the fable of

i just want to say that above all, i feel incredibly lucky to have found a place like portland to live. so many people are pining to get here, and somehow i’ve managed to make it.

quick back story: an old boyfriend used to be in a band with this guy, joe meredith. joe left that band to start this band, the merediths, who sound way better anyhow. i got a demo cd that the merediths made, and even though i used to listen to it all the time, it got lost and i forgot about them until i recently went through all the cds i had packed up before i left. and now, upon listening again, they sound just as good and joe’s voice is comparable to isaac brock back in the day.

googling them leads me to believe they’re still around, but i can’t find any current information. either way, i hope they are still making music, and i hope my old boyfriend is still jealous of them.

p.s. this is probably the most pop-y song on the demo, and i’m a sucker for hand claps.

i made it this far. sitting at the san antonio airport, 45 minutes to go until my flight takes off. i’ve become an expert at packing, at finding all the crevices for my underwear and cell phone charger and usb cables and stupid amounts of yarn and books and my french press. maybe moreover, i’ve become an expert at dispersing the weighted objects so that neither of my two checked suitcases is super heavy, and they just graze below the weight limit.

naturally, a lot has been going through my mind the past few weeks/months. moreso the past few weeks, since i’ve been in san antonio. even compared to my last visit here in december of last year,  things seemed different. in a good way. this city had suffocated me when i lived here and it did the same thing in december. but this time, maybe because i have in fact changed a little and gained some perspective, things were good. really good, even when they were boring and i had nothing to do but sit outside in the humidity and the heat and sip a rapidly melting drink. my family is wonderful. as wonderful as we can be, with our separate lives and problems and medication. i never got frustrated while i was here, and that’s a first for me. nothing was really worth getting frustrated over anymore, i guess. we are what we are, and i genuinely appreciate that.

but, i have to say that nothing makes me feel more important than those two little sobrinos of mine. to them i am the bearer of junk food and toys, the seldom seen ‘aun-nallie’ that has too many tattoos, but one of which is a robot and that’s pretty cool according to antonio. and i would be lying if i said i didn’t feel extra important because lilliana wants me to hold her instead of her own parents or grandparents. maybe the most important thing though, is that they remember me now; i only come back here twice a year at most, and being remembered by them makes me feel just a little more like i’m part of the family i left behind.

but that has been the past weeks. i am about to fly away, towards the place i’ve declared home. but i had a minor freak out while i was waiting for my mom to pick me up to bring me here. i know i’m coming back to the familiar, but also to everything unsure and scary and saddening and i have no idea how my readjustment period is going to go. the next few weeks won’t be that easy, i know. but i dont know what to expect. i know they’ll only be as good as i can make them, but i don’t now if i am up for that task. i guess i don’t have much of a point to this particular post, other than to sort out my thoughts and write to myself. but if you’ve read it this far, thank you for following my train of thought. i haven’t felt grounded or secure for 6 months, and even now i am just floating, detached, just letting things happen.

i have about two weeks left in guadalajara. once i made the decision to go ahead and come home, i felt relieved. it’s been a struggle here, for simple reasons & for complicated reasons. i had thought that given my track record of being able to pick up and move to new cities in the united states so easily, mexico would be the same way. but, no. i guess you could say i lost this one. but, in a way maybe i didn’t. everyone says i shouldn’t think of this as a failure, and i generally don’t. but there is a part of me that wonders why i couldn’t make it. i don’t have a simple answer for that, or at least one that won’t take up pages of this blog. maybe that’s for discussion over some beers in portland, yeah?

but today, i find myself wondering what good came of this whole expedition. first, i’ve seen and experienced some super amazing and wonderful things. saw a lucha libre match, meandered through one of the biggest mercados in latin america, saw the pacific ocean and puerto vallarta, had beers at la fuente (i’ll tell you the story about that place someday), saw cathedrals more beautiful and historic than i’ve ever seen before, pondered orozco murals in person, bought coffee from the man who grew it himself in the hills of jalisco… even as i type all that, each memory flashed through my head like it just happened today, and i am so grateful for being able to say i’ve done those things.

second, i’ve met some really really awesome people. some were my students, older than me or around my age, but i haven’t had a student that i haven’t connected with somehow. it’s pretty neat, really. we’ve shared stories and i taught them slang and common speech, not just that proper english in our textbooks; we’ve talked about drinking too much beer and tequila the night before, and they’ve all said they’ll miss me when i leave. and i feel the same way. i’ve also met some pretty awesome people through diego, mostly others in his french class. they’ve made my time here very worthwhile, and full of meters of beer and bowls of cacahuates. voy a extrañar a ellos mucho.

and then there’s diego and david. it’s been pretty fantastic living with diego, reconnecting with him after all these years. we get along well and live together well. i probably would have caved and gone home a week after being here if it weren’t for him. and when david, another old friend from high school, showed up in gdl for a month it was a bit of a surprise to pick things up with him again like 8 years hadn’t passed since the last time we saw him.

yeah, good things did come from this trip. i can’t deny that, ever. i am going back to texas and portland feeling a bit….lost & like i’ve been drifting for a while. i’m not sure of anything back home. but, i am still satisfied. tengo un corazón magullado, pero contento tambien.

My uncle David, playing guitar. He’s been playing probably longer than I’ve been around. He’s a guitar teacher in NYC; very successful at it.

