The Unknown North

First of all, thanks to those of you who took the time to read my first blog! Your comments made me feel really good and encouraged to continue with the second posting on this blog. Now that Valentine’s Day is coming up, I would like to wish everyone the happiest day of all even if you’re not seeing someone. In fact, this day is to celebrate love and friendship. So we can also celebrate this day with our lovely friends…
In this blog, I want to share with you one of the most significant times in my life. It’s when I met my Valentine. You know, before that unexpected occasion, I was set to think I would never find someone who would take interest in me. I thought I was going to be one of those people who stay single forever. In my country we call them “cotorros,” and there is one in each family. So, I was determined I would be the cotorro in my family. It wasn’t till i met my Valentine when I understood the phrase, “there is a shoe for every foot.” Thus, I would like to share my experience, told in my very peculiar version:
I’d never been to the north side, always staying in the south. I guess I felt more secure with the known. The unknown seemed scary and obscure; sort of like a wolf’s maw. My friend, who used to be in the south moved to the north. He wasn’t afraid of the unknown. He liked it. He conquered it, and I admired him for that. He found happiness and love, the love of his live. His various attempts to convince me to go to the north finally worked. I decided to go to the unknown despite of my conscientious fear I would not succeed in finding someone in the north. After all, I had not been able to find “my shoe” in the south.
He took me to the north, where there was a whole new world: new people with piercing and dashing looks, with strong and high selfishness, full of themselves not noticing the surroundings or me... people gone through a metamorphosis, involved in two personae who juxtaposed and interacted in one strange-looking character whose world orbited around them: him… her… he/r.
And I, astounded, astonished, surprised, amused, confused…, felt lost, alone, and confided all my feelings of loneliness, surprise, and fears to my soul, who was my silent companion.
I sat next to my happy friend who seemed to be dwelling well around those of the north, the unknown. I sat trying to find a refuge, a secure place where I would dwell with my fear and my loneliness. I sat thinking that was the place in the unknown north where I would stay forgotten, left alone, rejected, neglected, yet safe.
I looked around contemplating those of the north. I thought about the shame of being unnoticed. I thought how those new to the unknown north, like my friend, were able to find a place for themselves: how they ever found love in the unknown.
Then I started wondering if there was some in the north who would notice me there, who were looking for their foot and spot me sitting alone, afraid. I tried to look happy; pretending I was “fine” in the unknown, but my fear and surprise kept reappearing through my eyes.
My friend was gone and his seat empty. Soon a stranger approached. He looked happy and friendly; however, he was from the north. He asked me how I was. He was smiling at me, surprised to see me there. He seemed different from the other people of the north. I could see in his eyes he was ready to bring me into the unknown north. He stared at me, looked into my eyes. I was afraid he would see my fear and my surprise. Instead, he told me I had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.
I felt relieved, content…alive. He was my savior, my companion for the night. He was the known in the unknown. Who would’ve known he was later going to be the love of my life…

Aguascalientes: Passionate and Caring

I want to thank one of my best friends, Jesi for encouraging me to open a blog. !Gracias querida! I just hope I can keep up with this blog because sometimes I don’t feel inspired to write… I guess I just have to do what I do with exercising, pushing myself every day despite the unwillingness and laziness.
Hmmm where to start? Which would be my first blog topic? These are the questions always prevent me from actually take action and post something on a blog. I have so many things to say that always store in my head and then vanish like the smoke someone blows off into the air. I don’t actually smoke; I just happen to know people who do. The smoke that vanishes into the air strangely amuses me: it looks so mysterious. And that’s how my thoughts sometimes vanish, mysteriously.
Anyway, I guess I can start writing about my hometown...
I come from a very traditional and conservative state in central Mexico: Aguascalientes. Aguascalientes is known as the heart of Mexico. And like the heart, it is passionate and caring, warm and loving.It’s friendly and peaceful; it has so much to offer. No wonder I love Aguascalientes; we’re both alike!
Whenever I go back to Aguascalientes and walk down the cobblestone streets and see the old buildings, it makes me feels as though time stands still. Touching the aged walls transports me to the times where cars didn’t exist and languages weren’t mutilated by “texting” abbreviations. The word innocence was still used, and literature was the popular way of showing how much you care about the one you love. People were amused by love stories written in books, and artists were those who painted amazing landscapes, sang at the theater during opera nights, and those who wrote the most amazing stories about love, pride, and prejudice. ☺
Summer times are fun in Aguascalientes. There are a lot of wet and green landscapes where the rain falls leaving the ground smelling like purified life. The mountains are greener, and the sound of the water in the rivers is louder. After it rains, I can go outside the street barefooted and feel the mud squeezing in between my finger toes. I can kneel and let my knees feel the cold and fresh clay. I can touch it and make mud cups and pretend I sell them at five or ten pesos depending of the size of the mug. I can stay outside playing till midnight not worrying about school because I’m on vacation. Play and play till the owl or lechuza with blazing eyes stares at me and my friends telling us it’s time she will become a witch and steal us to then eat us alive. Or La Llorona will come out of the river and kidnap us thinking we’re her lost children drowned in the river. Play and play outside till the thundering and lightening scares us away announcing the rain is coming back…
Fall season is the best in Aguascalientes. The morning breeze freshens the streets and the roses that Doña Cuca has on her front yard and no one, under no circumstances, dares to even smell because she will come out of her house holding a broom as though it were a bat to hit you. The light of the sunrise penetrating through the bedroom window awakens me and tells me Christmas is just around the corner. The smell of the coffee with cinnamon and milk that mom has already set on the table alongside the toasted bread with butter and strawberry jelly splattered all around it gives me strength to dare cut the roses of Doña Cuca on my way to school. And the sound of the bells tolling tells the ladies covered in veils it’s time to run to church and pray for those who steal roses and believe in ghost stories and owls who become witches at midnight.
Christmas is wonderful in Aguascalientes. Nine days before the time arrives, mom takes out the old plastic Christmas tree and the figurines from the nativity set grandma gave me as a birthday gift. My brothers and I go to the river shore to collect rocks and moss the summer rain grew. We bring them home and recreate Bethlehem on a corner of the living room. On Christmas Eve, every single house has a party going on where there are tamales, buñuelos, hot chocolate, and hot punch. There are piñatas and candy bags for the children; nonetheless, they won’t get any if they don’t pray first when the baby Jesus figurine is placed on the crib while old ladies covered in veils chant villancicos, Christmas carols. No one stays homeless in Aguascalientes during Christmas time. If you don’t have a place to stay, come to Doña Cuca’s house, there are tamales to feed an entire army. It’s Christmas in Aguascalientes; she wouldn’t care about the roses you smelled.
So that’s my Aguascalientes. That’s what I always tell about my town. That’s what I lived and still remember about little Aguascalientes. Hardly anyone would describe the heart of Mexico as passionate and with a glint in their eyes as I do… You would tell the same stories if Aguascalientes were the place that witnessed you were born there.