Dear Mexico City,
When I walk through your streets I feel like I will never have enough time with you. You are lovely and interesting and perfect in your imperfection. Your street vendors tempt chilangos with a plethora of tacos, tortas, juices, sliced fruits, chiclets, magazines, child leashes, flower balloons inside larger balloons, unheard of chocolates, lollies, healdos, elotes, hot dogs wrapped in bacon, flashlights, everything, everything.
I poke my head into your courtyards, dingy and dangled with flowers, hoping to elude the ex-military man in sweatpants and a barrette telling me that I must leave. Now.
When I moved into my apartment I could not stare out the window without the distinct desire to stop time. I would sleep with my curtains open (except on weekends, of course, when the sun assaulted my windows and turned my room into a tropical oven). Weekday wakings at 7 am allowed for the best viewings anyhoo. I would roll towards the window to the city's moods. The clouds or sunrises or smog or (acid) rain. Orange usually. Best when the sky is orange pink swirls saturating and spreading. At night I would look up from my desk, beavering away, to see fireworks exploding over the Zocalo. Unexpected treats with minimal movement.
Ambling about with a heavy film camera I run into parades or protests.
Your buildings, your erratic city planning make my eyes wide. Art deco stands next to dry wash. Fountains that belong in Europe intersect busy streets. Sidewalks turn into swimming pools when it rains. Nearly every building closes with a metal door, you know, the kind they have in storage-units and/or mob movies. A Mexican once asked me the name for these in English; I told him I did not think they had a special name because they do not normally line the streets, at least in the States. He shrugged.
Walking past tilted churches damaged by earthquakes and subsidence and time I cannot breath. Is it ridiculous that I cannot breath more often than not when I walk around these streets? It is not sadness. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Darling, dear Mexico City. You are never stale. You may have made me harder and less trusting and angry or frustrated sometimes. But I am never bored.
I have never felt more alive or more at home or more likely to spontaneously burst into a billion bits than with I am with you.
Te quiero mucho,
Mary
When I walk through your streets I feel like I will never have enough time with you. You are lovely and interesting and perfect in your imperfection. Your street vendors tempt chilangos with a plethora of tacos, tortas, juices, sliced fruits, chiclets, magazines, child leashes, flower balloons inside larger balloons, unheard of chocolates, lollies, healdos, elotes, hot dogs wrapped in bacon, flashlights, everything, everything.
I poke my head into your courtyards, dingy and dangled with flowers, hoping to elude the ex-military man in sweatpants and a barrette telling me that I must leave. Now.
When I moved into my apartment I could not stare out the window without the distinct desire to stop time. I would sleep with my curtains open (except on weekends, of course, when the sun assaulted my windows and turned my room into a tropical oven). Weekday wakings at 7 am allowed for the best viewings anyhoo. I would roll towards the window to the city's moods. The clouds or sunrises or smog or (acid) rain. Orange usually. Best when the sky is orange pink swirls saturating and spreading. At night I would look up from my desk, beavering away, to see fireworks exploding over the Zocalo. Unexpected treats with minimal movement.
Ambling about with a heavy film camera I run into parades or protests.
Your buildings, your erratic city planning make my eyes wide. Art deco stands next to dry wash. Fountains that belong in Europe intersect busy streets. Sidewalks turn into swimming pools when it rains. Nearly every building closes with a metal door, you know, the kind they have in storage-units and/or mob movies. A Mexican once asked me the name for these in English; I told him I did not think they had a special name because they do not normally line the streets, at least in the States. He shrugged.
Walking past tilted churches damaged by earthquakes and subsidence and time I cannot breath. Is it ridiculous that I cannot breath more often than not when I walk around these streets? It is not sadness. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Darling, dear Mexico City. You are never stale. You may have made me harder and less trusting and angry or frustrated sometimes. But I am never bored.
I have never felt more alive or more at home or more likely to spontaneously burst into a billion bits than with I am with you.
Te quiero mucho,
Mary
4 comments:
I take it you liked it there? (wink:P)
Still living there, for now. I will take a picture of my toes in some fantastic location for you.
Fantastic! It is a fun project, I tell you the things we stumble on in life - I sure didn't see myself with that blog a few years ago, heh heh.
Tal vez el DF no pueda agradecerte con palabras lo que opinas de él, pero lo hará en muchas otras formas... Me gusta tu blog!!
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