(best listened through a pair of really good headphones.)

probably time for an update of substance, with real thoughts and stories and shoutouts and adventures. so let me say that the past few weeks have been good overall, and have added a lot to the list of things i’ve done that will eventually write itself into the history of natalie and méxico.

my friend from high school, david, has been here in guadalajara for a few weeks. it was more of a coincidence that i was here too, as he isn’t visiting me per se, but rather spending some time in méxico and volunteering at a hospital here in the city before he starts his residency in miami in august. he’s someone i got along really well with in high school, and i’ve really enjoyed him being here. (we make a lot of fart and penis jokes, but the latter is totally appropriate, as he’s going to be a urologist.)

david’s agenda here was to go out and do a lot of stuff, and so that allowed me to also go out and do a lot of stuff. and we did! he arrived at the beginning of semana santa (holy week), which everyone has off here in méxico. so we took the opportunity to head to puerto vallarta for a few days, which was relaxing and fun, even though i got a nasty cough and was sick for most of it. but we also explored a lot of the city, went to the mercado san juan de dios, saw the orozco murals at the cabañas, saw a lucha libre match, and drank a lot lot lot of beer. and that was just semana santa. we also celebrated david’s birthday somewhere in there. we saw the chivas vs. atlas fútbol game, (chivas lost, btw) this past saturday, where i also picked up a sweet imitation jersey for 150 pesos. (the authentic ones are like 800 pesos.) and we’ve eaten, a lot. a. lot. man.

david is in love with micheladas, so we drank a lot of those as well. i’m pretty sure i could make a decent one by the time i come back to portland, so a michelada party is definitely going to happen later this year. i’m pretty sure a bridgeport beer would work pretty well, maybe something like haymaker or blue heron, or the ropewalk amber. and yes, everyone will be invited. :]

i’ve still been working the past two weeks, getting up early tue through friday and working on saturdays too. my classes are going okay i think, i’m getting into teaching more pronunciation practice with a lot of my students. our textbook is kind of boring, so i think it engages them more. plus, all of them need work on pronunciation, so they are always happy to practice and learn about vowel sounds and past tense ending and intonation and how you pronounce voiced and unvoiced TH sounds. i totally sound like i know what i’m talking about, right? its pretty sweet.

but, with working all over the city, planning for classes, and trying to have a beer or three with david and diego and the guys, i’ve become really lazy about learning and practicing spanish. i’m going to try to change that, but i spend more time thinking about teaching english than learning spanish. :[ yesterday i bought a small notebook, though, and i’m going to use it to review spanish lessons when i’m on the bus or train. which is a lot, unfortunately.

i’m thinking of getting a tattoo this week; probably an anchor on my forearm, but maybe something on my leg instead. calacas o calaveras?

and the last point i’d like to discuss, is that even though the past few weeks have been full of some really good times and experiences, my homesickness seems to keep growing. which still makes having a good time difficult sometimes. i am really looking forward to everything and everyone i left in portland. just don’t forget me, okay?

today is easter sunday. bikes are being ridden outside on my street, no cars allowed. i’m still coughing a lot but my throat doesn’t hurt that much, anymore. i can put my hair into a teeny, tiny ponytail. but i will cut my bangs and other parts of it, today. my face, my arms, are darker than before. i have a large handful of photos to upload and edit and post today. i got sad news, last night, which made me want to pack up and go back to portland just to comfort you. i hope you will still have me, in september.

it’s taken the visits and adventures of others for me to feel like i am finally having my own.

Generator ^ First Floor, by Freelance Whale.

a great npr recommendation.

i came to guadalajara to force myself out of my comfort zone, and that has been very true. i wanted to grow, personally and mentally and maybe even spiritually. i wanted a better grasp on my life, to take a step back and look at where i wanted to be, what i wanted to do with myself. me and pete both wanted/needed a break to refocus ourselves and maybe start over in a sense, when i came back.

i will not hesitate to express that this journey has been more difficult than i had imagined. but difficult situations test our courage, our ability to deal. and in dealing with things, we maybe shift our way of thinking, or shuffle our feet around and change our stance. and then we find that we are looking at life from a different perspective than before.

so now i am looking at portland, and my life there, from very far away. from a country that i was so eager to leave portland for. and when i look at portland now, i see home. i see the only place i could ever go back to and feel happy, in those wet streets and packed bars, riding the buses that cost four times as much to ride as here. i am in love with the idea of starting over and exploring new places. and staring out onto chapultepec street today, i realized that i could never finish exploring portland. i belong there.

don’t think that i will take my time here for granted. i have already seen so many great and beautiful things here to fill my memory well into old age. i know i will miss guadalajara when i leave, but there is a difference in enjoying being somewhere and belonging somewhere.

i just want to talk about one point that one of my students brought up last week. (i might not be retelling this story very well but this is the gist of it) he said there was a little story about a man on a beach, who had three jars of crabs; american crabs, european crabs, and mexican crabs. the two containers with the american crabs and european crabs had lids on them, to keep them from getting out. someone walking by asked the man why the other jar didn’t have a lid. he said that if one of the mexican crabs tried to crawl out, one of the other mexican crabs in the jar would pull him back down.

i think it’s pretty much human nature to be jealous of someone else’s success, but that usually takes a backseat to the social rules that say you should be happy for them. at least in most of the parts of the US that i’ve lived in. i thought back to my middle school years, and that story about the crabs made everything make so much more sense. trying harder or being successful in school was something that really set you apart, if you wanted to get ahead. achieving more never made anyone else want to do the same. (please disregard the fact that i was nerdy/chubby/wore glasses/had a bad haircut in junior high…)

so i guess his point was that it’s the culture to harbor some resentment for other people. and when everyone does it, it’s difficult to move past that, even if you are aware of the fact that people do that. the general response to this idea, though, was that these feelings and attitudes are changing with our generation and the next one. so i guess there’s hope for a more progressive and supportive way of thinking among people here and hopefully everywhere.

and in other news, i’ve been waiting for the gas guy to come fill the tank for over an hour. this is ruining my plans to nap all day. :[