002-Notes From Tepoztlán
My last trip in Mexico
It is not Monday, but I wrote this for Monday and couldn’t upload it because I was packing to leave Mexico, then had several flight delays, and now I have the flu. There were a lot of speed bumps this week, so I’m going to pretend that it is Monday today. Pretend with me please.
I took a lot of film photos during my trip, but the film might have gotten destroyed at the airport in Mexico City. I am not sure yet. I will develop them in New York, and hopefully, the memories will still be there.
A distant whistling, where it comes from, what it belongs to, I am unsure. A creature of the night sending a part of itself echoing through the darkness.
Tepoztlán, my last vacation here in Mexico. A place that drips so seductively with colors. The stones embedded in the road urge its visitors to slow down, not to rush, to take things one step at a time. We were not meant to move so quickly.
This is indeed a tourist town. When you go through the market some signs say 60 pesos for a photo. You have to pay for the memories.
We were greeted by a black dog named Reiki, a nod to what this town is known for: spirituality and magic. So far this dog is the only reiki I’ll believe in.
We weren’t able to explore here too long, but I’m glad that we got to be here for at least a night. We arrived too late on Saturday, the hike for the Tepozteco closes at 16:00, and we were eating quesadillas at a roadside stand at that time. We weren’t going to make it.
In the distance, there is an electric whip of thunder. We may not be hiking on our second day. Besides the rain, other forms of water were highlighted in this trip, in both the form of a waterfall and the pool at our Airbnb.
The place we stayed at was filled to the brim with color. Trees surrounded the house, trees filled with fruit, which would periodically drop from the branches onto the pathway to our rooms. The air around the fallen pink guava was sweet, flys surrounded them, eating, slowly exposing the dripping seeds from the inside the belly of the fruit.
There is a comfort that comes with the smell of a pool, late at night. The chlorine, mixed with cigarette smoke, and the smell of weed on the tips of my fingers.
Are we supposed to swim at night? I asked.
No, but we’re Mexican. My friends responded.
The joyful bobbling of bodies in a nighttime swimming pool. The world around us is quiet, and that is the only sound—the sound of brave cannonballs, and rough and smooth Spanish sounds.
There are no stars in the night. Even though we have found ourselves in a Magic Town, no amount of good vibes and energy can eliminate light pollution and all the crimes we have done to nature.
The night invites curiosity. There is only room for the mind. It is a reflection of the mind.
My Mexican boyfriend. We had only met five months prior. He would usually have no business having a five yen coin around his neck, but somehow the circumstances have found it for him to have a strange Japanese, non-Japanese girlfriend. So he has the go-en coin in a silver necklace.
Among the splashes of water, there is the laughter of friends, in a language I don’t understand yet. I hear the roll of the tongue, like the bouncing of a car on the bumpy roads of Tepoztlán. The sharp curves of Mexican Spanish. People talk like how they drive: rough, following the curves, breaking just in time.
We visited a waterfall, a waterfall that might have gotten me sick. It was so cold, and I thought I would be able to handle it. Yet now I could very well be feeling the effects of my choices: I am ill in the Midwest and am finally being forced to calm down.
It was still beautiful. Also, I was a bit less radical than some of the other hikers that we shared the path with. There were several women who stripped down, completely nude, bathing in the freezing water of the waterfall. Then there was the hippy mother, with linen clothing and a head wrap, who filled her thermos with the water and poured it in the mouths of her two children.
There has been much on my mind, as I’ve gone through a long and drawn-out process of saying goodbye to this country that has been my home for six months. I can’t believe it’s been so long. I blinked six times and I had to say goodbye.
I had hoped I’d feel different at the end of my trip, more adult-like. I still struggle deeply, criticizing myself for things I can’t control, yet pretending that I have a grip on the course of life.
We wear adulthood as costumes, in order to hide the child of ourselves, hoping to forever disguise our vulnerable beginnings. Maybe the lesson now is to lean into it.
FIND ME ON
Monday Updates is a section of this blog where I’m letting my hair down, figuratively. I am often preoccupied with getting things perfect, rather than simply sharing and enjoying the process and talking about life. Instead of the tradition of hating Mondays, I’m going to try to associate them with creative freedom and allow myself to speak my mind without the worry that a perfectionist usually has. Things here may be a bit disjointed, incomplete, and occasionally nonsensical, but they may also be playful, curious, and whimsical. I will do my best to make it more of the latter.