#208 / 2011 June Oaxaca: Friends Visit

PIECE BY PIECE
#208


I was putting myself back together piece by piece. It was so wonderful to hear Gary Brower and Jim Gay confirm they were coming to Oaxaca. I was in a time warp, floating, testing the limits. I was looking for me. I needed to touch base with something  or somebody familiar.


I remember so specifically one day, early on, I was so sad and just started walking. Tears were streaming. I had on sunglasses and a straw hat. An independent tour guide called me out, asked me had we not met earlier at the world's oldest tree. That is one of the iconic places to visit around here. I hadn't been there. 


It was his ploy and I knew it, but I was so full of pain; so I just sat down next to him and let him commence a conversation. Then I blubbered in my Spanish all about my dead boyfriend, tears gushing; it was a Sunday morning.


"Don't worry so much," he said and his eyes diverted. But he had served his purpose. I just unloaded my grief everywhere I went and one everyone I encountered. There were no boundaries. 


So my two Placitas, New Mexico friends arrived on Jim's pyramid picture taking tour. They stayed at The Bougainvillea, a swank hotel downtown with an atrium and air conditioning. I got to join them for one of the elegant breakfast services. We ate in the nice restaurants and tried out the mole.


Gary got a little ill and we made the tour of doctor's offices and pharmacies. It was good to know how easily medical attention could be gained at a reasonable expense. 


Although I must say the young female concierge at The Bougainvillea, who had the Oaxacan father and American mother and traveled back and forth from the US to Oaxaca, could make anything happen. Gary would just go tell her what he wanted and she would get all the information together and do it, book it, whatever was needed. 


They wined me and dined me for four days. I got to experience quite a few things I wouldn't have been able to on my own. When alone I did most of my own cooking, experimenting with local recipes. I must say of all the mole we tasted, I think the mole I got from the market was the best tasting to me. 


I introduced Gary and Jim to Cynthia, following their arrival by taxi to our modest sanctuary. Gary held in hand the newest issue of "Malpais Review" with his tribute section to Beatlick Joe. So I got to share that with Cynthia.


She shared her knowledge of the local artists and writers with Gary. Tere Gomez our landlady came by to visit with Gary and Jim as well. We also went to the Nuevo Babel Café all together on a Sunday night to listen to Juan Gonzales. There they met my  yoga teacher, Laurie Thompson. 


So the two of them left with a good idea of Oaxacan society and some of the ex-patriot artists and writers there. And again, they were there for me during very hard times. It was Gary and Jim who took in Beatlick Joe and me while I was finishing Joe's book.