An introverted woman of a certain age sells her house, gets rid of her stuff, and goes rootless.
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Monday, November 11, 2024
Loose Ends: Mexico City 2018: Dreams and Nightmares
Sunday, November 10, 2024
Loose Ends: Mexico City 2018: Deportees
In winter 2018, I spent a month in Mexico City. My accommodations, originally a Friends (Quaker) guesthouse, gave its third floor over to some refugees from the second caravan coming north from Central America.
Some women and men deported from the US also passed through the guesthouse. I've given them pseudonyms.
Some new folks arrived today.
A married couple came up with the first caravan from Guatemala. They'd been deported from Austin, Texas. They believed it best for their two young children, ages three and five, to leave them in safe hands in Austin.
Another man, Juan, originally from Chiapas, arrived. He'd been living in Chicago for a number of years, working for a landscaping company. Deported just last week. Instead of returning to Chiapas, he plans to stay in Mexico City for now, as there are more opportunities here.
A third man, Guillermo, who'd lived in Nevada for more than 20 years, was visiting New York when tapped. He's lived in Mexico City for almost a year now, and plans to move to his own place here in January. Originally from Jalapa in Vera Cruz, he says, smiling: "Yo soy jalapeƱo." Chuckles.
Friday, November 8, 2024
Loose Ends: Creative Life: Dance and Clothespins
An ad hoc poem I wrote in some time in some where? An exercise with the Tumblewords Project? No idea. But here it is, about a real-life experience at some dance function, in which I was trying to learn how to dance something. My guess is that it was a contra dance thing.
Two clothespins in his hair.
What am I to make of this?
An eccentricity?
A clever hack?
A genius' forgivable befuddlement?
I can't concentrate on the dance instructions
Which are befuddling enough, like a confounding algebraic word problem about orbiting, colliding bodies on a wooden floor.
I burst into laughter ...
... at the clothespins in that man's hair ... or the Alice-in-Wonderland instructions for the dance?
I don't know.
I wonder ... Can I escape?
Just leave the floor?
Abandon my dance partner? (What's his name again?)
Those clothespins.
Thursday, November 7, 2024
Loose Ends: Mexico City 2018: Emergency Health
In winter 2018, I spent a month in Mexico City. My accommodations, originally a Friends (Quaker) guesthouse, gave its third floor over to some refugees from the second caravan coming north from Central America.
One of the asylum-seekers became ill, and I wrote this:
So when you are vomiting blood and have no money, what do you do?
In the case of one of my housemates, you go to a pharmacy for a consult - in some pharmacies free and in others, for a nominal fee (but even this is inaccessible if you have no money, so one of your housemates pays the consulting fee for you - about 35 pesos).
The pharmacist takes your vitals (blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and throat check), but no blood, stool, or urine tests.
The pharmacist takes a history from you, considers the possibilities, rules some out, and recommends an endoscopy. Which, of course, is outside your financial reach.
The pharmacist suggests there is an irritation in your esophagus or at another milepost along the gastrointestinal boulevard, and to eat fruits and vegetables, and avoid spicy foods. If still producing blood in two days, do what you can to get that endoscopy.
What could be the cause?
The violent blows to your torso, delivered 10 days ago by fellow caravanners from a different country than yours, who maybe took umbrage at your membership in the caravan's LGBTQI group? Or the cocaine you ingested yesterday evening, even though you've never had such a reaction before? Or stress? Or malnutrition? Or an ulcer? Or a pulmonary issue? Deadly? Or a passing health incident, self-repairing?
Does an affliction care if you are kind and amiable, that you sometimes engage in risky behaviors, are poor, have left all that is familiar to you, and your access to food, shelter, and employment is insecure? No, it does not; it is impersonal.
Maybe there's a biological tipping-point algorithm at play: stress+malnutrition+uncertainty+a beating+cocaine+compromised immune system from the cold virus that's been visiting the house = a crocodile crack on a corporeal byway = vomiting blood.
A truism: Time will tell.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
10 Years Ago: Louisiana: Opelousas: A Holy Ghost Party
Given the bendiness of the word ghost, it pleases me that the Holy Ghost Catholic Church in Opelousas, Louisiana, hosts the Holy Ghost Creole Festival around Halloween.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
Louisiana: Opelousas: A Holy Ghost Party
Men of Vision, 2014 Holy Ghost Catholic Church Creole Festival, Opelousas, Louisiana |
So. Halloween. Not being a trick-or-treater or wear-a-costume sort of
gal, my annual strategy is to get out of the house on Halloween and hide
out til the littles have completed their rounds.
In Lafayette, it being a party kind of place and Halloween being on a
Friday this year, you would surmise correctly if you thought that most
getaways included dressing up.
But then I saw the perfect place to go - the 22nd Annual Holy Ghost Catholic Church Creole Festival. The festival is the first weekend in November, beginning on Friday. Gospel music on Friday night.
Here's a video from St. Landry's Parish, focusing on Holy Ghost women making potato pies for the 2011 festival:
I got to hear different styles of gospel music at the church:
- Rap
- Jazz
- Blues
- and I guess what I'd call the traditional gospel style
Here's a gospel rap song called "Having a Holy Ghost Party," performed at the concert Friday night:
And one of the songs from the Mount Olive Baptist Church Men's Chorus:
And from three women whose group name I forget:
There was even a performance of liturgical dance by the youth, and at first, I thought, aha, this is a new idea for me, but wait .... liturgical dance is just a fancy way of talking about sacred dance, which has been practiced in many cultures for eons.
2014 Holy Ghost Catholic Church Creole Festival, Opelousas, Louisiana |
Sheesh, didn't I just spend a year in New Mexico, where traditions of sacred dance are carefully protected and handed down through the present generations?
2014 Holy Ghost Catholic Church Creole Festival, Opelousas, Louisiana |
It was a perfect way to spend All Saints Eve.
Men of Vision, 2014 Holy Ghost Catholic Church Creole Festival, Opelousas, Louisiana |