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December 14, 2009
Last year, on el crispito...
Back in Mexico, the past year feels like a book I read and really got into. Characters were introduced, took shape slowly day by day like page after page in my mind. Events were scheduled, anticipated and passed, all year long winding together a framework for the story about the year I spent outside my life, back in my past, in an alternate universe that split off from the rails of my present course way back before I could have ever conceived of leaving the country. It was if I got a peek into what would have been if I had not decided to do something else, to not follow what I believed to be right. It was like The Last Temptation of Chris.
I got to explore what it would be like to live day to day in another reality that was not mine, just by being plunked down in the middle of it. I did things I had never done and learned whatever happened to people that had long since vanished from my memory. I found out things I should have known before but did not. I lived moments I could have never imagined that I will forever remember. I set into motion a thousand little events that will have consequences long after my departure.
Back home, I am now learning about the life Shawn lived here alone, the friends he made, the stories they have. Three sets of neighbors cycled in our apartment building during my absence, and the little boy that mows the lawn and trims the trees with his father grew a moustache and nearly a foot taller. Our neighborhood left its parent chain but retained most of their menu. The federal government allowed personal use quantities of all recreational drugs without penalty and a group of lawmakers in Mexico City proposed legislation to permit same-sex marriage. Charles' older daughter came to study at university but left to go back to Baja California Norte, and his younger daughter with Carmen started to talk. Larry and Joseph moved, again, and the city got another new bus line that everyone hates, again.
The gulf separating the two different timelines is impossible to merge, like trying to knit back together landmasses rent by continental drift. I do not bridge the gap. I did not have one foot in one place and another in the other. I was simply gone, living another life somewhere else for a year. Now I am back in Mexico, and my life has returned again to being so different from what I grew up with. It feels so good to be home where things are so unfamiliar. Sure, many of the wonderful things I remember about Guadalajara remain, like the fragrant, flowering trees that bloom at night, the music everywhere, the tacos…oh, the tacos! Still, my favorite thing of all is that feeling of not knowing what comes next. It could be anything. I just get to kick back and relax in this lush paradise and wait for it. I just know that something good is going to happen.
Posted by crispy at December 14, 2009 05:34 PM
Comments
"... and learned whatever happened to people that had long since vanished from my memory."
Thanks, jackweed!
"Still, my favorite thing of all is that feeling of not knowing what comes next."
People in Allney only think they know what comes next.
"I just know that something good is going to happen."
Nooooo! Always expect utter horror! That way you'll likely be pleasantly surprised instead of disappointed.
Thus sayeth TOG, That One Guy.
Posted by: Mark Allen at December 15, 2009 06:30 AM