juanzqui

Flying into León. From there it will be about an hour’s ride (or 90 minutes, I forget which) by car to San Miguel de Allende.
Unlike San Miguel, León is flat country. It sits in the middle of a wide, wide valley. It reminds me very much of California’s Santa Clara Valley in that it is an agricultural region. Very smoggy. But it’s also a manufacturing hub, home to several auto companies. I wouldn’t be surprised if the car you’re driving was made here. Or parts of it were.
In SMA I’ll be staying at the home of friends, former Houston residents who now live in Colorado but spend as much time as they can in this beautiful city. (I was going to say colorful but I’ve decided to try to avoid using that word given that everything is colorful in this country).
I don’t know what I’ll do in San Miguel other than visit with my hosts and do whatever things they may have planned. But I will also roam around by myself, poking here and there in the hope of finding interesting things to take pictures of.
Tomorrow I will have coffee with a woman I’ve never met. She’s a pen-pal of my Swiss friend. She used to live in New Mexico but moved here not long ago. She sounds like an interesting person. She’s a former Peace Corps volunteer in Africa and is a quilter She blogs. About quilting, about her travels and other things.
On Monday I will go to Queretaro for a day and a half and from there I’ll take a bus to Mexico City for a four-day visit. I’ve never been to Queretaro (a weekend in a suburban hotel back in the 80s when I went there to cover a conference doesn’t really count). It’s a colonial city and has the usual number of attractions offered by this country’s colonial cities.
I haven’t been to Mexico City in many years. I think the last time I was there was also in the 80s, when I flew down from DC to interview the US ambassador to Mexico. I can’t remember his name now. A former actor. Friend of Reagan. He was a gracious interviewee but he complained about my report to my editors. Didn’t like how what he told me sounded like in print. He couldn’t claim that I made it up, though, because I had it all on tape.
I didn’t spend too many days in Mexico City on that trip but in 1984, I spent about a month there, covering a UN World Population Conference and then doing reporting for a special section on Mexico that The Houston Post decided to publish. It was something like 15 pages and every word (except for the headlines) was written by me.
My first trip to Mexico City was around 1980, Christmas time. I went down with a friend from graduate school and did all the touristy things, including the pyramids and the Basilica de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe. I still have a picture of Rick, who is Jewish, joining the other pilgrims as they moved towards the church on their knees.
I am eager to see Mexico City again and to see how much it’s changed since I last saw it. I’ve read and heard of all the new museums and galleries, and I can’t wait to see them.
Flying into León and driving to SMA or Guanajuato always remind me of the Josè Alfredo Jiménez tune, “Camino de Guanajuato,” one of his most beautiful songs despite its gloomy opening lines (No vale nada la vida. La vida no vale nada. Comienza siempre llorando y así llorando se acaba.).
We are about to land. More later.

IT’S ABOUT THIS time each year that I am heartened to hear a different kind of bird call in the trees outside my home office window.

Most of the year I listen to the arrogant, even prideful calls of the mockingbirds, but every year, sometime in February, I begin to hear the high-pitched trilling and tweeting of the cedar waxwings who have come from who-knows-where to feast on the berries in the trees outside my window.

Cedar waxwing during a visit last February

Don’t get me wrong. I love mockingbirds and their calls. They are so distinct. I remember the times I used to walk around in Washington ­– where I found very little avian variety – and every once in a while being pleasantly surprised by a different bird call, and I would know in an instant that if I looked hard enough, I would find a beautiful mockingbird in a nearby tree.

(I just glanced outside the window to find a mockingbird on a nearby branch, daring any other bird to challenge his gods-given right to the tree.)

I DO LOVE mockingbirds, but I also love variety, and that is why I am so ready for the first tweeet-tzzzeeet of the cedar waxwings.

They’ll only be here for a few days, until they strip the tree of its shiny red fruit. They chatter among themselves, no doubt commenting on the quality of this year’s vintage. And then, just as suddenly, they are gone. Where they go, I don’t know, but I presume it’s up north – al norte – in search of more beautiful berries.

