This.

I went to a meeting of the Opera House Stage Company today where I got to see some people I love, whom I have shared some very, very good times with over the years. Not just being in plays together but marriages and births and deaths and illnesses and every sort of human experience. We talked about plays and scheduling for the 2014-2015 season and there was nothing earth-shaking going on. Just eight people around a table discussing murder mysteries and comedies, melodramas and Neil Simon.
When we were just about to finish it up, I said, "I'm having a pretty good time here. Can't we talk about some more stuff?"
They thought I was joking but really, I would have happily sat there in the parish hall of an Episcopal Church throughout the entire afternoon, discussing anything. Anything at all, even though I felt as if I wasn't saying much, certainly not contributing anything of value. Not my old cracking-jokes self, but I felt so content to sit there and listen to them, to add a word here or there. It was just good.

One of the ladies invited me to stop by her house on my way home and I did. How odd! Not only to be invited, but to accept. She lives by herself in a house which she calls small but it seemed the perfect size to me for one person. Well, one person, three cats, three dogs. She showed me her house and told me about the pictures on her walls and showed me the quilt she'd made and we sat and chatted for awhile. She talked about her husband and her life with him before he died and how it's been nine and a half years and how she feels like she's finally coming back to life. I had noticed how beautiful her face looked, how good her skin looked, and she told me that she's taken to wearing make-up and it makes her feel differently about herself and... damn. I'm going to go buy some of what she uses. We talked about kids and about grandkids and about mothers. It was fine and it was pleasant and I'm so glad she invited me and that I accepted.

It's so hard for me to get out and do simple things like this. Sometimes even talking on the phone to someone I really, really care about makes me so nervous I feel like I'm going to have a stroke. I get buzzy and my heart beats too fast and I feel like everything I say is stupid and then I think about how that's stupid and so when I feel comfortable with a group of people or with one person, it is unusual. But good.

I came home and found Mr. Moon working away on the kids' fort and play yard thing. When I left, he had been working on the old Toyota we keep on Dog Island and which has suffered enough problems lately to have to be barged back to land and hauled here. So he'd been working all day and I asked him if he'd eaten anything and of course he hadn't. I had made him a good breakfast but that had been hours before and so I sighed and came in the house and made him a chicken sandwich with tomatoes and cheese and filled up his water glass and took them out to him. I also took a wet paper towel so he could wipe his hands off before he ate. He gets into his projects so fiercely that he just doesn't take care of himself. I tell you what though- I am so glad to be the one who takes care of him. He takes care of me too in so many ways. It works out.

So Philip Seymour Hoffman has died. Oh god. I think of Neil Young's song, The Needle and the Damage Done. I think of all of the geniuses, the artists, the musicians that the needle has claimed. Or the pills or the bottle. I think of the waste. I think of those who somehow managed to kick it all for good and the ones like Mr. Hoffman who kicked and then fell back.
I cannot and will not judge.
I can only say that this news is sorrowful. I can only say that I feel great pain for his children and their mother. For his parents, if they are living. For all of us, but mostly for those whose lives were entwined with his, who loved him as only those close to a person can love.

Here is the moon which is rising over the pecans. As we remember from The Lacuna, she is waxing because (if you look at her properly), she is making a "D" for Dios who grows, not a "C" for Christo who dies. She is rising in the west and I think of how the moon looks from Cozumel when it rises above Tulum and makes a path of silver over the water which I always feel as if I could simply walk across to find myself climbing onto the beach beneath those Mayan ruins. We are thinking of planning our trip back there in May and I have just checked the calendar and the moon is full on May 14th and so that is a starting point for planning. I am not sure I have ever been in Cozumel during the full moon in all of our travels there since 1987 and it's about time, don't you think?

The frogs are slicing my eardrums with their shrillness as I sit here on the back porch on this warm February night in Florida and here comes the train which quiets the frogs for a moment, at least. My husband is watching the Super Bowl and eating the nachos which I have made him. I am going to heat up some pinto beans and greens for my own supper. I am wishing that I was the sort of writer who could incorporate the sorrows of humanity with the joys of life on this planet, the simplest sort of joys like the smell of warm corn tortillas with onions and tomatoes, the sound of frogs chorusing in a tiny weed-covered pond, of the comforting happiness of sitting with seven other people around a table. Of the silver, uncaring moon rising above the horizon in the night sky. 

