Earthly Delights

Tex, Mex



As usual, this post comes a bit late; it should have been written a week ago. I'm afraid that this week has found me tense, angry, and with a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction. It's been a long time since I felt like this. Worse, I really don't know what it is, unless I'm feeling subconsciously guilty about not getting any work done but rebelliously determined not to do it "today". Still, that is not what I'm here to write about. I want to tell you about one of my ghost towns: Texcoco, Mexico, which was revisited last weekend after a semi-long time.

There are two main reasons why that region is special to me.

In the first place, it's the site of many childhood (un)memories. My grandparents used to own a country house in Tepetlaoxtoc, quite close to (or next to?) Texcoco. I remember the way to Tepe, especially the trees. I don't even know what they're called ("pirules" or something like that). Those little red seeds hanging down always intrigued me. I remember a flood. I remember all of us (back then, "all of us" consisted of me, my two sisters, and my cousins Cali and Manuel) sitting on the edge of a brown Ford with the trunk open, our feet hanging out of the car. I remember going to buy tortillas and meat to the town square. I remember having my first nightmare: I opened one of the doors to the bedrooms (a bright blue in my dream) and a tiger jumped out at me. I remember wanting to name a new puppy Snoopy and not being allowed because it was female. I remember chickens, horses (Catrina, Zanahoria), dogs (the Afghans: Oriana, Miel; the German shepherds: Winnie, Osa; the Maltese and Lhasa--their names now lost to history until I ask my mom). I remember a dollhouse my grandfather built. I remember the absolute hugeness of the house and gardens; I remember the rose garden; I remember being read, on a bed huge beyond belief, the story of Tom Thumb when the giant chops off his daughters' heads and being absolutely shocked (this is the moment that, paradoxically, I identify as the moment when my love of reading was born). I don't remember, but I know (see photo), that all our birthday parties took place there. I remember the pool which said Zopi on the bottom, a tribute to Abuela from Abuelo. I remember losing that house forever after it was rented and then sold. (This all happened before I turned 6, which is why it is all so dim and far away). I remember going back ten years later and being disappointed in finding it so small and angry that the new owners had changed it.

In my teen years, Texcoco became, once again, the site of my longing. We visited our friends who lived there two or three times a year--the family of a famous bullfighter. I had my "most terrible" accident there: a horse ran away with my sister and I on its back, and when we jumped off it kicked my ankle, cutting short our volunteer job at the Chapultepec Zoo. BUT, most importantly, it was the home of The Most Beautiful Man I had ever (have ever) seen. I had a passive, unexpressed, Platonic crush on him (based mostly on NOT knowing him at all well but knowing that we understood each other); once I saw two rainbows, one on top of the other, there, and interpreted it as a lucky omen. I remember once being told that I was beautiful and sexy during a long, heartfelt midnight talk in front of the chimney (the memory of that talk sustained me through moments of heartbreak and low self esteem for a long, long time). It was, all in all, a place of dreams. They have long since been reconsidered, but the meaning of the place remains. Texcoco is, one way or the other, the site of a somewhat achy nostalgia associated with old lost loves.

Going back, now that I think about it, was quite a shock. I did not go back to the same place, I did not go with the same people. My grandparents are both dead now. New loves have replaced the old ones. My old friends and my crush are MARRIED and/or living someplace else. But, once more, a loving memory is added to the long list, and, for once, it is a memory in which I am actually LOVED BACK by a man I love. I feel very, very lucky.