San Pancho Vida

Fine Friendship and Fond Farewells

I saw a good little movie the other night with Carol and Canela. It’s called The New Best Marigold Hotel. Have you seen it? Most of it takes place in India at an eccentric and ramshackle tourist hotel which especially welcomes people in their third age. It’s about change and risk and not growing old.

It had some good lines in it, mostly from the young man whose dream it was to resurrect the hotel into the glorious haven it had never really been. One of my favorites was this one: 

Everything always turns out right in the end, and if it’s not right, it means it’s not yet over. 

I like that. It has truth in it. It resonated with us women for many reasons, as it may for you. It was made more poignant for me because we are in a time here of goodbyes.

Most of the American friends here are scattering -- for four or six or even eight months -- as people return to their northern homes for the summer, or set off on other adventures that will take them away from their San Pancho homes. It’s part of the ex-pat and the dual-country life to experience this time of sweet and sad farewells. This is a very small town, and people get close.  

I’ve been a resident long enough to have been both stayer and leaver, but it’s never easy. The friends who are in our lives on a daily basis, experiencing together the highs and lows, the challenges and the magic, become part of the fabric of our days. Separation, I think, summons forth all the emotions: the care, the appreciation of shared times and shared stories, the joy of those golden moments that bloom among friends. The love of those friends. 

In the car today on the way to Vallarta, Carol and I were talking about these things. She observed that the phrase “golden years” is an apt one with more meaning than we usually credit it. In these years when many of our more mundane responsibilities are over or ending, we have the freedom and opportunity to explore life more deeply.

The friendships we find in which we can share our wonderings and ponderings, in which we can discuss the myriad learnings of life, are golden treasures. She and I agreed that these inner explorations shared are perhaps the best reward of being this age. We agreed that relationships that honor growth -- past, current, and future -- are the relationships we seek and cherish when found.

Another part of separation points to continuity: some of us will see each other during this time apart, some will continue friendships through calls and emails and Facebook, some will wait until reunion to reconnect. Whichever happens, the vein of gold has been tapped, and reunion promises a true re-uniting.

It occurred to me a week or so ago that this summer is my first one in thirty years without real responsibility. So I decided to go to Italy. I’ve never been. I want to see the cypress trees and rolling hills of Tuscany. I want to learn the stark and complex island of Sicily, from which my grandparents journeyed by ship in 1901, and visit the ancient temple sites of Demeter and Aphrodite. I want to take myself as I am now to a place that is both old and new to me.

I’ll take you along, of course. My weekly or bi-weekly writing has become a joy to me over the three-plus years I’ve been at it. Storytelling is one of the things I love to do. I’ll have stories.

This is also the first year since I began Casa de Luz de Luna that I’ll be away from San Pancho for the whole summer, traveling to the Pacific Northwest for a while and then to Italy. I'll be here until June, longer than many. I’m leaving the house in good hands. I’ll miss the summer storms. I’ll miss the friends who are staying, and the ones who are not.

But it will all be right in the end, and, my guess is, even in the middle.

Thoughts While Spattered with Paint

San Pancho is all a-bustle preparing for the upcoming 5th annual fundraiser for entreamigos, our thriving community center which is the heart of the pueblo. 

I spent yesterday afternoon working in my studio with 7-year-old Angy, who gleefully painted hearts and suns and the ocean and a moonlit sky on one of the pieces we will submit for the auction. She and I share a certain exuberance, emerging from the studio smiling and paint-spattered. "Art is my life," she says solemnly. Yeah, I get it, chica, I reply as we climb the stairs to meet her mama. 

This morning, I was joined in the studio by 10-year-old Antu, a miracle of a child with eyes and sensitivities as deep as the sea. We collaborated on another piece, a little desk built by Jack and Rick, two American friends and residents who volunteer their skills at entreamigos.

Other volunteers are working daily at the giant conglomeration of activity that is entreamigos: doing art with the children, building sets and displays, creating the stuff and infrastructure of the fundraiser. There has been much conversation this past few weeks about the organization--its present and future, its potential, its capacity for involvement.

One of the phrases that keeps popping up in these dialogues is "personal relevance". Here, where a vital portion of the community is comprised of retired and semi-retired ex-pats, we discuss in tender moments the meaning of life in our "third age", as this time of life is called in Mexico. We're finished, or nearly so, with the jobs that defined us for forty years. Now, with children grown, our second-age jobs accomplished, what's next? 

How do we re-define ourselves in our sixties and beyond?

Here's my confession: after forty years of involvement in general political and social issues, I've had it. I've lost my belief that work on the grand scale makes any real difference at all in the long run. I've come to believe that, rather than trying to change the world on a macrocosmic level, the best use of our energies and talents and skills is by finding our own microcosms.

Yesterday afternoon and this morning, I worked inside my chosen microcosm, a world in which I can exercise my own personal passions, a place of giving what I can and receiving so much in return. Watching the creative energy and talent of these children, playing with them with our paints and colors, is one joy. Another is witnessing their burgeoning self-esteem as they think for themselves and complete a piece they can be proud of. A third will be delivering these pieces to help raise funds for a place in which I believe.