Of the bed waiting for another night of rest before another day of these joys and sorrows begin again. 

One of my children calls. I talk to her and I visualize my heart, its walls thick red and beating with life, filled with love. As we talk, I fold clothes from the dryer, I put warm towels on the rack. I am glad to be here. That is no lie and we'll talk again tomorrow.

Not Much

This day can't make up its mind. I woke up to chill and a sky that looked, if I still lived in Denver, to portend snow. It has warmed up and the sun has busted through it all for a few seconds at a time but now the sky is dirty cotton again and it is supposed to get so very cold tonight.

I stopped for a second and talked to another fellow walker this morning as we crossed paths. He has but one leg and yet he walks regularly into Lloyd from where he lives down the road a piece. We have a gentle banter we practice, we do not share much it would seem except that we both live here, we both walk and that is enough, plenty, to have a few words to say to each other.

The soaring of my spirits, the pulse of energy I have been feeling due to the cessation of the anxiety has faded somewhat today. I feel the beast trying to get its claws back into my back. Perhaps it is merely this dull dense sky. Perhaps it is only that.

There are things I need to do which I have been avoiding and although I know in my heart that it takes so much more energy to avoid, I choose quite illogically to do that. I have to get over this. I am going to be sixty years old this year. Will I be a prisoner of my own devices until I die?

Here is another thing I will be a prisoner of until I die, it would seem:
My pets.
Why? Why do they keep on living? I never take my animals to the vet unless there is injury. We do not medicate them, not even their vaccinations. We feed them whatever food is cheapest without actually being made of chicken feathers and pine needles. And yet (or because of this?) they live forever. A cat who lives outside whose age we cannot even comprehend. Two dogs who are at least fourteen, blind as bats, running into walls, still going, still living, endlessly scratching at the door to be let in, to be let out. Barking at nothing, stinking to high heaven.
They will not die.
Our boxer, Pearl, lived to be twice the age of the lifespan of the boxer breed.
No, I am not kidding you.

Well.

Good morning. Here's your fun fact of the day- the very first Swimsuit Edition for Sports Illustrated was shot fifty years ago on the then, almost unheard of and sparsely populated island of Cozumel in 1964. The model was Babette Beaty.

She became very close friends with the Rolling Stones.

She is now a painter.

Love...Ms. Moon

I'm Gone (Why Am I Still Here?)

I can't sleep for twelve hours if you hold a gun to my head. I just can't do it.
But I sure can sleep for eight, which I did, and it was delightful and it's a gorgeous Saturday morning here in Lloyd, Florida, and the rain we got yesterday is making everything sparkle in the sunlight as if tiny, busy fairies had hung crystal prisms from every branch and leaf and blade of grass.

Peaceful. So very, very peaceful.

And here I am with absolutely no obligations before me and I can do ANYTHING with this fine day. Anything I want.
And what is it that I want to do?
I have no idea.

Things to consider doing today:
Being overall dirt lady and working in the garden.
Being overall dirt lady and working in the house.
Being dress-lady and going shopping for more dresses. Isn't it time for the 75% Off racks to be appearing at Dilliards? 75% is my magic number.
Being lady-like lady and getting a mani/pedi.
Being crazy, wild lady and going to a movie.
Being slothful lady and lying on the couch and watching Bravo TV all day.

Those are a few ideas. Here's another- I somehow figure out how to fly to Cozumel. Now wouldn't that just shake up the world? Haha! I'm sure that if I wanted to whip out the credit card (which we never use but there it is, right there, in my wallet!) I could do it. I could get on a plane to somewhere that would take me to somewhere that would take me to Cozumel. I could get off the plane and the soft, warm air would bathe me and I could heft my carry-on because that's all I'd bother to take, and get a taxi to town and find a room overlooking the water and the sidewalks and the smell of it would hit me like a motherly bosom and I could saunter, walk, hip-roll down that freakingly beautiful waterfront sidewalk with the seawall

