I firmly believe that any human is mostly capable of doing most any realistic thing they decide to put time, energy, and effort into. I mean, I could be a dancer, but I just don’t dance. And I don’t know if I’m not meant to be a dancer. I could have missed my calling and the world is missing out on my art. Or maybe not! That’s why life is so much fun, you can’t really plan for what talent you might have or how you get to use it.
In this bizarre post, read about me becoming increasingly suspicious of and enraged by a volcano I believed to be personally victimizing me. Later I come face to face with my soul’s doppelgänger. It was an absolutely normal day.
Cuernavaca, I realized, walking across the bridge with my fabulous black leather bag with the black leather fringe, was a fantasy. I knew that I loved it — we vibed immediately — and I knew that I never wanted to ever lose the dreamy feeling I had looking at the pastel buildings, the wonderfully old Spanish palace with a Starbucks hovering nearby, the cactuses with their flesh etched and scarred with lovers’ initials, the glorious hills, the sky, the flowers, those whitewashed walls that reflected the brilliant light, that perfect eternal second standing in the Museo Robert Brady, oh just all of it. It’s divine!
Each day in Mexico City was a revelation for me. I learned something new about the culture, about myself, or about alternative ways to live. I eagerly look forward to […]
My Spanish skills don’t come from laundry, they come from obsessively watching episodes of “La Reina del Sur.” If you want to talk about smuggling hashish to Spain from North Africa, I’m you guy. If you want to talk about the prison system, look no further. If you want to talk about the early hours of morning when the sunlight casts everything in a grey pall and it’s the moment that at some point in your life you’re sure you will pass on, well, I’m you guy. But if you want to talk about the different treatments for rayon….look elsewhere.
This triptych of information absolutely captivated me and I wanted so badly for it to be a print that I could buy and hang in my home. What was the artist trying to convey? Why did they spend so much time on this particular compilation of images and information. Were we to read that the Church is operated by the Reptilians? Are we supposed to infer that the Church lures us in like Pennywise? Are we supposed to understand that the Illuminati runs the world? Is there more than that or is that everything? I’m just obsessed and I need to know more.
Jessica once again decided that guacamole was the love of her life. She did so many peculiar things on this trip. Walking. Eating avocados. Walking willingly. Walking without arguing. Walking more than once in a day. It was absolutely wild.
And that really resonated profoundly for me. This is a topic that is rather hard to write about in our culture because there is no grey area or middle ground for patriotism. Either you love America or you’re likened to a terrorist. This isn’t fair because the more you grow to love something, the more cognizant you become of the flaws. Travel has allowed me to see my home nation with a different perspective, from afar and from the eyes of others around the world. When we let ourselves escape our comfort zone and throw ourselves into something new and out of the ordinary, we are capable of incredible realizations.
And then the city appeared. We were miles and miles from the heart of Mexico City, but the extreme edges were densely packed. It was wonderful to pick out the roads and soccer fields and parks and bigger homes. I barely dared to blink. And then we touched down and I felt the most extraordinary sense of calm. All of the tension that I have been carrying around with me lately melted into my pleather premium seat. I could breathe. I swear my back unclenched. I could have melted. It was divine.
The other people watched me go with a mixture of shock and awe. They were more than willing to wait the rain out, and as I reflect on this day, I don’t know why I was so unwilling. I was determined to get home for some reason. There was probably some food for me there that I was looking forward to gorging myself on. That’s really the most reasonable conclusion. So I stuck my poor little suede boots outside of the protection of the Palacio and nearly gasped as the weight of the water crushed me.
Benjamin Phillips 