Up North. That’s what we used to say when we were kids, to describe what we did each summer.

We’re going Up North, we’d say.

We’ve been Up North.

AND THAT WAS all we really needed to say. In a town that was some 90 percent Mexican – and 90 percent of those Mexicans went to Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and other northern states in search of work – everybody understood what we meant.

Everybody understood that, like the birds, we had to go Up North. The shiny fruit beckoned.

[When I decided to use the image of the Santo Niño de Nuestra Señora de Atocha on the front of this year’s Christmas cards, I felt a need to explain why that image was important to me. I started out to write two or three sentences that would be included in the cards but once I started writing, I realized that there was no simple or short way to fully explain the significance of the image, so I ended up with the paragraphs below, which have a few more details than what is on the cards. A note for those of you receiving my Christmas card: the date below, July 9, 1939, is the correct date.]

IN THE HOT South Texas mid-summer days of 1939, eleven years after she was married, two years after the death of her second child and less than a year after having given birth to her sixth, my mother lay in her bed in the small house that her father-in-law had built for her and Domingo.

Santo Niño de Nuestra Señora de Atochao.

Martina López Palomo, who was 31, was in pain most of the time and her constant moans could be heard by anyone in or near the house. María Luisa, their oldest child, had just turned ten, yet even now – three quarters of a century later – she harbors searing memories of my mother’s agonizing cries.

The doctor had told my mother that her ovaries were infected and that she needed to have surgery to remove them. Without that surgery, she would die. That was his verdict. But for whatever reason, my mother resisted, and so her suffering continued.

More than likely, money played a role in her decision. Or rather, lack of it. This was at the tail end of the Great Depression and times were hard. Although my father had worked for the railroad, when he stopped working because of his hand injury, his income stopped. And so it was up to my grandparents and Tía Benita, my father’s oldest sister who lived at the other end of the block with her husband, Melecio Alfaro, to provide food for the family. Tío Mele was a businessman and so his family was relatively well off, compared to ours and compared to the other families in the neighborhood, and Tía Benita made certain that her brother’s family did not go hungry.

Martina López and Domingo Palomo on their wedding day, May 1928

But while there was enough family support to keep the family from starving, there was none for huge medical expenses, so my mother continued to suffer.

And her cries intensified.

Manuela Limón and Alejandro Palomo, on their 50th anniversary, November 1941.

There was little my father could do, for he was not around. He was 120 miles away, in a San Antonio hospital, recovering from a hand injury he had incurred while working for the railroad. Before he was taken to San Antonio – aboard a railroad handcar – he too had lain in bed for days, in agony, taking nothing but aspirin for his intense pain.

Until he was taken away, Luisa could hear him too. Crying, like a child.

My grandmother, Manuela Limón Palomo, would come in during the day to help take care of my mother, as would Tía Benita. There were times when my mother’s stepmother, María López, and others would come to help. But that was during the day. At night, it was up to Luisa to look after my mother and eight-month-old Mariana, and the other children, eight-year-old Delfina, five-year-old Alejandro and three-year-old Norberto.

My grandfather had fashioned a small hammock out of rope and canvas for Mariana.

“I would lie on the floor at night, near the hammock, and with my foot I would gently push it to rock it back and forth so that Mariana would fall asleep,” Luisa remembers. “But I couldn’t sleep: I kept hearing my mother’s lloridos.”

‘Buelita Manuela was a stern, no-nonsense kind of person.

“Era de leyes,” is how Luisa describes her – she was stickler for rules, her rules.

María Luisa and Manuel

Among those rules was that it was up to Luisa to keep Mariana in clean diapers. That meant soaking the diapers in a washtub filled with boiling water. Luisa not only had to stoke the fire to keep it burning, she had to stir the washtub’s contents with a stick and then use that stick and to remove the soaking diapers. The fact that afternoon temperatures surpassed 100 degrees didn’t matter; the diapers had to be washed.