 and find a table, "Hola, hola, si, maragarita, por favor, pequeno," and there would be chips, warm from the fryer and pico de gallo, the beak of the rooster, yes, yes! Bring it all on and I could watch the people walking by and there would be that water which just looking upon aligns my neurons into their proper order

and there would be bougainvillea

and everywhere I looked, Senor y Senora Iguana

and I could offer myself up to that Hot Mama Virgin of Guadalupe

who is everywhere, EVERYWHERE

and I could say, "Look, Mama, I've done my job and take me in your arms and let's boogie dance stroll joywalk together for awhile, you just watch out for me," and she would and I would do like that and I would offer myself up to Ixchel, too, because she's the Mama of the Mama, there before the Catholics got there, powerful and cruel and beautiful and bountiful all in one, just like a real woman, only a goddess.

If anyone missed me, they'd have to find me. 

Shit. I've got myself in tears now. 

I have a very strong feeling that no matter what it is that I do with this day that there is going to be part of me which is not here at all, not in Lloyd or Tallahassee or Florida or the United States of America but on a very small island off the Yucatan peninsula and my feet know the sidewalks and my heart knows the swallows as they dip and fly and soar and dip again and the jungle is on one side of me, the blue/green/purple/indigo/violet water on the other.

I better eat a peach. They're going to go bad. I better start some laundry. This day is getting away from me. I better come back to earth, slam, back into my body right here, damn, but I could, I could, I could fly away. I won't. Not today. But dammit, some day. Maybe. I may be old but there is a place which calls me like a lover and a mother and you can get there from here and it's always inside me anyway. 

Happy Saturday, y'all.

Love...Senora Luna

Life Is Messy

Okay. Time to go back to Mexico.
Yep. The medification of those waters has finally bled itself out and I need to renew my prescription.

If it were only that simple.

Well, it's not, is it?

Last night, when I was trying to figure out whether or not to call the Coast Guard, I started aimlessly going through the Cozumel My Cozumel message board in hopes of stray pictures of anything soothing.
It helped.
Especially pictures like this:

That's actually the beach at Tulum, which is across the water from Cozumel but hey- same ocean, same blue, same palms, same peace.
(Thanks, Steve!)

Oh, what the hell am I bitching about? I've got roses in bloom and I've got baby chickens and I've got a hen on the nest who may or may not be hatching some more babies.

That's Miss Flopsy. She's been on the nest for days. I assume there are eggs under her. I am not about to stick my hand under her body to check, though. I've never yet had a hen hatch me out any eggs so this would be a new and lovely experience.
The babies we hatched in the incubator are getting big and it's time to put them outside in a protected situation so they can scratch in the dirt. Mr. Moon built them a cage thing the other day but he's not quite finished with it and it's too damn big for me to move. I had envisioned something smallish- there are only five babies- but you know Mr. Moon. He found some building materials and went for it and he's offered to put it on wheels for me because yes, it's that big.
But he's in Orlando today. He got up at four and made that drive. He got there safely. Now all he has to do is endure the chaos of the auto auction, hopefully purchase a car and then drive back home. Four hours of road between here and there. For him, anyway.
He'll be fine. He'll get home sunburned and exhausted, but he'll be fine.

So I've got roses and I've got baby chickens and I've got two grandsons up the road if I can't live without some of that sort of love. I've got everything. Every thing.

So why am I going through old pictures and seeping tears? Why is the portal between here and there dissolving quietly in my mind?

I'm such a wimp. I am such a whiner. I am such a crazy person some days.

Well. Another thing I have is a walk before me through the woods and down the road and under the trees and beside the horse farm and the sky is very blue and I need to get my feet back under me here, where I actually am, and weed and hoe and clean and wash and tidy and sweep and pull up my big girl panties and cowboy up, Cupcake, and quit looking at pictures and just get on with it.

I wish I knew exactly what was making me feel this way, giving me this yearning, longing, sadness.

Well. It's all always inside of us. Every bit. The joy and the terror and the fear and the contentment and the memories of every thing that created those feelings originally, even if we don't have the visual images to call up, either in our minds or with the photographs. It's all still there and sometimes the boxes holding it all just get bumped and the insides tumble out and there you go- a mess to go through and clean up and we do and I will and Elvis crows I am here, I am here! and Miss Flopsy sits on the nest and the roses open and the magnolias down the road are putting their white blossoms out for display in the sunlight but somewhere, some where south of here over the water and over Cuba there is an island...

