K-13

Last of the Chapala photos… this is it. Marlena arrives in Guanajuato this Friday and we’ll be going to Zacatecas next week. I hope to bring back many photos from there.

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I’ll meet you there

Out beyond the ideas of right-doing or wrong-doing there is a field — I’ll meet you there.  ~Rumi

I heard this quote yesterday when listening to Elizabeth Lesser on TedTalks.  She spoke about “taking the other to lunch“. By other, she refers to someone who has a different belief structure and dialoguing with that person in order to break down preconceptions and stereotypes. Lesser, an activist from the left, spent lunch with an activist from the right. They agreed on ground rules and created a list of questions to ask one another. It made me think who I would want to do this with.

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Beginnings

Is it just me, or is there a sense of advent hope in the air?

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Near light

Early morning walk around the Lake in Chapala.

I’ve always loved mornings, especially before sunrise. As a child, I used to drink maté with my mother and then go walk with her, a brisk 45 minute circuit, all before the sun rose. Later in Missouri, I would run while everyone slept. I used to imagine dreams floating out of chimneys and rooftops, forming into the Ozark mist I’d see. Then I moved to Eugene and found the best running partners ever. Together, we explored the mornings, created traveling songs, and lasting friendships.

Now, it’s Farley and the crowing roosters spread across Guanajuato’s teacup terrain. We go quickly as the sun pours morning light like honey through the hundreds of callejon crevices.

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Watching

Can you locate the person in this photo? It’s easier in black and white.

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Lights at night

It hasn’t rained for awhile. The green and foliage of summer has receded. I thought I wouldn’t appreciate the dirt and the brown and the bald, but I find that I do. When I walk the Bufa, if feels as if I’m on an asteriod. Cactus and colored rock… purple, camo-green, and mustard. There are shrubs with spiny thistles and the wind moves through them.

Last time I came back from Leon, the sun was setting. I was on a 2nd class bus so instead of a movie, I listened to the driver’s music. Ranchera and some of the old Mexican ballads. The music layered below the landscape washing by the window, and seemed to go perfectly with the mix of desolated dirt landscape punctuated here and there with elaborate Christmas lights. Kind of like the life here: famine then feast; long worry, then hope. Or the family that works hard to save up for a son’s baptism or a daughter’s quinceañera. The miner who toils underground all week so he can live it up on the weekend. Or even like Maestro Chuey… yesterday, I found out that Maestro Chuey and his wife had slept on a twin bed for nearly 50 years until they received a larger mattress. His shining light? Two of his daughters attend University and the third will also when she comes of age.

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Distressed Meters II

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Sun spots

Math, it’s everywhere.

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Class in session

Walking with Julie in Chapala one morning, I saw this graffitied hallway and chair. It reminded me of a recurring dream I have where I’m riding a bicycle on dirt paths. My destination is always a classroom.

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Avoidance

Kelly pretended not to see Frank behind her. But since they were the only boats on that part of the Lake this morning, she was pretty sure he noticed her sneaking past.

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Closed

One of the restaurants with a view of the lake in Chapala. Closed at 7:30am. The white plastic chairs and shiny floors are typical of many places in Mexico.

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Walkway

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Distressed Meters

Early morning in Chapala.

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