When Tía Benita would come upon Luisa doing that chore, she would become angry at ‘Buelita and insist that she, Benita, could wash the diapers. But the next day, before Tía could come over, the old woman had already made Luisa wash the diapers.

“Era mala reata,” Luisa says about ‘Buelita. (I don’t know if there’s a translation for that. A cruel piece of old rope?)

From her bed, my mother could see what her mother-in-law, whom she called mamá, would put Luisa and the others through, but there was nothing she could do about it.

“If I die,” she told Luisa one day. “Mamá is going to eat the four of you alive.”

On July 9, ‘Buelita, who lived next door, came to Luisa. In her wrinkled brown hands, she carried a small worn booklet. It is unclear how long she had owned it, but this we do know: She had carried that booklet, printed in Guanajuato in 1847, with her when the family had walked to Texas 19 years earlier from near San Luis Potosí. The booklet was a triduo (triduum), a three-day litany of prayers to the Santo Niño de Nuestra Señora de Atocha. (We know that date because Luisa wrote it, in pencil, on the front of the book.)

“Here,” she told Luisa. “Take this booklet. Use it to pray for your mother, so that she can live.”

Luisa did as her grandmother beseeched. She wanted my mother to live, and so she prayed. Every day. Religiously, asking the Santo Niño to return my mother to health.

And little by little, that’s what happened; my mother did begin to get better, and stronger, until one day she was able to leave her bed and once again resume her duties as wife and mother.

My mother was to live for more than 52 years after her illness, and she was to give birth to three additional children, including me, the youngest.

Luisa, a few years later

When it became clear that my mother would live, Luisa made a promise to the Santo Niño that she would one day visit His shrine in Mexico. Many decades later, Luisa fulfilled her vow by making that pilgrimage to the shrine, which is near Fresnillo, Zacatecas, to offer her thanks.

WAS MY MOTHER’S recovery a miracle of the Santo Niño de Nuestra Señora de Atocha? Or was the doctor simply wrong in his initial prognosis? Or was my mother’s fear about what would happened to her four young children should she die enough to give her the strength to defeat whatever was wrong with her?

I don’t know. Over the years, I have learned to steer clear of certainty when it comes to matters of the soul, or of the universe and beyond. But I have also come to the conclusion that while nothing is certain, everything is possible. And so I’ll leave it at that.

During my most recent visit to her home in California, Luisa chose to make me be the keeper of this precious and delicate booklet. It is in dreadful shape, but I consider it and its tattered yellowed pages among my most-prized possessions.

At the front of the booklet appears the image shown on this card. There are many versions of this image, but I have searched extensively online and I have yet to find a version that matches this one exactly. After I made a copy of the image, I started to Photoshop it to remove the blemishes and other signs of wear and abuse, but I quickly decided that those signs were part of the essence of its beauty, and so they remain.

IN THIS SEASON of peace, promise, joy and new beginnings, I have elected to share this image – and this story – with you, in the hopes that they instill in you and your loved ones a deeper sense of family, love and devotion – and the possibility of a better, more peaceful, generous and miraculous world.

Crystal City, Texas | November 28, 2015

A STRONG COLD front blew in from the northwest last night, pushing away the suffocatingly humid warm air that had settled over the region for days, and I woke up this chilly rainy morning to news that the home of Antonio Rivera, a retired medical doctor, and his wife, Gloria, a retired college administrator, had burned down in the pre-dawn hours. It is – or was – just south of town, on their small farm.

Apparently a faulty heater started the fire and it spread so quickly that they didn’t even have time to retrieve their cars’ keys, ensuring that the vehicles met the same fate as their house.

There are no radio or TV stations with news operations here, but the news got around quickly. My sister first heard the news very early, when her son, a deputy sheriff, called to tell her about it. Soon after that the phone rang repeatedly with calls from others who had heard the news and claimed to have new details. A cousin whose son is a volunteer firefighter, a friend who used to be related by marriage to the doctor, and others.