Oh god. I'm just a mess today. That's all there is to it.

I Am Homesick

One of the things I got Owen at the Target the other day was a Thomas The Tank Engine Pop-up tent thing and he loves it. Who wouldn't? It looks like this in the ad at Amazon:

Perfect for a kid his age and size. He made his daddy bring it to our house yesterday and when Bop got home, he got in there with Owen too. Which pretty much meant he had to put it on like a shirt and Owen was just beside himself with glee.


I mean, look at that face!

It was a beautiful and fun day yesterday with Owen and he was mostly happy and we even took a nap and had snuggles and I don't know what happened but I just suddenly became overwhelmed and it may have occurred when Mr. Moon discovered that one of the dogs had gotten up on the coffee table in the Glen Den and POOPED! On the table. Where Mr. Moon and I frequently eat our supper.

Okay. This was a first and I just lost my...shit. No, not really. It didn't happen then. I cleaned it up and did a bleach scrub on the table and I'd made baked chicken and collards from the garden and mashed potatoes and homemade bread for god's sake (remember? I told Owen we would make dough and so we did) and studied lines and did about four loads of clothes and washed the sheets on the bed and had a really good time with Owen and then...
Well. I lost it.

I looked at the kitchen needing to be cleaned up and then I looked at those pictures Jessie had posted on Facebook and I lost it.

"I can't...." I think I said. "I just can't...."

And Mr. Moon cleaned the kitchen the way he usually does and I realized I had lost my sense of Just Be, thinking once again that I need to do and do and DO to be loved, to be appreciated, to be worthy of life on this planet and let me tell you something- for me that is toxic thinking. That is evil thinking. That is what leads me to insanity.







And so I went and found that video and I remembered and still, it's like a dream.
Really?

And I wonder- am I having my ten thousandth midlife/oldlife crisis? Should we just move to a little cottage in town? Should I forget trying to do chickens and a garden and living in this big old house that needs so much attention and be where I'm closer to my children and my grands and Publix?
I know I need to get rid of the dogs.
I know that.
No shit.

Should I quit doing plays and being on the Opera House stage company board?

What is really and truly important to me? How do I refine, define, find the time? Without going insane?

I can't live in Cozumel. I can't stay in a hotel all the time where everything is magically cleaned for me every day. I can't eat out three meals a day. I can't lie about in a hammock beside the water, waiting for my next serving of pico de gallo and chips and beer.

That is not real life.
Well, no. yes. It is real life. Just not the one I am able to lead all the time.

Nor would I want to unless my children were there too. I would die of missing them.

Well. Time to struggle into those contacts. Time to study lines. Judy is coming over this afternoon to help me. Guys are coming over this afternoon to watch a game on TV.
This is real life.

Or at least the one I am living now which is the one I have chosen, which, is also like a dream. Which includes messiness. And joy. I mean LOOK at that face poking out of Thomas The Tank Engine. I get to kiss that face!

And I need to remember, no I have to remember, that my worth as a person does not depend on how much I get done in a day and that honestly, I am not in a contest with myself.

Or something like that.

And to take time to breathe. And to remember that there is autonomy and I do get to make choices and changes if I feel that changes need to be made as I grow older.

And that tears are just an overflowing heart sometimes.
Yes. That too.
And that I can be homesick for a place where I do not actually live.

I sure as hell can be and I am.

A Village I Could Live In For Eternity

The last full day we were in Cozumel, we went to the cemetery. We have visited it before, more than once, but not on any of our more recent trips and we wanted to go and so we scooted down to where we thought it was, and yes, it was right there, behind the Mega Market, which is Mega indeed and has coffee shops and sandwich shops and deli's and escalators which your cart can ride up on and under-the-building parking and you can buy anything in the world there. Almost.

And it is quite a contrast to the cemetery behind it, which I can only imagine is old.

The Cozumelians bury their dead in mausoleums which look a great deal like small houses and the cemetery itself resembles nothing more than a village of the dead with streets and avenues.