Each person who volunteers for entreamigos creates his own microcosm. Each person takes on what he or she finds the most compelling.

The opportunity exists to use one's hard-learned skills, to share one's innate talents...or to set afire a long-smouldering passion.

For some, it is construction. For others, computer work. Or organizing the library. Or tutoring the local school children in a particular subject. Teaching an English class, taking a Spanish class. Or sitting on the floor helping with a jigsaw puzzle. It doesn't matter what one chooses as a focus or how much time one has to give: each contribution, large or small, contributes to the whole.

The founder and director of entreamigos, Nicole Swedlow, has a microcosm larger than most. Anyone privileged to watch her administer the countless offerings of the expansive vision she has brought to life is boggled by the size of the job she has taken on. Yet it is the job she has chosen.

In my vision, all these microcosms, small, medium, and large, mesh together. In cellular fashion, change happens. The world becomes a better place. And we, as individuals, discover a path to true relevance.

I've learned in the past few weeks that there may be other small missions to add to my microcosm. Perhaps it will expand a bit, as, at times during my life in San Pancho, it has by necessity contracted for a while. I guess these microcosms breathe like cells, too.

And as they breathe, so do we. Here--surrounded by friends of many ages from several countries, working and playing side-by-side, inspiring and being inspired--we can breathe the breath of a life daily redefined and treasured. Wherever you are, I trust you are discovering a way to do the same.

It can't be a coincidence that the theme of this year's entreamigos benefit event is Gracias a la Vida. Take a look: entreamigos 

And if you're nearby, or plan to be, I hope you'll stop in for a visit. Who knows where the path into the lively collaboration that is entreamigos will lead you?

 

Thank You Note

My mother always taught me, as I'm sure yours did you, that we're supposed to send thank you notes after receiving a gift.

So here's mine for today, having been reminded by Jeremy a few days ago that this month is my two-year anniversary of writing this blog.

First, thanks for reminding me, Jeremy.

Second, and this one's to you: thanks for the gift of your encouragement, your comments on the blog and face-to-face, your emails, your friendship and your unflagging support and persistence in following these Friday scribbles.

Persistence is a trait I don't often assign to myself. Looking over my life, I can see that I've had it in necessary practical matters, but it still seems alien somehow. When it comes to creative endeavors, I usually think of myself as a flibbertigibbet, a hummingbird that samples every flower and seldom lands. 

With your help, I've learned that I can stay with something I like to do, even if it seems less than prudent, very impractical, and sort of goofy. Thanks for that.

Strangely, all the best things in my life right now have those same ingredients. Nothing I'm doing can be described as prudent. Most things I'm doing are certainly impractical. More and more, I am attracted to and delighted by the goofy. 

It's been both a release and a relief to move away from practical and prudent into goofy. I feel like I've been waiting for this time of my life to do just that. I admit I am tickled to discover that I have the capacity just to play. I often celebrate this new state of being, and thanks to you, I have a weekly reminder in case I am tempted to forget. Because writing this blog is really fun for me.

So I will persist with San Pancho Vida.

That said, I will ask your permission right now to skip some weeks in this third year. I plan to be very busy being goofy. I have some serious playing to do.

And seriously, while I'm playing...I just might play hooky.

Anything More Than Freedom

I've had many occasions in the past years to appreciate the flourishing of the Internet, more so now that I live out in the boondocks where it is resource library, world access, personal communication conduit, and my means to tell stories. I am grateful and aware of its value daily.

How wonderful it is to be able to write and publish these posts every week with no one looking over my shoulder, with no one warning me I can't say this or that, with no one telling me the advertisers or the editor or the government won't approve.

And how amazing it is to push a few buttons and be able to research any topic that comes to mind! I just took a peek at my recent browser history and found searches for shrimp recipes, metric conversion, gardenia culture, Spanish translation, Rocky and Bullwinkle, HDMI cables, weather forecasts, medicinal uses of coconut oil, the Hula Bowl, and how to hack into a new DVD player. To me, that's heaven.

On Wednesday, January 18th, I clicked on a link sent by a friend, a Wikipedia article about dance cards, which we are learning about for an upcoming entreamigos fundraiser. Did you try to access Wikipedia, Mozilla, Wired, or Wordpress on Wednesday? If you did, you were a witness to history. On Wikipedia, for example, a dark screen appeared with a short message on it explaining that they and many other sites across the Internet were blacked out for twenty-four hours in protest of two bills being considered by the United States Congress.  

Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge, it said.

I went exploring to find out what this was all about. The bills are Sopa and Pipa: the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act. I did my research. Obviously, there are serious problems with piracy sites and sites that do not honor copyright law. Something should be done, possibly.

