Mexico, Then & Now

“Mexico, Then and Now”

Confined to my parents’ periphery and by my own attachment to them, we were always in each other’s radar.  Since I was never free to physically roam about without their knowing, I was persistently meandering through the open passageways of my imagination.  I was five years old and every moment was filled with opportunity.  A fork was most often a character with spiky hair.  An eraser could talk to a safety pin.  When no small objects were near, my own hands would possess personalities more intricate and dramatic than those I saw in real people around me.  Chewing gum could be wrapped around the tips of my fingers to create the most lavish hair styles.  My middle fingers were always tall, proud fathers, my thumbs were clumsy sons, and my pinkies were always cute, innocent little girls.  Adult-talk was nonsense.  Small corners posed the chance for a theatrical scene between me and some imaginary antagonist. 

Even when I was trapped for days in a space just big enough for a few inches of wiggle room, I found adventure, tragedy, and excitement. 

My brother Lucas and I sat facing each other, as we had been doing for the past two and a half days.  Beads of sweat sat on our upper lips and noses.  We were halfway through Arizona and we had just discovered a way to stretch our legs out in front of us.  We would just have to deal with the fact that they were touching a little.  Our moods determined just how tolerable this touching would be.  Every once in a while, my mom would turn around from the passenger seat and spray our red faces with lukewarm water.
        Behind me I could watch endlessly unwelcoming, flat, brown land and a constant flow of telephone poles and cars going in the opposite direction.  I was five.  My brother was seven.  We were on our way to Mexico.  It would be years before I would discover the expediency of flying.  But I was in no hurry then.  Every time the sun rose again was another chance to play, be loved, imagine, live.  Some nights, we would stop to sleep in hotels.  Other nights, we would just keep driving till the following sunrise.
        One night, we pitched a tent on some long, slippery pine needles by a lake in Texas.  As the sun set, Lucas and I splashed each other and giggled, ignorant of the fact that our silhouettes were being captured beautifully by my dad’s skilled eyes onto a roll of color film.  
        The next day, we were in Mexico.  From Texas to the land south of Reynosa, the countryside did not change much.  Everything else did.  There were stray dogs sleeping on hot dirt, houses made out of boards and tin, beautiful brown people.  We could stop in any little town and get mango juice, fried chicken, fresh pineapples.  I watched it all from my window, my mermaid doll and my imaginary friends staring with me, making small silent conversation.  
        One day, we stopped by a stream to bathe.  As was seen as practical in our family, we all took our clothes off and began getting clean.  Later, I would show pictures of this day to my first grade friends and be humiliated at their laughter.  For years after that, those pages in the photo album would be covered with white paper, my family’s nudity hidden from the world until I was old enough to see my five-year-old self as a mere child of my past, full of forgotten games and premature ideas.

But this five-year-old deserves to be taken seriously.  After all, she is what I yearn for when her young adult counterpart is overwhelmed with the twinge of ever-more mysterious questions and disappointing answers. 

Five years later, I had started to notice that something was changing.  I was seeing trees as plants, instead of scenery I could use to make up my imaginary world of adventure.  I began to understand what people meant when they used the phrase “I’m bored.”  It scared me, and I tried to ignore it in hopes that it would go away.  I would play with my dolls when, in mid sentence, I would become uninterested.  The feeling was shocking and unfamiliar.  I would create an earthquake and make all of my dolls die so that I could have an excuse to end the game. 

It was around that time when I came across a poem.  It ended with these words:

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed. 

            An adult wrote those words.  Billy Collins.  How did he know exactly how I felt?  It was worse than a stomachache.  I had learned by that time that those went away.  They left no trace after they were gone, except maybe hunger.  As weeks went by, I felt the slippery road become a slope and I was sliding, about to lose balance, give up, fall, bleed. 

            Then, I did, and after a while, I forgot that I had ever spoken to trees.  I forgot how to talk to things that were not real and I had sent my imaginary friends to Africa.  They had always been obedient and this was no exception.  They simply disappeared.  Around the same time, I stopped wetting the bed and having nightmares.  Since my life was no longer a story, I began writing a book.  I was twelve when I stopped writing it, mid sentence on handwritten page 162. 

Then, I began wearing make-up and straightening my hair. 

At the age of fifteen, my family and I went to Mexico again.  We had returned about seven times since I was five, and the novelty of the place had worn off.  It seemed as though everything had worn off.  In general, was grumpy, insecure, conscious of my hair, my clothes, my scattered pimples.  For the fun and thrill of it, I occasionally gave in to the stares of boys, creating a new presence of tension and curiosity.  In these moments, everything seemed muffled.  From a bus or taxi, I could hold their gaze for seconds at a time.  While passing on the street, I could only afford a glance, but I could see out of the corner of my eye that they continued to watch me.  The attention was new, or at least my noticing and manipulating it was new.  My skin was different.  My hair was rubia, my eyes claros.  I was tall, old enough to look like a young lady, but not old enough to be addressed formally, even by people we did not know. 

The last time I was there, the excitement I had once felt at the attention of boys and men became uncomfortable, and even disgusting.  I would notice them looking, and either look back in contempt or sigh and move on.  Once, my temper rose along with my middle finger when a man made a kissy face at me behind his girlfriend’s back as he hugged her. 

I remembered walking the same streets as a nine-year-old, wearing a cape made out of a curtain, a crown made out of a cereal box, and pulling my mermaid doll around on a little tray attached to a string.  I do not remember noticing anyone’s eyes any more than I noticed the hair on their arms.  The cobbled streets used to present exciting obstacles.  The dark stones are lava!  Now, I am cautious because falling would cause humiliation. 

I remember it vividly because it is a beautiful, lost part of my past.  Then, I was wedged and held still by ever-present physical and emotional dependence on adults.  Now, I am free from that dependence, but locked out of the freedom my mind used to enjoy.  I think more rigidly.  I notice when people are looking at me.  I learn patterns of communication and am given no leeway.  If I stray from the paradigm, I am judged.  Aware of these judgments and expectations, I am wary of the type of exploration I used to take for granted.