"Your hair goes to the sky", Mexico City, and a realization about this place

I could be sleeping with an elephant in here if I wanted

I am in Mexico city! Simply saying that to myself brings me a zip of excitement and disbelief. The largest Spanish speaking city in the world! 

I am staying in El Centro, the downtown, and it feels like 4th Ave in Seattle, like Michigan Ave in Chicago, the buildings of impressive classic styles, the streets of brick, trendy frozen yogurt and Chinese food buffets, tourists and locals intent on their passage in this urbane area.

I have felt my throat sore from the air quality here and my eyes feel weary and itchy after time on the streets. (Dear fingerlakes, I can't wait to breath near you)

I am splurging on myself and booked a single room for my last two nights here, in this beautiful country, in this humungous city. I wanted a break from having to answer 57 questions about my bicycle and it's box everytime I was in my room (example: my delightful Oaxaca city hostel) and didn't necessarily want to be sharing a room with three men (also, the delightful Oaxaca city hostel: which included two incredibly gracious men from Colombia--confirming my experience of last year that Colombians DO sing in happiness a lot and are incredibly courteous, calling me "senorita" every time they addressed me--and one irritatingly assumptive and rambly old guy from Texas). 

This room is pink and gigantic, in an echoey hostel with bizarrely high ceilings, as if the architect doubled all vertical dimensions just for kicks. 

I woke at 4am the first night (which gives me some time to write), thanks to some vivacious drunken singing echoing through all that vertical space. 

Metropolitan Cathedral of Mexico City

I scraped my jaw off the floor after gaping at this Baroque beauty (Spanish built, updated electric action)

The hostel is within walking distance of the Zocalo--all Mexican cities have a city center of this nature, with a church and a square, making them formulaic and happy to navigate--and I padded over through the crowds of urbane and distinctive people and gaped at the cathedral. Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral: it's what shows up when you google-image search this city. 

I went inside, and found my eyes getting misty to witness a Catholic service being chanted along in that immense space. Whatever the religion, there is something about witnessing a space that is intentional, built for human peace and reverence, that gets to me. 

And I looked up, and there was a pipe organ. 

Oh my goodness. I have encountered none here until this moment, and that it was BEING PLAYED right then gave me shivers of delight. In fact, there were two pipe organs, exactly the same, as if one wasn't grand enough. They are played simultaneously by two people in concert, the instruments echoing and supporting each other. An older man with a big camera, dressed in photographer beige, was standing nearby and I asked him about it. His English was very helpful, and Senior Jorge shared he sometimes worked as a tour guide, and he seemed absolutely delighted to be telling me all he could about the church and the nearby sights.

"You must go to the Museo de Anthropology!" "And that building there, that is the palace!" He genuinely was pleased to be sharing about this place, and kept repeating that if I was "bored of" him, I could go. But I let myself be adopted by this gem of a helpful human, and he led me out to various buildings on the square. He had a policeman give me a map, took me to the art museum to check the hours, explained the subway system, told me to stay out of particular places in the city, and said he wanted to learn more words in English and didn't want any money for his time. He gave me his card and number, "if you have any doubts of this place, just please call me!" and we parted ways. 

How fortunate am I to encounter people like this! 

 

Ignoring Senior Jorge's advice to stay strictly in the touristy areas, I took only a little money, left my phone in my room, and strode out into the bustle of the other Mexico city. If someone bothered me they would be rewarded by nothing. At the beginning of this trip I may not have ventured out, but after a month here of feeling ignored and safe, I trusted I would be fine. 

Shopping! Street food! I love looking into the shops packed densely against each other and regarding the items for sale; shopping for daily life here is so different than in the states. In the states you'd go to one or two huge stores that have an aisle for each thing you want, with a giant stretch of parking lot outside. In Mexico city, there are streets that seem like aisles themselves. And no space for parking lots. I walked down Calle Bolivar which was music stuff aisle, speakers blasting cacophony and CDs on display. Avenida Doctor Rio de la Rosa (no words minced around here for road names) was fancy dresses aisle, which eventually was a gradient into underwear aisle. I find it so hilarious to find shop after shop selling the exact same things. And then, once you leave paper goods street, good luck finding paper anywhere else! 

I saw a store selling only loofahs. Countless stores for tortillas. I smelled a delicious waft of sweet bread and followed it to a cavernous bakery, complete with policemen holding rifles inside. Must be an important place!

Bikes street, books street, fabric street, naked angels and Jesus candles street, bright plastic junk ave. I was looking for Calle de las Bolsas so I could purchase a bag to carry home my egregious load of chocolate, mescal, coffee, and wool goods. I found one in unabashed pink for $3. I also couldn't resist a pair of striped socks on socks street for 5 pesos (25 cents). 

