything, it seemed odd to have every liquor store owner look at me with such an uncomprehending look, with a “what the hell is this gringo talking about” written on their face. Still, nothing worked and nobody had it. Eventually, I chased the company down on the internet, trolling Google until I finally cross referenced it to a small town about an hour from Cholula, site of the Bar Reforma and where I was staying. On Google Earth it was easy, a short 30km bus ride to Atlixco, then out to Tochimiltzingo. Easy.
The bartender leaves me with orange slices and chili-salt along with a small bowl of peanuts. He moves off to continue cleaning ashtrays. The owner of the bar, obviously the father of the current bartender sits behind me at a table writing letters long hand with a black marker on lined paper. We sit in utter silence. The rain falls outside. The mexcal is smooth, so unlike any other mexcal I’ve had. It finishes with nutty overtones, the scent of smoke, not the raw burst of most mexcals, but delicate. I am alone in a bar in Mexico staring at the bottle of mexcal I cannot have and cannot find.
Part of me wanted desperately to see the farm, the neat rows of agave lined out with the stacked stone walls, to see the fields in some recognizable pattern of pastoral perfection. Part of me was calculating in wanting to talk with the farmers, the distillers, to know their secrets and then divulge them to an audience, so that in my own greed to keep on traveling through Mexico I could share this beautiful mexcal. But when I got on the bus finally in Puebla, after already sitting on a bus for an hour to go from Cholula to Puebla, then rode another hour to Atlixco, my prospects were dimming with the sunlight. As we dropped into Atlixco, the reality of 80,000 people, of an unknown city began dawning.
Why do we get attached to things, memories, or mexcals? They linger on and give some measure of meaning, but they also serve as touchstones, points in time when we experienced life to some greater degree. To a degree outside the bounds of normality, outside of our habits, the usual measure of days. I took another sip, savoring its burning warmth and the twitch that went right to my head. I smiled at the pleasure of Mayahuel, the goddess of the Maguey, the mexcal.
It is unquestionably odd to step off a bus in a totally foreign town, totally alone: the odd sensation of being a lone gringo. Atlixco is a busy, dirty town with narrow streets and crowded narrow sidewalks. I emerged from central bus station, quickly assessing my location by memorizing the cross streets: Independencia and Avila Camacho. I turn and walk quickly up Independencia toward the zocalo in the distance. There is an unnerving amount of police, especially as a loaded truck of police is followed down the street by a Humvee filled with army soldiers, replete with machine gun on top. I look away into a store filled with plastic crap, it interests me all of a sudden. The low rumble of the diesel engine passes on, I walk toward the zocalo.
Try awkward: sitting in a bar in Mexico alone. No one will talk to you, especially once you whip out the pen to write. I finish the short glass as the bartender puts on soft piano music that collides with the rain. The bass of an errant vehicle rattles the bar. I am alone and staring at my empty glass. I ask for another glass but the bartender laughs. He pours me a third of a glass. I have finished the bottle. He leaves me the bottle to study what might have been.
School as just let out in Atlixco and I am moving back and forth among the swarms of kids in the array of school uniforms. I step to the edge of the zocalo and pause, there are several more soldiers, these ones now recruiters. The banners extol service to La Patria, the fatherland. No one is anywhere near the tent except the army. Near the soldiers is another gaggle of police dressed in their black fatigues. Their automatic weapons always creep me out. I cross the street and walk on into the square and don’t stop until I have found a seat, so discomfiting is it to have all eyes on the güero. From my seat in the zocalo, I get my bearings before starting out to find a collectivo (small bus) that might take me to Tochimiltzingo.
I turn the bottle in my hands, happy even to examine it. It seems utterly silly to have come to covet a bottle of something. United Agave Producers of Tochimiltzingo. More than 200 years of tradition, this is a completely organic mexcal. It is glass and a pretty label, just like all of the twenty or thirty other brands of mescal or tequila on the glass shelves. But like the ancient cash register that dominates the center of the bar, stuck on 9 pesos 40 centavos, it is from another age. An age when you couldn’t order it on-line or find it in every store, or any store for that matter. Pride in artesianal production.
Each of the four directions I went from the zocalo proved fruitless. There were small combis (even smaller buses) and even a few collectivos, but nothing to Tochimiltzingo. I was stuck in Atlixco. I began to go in and out of every liquor store, asking for Milagro de San Diego. In every store my ability ask got better and the story elaborated. Still, no one had heard of it. I began to loop back around toward the bus station. Looking, looking, into one store, sent to another, sent back. Then on to the next, the next. No one had heard of the brand, the makers and yet there fifteen kilometers away it was, unknown.
I finish the last sip, cluttered amid the remnants of peanut flavor. The bar mirrors and neon and lights are reflected in the last sip. All the moments of my day distilled down to this multi-layered reality, all the pieces the feelings, memories, ideas, here. Now. Message in a Bottle comes on the stereo. I laugh as I pack up my bags, the rain now stopped. “I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle.” Mayahuel toys with me, teasing.
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