It is impossible not to be moved in this place.

As in any village, there are the rich sections and there are the poor. There are the sections of town which are kept up nicely



and those which are tended sporadically.



There are those whose property is large and those whose property is small. There is tasteful


and there is joyful.


There is, in short, places for the wealthy to be laid to rest and places for those less so.

One mausoleum has a beautiful statue of the woman whose body lays inside.

Another has these.

There is one section which is...well, I can't explain it and it may be where the babies and children are placed when they die. I did not have the heart to truly explore, but took pictures in the bright sun of what lay before me.


The biggest iguana I think I've ever seen was sunning himself on a wall. I tried not to think of possible explanations except for the one of the fact that perhaps he is very, very old.

It is common to see offerings of drink and food and of course, flowers, left for the dead.

And candles, of course.

It is a place of great stillness and beauty and of sadness and of stories of those who have gone on and how much they will be missed.


But the one which always makes me cry is this one.

Yes, it is beautiful and that stonework is very representational of how walls and even sidewalks are sometimes built in Mexico and it is tended lovingly but it is what is written there which is what makes me cry.

Can you read it?

Mary Margaret Langs
"My Katrina"
Born March 13, 1916, USA
Died March 30, 1978 Casa San Miguel
Cozumel-The Island She Loved

Sweet Mary
Beloved Wife, Cherished Mother
And Grandmother She Rests
In Eternal Peace. Her Greatness
And Beauty Of Spirit Will Be Forever
Remembered In Our Hearts.

Her husband is buried with her and whenever I read that part about her dying in Cozumel, the island she loved, I choke up.
I understand.
I am so glad that she is resting there in that place where the water surrounds her beautiful island. Where there is a well with a device to lower a bucket to water the bushes planted in front of her grave instead of a spigot.

I am not depressed tonight. I have had a good day. I am just thinking of that island I love. I am thinking about how, when I die, I would love so much for my family to take some of my ashes to Cozumel, to go to that cemetery and let part of me rest there forever, ground into the dirt or blown about the little streets of the village of the dead so that just as Cozumel is always in my heart, I will always be part of it.
Just that.
That a simple physical part of me will remain there forever.

Take note, dear family. Take note. And when it happens- make it WONDERFUL! Make it a party. Drink rum and light candles for me somewhere. The little ones you can buy at Sedena Grocery Store down on the waterfront by the military base. The ones that look like the one you see at the top of the post. They are perfumed. Pick up some dish towels while you are there. They sell the best ones. They also sell rum and limes. Everything you will need. Chocoritas too for a sweet snack.

And spend a lot of time looking at that water which gave me (gives me) so much joy and let it give your hearts peace as it gives mine.

Okay?
Okay.

Love...Your Mama Who Hopes To Live A Very Long Time And Who Hopes To Go To Cozumel With You All While I Am Still Alive.

I Know How The Junkie Feels

Ay-yi-yi.

I got earrings. See above.
Also, that man. He caught me catching him and so posed for a picture. How I am going to miss getting on the scooter behind him, holding him tightly as we drive down the road by the sea, through the neighborhoods, flirting with the babies on the scoots in their mama's arms beside us.
Jesus God, how I am going to miss it all.

We went to town, we had drinks, we bought these earrings, we went to supper, we went to a bar where there was live music, we stayed long enough to want to come back, we got here and there is a band again tonight. Un fiesta! I think it's the same band that played the other night and please let them not play all night again.

But. They played an entire set of Beatle's songs. Okay. Young. Mexican guys playing Beatle's songs. On the beach. In Cozumel.
I have to tell you. I walked out by the water and I thought, Okay, god, if that's the deal, go ahead.

I have no idea what that means.

Fuck it. I give up. All night I've been thinking about Keith Richards and how he must have felt when he was a junkie and had slipped the last bit of dope into his arm. Such ecstasy. Such sorrow.

But Cozumel is not dope. It is real, it is here.
But for me, it is ecstasy.

I hear that in Lloyd it is freezing tonight. And will be cold tomorrow. I didn't even bring a pair of socks to wear home.