That said, I agree with the conclusion of millions of others. As with so very many Congressional bills, these acts appear to be badly written, too vague, too long, too punitive to the wrong parties. They are overreaching and unrealistic attempts that have the real potential to stifle creative development and expression. They threaten the dynamic organism that is the worldwide web.

Over 75,000 websites joined the blackout protest on January 18th.

The Internet is free speech. It must be protected from financial manipulation and governmental control. It's being stifled already in China and Iran because it is too effective a way to innovate, communicate, and criticize. Anything that is done toward the purpose of protecting intellectual property rights on the Internet must be accomplished very carefully and very thoughtfully. Otherwise, it's flat-out censorship. 

I encourage you to look into this yourself if you're interested. Countless articles have been written on both sides of the issue. I'm including a link to the BBC coverage, and any browser search of Sopa and Pipa will lead you to others.

To me, this is important stuff.

BBC Article on Sopa and Pipa

Images of the Website Blackout

More Info and How to Participate

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.   W. Somerset Maugham

A Remedy for Irregularity?

I sat beside Nicole of Panchito’s the other night as she did her Spanish homework at a corner table. She was all bundled up, her sweatshirt hood snugged tight around her ears. She had the sniffles and felt like she was coming down with a cold, which didn’t make doing homework any easier. In truth, she looked fairly unhappy.

“What are you studying?” I asked.

She pushed her workbook over to show me. I put on my glasses and groaned to discover that she was toiling over pronouns and irregular verbs. 

In my own Spanish class, which theoretically is a few levels more advanced than Nicole’s, we are toiling over pronouns and irregular verbs.

Some things just never end.

The next day, when she came to my house to pick up some grapefruit seed extract and hyper Vitamin C capsules, Nicole and I continued commiserating over our mutual state of consternation regarding the learning of this new language. “It’s all backwards,” she pointed out, accurately. “How am I ever going to remember ‘he for me it signed’?”

“Aaargh,” I replied helpfully.

And what about these verbs? How is it possible, I wondered, that the very most common verbs in Spanish are conjugated entirely differently from any other verb? How did this happen, and who was responsible? As my friend Connie always says in her inimitable Texas accent, they oughta be taken out behind the barn and shot. I suppose it was really just the evolution of the language, but whatever it was, it's a total pain for those of us trying to learn it.

When Nicole left, I grudgingly extracted a book from the bookcase, the exact same workbook she is using right now to do her study. I opened it. I discovered the page we’d been looking at the night before. There were the exact same exercises, all filled out. I looked carefully: yes, that’s definitely my handwriting. Rats. I was supposed to have learned that back then, wasn’t I? How is it that I have been out there hearing and speaking Spanish for years now and I still don’t really know this stuff?

I flipped a few pages to “Preterite Irregular Verbs”. Yup, I’d done those exercises, too: this page, this page, this page...oops. Suddenly the workbook pages are blank, bereft of anyone’s handwriting at all, especially mine.

Oh. Well, shoot. Maybe that explains it, huh?

I’ve had some conversations recently with Lidia regarding the English speakers here in the community and why some people learn Spanish and others don’t. She doesn’t understand it. Why would people who have chosen to live in Mexico not try to learn the language? “Son flojos o qué?” she asks. Are they lazy or what? (Lidia can be opinionated. That’s why I love her.)

I usually shrug. I don’t know what to say. I know there are a lot of excuses: too busy, too old, too embarrassed, the language too difficult. But I understand Lidia’s puzzlement. She sees it as a gesture of respect to the people and the culture when we extranjeros attempt to communicate in the local language. Lidia and most Mexicans I’ve met are patient, helpful, and encouraging when faced with Americans and Canadians who are at least trying to speak Spanish. Poco a poco, they say--little by little. And they are invariably complimentary and enthusiastic as we improve our vocabulary and skills.

For me, to choose not to speak Spanish is inconceivable, as I am a talker and I love good conversation above nearly all else. Not to attempt to improve my skills is equally inconceivable, as language is the bridge to friendship, to learning about individuals and their cultural context. My classmates at entreamigos agreed immediately that our quest to learn more and better Spanish was in order to be able to converse more profoundly, to discuss ideas and feelings that we could not reach with our previous knowledge. To connect. 

The blockades that arise (the placement of pronouns, the frigging irregular verbs, etc.) are part of the deal. No pain, no gain. True here as always. Yeah, it hurts to memorize. Just like it hurts to exercise. But I notice my brain getting stronger, my memory better, my recall quicker through this work. Best of all, I am beginning to have conversations that I couldn’t have had two years, a year, even a month ago.

That’s what I told Nicole, and also how we laugh in our Spanish class at the real fun there is in the learning, the new understanding of puns and wordplay, the appreciation that we’re all in it together, shaking our heads at what we don’t know and applauding each other’s little victories.

It’s worth it. 

So I’m going to open that blasted book and finish those exercises I abandoned during construction or whenever, and get back to work memorizing those miserable verbs, which of course are the very ones I need every day in nearly every conversation. Rats. 

Wish me luck.

 

 

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