here and there

"Novelty excites the brain in precisely the way we want in order to heal and transform our stories."  -- Lisa Wimberger, New Beliefs, New Brain


Come on.  You know you wanna go.  Even if you want to stay, as well.

Spring always sets the mind loose in a crazy spin and spiral.  Unearths the highway virus from its dormant wintered state. Electrifies intuition with the contagious contamination of every place-vibe once touched on earth's green surface. The here and now is finally -- miraculously, after recent events -- beautiful again.  But so, concomitantly, is everywhere else.  Especially Mexico, that years-running infatuation and fascination.

La Capital in the rainy season.  El Ombligo del Universo, in original connection with the Mother.  The ancient Templo Mayor, reexposed after 500 years, drawn up out of Her belly to be seen again by sun and moonlight.  Greenglow of palm and cypress and eucalyptus in the parks.  Afternoon slantlight reflecting off stone.  Street vendors throwing tarps over their colorful squares of sidewalk as sky unfolds in downpour and people dash for cover under the nearest portal.  Thunder joining sky to earth, reaching through the concrete of el Zócalo to reunite what went before with those who now walk the surface.  Danzante drums rescuscitating the city's ancient hearbeat, inciting stone buildings to be its dirty but strong lungs, still offering echo of living breath.  The friendliness of strangers:  young hippie guy I bought a bracelet from on the sidewalk, asking me with a smile, "Do you live here?  Well, do you want to live here?"

Sigh...New Mexico in May.  Cottonwoods' instant illumination of river's presence through the city.  Farmers' markets and music outoors and camping in the mountains.  Staying also has its pull.  Almost-home in the sweet slacker life of Burque.  Almost at home in the routine,  in the simplicity, in the mind, in the skin.  Heart craving just a season or two to learn of continuity.  What it is not to have the earth shaking every time you lift a foot from it. Not to be closing a door in the same motion of opening it.  Ceasing to understand every hello as really a goodbye.  Finding out what it's like to live in the same house and work the same job for more than a year.  To find roots -- yes, angry leftist voices, even comfort! -- in the security of a network of friends, a little economic stability, a little sweet give and take and share.  Only took me 13 years to decide to live in this place.  Why give it up just when it's working?

Because there's more.  Life always drawing toward more.  Knowing the way change can flow into strength. The coincidence of much-needed physical healing with Lisa Wimberger's excellent book on regenerating the mind urged:  reach out.  Don't keep sheltering within.  Just barely do I open the door and peer out, and there it is:  river still in flow.  Full now to its banks, with the waters of winter's thaw.  This season the current invites me to the very thing I asked for last year:  to go back to Mexico, but not as a tourist.  As, just possibly, a useful member of the community.  Which community, yet to be seen. But the starting point will once again be the center:  Mexico City, in July, for a month-long intensive course that will certify me to teach English as a Second Language, somewhere in the country.  That will offer job placement assistance, and a whole new network to weave into.  That will push me toward another much-needed step:  career change.  And that will most certainly offer the kind of challenges that keep mind and body strong, primed for longevity and resilience.  Those are the essential currents to follow right now, toward this story that wants to heal and transform.  Mine, and however my story connects with the world's healing and transforming.