But Lily and Jason and Owen are going to meet us at the airport. I wonder if Owen is going to be all pissed off and cool and all oh yeah, there you are of if he's going to be really happy to see us.
Who knows?
Not me.
That's one thing that hasn't changed.

I do not know shit.

But I do know that he is going to have to suffer my embraces, my kisses.

As Mr. Moon may also have to do tonight.

Ay-yi-yi.

Sweet, sweet sorrow. Sweet sorrowful ecstasy.

The wind is singing a song of deep sighs and the moon is a silver skull grin above me in the dark black sky.

Cozumel. Cozumel. Ah. Cozumel.

Our last sunset and it was merely a slice of lemon which puddled into the sea and then slipped down.
No fire yet, although there may be.

I feel something too closely akin to panic to be comfortable.

Why I chose today to read Joan Dideon's Blue Nights is beyond me.

Why the wind is bothering me is a mystery. Rushing, rushing. Perhaps it reminds me of how tomorrow will be with packing up and returning the scooter and checking out and getting to the airport and, and, and...

We've been here forever, for one second, for a lifetime, for this breath's intake.

I wonder how the tiny fish manage to hang on in this current. I can see them, schooled up in the shelter of the coral, swaying with the waves, staying alive until it is calm again.

Last Day

The wind is still whipping and roiling the ocean and tossing the palm trees and yet, it is still so beautiful.
The wind pulls smiles out of people- shoulder shrugs. What are you going to do?
You are going to fly over this deep turquoise/blue/violet/green water, you are going to fly down the streets where the wind will be whipping the laundry on rooftop lines, where people will be wearing jackets because it is winter, winter, even though it is maybe seventy-four degrees. You are going to sit at tables where the waiters anchor the napkins with something, you are going to fly, fly, fly into the jungle where they can't find you, where without a machete you would be trapped for eternity.
You are not going to go snorkeling today but you are going to cry.
There will be saltwater in your eyes, one way or another.

Yes.

Solamente un norte.

That's what our waiter told me tonight. He promised it would only last a few days...
We may spend tomorrow in bed.
And that would not be so bad.

It is blowing so hard that children are flying down the street. They took the huge Mexican flag down at the waterfront. They've removed the pool chairs here at Hotel B.

It's WONDERFUL!

Mr. Moon and I stood in line tonight in the zocaro to get...what? Someone had told us it was corn and worth the wait. So, there we stood. And when we got to the head of the line we got a styrofoam cup of corn kernels cooked in about forty tons of butter and then layered with mayonnaise and sour cream and chili pepper and lime and more and more of the same. It was hot. Thank GOD we only got one cup.
If humans crave fats and carbs above all other foods, this is the perfect food.
CORN WITH MAYONNAISE, Y'ALL!
Shut the fuck up.
It was awesome.

Then we went and had a drink at Woody's where the bartender is from Minnesota but has also been a police officer in Cozumel as he is also Mexican. He says it is harder work to be a bartender but he makes more money doing that. While Mr. Moon watched some game on TV I went and did some more silver shopping. No. I still didn't get anything, but I had some nice conversations. Lord, these people are nice.

Then on to dinner at Abuelo Gerardos and we ate a grilled seafood platter with fish and tiny lobsters and shrimp and conch. And there was rice and mashed potatoes and carrots and squash and onions and guacamole and chips and bread and salsas. And then the waiter brought us tiny plates of delicious chocolate cake AND the very best drink I ever had which was called Beso de Maya, I think, and that means Kiss of the Maya and it had Kahlua and cream and anise and cinnamon.
I could kiss a Mayan all night long.

We walked back in the wind to the scooter and Mr. Moon did not have the key. He was upset. No worries, I said. We'll find it.
We retraced out steps and sure enough, there it was under his chair at Woody's.
We needed the walk in the fresh air anyway.

We came home through the wind and made it safely. Lily had sent me a video of Owen bouncing on the bed and dancing, naked, and I watched it three times.
My boy! I can't wait to get my hands on him again. And on his mama's pregnant belly.

And here we are. The wind whips and the sea crashes.

It will take me all night long to digest this food and half of tomorrow.

Corn and mayonnaise. With sour cream, lime and chili.

