Mexico.

It's been a surreal 48 hours. These mountains here in Monterrey are omniscient. They are the shoulders of this city; beautiful, elegant shoulder blades cradling a strong backbone. They hushed me -- in a good, words-are-unnecessary sort of way.

Anyway, let me backtrack and explain how I got here.

After you get through the traffic of San Antonio, you very quickly find yourself in lonely, arid country. There is the occasional town or exit, but not much else. I was cruising along quite happily -- singing along to the music turned way up -- but all of a sudden, the weather turned sour, and I rolled up my windows. That's when I started looking, for real -- and the further south I got, the eerier I felt. I passed an immigration check point, and this cold, hard steely feeling crept into the air, and it made me shiver. It was really strange -- I started to get a bit scared. The seedy, cruel, inhumane side of America -- one you don't see often, even in rough neighborhoods, because this side is the side of unyielding authority -- was coming into view. It's the shoot to kill, don't see your targets as people mentality. It terrified me.

Driving into Laredo from this context wasn't exactly the best introduction to the town, as I'm sure it colored my impressions, but it did feel pretty shady nonetheless. The city appears like a ghost out of nowhere; all of a sudden there are 5 highways and bridges weaving over and under the main drag. You come around a corner, and looming in front of you is a huge, light-house sized American flag, waving almost straight back. Normally, I would consider it like the statue of Liberty, a beacon of hope, but from the mindset I was in it seemed more like a colonial, imperial symbol, a manifestation of "the steel resolve of American power." And then you round another bend in the road and see not much further off in the distance a similarly large Mexican flag, also waving perfectly, and all of a sudden the whole thing seemed absurd. (See Eddie Izzard, "No flag, no country! These are the rules... that I've just made up.") I zoomed out and saw the world from a world-map-view, like I was playing the game "Civilization", and the flags just seemed like posturing. I found out after the fact that Mexico's flag was there first, and it wasn't until a few years later that the Americans constructed one -- albeit 5 or 10 feet higher. I was tickled to hear this, and wholly unsurprised to learn that the US built theirs second. Typical.

I spent a night in Laredo (didn't leave my hotel) and crossed the border the next morning. I picked up a bus from Nuevo Laredo and got to Monterrey in about 3 hours. I'm sure if I had I been the one driving, it would have been a two hour trip, but. It was an interesting drive -- Nuevo Laredo is really an awful introduction to Mexico. The land was flat and sparse, but the further south we drove the mountains began to appear. I love being drawn into mountains this way. It's like a long slow seduction. The kept building up layers and layers, and more cacti began to appear (my first for the trip!) and then you are driving through the low passes and there is more vegetation... anyway.

Saturday afternoon was spent eating delicious "fancy tacos" and driving around the city. I had the pleasure of being hosted and shown around by a good old friend who I hadn't seen in what seemed like years -- and his wonderful parents. We started out with the view of the whole city from his friend's apartment balcony (what a breathtaking view, I long for a place like that.) Pictures of that view are posted on the pictures site. It's a great way to get oriented, and I'm glad we started there first. From there we proceeded to the mountains slightly west of the city, and drove up into them for a bit -- the striations in the rock are so visually fascinating, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. And the mountains... seemed to bring out a rush of memories, a rush of blood to the head if you will, and silenced me all at the same time. It made for a few awkward moments, when I would get lost in my head and lose track of what was going on around me, but. There is something so grounding about them; you can just wander and get lost, but then you look up towards them, and they murmur, "let it be."

We drove back to my friend's house and picked up his dad, proceeding to the home and studio of a well-known local artist who also teaches painting. He showed us his work -- he had some very haunting, moving paintings, in a style that fluctuated quite dramatically between realistic representation and abstraction -- and then we sat in his garden, in the back of his studio, discussing art, the art world, and what not. I had asked him a question about the style of his work while he was showing it to us, and he launched into his motivations, his stylistic references, what he is intrigued by -- and my friend, who had been previously translating the back-and-forth, stopped, realizing that I understood exactly what the artist was saying. It's funny how art is somehow a universal language. I couldn't necessarily respond in Spanish -- my brain kept turning towards French, Italian, Arabic -- but I understood everything he was saying. I really need to learn that language; it is beautiful to hear, quite lyrical -- and if only to be able to read Neruda in his native tongue!

After a wonderful time at his studio, we wandered around the artsy district and stopped off at a cafe for some coffee before returning home to get ready for dinner. Alonso's parents were celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary, and they had postponed the celebratory dinner until Saturday so that they could include me -- it was incredibly generous. And what a meal.. haute Mexican cuisine... the most memorable bit of which was sauteed cactus layered with a local cheese. Mmm. After dinner, Zo and I went out to a local rock music club and sat around talking about music, life -- mostly music, though, as that is our mutual shared passion. It was a great day.

Sunday, of course, was game day -- but Zo was gracious enough to take me to marco, the fabulous contemporary art museum in Monterrey, before the game started. I was out of it most of Sunday, which didn't help things. After the game, we drove around town some more, near the technical university and then east towards Santiago. What a memorable little town...

As I was nervous about getting back to Nuevo Laredo and crossing the border at dark, Alonso's parents graciously allowed me to spend an extra night, which also meant that I had the chance to accompany them to their weekly Sunday night extended family dinner. Wow. It was unfortunate that I was so out of it, but it was so enlightening to witness, as it really gave me a true sense and context for my friend -- I feel that I have a much better sense of who he is now, for which I am glad. His grandparents are wonderful -- his grandfather is eminently charming and a gentleman, he reminds me of my own Granddad, actually -- and his grandmother is hilarious, as well as an accomplished artist. His aunt and uncle, although I didn't get much of a chance to talk to them, seem lovely, and his cousins are great, one very gregarious, the other quiet but kind. They kept forgetting to speak in English, which made it a bit awkward for me, because I sort of knew what they were talking about but couldn't respond, and I was so tired that I struggled to keep up, at best. But it was great of them to include me.

I left the next morning still with many things that I wanted to say to my friend, observations to make, topics to discuss (beside AMLO's wreaking havoc and being incredibly irresponsible) but hadn't because I had been so consumed by the experience of being in Mexico; in retrospect, I should have tried harder to snap out of it on Sunday afternoon and spoken up. But, I guess there are letters for that. So, I walked back across the border, still slightly overwhelmed by everything I had just experienced, and slightly dissatisfied with myself that I hadn't spoken my piece, but in general quite happy. I answered the few questions the border folks asked me, took a cab to my hotel, got in the car and headed North.

Had I more time, I would have loved to venture down south and watch the political drama unfold... maybe I will write more about this later..

I can't wait to go back to Mexico, hopefully soon -- and hopefully with a better grasp of Spanish.

Posted: Monday - July 10, 2006 at 12:54 AM |