Time, and Another Place

Hi there. I'm very aware that it has been a long time, and I have no excuse other than work-related exhaustion, depression and longing. Fear not, though, I'm not going to let that ruin my life.

So what has been going on?

First, to give some continuity to this blog, the gas station remains half-finished. Worse than tearing down the house and starting the blasted project is that it remains lost in time, neither a gas station nor a house, although it does have good landscaping. I can only be glad that there is not a steady stream of traffic passing through, and that it is still safe to pass by on bicycle.

Speaking of time continuums, I have recently been pondering the fact that I have no earthly idea where the time has gone. I have been trying to count because I am regularly quizzed on how long I have lived and worked here (the subtle way of asking how long it took this gringa to respond well in Spanish), and I officially have been here for one year and three and a half months. However, that means about as much to me as turning 25 did a few weeks ago, and the fact that my Mom is now 60 (good thing she doesn't read the blog, I might be lynched for that). It was much easier when my life was ordered by the passing school years, with a small accomplishment at the end of one when I advanced to a higher level and therefore, greater status in life (or so I thought). Now I feel lost, unorganized, without direction. Who can tell me what accomplishments I have marked out in these recent years?

Today I came up with my closest estimation of how I have progressed:

1. My agaves are growing. The hijuelo that I was given last year about a month after I arrived that would fit in with any of our developing agaves that will later be harvested to make "the best Tequila in the world." And, the little agaves that I rescued from the quiote Christmas tree (the "tree" that grows up in the middle of some agave plants and sprouts tiny baby agaves) were all about two inches tall when I took them home and planted them in rows in a box planter, and today I repotted them all since some are now close to eight inches tall and growing sharper pencas (leaves) everyday.

2. Lola now stands 63 centimeters, or 2 feet, tall and eats about a kilo (2.2 pounds) of food a day (although we have been exercising her too much, I think, because she looks skinny). Recently Oscar and I were looking at some really old photos of her, and I couldn't believe that in December she was a little fluffy teddy bear-looking animal, small enough to lift in one hand. Now, when she is in a playful mood and jumps on the bed just to drive us crazy, I have trouble pushing her off.

3. My nieces and nephew sound different every time I speak to them on the phone. Race and Vivi are 5 years old, and can tell me all about what they are doing. Bonnie and Addie were headed to a workshop on Friday to learn to be comfortable in public-speaking situations. I bought the girls all purses recently because I have no clue how big they are, cannot even imagine, because I still remember them best how they were in Singapore, but that was two years ago.

4. Oscar and I have known each other for nearly three years, and there is a date to mark that occasion that we will commemorate with some kind of activity, although it is very difficult for me to discern when I knew people and when I didn't. If you are reading this, it is because you know me, but I feel like I have known you forever, even if there was a specific period of time in which we were more closely linked. Maybe with certain people, it is inevitable that we know each other and can and should feel that we have always been acquaintances, friends, family, lovers. Hmmm.

5. Perhaps the number one indicator of the time that has passed since landing in Guadalajara: my desire to do something different, to relocate, to dedicate myself to something else entirely, to discover a new side of me in adventure, loneliness, excitement, disappointment, discovery. It's not only the job, but also the internal response to the day-to-day, the routine, the repitition. It's not that the grass is alwasys greener somewhere else, but that my mind is clearer when I move on once I have decided that it is appropriate. I think that time is rapidly approaching.

Wendell Berry expresses it well, so I will leave you with him:

The Thought of Something Else

1.
A spring wind blowing
the smell of the ground
through the intersections of traffic,
the mind turns, seeks a new
nativity-- another place,
simpler, less weighted
by what has already been.

Another place!
it's enough to grieve me--
that old dream of going;
of becoming a better man
just by getting up and going
to a better place.

2.
The mystery. The old
unaccountable unfolding.
The iron trees in the park
suddenly remember forests.
It becomes possible to think of going

3.
--a place where thought
can take its shape
as quietly in the mind
as water in a pitcher,
or a man can be
safely without thought
--see the day begin
and lean back,
a simple wakefulness filling
perfectly
the spaces among the leaves.