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.