Forget the lobster, cake, and Mayan Kisses.

To bed. To bed. To bed.

Solamente un norte.

We will sleep well tonight.

And The Wind Does Blow

We spent a bit of time in town today, having breakfast with Jessie and Vergil and then seeing them off at the ferry dock. Jessie cried at breakfast- I'm pretty sure she did not want to leave the island. I understood but I told her that she would have adventures and she would be so glad when she saw Uxmal.
Then I cried too.
Damn.
Leaky, leaky hearts.
While we were at the ferry dock we watched a pelican dive and dive, each time getting that huge-beak-sac full of water and then the water would disappear and a fish could be seen going down his gullet. It was beautiful the way he crashed face first into the water, so clumsy-looking, so sure of what he was doing.



Mr. Moon let me shop. I hate to shop. I hate it. I don't know why. I can't do it. I didn't buy anything. I only saw one pair of earrings that I was even vaguely interested in and they were too heavy for my old lobes. Silver has gone up so much. It's crazy.

It's been raining a bit on and off today and the wind is strong. The sea sounds like a real ocean and people are still down on the beach, but wrapped up in big towels, three sisters are cuddling and being silly. They remind me of my girls.

When we were in town I stepped into the church. I took a picture of the Virgin of Guadalupe's statue. I did not light a candle this year. I do not know why.


I am feeling more love for Ixchel this trip and they have no altars for her in that church.
I also took that picture you see in the new header. I do love the nativity scenes here. They add all sorts of animals that we do not. Chickens and rabbits. How lovely! And I have no idea who that little princess is. Is she a shepherdess? If so, I am 100% behind it. You know damn well that it would not be all men who came to look at the baby. There would be a trail of women walking into and out of that manger. And they would have brought the gifts Mary could have used. Extra diapers, some food. A jug of water, some eggs. A blanket or two.

Here. I'll put in another picture of the nativity, just in case you're reading this in the future sometime and have no idea what I'm talking about.

Why is it that in the nativity, the baby is always about two years old? You never see an actual newborn represented. Was Christ born as a toddler? I hope not.

So. We shopped. We walked up to the place where you can get delicious fried fish and shrimp. We sat at the counter and ordered.

I am getting GOOD, y'all, at ordering food.
One of the ladies who was working behind the counter had three of her sons with her and they were a pain in her ass. But she didn't yell at them. She kept telling them to sit down but of course they didn't. They stayed out of the street. I was impressed.

Here's what my sandwich looked like:


I put habanero mayonnaise on it and lime juice. That's what that lime slice is for. No, I was not drinking tequila. I had a Fanta Orange. It was delicious. All of it.

And now we're back at the room and the wind is blowing so hard that the umbrellas are flying around before the waiters can tie them down. One escaped into the pool. It was rescued.
They just seem to take everything in stride here. It's such a mixture of complete chaos all the time and total tranquility. I can't explain it. It's like when the mother was trying to run a lunch counter and take care of her sons at the same time and the fish was frying and traffic was going by and loud frantic music was playing and every time she got a second she started rolling fish in flour again, her eyes calmly keeping watch over everything as her hands did what they needed to do without any other help.
I know, that didn't make much sense.
I'm sorry.

It's nap time.

I think I'll leave it at that.

I sort of wish I'd bought those earrings. Oh well. I know where they are.

I probably won't, though. I probably won't.

Buenos Dias

I have not seen very, very thin woman since New Year's Eve day. I heard her shower running that night, the hair dryer. Is she gone? I do not know.

The water is choppy this morning, the sky is overcast.
Oh well.
The weather changes like a mood here.

Here is a joke Rogellio told us yesterday:
Why is Disney World like titties?
Both are made for children but adults can enjoy them too.
Haha!
I love that!
I can't believe I've lived in Florida all of my life and I've never heard that joke. Had to come to Mexico to hear it.

Ah-lah. Two more days. Yes, now it is time to count. And I will jump back into it with both feet. Owen is coming to me on Thursday and I have rehearsal Thursday night.

I can't even believe it.

Have you noticed that I don't swear very much in Mexico? It's true. I doubt I've said motherfucker since I've been here. I just don't feel the need.

