el crispito

He has been located there to handle the traffic on our small road that has become the detour from a major street nearby while they complete a major construction project. This project is to last for another two years, so what would normally be a quiet little corner in Chapalita Sur is actually a very busy thoroughfare, with loud traffic passing by until very late at night. We hope the drapes also help to cut down the noise we get in our bedroom late at night from the street, because the wall facing Calle Cubilete is a solid wall of windows with a door that opens to one of our two balconies. The guest room/office is the same way, but we're taking it one step at a time.

I am writing this entry from our other balcony, which opens from the dining room area and overlooks Calle La Ermita. La Ermita is the street with all the traffic, and at times, especially late at night, it's like having a box seat at the drag races. When the traffic cop isn't around (after dark), people tear down the street at amazing speeds. Yet right now, at around 3:30 in the afternoon, drivers show a bit more control. A flock of doves that live in the nearby trees is currently perched on the wires running in front of the balcony, watching me intently, as if I were about to do something interesting. They will be disappointed, ultimately. Once Shawn gets out of the shower, I will fold up the laptop and we will head up to our local restaurant that has free wireless Internet access, La Terraza de la Abuela, so that I can post this entry over a steaming Ibarra served in earthenware mugs.

But the balcony, equipped with two plastic porch chairs and a table generously loaned by our gringo friends Joseph and Larry that live just a few blocks away, is the only place other than our bed where we can sit, since we have no other furniture at the moment. On it, I have passed many pleasant hours of the new Mexican life, drinking apple soda and reading Chekhov, watching the doves fly back and forth between the wires and the trees, and following the many maids dressed in their cleaning smocks as they walk to and from the apartments and houses that they maintain. Two nights ago, at about midnight, I was sitting out here and waiting for Shawn to return from a film, and suddenly a quartet of mariachi (strings and voices only) broke into song at the house next to our building. I sat and listened, enraptured by their old Mexican refrains about love and waiting, delighting in the fact that life here is so different, so imbued with an appreciation of art and music that seems to have completely vanished from the daily life of your average Joe in the United States. The musicians crooned on for about 40 minutes, not once getting any complaints from the neighbors for playing at such a late hour. I do not think that I will ever tire of hearing such beautiful music, even after years of living down here; perhaps all the neighbors were just as mesmerized as I was by the sweet music on a clear yet warm winter's night.

The next day we went to lunch at Larry and Joseph's house, where Joseph had prepared an impressive Chinese meal and we met a woman that has lived in Mexico off and on for decades, now relocated to Guadalajara. At one point, there was a riotous squawking of birds and Jospeh commented on how it must be that time of day for the "parrot migration." I laughed, thinking it did sound an awful lot like parrots, and then Larry said that the gang of wild parrots flew over their house every afternoon about that time, in some inter-city migration, taking a brief rest along the way in their trees. I didn't believe it and asked to see them, so he walked me out to the street. Sure enough, we saw a bunch of them climbing around on the branches of trees lining the streets, beautiful bright green parrots that rested for a few minutes before taking off for parts unknown.