First Day in Mexico City

Monday, January 7, 2008, 2:42 PM
Casa Gonzalez, Mexico City

First Day Musings

My first day in Mexico City – which will be my home for the next few months. I am sitting on my room’s broad clean-tiled upstairs terrace, shaded from the bright cheery-blue sky by an umbrella-covered, round, glass-and-cast iron table with those heavy iron garden chairs that are usually so hard to move around. Mine slides smoothly over the shiny amber tiles, however, on its soft rubber pads. I’m accompanied by many happy potted geraniums and bougainvilleas, large and small, and all is enclosed by a low, massive, turn of the century balustrade of grey limestone. Or is it cement? No matter! The terrace overlooks the lush, green inner garden of Casa Gonzalez. Orange trees, soft Irish-green lawn, Kayla Lilies, Poinsettias, sundry ferns and fronds, lazy butterflies, twittery little birds…
Over neighboring rooftops peep a few of the glittery glass towers of the Zona Rosa. The sky is host to occasional mass flappings of domesticated pigeons and a lonely bunch of ponderous white snail-clouds going somewhere else. Behind, and all around this tranquil haven, the thick, dense, low grumble of the City is ever-present.
A moment ago, just as I was remembering to begin the first round of a seven-day meditation cycle to release the old year and welcome the new – Thank you, dear Lea! – suddenly with the teeniest faint buzz, a little glimmery-green hummingbird appeared right next to me for a drink of nectar from the pink bougainvillea in the great pot nearest my table. Now that’s a blessing, we know! Thanks little fellah, angelito plumado! I know many flying or crawling spirits will grace my next few months here bringing subtle whispered messages from Beyond. That’s what Mexico’s like.
I arrived very late last night from Miami. Thank God for Miami. Thank you Julie and Jerry for so delightfully snipping that somewhat redundant umbilical cord. Because my departure from New York was no easy matter! visited as it was, by three wicked sisters of tribulation to send me off in a right tizzy! Let me tell you…
First, it took many hours – well into my last white night of packing and sitting up with Tina and Brandon, to realize that I had LOST my little carry bag!! (yes, with wallet, credit cards, vitals) possibly at the E.U. restaurant around the corner after a delicious farewell dinner with Miss BKNY. - or was it in a taxi, earlier…? What a restful last night’s sleep I got until 11 the next morning when it was finally found at the very restaurant where I’d abandoned it without as much as a cursory backward glance! Ouff!
Second, not devastating but truly tedious was the 45 minutes of haggling, re-packing, and threats of $100 excess baggage charge it took to get my cumbersome 6-months worth of “stuff” onto American Airlines Flight 1709. Whew! a sigh of relief you might expect. But no! – the best for last…
Moments later, at the security check, as I’m putting my belt and shoes back on, and an officer is cautiously emptying out my carry on backpack, baffled by images of all the video equipment and cables no doubt, I look up just in time to see his overworked young colleague pick up one of those grey plastic bins off the roller as if it’s empty. But no, it’s not empty. It has my laptop in it! My cherished darling sleek new Mac Book Pro. My most essential work tool for the next 6 months. Possibly the most expensive item I own! Yes indeed, there before my very astonished eyes, she dropped my computer BANG! right on its corner onto the cruel hard cement airport floor at my feet. Let me not upset myself further by continuing the story (for of course it had just begun! and will no doubt drag on for months!) Anyway, dented side ports and all, it did turn on – though with the most unsettling grinding groan of cyber pain – and here I am using it quite successfully right now. Please send prayers of virtual healing to keep it happy and well!!
So all the more blessings to the delicious following Sunday in Miami with dear Julie and Jerry for so successfully evaporating all trace of the dire and deadly grip of those three wicked sisters of distress, agents, I know, of Sri Ganpati’s playful mischief – placer and remover of obstacles!
And now, is the great metropolis calling? It’s mid-afternoon, warm and heavy but for an occasional swish of gossamer breeze. Shall I take off to make a new friend at the Museo Tamayo? or stroll down grand old Avenida Reforma to soak in the City’s fumes? stop at the corner café for a long-overdue breakfast/lunch? or withdraw coyly to my shady room for a little afternoon siesta? Let’s see….