As is the case in most small communities, when you talk about things happening to people, you’re not talking about strangers; you’re talking about friends or relatives. In this case, Tony and Gloria are not relatives (although one of his nephews was married to one my nieces for a while, and they had two beautiful children together), but even though we haven’t seen each other in some time, you could say that we are friends, for it’s impossible to grow up in a small down and not be friends with people with whom you grew up.

Tony’s older brother, Tomás, was my junior high softball coach and my junior college French teacher. The Rivera family lived a block away from us. Our address was 513 West Edwards, theirs was 513 West Val Verde so when we stood at our kitchen sink and looked south through the kitchen window, we could see the Riveras’ front door. That house still stands; ours was torn down in 1965 by Urban Renewal.

Gloria Amaya grew up on the other side of town so I didn’t know her that well. But I got to know her better in the summer of 1963 when our family ended up in a migrant camp near Endeavor, Wisconsin, where the Amaya family and several other Crystal City families were also working and living.

Six days a week, all of us, some 40 or 50 men, women and children, worked side by side, bent over or on our knees, crawling across vast verdant mint fields, pulling up weeds, tossing them into bushel baskets and emptying those baskets onto wagons to be carted off.

It was tedious work but it wasn’t backbreaking. Compared to other work, this was relatively easy. We were on the soft, spongy loam of dry ancient lakebeds. The work was not hurried at all and the slow pace encouraged conversations and jokes, so every day out on the fields was like a fiesta; the camaraderie was stimulating, addictive.

Gloria was the oldest in the Amaya family. Next to her was Joe. Although Joe and I were in the same class, we were never friends until we got to know each other at the Kempley Farms migrant camp near Endeavor. He and another boy, Gustavo Jiménez, who was a year behind us in school, and I became good friends and we continued that friendship when we came back to Texas to begin the school year.

Eventually the old gang drifted apart. I went off to college and Joe and Blanca, his wife, moved to Michigan. Tavo stayed here and became a successful businessman, but he died a number of years ago. Joe is also now retired and comes down to Crystal City during the winter to get away from the Michigan cold.

SO THERE IS a connection there. And that’s the thing about life in a small town: there always is a connection. That is why even though the Riveras, as retired successful professionals, are probably not hurting financially, the community is already coming together to rally behind them. A gofundme page has been set up and, in fewer than 24 hours, it has already raised close to $1,000.

That fund will grow, for no doubt everyone in this community is thinking, “That could have been me – that could have been my home.”

Losing a home – and everything in it – to a fire right after Thanksgiving just as winter makes its late arrival has got to be difficult for any family, no matter how strong or financially secure.

Everyone here understands this, and so the community comes together to help its own.

In the days ahead, the phone calls and coffee shop conversations about the Rivera fire will continue. So will the speculation and theories about the cause of the fire and what the family will do. And the community will continue to rally behind the Riveras.

That’s what happens in a small town. That’s what people do.

14 November 15

This  morning I was doing a search for my favorite Paris photos to share on Facebook and came across this letter I wrote some 11 years ago to my friend Rogelio Cannady, who was then on Texas’ death row and has since been killed by the state. He loved reading of my travel adventures and so I made it a practice to describe the things I saw and did while on the road. 

01 September 04

HERE I AM, in the great city of Paris. It’s a bit after 5:30 p.m. and I am sitting at an outdoor restaurant, one of several thousand in this city, drinking a glass of red wine.

I also asked the waiter for a plate of various cheeses, but I guess he didn’t hear me, misunderstood me, or decided to ignore me. All three are possible, I’ve learned. All those French classes I took and I can’t even order a damn simple plate of cheese! That is how it has been all day: As soon as someone speaks to me in French, I get all nervous and I end up talking gibberish. When I ordered the wine, for instance, the waiter asked me if I wanted it “en verre,” which means by the glass, or if I wanted a carafe. The only thing I heard was sound, “ver,” which sounded very much like “vert,” the word for green (the French drop just about every consonant, unless it’s followed by an ‘e’. My first thought was, why is he asking me if I want green wine when I just asked for red wine? As happens almost every time, he saw my confused face and posed the question again, in English. By this time I was so rattled that I told him that yes, I wanted a glass, when the reality was that I wanted a carafe. Oh well, as they say here, c’est la vie. (At least I hope they do; they do in the movies!)

