This is my second full day in Mexico City. It is going well so far. I hiked around a lot probably between fifteen and eighteen miles in Condesa, Chapultepec and Polanca. Most of what I saw was already familiar, except for the Gandhi monument near the Museum of Anthropology and Parque Lincoln and the avery there. Today I wandered around Coyoacan, taking time to explore the labyrinth maze of streets on both sides of Francisco Soza. The beggars I'm encountering here have me thinking a lot about poverty issues, how we view the economy, and how we have foolishly divorced the economy from the people. Quite simply, no people no economy. Not vice versa. I still think of my father but he seems a bit like a distant memory sometimes, other times not so. It is hard figuring out the best way of remembering a father who never loved me as a son, though I have long loved him as my father. I would have liked to have seen him before he died. I refuse to blame myself though I still want to. I am alone. My only extant family connection is with Lanis and she might be dead within a year or so from cancer and then I will have no one but God and my friends. But this isn't such a horrible thing, rather, this drives me closer to the Lord, and I really see this as a threshold time in my life. I feel that I connect better and more positively with others than ever now, but part of this I owe to my experience at work and my determination to learn to walk faithfully in God's love. there is of course the risk of boredom on this trip or frustration with the way things don't go as planned or with the problems of traffic and people who just don't know how to behave in public, but these things are just as prevalent in Vancouver, though I have to admit that we have better transit etiquette and better drivers. I don't much like eating in restaurants and already I miss cooking and eating my own cooking because I'm a damn good cook if I must say so myself. But come April I will be home in Vancouver and this trip yet another fond and distant memory.
Friday, February 17, 2012, 10:46 PM
| I spent most of the day in Coyoacan, that lovely town in the south of Mexico City. This time I wandered as many streets as possible, not exactly getting lost because I was able to find my way back while exploring narrow cobblestoned alleys flanked by multicoloured colonial homes festooned with bougainvillea and other flowering vines. I stopped in a couple of bookstore cafes where I was reading a Spanish translation of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray. For those of you who don't know this book it is a nineteenth century classic about a young man whose portrait ages while he remains young and untouched by the years until his untimely death. I think I walked about ten miles today, or a bit more. It is interesting, the variety of establishments here. The first place I stopped in is named after Octavio Paz, a famous Mexican author. It is primarily a large bookstore with a security guard at the front entrance. I had to check my bag in a locker and he put red tape on my book so it would be easily identified. Later on Francisco Sosa I stopped in an elegant courtyard cafe. I asked them to seat me as far from the smokers as possible, explaining to him in Spanish that in Canada we are a little bit spoiled when it comes to cigarettes and smoke. I didn't bother to bore him about the many people Ive known and taken care of who have died from lung cancer and I won't mention my late mother here, though it looks like I have anyway. The coffee was great, decaf, and overhead was a spray of magenta bougainvillea with a small yellow warbler darting among the flowers and leaves. When I eventually made it to the Zocalo I stopped inside the magnificent Baroque church. There were several tourists present taking photographs of the windows and architectural details. Behind the church I had dinner, a pasta dish at Cafe Mucca, a small place with painted tables and chairs. I have mentioned it in previous missives, I believe. Then I walked back to the metro station in San Angel, along Francisco Sosa where I stopped in the mansion where Octavio Paz died. It is now a museum with a sprawling interior courtyard that must cover more than an acre, beautifully landscaped with gardens and walkways.
While I was doing this walk it occurred to me that the reason I love to explore unknown streets is that it is therapeutic. I believe that in doing so I am strengthening neurons in my brain and that it is rather like doing a crossword puzzle but more interactive because of the physical act of walking.
I passed more beggars, of course. Indigenous families with small children. Yes, the poor we will always have with us. I am thinking of one of Bill Clinton's more moronic quotes: It's the economy stupid. Well, I have a question that I would like to pose to all of you. Is it possible to conceive of the economy as being the people and not the money they make or spend? I am asking this for a reason. Primarily I think that if we valued one another more as human beings and not as means to an end, perhaps we wouldn't be so worried about money. People matter more than money and I think if we come to realize and believe this more then we could become the beginning of some of the real change that is needed in our world. But knowing most of you as well as I do of course I am preaching to the choir here.
The ride back on the Metro was very slow with lengthy pauses between stations and it became very packed with people. I think that people in Mexico City could learn a bit from us in Vancouver about courtesy on public transit, but I'm sure there are things they could also teach us.
All for now.
| I think I'm going to start being a little more scarce during happy hour at the Red Tree House. I find these people shallow and superficial and I don't think we have a lot in common, values or otherwise. To be expected. I still want to be on the alert for those I can connect with but I also need to respect my own needs for privacy and solitude. Simply put, these people don't know Jesus, they do not have Christian values. To be expected. And as I just wrote to Enrique, they are good people all the same and God loves all. Because God is love. I had a very disturbing dream last night about my father, then one about my brother. I can't remember the details but I was watching someone, my brother but not Rick writing something unkind about him so I rebuked him about it. Then I felt a presence ambush me from behind and realized it was my father smiling and embracing me, but it was frightening and creepy for me and I woke up immediately.
Then when I finally got back to sleep more than an hour later I had a dream about rick and he was telling me that he and I have to start getting over our differences and rise above the threshold of our mutual enmity and try to become friends again.
This is all in God's time of course. Any time he wants to contact me all he has to do is phone or do one really quick Google Search. But forgiveness is the key word here, eh?
Thank you Lord Jesus
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