I ate fried plantains with dulce de leche, a carrot-guava-orange juice made fresh while I watched, and a giant elliptic corn tortilla topped with mushrooms and cheese (un huarache). The vendors are kind to point out that their salsa is picante, and I always eat it anyway. Yesterday I ate part of a grilled pepper--seemingly benevolent because it was big, green, and fleshy--that was so hot my ears rang. (and later, my intestines rang)

La Opera Restaurant

La Opera, fun with mirrors

I took myself out Monday night, the iconic La Opera restaurant in El Centro, which is all red carpeting, waiters in white with platters above their heads, intricate dark woodwork, and mirrors inset everywhere to feel lost in it all. The place is old, from the Revolution time, and coming there felt like participating in something timeless and larger than life. 


I perched at the bar, munching chips and "tanned onions" (English translation, thanks Google) and enjoying a slow mescal margarita, luxuriating in writing in my journal and being alone in this community of others. Three leathered men with faces touched by time and feeling strummed guitars and sang in the cancion ranchera style in the corner.  


Then something magical happened. 


A man with spectacles at the end of the bar caught my eye, folded his hands together and bowed ever so slightly. "Please? A song for you? Thank you thank you!" I wasn't exactly sure what this would entail, but before I could clarify, the three singing men approached me, encircling my bar perch, and began strumming their guitars. The three of them sang directly for me, looking into my face. I blushed the color of my ever-present red shirt and beamed back at them. They were singing about beautiful eyes, in that Mexican folk songy way, timeless and passionate, croony and leisurely. They put their heads back for the long-held higher notes, and picked an intricate melody for the bridge. 


Receiving that amount of energy and attention is powerful, let me tell you. I felt like I was taking in all the grace, talent, and beauty of the entire country of Mexico. May I be able to hold onto this for the following many months back in that United States. 


Then Senior Spectacles caught my eye again. "Thank you thank you", he said, as if by listening I was somehow worth thanking. Then he motioned if he might sit next to me. "Claro!" 


He said he had seen me writing, "I wonder to myself, what is that girl thinking about this place? What is she writing about?" And he said he was a writer too. "Three things are important in my life. One: my life, two: my family, and three: writing and reading." 


He said he had noticed my eyes, and that he would remember them forever, that this writing girl was sitting there thinking and seeing with those beautiful eyes, and writing. Thus he had asked the singing men to sing to me about eyes. 


"Your hair goes to the sky," he then observed. I thought that was just the best. I'd never thought of it that way, but it does indeed point to the sky. What if somehow my hair could be a representation of how I want to be in life? Looking up, up towards the sky and hope and things larger than ourselves?


He was unabashedly poetic, and romantic in the way of the romance of words and eyes and paintings, but not in the least of a sexual advance. Romance can also be a quality of mystery, excitement, and remoteness from everyday life, says Google's second definition.   


He was one of the least intrusive and gracious admirers I have encountered. We talked about the magic of words, and he then he excused himself, that he didn't want to bother me any longer. I share this interaction because it was striking to me, and I want to dispel the notion that all men in Latin America who talk to women traveling alone have intentiones malos. Interactions like this one are on a purely human to human level, and I left smiling. 

Mexico city buildings, night admiring, draw out thoughts and a realization

I've been trying to get my finger on it for weeks. What is the pulse of Mexico, what makes it unique here? What have I been in for the past 30 days?


And walking back through the lit streets of El Centro, after being sung to with such fervor, and sharing a conversation about words and receiving such respectful attention, I figured it out. 


It is the spirit here. The unabashed spirit of the people, artists who throw their all into their work, singers who put their whole hearts into three minutes of song. Unbridled. Unquestioning. Honest and vulnerable in this way, but vulnerable meaning open and strong, with self-belief. Unapologetic in how one lives one's life. "This is what we make, the work we do, and we are proud of it." 


I speak only from my own experience, obviously, and making generalizations about an entire nation from 30 days here is unrepresentative. But I share now what I felt and observed, at least. 


To hear Snr Spectacles share his ideas about writing, and how he had noticed me writing and wondered if I felt the same about words, and his philosophies, and have it all done with the utmost respect "may I sit by you?", I think helped me realize this. To reach out to someone like this takes a spirit of self-belief, i think, just like Snr Jorge earlier, and everyone else I've encountered who is excited and proud of what they do and what they can share. 


And the street art I've seen. An outpouring of expression on the streets. And the music I've heard, the songs that are completely unselfconscious. Maybe that's it. Unselfconscious. Less putting on of airs. More embracing of a situation. Perhaps more willing to bare a soul and not think of being judged. 


This spirit has been a beautiful thing to witness for the past 30 days.