Here’s something funny: A few minutes ago, as I was standing at a street corner, looking at my map, trying to figure out exactly where I was, a young lady approached me and, in French, asked for directions to a nearby square, and I was able to tell her, also in French. She then turned around and told her companions, “Dice que está …”

”Ay,” I couldn’t resist telling her, “me ubieras dicho que hablas español!” We all got a good laugh out of it.

Oh wow! The waiter did understand me! He just walked up with my plate of cheese, and some bread. Oh man, this tastes great. Just what I needed. I love the bread in this country. How I wish you could be here to enjoy this with me.

I had already decided to return to the hotel, to rest a while. And go to the bathroom! But, because I was exhausted from all the walking I’ve done today, I decided to stop a while. I think that with this bit of food I won’t need to have supper; my stomach will be satisfied for the day.

I spent quite a bit of time this afternoon in what must be the old garment district in the old Jewish part of town, Le Marais. I wasn’t looking for any clothes, but I saw some real neat ties that I really liked, and when I inquired about their cost, I found out they only cost about $20 or $30, which is nothing compared to the ties in other stores.  I ended up buying four of them. Then I saw this beautiful leather jacket and I just had to look at it. Again, I was shocked by the price – $170. A coat like that in Washington would cost at least $300. I didn’t buy it, though. Because I saw another one I liked better, at about the same price. This one is wool, not leather. Now I have to figure out how to carry it home. I only brought a small suitcase with me, plus my backpack. If I keep buying things, I’m going to have to buy another bag, as I did the last time I came to Europe.

The weather has been spectacular. In the mid- to high-70s during the day, and in the 60s or 50s in the evening and early morning. Perfect walking weather, which is what I have been doing since I got here, except for the train/subway I took in from the airport because I didn’t want to pay for a taxi. The Metro system is vast and very easy to use. You can get just about anywhere on it. But, the way I see it, the more I ride the train, the less I see of this city – and the less time I have to stuff myself!

Last night I ate at a restaurant in the Latin Quarter, not far from my hotel, on a small street that was wall-to-wall outdoor restaurants. I sat outside and enjoyed watching the people walk by, and listened to a saxophone player who stood nearby and wailed away, with a number of jazz/blues pieces. Poor guy, when he finished playing, he came to where the patrons were eating to ask if we wanted to give him some money. I would have given him some, except that I thought he was asking if we wanted him to play some more tunes. By the time I realized what he wanted, it was too late; he was gone. The food (beef, with green beans and French fries) wasn’t that good. The meat was a bit tough and the potatoes lacked taste. Only the beans were good. And the bread, of course. Oh well. While I was waiting for my food, I noticed a sign on the wall that said Ernest Hemmingway had lived in the building for five years. The menu also had another literary claim. It seems that some French poet, whose name I had never heard of, lived there also. He ended up killing himself, apparently because he fell in love with another poet (also a male) and that was a no-no. At least that’s what I think I read.

Thursday, September 2

I AM IN LINE, waiting to climb to the dome of the Pantheon, which was originally a cathedral but is now a temple to French heroes. It’s a massive structure, although much simpler than the elaborately decorated cathedrals of Italy. It dominates the neighborhood in or near the Latin Quarter, not too far from the Luxembourg Gardens, one of several large formal gardens that provide a great place to rest and enjoy nature. Victor Hugo and other famous Frenchies are buried here. While waiting, I drew a quick sketch of part of one of the numerous statues. A bit simple, but I like it. I will try to make a copy of it and send it to you.

This morning I again started out somewhat late, for me. Normally, I am up and about by 6:30, but I guess my body has just been really tired, from all the walking, and even though I wake up early (7 or 7:30), I just lie there and before I know it, it’s already 8 or 8:30. No big deal, though: I am determined that this will be a relaxing trip, and if sleeping late helps me accomplish that, so much the better.