Mary Moon is profane. Maria Luna is not.

I think that's all I have to say right now. We're about to go to town and meet Jessie and Vergil at the clock tower and have some breakfast and see them off on the ferry. Sigh. They will go have Yucantian adventures.

I still haven't bought one thing except a cloth bag in shades of blue and purple. Not one silver thing at all. Or anything. Well, you know- coffee, rum, tiny bananas.

I just saw a hummingbird. At night the bats boil out of the top of the hotel and fly into the sky and across to the jungle to eat mosquitoes.

Good morning, good morning. Good morning.

Family

Well, there you go. Mr. Moon with Rogillio and his youngest daughter. Or is it Rogellio? Well, I don't know but either way, there you go.
When we got to Playa Corona today, Rogellio and his son, J.J. were there and so we got to meet the grown-up boy. The last time I saw him he was just a small boy. Now he's seventeen and kept his papa up all night last night, worrying about him.
Rogellio put his head in his hands and said, "I never thought this would happen to me."
Haha!
Just wait 'til those beautiful girls get old enough to go out on New Year's Eve. He'll never get any sleep. Ever.


I was so pleased that he went and got his daughters to meet us. What a beautiful family!
And to make it all even better, the reef at Playa Corona is recovering from Hurricane Wilma, finally, and it was a beautiful time snorkeling, too.

Just a really, really fine day.

We sat and talked for quite a while and caught up on things. How precious it was for us to see his children, for him to meet Jessie and Vergil. What fine children he has. And he is so proud of them, as he should be.

Jessie and Vergil are leaving tomorrow for the mainland to go and see Uxmal. They asked us if we wanted to go but I can't bear the thought of leaving the island. Only two more days here. No. I'm right where I want to be.

It was a very good day and a good evening, as well. Dinner was lovely and then a walk around the square. I keep saying that Cozumel would be perfect if it just had more blue water, more friendly people, more good food and more beautiful children.
Yeah. It would be perfect then.
Oh wait...
Yeah.

I see houses with clothes strung to dry on the roofs. I think I could do that.

Well. I have a clothesline where I live.
And babies, the ones all grown up, the one still a boy, the one-to-come.
And chickens.

And I miss them SO much. So very, very much. Well, the babies. It'll be good to see the chickens, but it's the babies I live for, whom I must come home for.
(Did you notice I did not mention the dogs?)

When we left Playa Corona this afternoon, Rogellio said, "Keep having life." Or something like that.

Okay.

You too, Rogellio. You too. Let's all keep having life.

You too.

She Is The Crone

The band, the horrible band, played last night until four a.m. right beneath us and people partied all night long and it was pretty funny, especially when they did Jimi Hendrix, but sort of horrible too.

Well, we were awake at midnight.

Today the sea is beautiful and that's a happy new years right there. May it always forgive us, this sea. May we all be forgiven our sins, no matter how large or small, even if the sins are not really sins, but small omissions and commissions, and may we find peace.

I dreamed the other night of my basement full of the ghosts of the Titanic and all of their clothing and jewelry and everything, just as it was the night it sank, THAT dream, and I went down and I yelled at all the ghosts to leave and I called someone from a history department to come and get rid of everything, EVERYTHING.

I don't know if that means anything and right now I don't know anything but what I do know is that I don't have to know. And as soon as I am quite sure that I have uncovered a truth, it is revealed to the sand under the shifting water, always moving, always changing, but beautiful in every weather, or at least it is if I perceive it to be so.

Guess what I learned yesterday at Las Ruinas? That Ixchel, besides being the goddess of everything almost was also the giver-of-writing to people.

The moon, childbirth, weaving, sex, the sea, writing.

That she is portrayed as the young woman with the rabbit who lives in the moon, as the mother, and as the crone.

Guess which one I am?

They partied until four here, people. They danced and they sang and they ate and they drank and they blew on noise-makers and I laid in my bed above them and I did none of those things because we were tired and had driven around the island and walked the ruins, my feet walked on the sacred white way of the sacbes and I saw the altars to Ixchel and I was the crone.

Random Pictures, Last Day Of 2011, Day Of The Iguana

Happy New Year's, Y'all.

Love...Ms. Moon