I am having my resting day. I feel like a new mother on the third day after the baby comes, which is the day the midwives say that the milk and the tears both come in, even though this is the fourth day or is it the fifth? Time. Whatever. And I am not crying.
It IS the day that Jessie and Vergil are coming and I am resting up for that. I am nesting in this room, my fantasy of doing nothing but lying on the bed with the sea in front of me come true.
My belly is a bit achy but I am not sick nor have I had any real gastric distress. I did not get my chicken enchiladas last night but another chili rellenos as the restaurant we had the cab driver take us to in the rain did not have chicken enchiladas (what, what?, what!) but they did have the most delicious white bean soup and there were more local people there than tourists so it must be an okay place to eat. There was an entire table of women, perhaps a dozen or more, and if I am not wrong, they were of the sisterhood, and when I say sisterhood, I guess I mean lesbians, and most of them had very short hair but stylish, also, and wore golden sandals and so forth and not necessarily "sensible shoes," but still...
They seemed so happy. All of them were lit with smiles. I wish I had known what exactly was going on. I am so curious.
I have not seen Very, Very Thin Woman today. Is she still here? I think so but am not sure. She probably needs a break from me trying to observe her from the corner of my eye. Yesterday she was eating breakfast at the same time we were and she ate all of her fruit, very slowly, and when she got her eggs and beans and chilaquiles she had perhaps two tiny bites of the juevos mexicana and that was all but she spent a good half hour, buttering and eating the white toast they bring with strawberry jam.
She is not American.
She was struggling with the beach umbrella yesterday and I got up to try and help her. She has the most beautiful smile and teeth. "It is very...strong," she said and it was heavy, the base of it where it sits, and I said, "We need a man!" and then there was one of the waiters, coming down the steps to help us.
"Thank-you," she said.
I tell you, she is hardly as big around as my one thigh and my thighs are hardly the biggest part of me.
Some people compel our curiosity and some do not. There is not so much to wonder about when it comes to large families and children or to young couples, even if they are of another nationality. There is familiarity there, no matter the language, the tattoos, the color of their MacBooks.
Yes! MacBooks come in red and black, at LEAST! I have seen this with my own eyes. Why are we restricted to no-color? Huh?
Everyone has electronic devices. iPads at the very least. Even I with my Kindle which almost seems like an ox cart surrounded by jet packs. I love the Kindle. I just finished reading Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and hated to see it go.
So anyway, curiosity killed the cat but it has never harmed me.
Anyway, I have sent Mr. Moon off to explore on his own this morning and to turn in the scooter and trade up for a car so we can take Jessie and Vergil around. Mexicans may ride en familia on scooters but Vergil and Jessie and Mr. Moon and I would add up to more than two dozen foot-lengths and no way, Jose. It is a sight, just to see me and Glen on one, his knees sticking way out into traffic. I am happy here this morning, just to lay on the bed and read, to sit here and write this.
So happy. The past few days have been enough to fill me up so full that I need to be still and collect myself. And who knows? I may have picked up a tiny bug but it will pass. Sopa de lima for a late lunch will cure me. I do not feel sick so much as just lazy, my bones and hips a bit louder than usual and it's fine, it's beautiful, it gives me this excuse to do nothing I really do not want to do; this evening I will get my hands on that girl and her boy and I am aching for them, for all of my children, really, and for Owen. Every child I see reminds me of him or of the one to come. There was a chattering boy at the table next to us at breakfast this morning, he sounded like a bird talking in Spanish, his voice rising and rising with the excitement of it all and there was a beautiful little girl baby, maybe six, seven months, her eyes as blue as this water, and she looked at me and Glen with great seriousness and attention and it was all I could do not to scoop her up or at least to reach out and touch the merest tip of her tiny fingers. She had tiny gold earrings in her ears and she was perfect.
I keep feeling like I am forgetting to put things down here - oh yes - the little girl who came running after us in the downtown two days ago after Mr. Moon had exchanged money. She could not have been more than six and her mama had sent her off to find us because they thought we had left a ticket of some sort there. She explained in Spanish when she caught up to us at the church and we had no idea what she was talking about- I know the word for "ticket" but couldn't get more than that and another woman translated as much as she could and we followed her back through the shops (she knew all the backways and short-cuts), her black hair swinging with the sturdy, important stride of her, to make these two Gringos follow her back to the small exchange office where she presented us to the mama and no, it was not our ticket, but if it had been, wouldn't we have been grateful to have gotten it?
I wish I could give you all of this, all of these pictures that are in my head, the tiny children and the tinier old women, the way town had almost shut up last night due to the wind and the rain- a town with few walls must necessarily do so- and this water in front of me, choppy today but as fabulously blue as Tropical Fabuloso, as unbelievably blue as a blue-raspberry Icee.
Ah-lah.
Ah-lah.
It is a resting day and the sweet, strong breeze blows around me, through me, fills me up even more.
You HAVE described it so well -- so well that I feel as if I am there.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Thin Woman. I still would like to be her. In nearly every way. Thin and alone in Mexico, eating fruit slowly and struggling to put up an umbrella, only to be helped by the fabulous Ms. Moon and a nice man.
I agree with Elizabeth about the way you tell it. I'm having a lovely vacation, thank you.
ReplyDeleteAnne Pachett is amazing. I loved Truth and Beauty, read by her on audio. So dreamy.
It has been a resting day here as well. We just took a nap together as my wife is tiring of her nights with her parents. She doesn't sleep well because they often have to be attended to during the night. So we curled up on the bed and just held each other to nap.
ReplyDeleteJessie and Vergil are coming! yay!
ReplyDeleteI thought that was worth repeating.
I'm flabberghasted that there is anywhere on that island that does not serve chicken enchiladas... wowsa!
Rest a bit for me.... Maybe I can have my vicarious thrills come true.
xo
So good to hear all your details. So good that you are having a resting day like a babymoon but without the tears and the uterine pains and milk letting-in pains. Hope J and V got in and you are all enjoying each other in paradise right now.
ReplyDeleteYes! Fabuloso that you are having such a restful, good time and wondrous to have you sharing all the salient details with us here. Having Jesse and Virgil there will just make it all the more wonder full. x0 N2
ReplyDeleteAch. Want to go! You're making me long for it.
ReplyDeleteIt's a nasty, rainy, blowy day here in Oregon, but I can at least pretend for a few minutes that I'm with you and it's grand. Just grand.
ReplyDelete