My hotel is a small tourist hotel. I wouldn’t call it quaint, or cozy, but it is comfortable and my 2^nd-floor room is of a decent size. Certainly a lot larger than the one I got in Florence, which was so small that if I left any of my stuff on the floor, I could not walk to the bathroom. It’s air-conditioned, so I don’t have to listen to the traffic outside, although traffic noise is not that bad. For 10 Euros, I can get a decent breakfast downstairs, and for 5 Euros, I can log on to the Internet for half an hour. It would be more than enough to check the news and write a few emails if it weren’t for the damn French keyboard, which has certain letters – the y, the z and the m, for instance, in different locations altogether. The other guests are mainly Brits, and a few Americans and what appear to be Spaniards or South Americans.

I am now at a small park, Jardin the Teuleries, a huge park that connects the Arc de Triomphe with the Louvre, the large museum that houses the Mona Lisa and other masterpieces. I will visit neither. The arch because I was there the last time I was here, in 1988, and the museum, because I really do not like museums that much. Large ones, at least. And I have seen enough pictures of the Mona Lisa and the other masterpieces to know what they look like. I don’t think that when I die I will be ruing the fact that I never saw the Mona Lisa.

It is late afternoon and the weakening sun infuses the entire park with a nice, subdued hue. I am sitting on a metal green chair, one of many in this area of the park, surrounded by others, alone, in pairs or in groups, sitting and enjoying the sun amid the various pools and fountains.

The park resembles the Mall in Washington, but it is a lot more serene. It has a lot more trees, and it has these chairs, which is something you won’t find on the mall. It also has a lot of statues, mainly of mythological figures, but also some by some famous artists, such as Rodin and Maillol.

This is where I ate my lunch, cheese and bread and fruit that I snuck into my backpack at breakfast this morning. Delicious. I hadn’t eaten anything since this morning, when I bought something that looked like a Mexican empanada, and another pastry that looked like a campechana, at a patisserie, one of thousands of pastry shops all over the city that offer everything from pastries to sandwiches (yesterday, for lunch I bought a croq monsieur (I’m not too sure of the spelling), which is a hot ham and cheese sandwich; I was in heaven.)

I don’t know if I’ll eat anything this evening. I am not hungry, but maybe the walk back to the hotel will give me an appetite and if that happens, I’ll do another cheese-and-wine thing.

The Pantheon was very impressive, when we climbed to the deck that surrounds the dome. From there you can see the entire city, from the Eiffel Tower to Notre Dame and other famous sites. It’s a good place from which to see how different this city is from most American cities. There are skyscrapers, but they are away from the city’s center. I took lots of pictures, but the sun was very bright and there was a thick haze, so I am not sure how good they will be.

From the Pantheon I walked to the cathedral of St. Germain de Pres, one of the city’s most prominent Romanesque style churches, constructed in the 11^th century. The bell tower is the city’s oldest. The heart of Rene Descartes is buried here. Don’t ask why just he heart because I have no idea. Neither do I know where the rest of his body is.

From there I walked along a street lined with some very expensive stores. No $30 ties here! My destination was a small museum, the Musee Maillol, dedicated to the work of Aristide Maillol. His work consists primarily of large marble sculptures of female nudes, most of them based on a single model, Dina Vierny. There are also some of the sketches he did of his models. This is the kind of museum I like: small and intimate, and I can get in an out in a few minutes. And – perhaps more important — it has a great bathroom!

And that’s what I have done today. To get here from the museum, I had to cross the Seine, which is always a nice experience. I love watching the boats and barges float by. I’ve been sitting here for about an hour, and I could stay here another couple of hours. It is so comfortable. Since I have been sitting here, it has become cloudy and it appears as if it might rain. According to the paper, it’s not supposed to rain until tomorrow. If it does rain, I hope it’s over quick. I hate walking around in the rain.