Back in the...er...saddle

Letters from San Miguel de Allende, Mexico: Anna y Hector, con amor siempre No matter where I am in the world, I'm the first one awake. It is 6:37 a.m. For two hours already, the neighboring rooster has seen fit to announce dawn, albeit the sun isn't even close to up, and everyone else in this house is sleeping. Jet lag weighs on us. I've spent almost 48 hours trying to get here, suspended primarily in that special limbo reserved for airports, for those who have everywhere and nowhere to be. Staring at arrival/departure boards and occasionally a cell phone upon whose face the time keeps auto-updating; sustaining consciousness in four or five hour stretches punctuated by dozing off. I've already finished two novels. Three cups of overpriced, but strong, coffee. A bagel with lox and cream cheese. One questionable poem. Upon finally, finally touching down in Queretaro, Guanajato, Mexico, what one sees is an expanse of grass. That's right: grass. Some common variety: red-seeded little banners waving over the ground. Grass is grass is grass, right? One sees it & is comforted by the fact that it looks, at least a little, like whatever field one's driven by countless times, back home; wherever, of course, home happens to be at that particular juncture in time. I've befriended a girl from the flight in, and we wait awkwardly for the driver holding signs with our full names on it, that we were told would appear to shuttle us the hour and a half from Queretaro to San Miguel. She's meeting her parents: ex-pats, like so many who make up the town's population, with a summer home in San Miguel. Her father is an architect. She wears a blue sundress. Her name is Lauren. The contrast between San Miguel and what we've just driven through to get here is stark; it is, in essence, what one expects people to expect of Mexico's countryside. Little herds of goats, or sheep, or cattle being driven along the road. Dogs and cats meandering-thin, some of them, but most remarkably healthy-looking. Tarps strung up over roof-less shacks advertising all kinds of street food: menudo, chicharrones, tacos of all kinds. Fresh fruit stands everywhere: pineapple, papaya, mango. Cacti poking up from the landscape. Prickly pears. Dust. San Miguel segregates itself along the skyline: colorfully-painted buildings, signs advertising art galleries, shops and music venues. Although I've read a bit about the town, its history and its current affairs, it nonetheless surprises me to see the streets dotted with Americans: women in white pantsuits and straw hats, gold jewelry, big earrings, watches and rings. Once at risk of becoming a dead town, over the years, beat poets, artists and those looking to escape from the U.S. revitalized San Miguel and made it their home: Neal Cassady, Erica Jong, Stirling Dickinson. It is decidedly "touristy", and yet I love it already: so much color, majestic cathedrals dotting the skyline as we descend a (very steep, typically-cobbled, somewhat treacherous) hill, then begin to climb another. My parents' rented casita sits atop yet another hill, accessed by a weird tunnel, which leads up yet another giant hill of a driveway. It's yellow. The door is answered by Teresa (the elderly Mexican woman, who speaks no English, and will cook for us every day that we're here), Sharyn (an ex-pat who pronounces all my tattoos "just lovely even though your mother doesn't like them"), and my mom. Despite having traveled as a family throughout our childhoods, this trip feels different: I've recently announced that Robert and I are engaged. Shockingly, instead of disapproval, I was met with my parents arguing over who first decided that "Robert should marry their daughter". Things feel...cleaner, somehow, between us now. More level. I wish he were here, but this time around, it just didn't work out. Teresa is in the kitchen picking the tender leaves from bunches of cilantro stalks. She rapid-fires something at me in Spanish, but I'm too jet-lagged to manage it. I stand at the table and eat prickly pear cactus fruit. A banana. A strange, slightly-bitter custard apple type thing called a cheremoya-these have recently started cropping up at Fred Meyer and Carrs back home, but as Ive read the seeds are incredibly poisonous, and the skin of the thing very closely resembles that of an alligator, hadn't braved up enough to try one as of yet. It's delicious. A pain to pick the seeds out and suck the fruit from them, but delicious nonetheless. I say hello to my sister and her other half, Hector. My brother is crashed out on one of the guest beds. The maid of honor and bridesmaid are up by the pool, sunning in the 75-degree heat. I decide to power through it and go into the city center with my father to buy wine and candles for outdoor tea lights. The streets are cobbled poorly in places; you must tread carefully, as if perpetually stepping over river rocks. Transportation here comes in outdated forms: 4-wheelers are a vehicle of choice, as are dirtbikes, the public bus, and very, very old Volkswagen Rabbits and Beetles. We pass villas, casitas, groups of kids drinking shave-ice concoctions from plastic baggies, tops tied off and straws inserted, like improvised juice boxes. This is what I've missed: sensory overload, the overwhelming urge to immediately run into each shop and open-air market to smell, taste, and touch whatever wares are inside. Dad buys his wine. Candles are purchased from a funerary store; they're hand-dipped, naturally, but are generally meant for placing on graves or taking to church to light for a loved one. Perhaps it's morbid to use them to decorate a wedding reception. Perhaps it's perfect. As fatigue sets in, so does an inability to articulate any longer. I remember this feeling well-staying up sounds awful, but so does sleeping. The sun sets over San Miguel below us as we all do some catching up. Teresa quietly disappeared hours ago, leaving behind her huge pans of beef carne, sauteed onions, fresh tortillas. A red salsa and green. A huge bowl of fresh guacamole. So we eat. We eat, and the wine flows, and there are stories and histories coming from everyone. It's astonishing to remember that most of us (except Hector) grew up together, alongside one another, and are now all around the big stone table on the veranda, looking out on this city with such a commingling of "American" and "Mexican" and a few things in between. We came to celebrate Anna y Hector-their matrimony, their love and their representation of life across two worlds. I think of Robert: of how we finish each others sentences so often. Of how I knew from the first time I saw him again that I would marry this man; I didn't much know or care whether he would want to marry me. Of what it means to finally find your "travel buddy for life", to face outward on what unfolds for you with all the exuberance of San Miguel's bright orange storefronts, its candy-colored stone walls.