Catrina is the skeletal feminine figure that presides over Dia de los Muertos, and this young woman was getting into the spirit of the holiday. She is not, as several people observed, all that "skeletal" herself, but she's got the traditional hand-on-the-hip Catrina pose down pat.

The official observation is on November 2. It falls on Monday this year, and we will be celebrating with neighbors and friends at the formal opening of Xaltemba Restaurant and Gallery. But last night Larry and I, and houseguest Patricia, strolled up and down the main Avenida, taking in the altars built by local high school students to honor members of the community who had made a difference in their lives. There was an altar to a former math teacher, and several to grandfathers and grandmothers, those altars readily apparent by the presence of a rocking chair waiting to rest their weary spirits.





It's at this time of year that supposedly the dead come back to call on those they've left behind, and they're greeted with ofrendas or offerings of things significant in their lives -- favorite foods, treasured mementos, symbols of activities they enjoyed, or symbols of their employment. The woman honored by this altar was a hair dresser, so you see her salon chair, a hair styling magazine and other tools of her trade -- all ready for her return.






The majority of the altars honored young people -- friends, classmates, or older brothers or sisters of the students' contemporaries. You see a date like the one in the picture, look at the young face framed by a sunset over the ocean, and catch your breath. Not even twenty years old! Obviously Alejandro, another nineteen-year old, was someone who loved the water, and his friends decorated his altar with lots of beach sand, and even provided a skim board for playing in the waves. (Remember, you can click on any image here and make it bigger. Then just hit the back arrow to return to the text.)




Do people really believe the spirits come back and visit? Talking with our Mexican friends, and with the young people busily constructing the altars that afternoon, I get the impression that these memorials are more a means for keeping those who have passed on alive in memory rather than a serious accomodation for the departed returning in some kind of not-so-concrete form. What is very tangible though, is the sense of reverence and remembrance for the person being considered -- a public acknowledgement of his or her value and contribution to the fabric of community life. I like it that high school kids have an opportunity to come together, build something around a friend's memory, get dressed up, read aloud a tribute, and have people applaud afterwards. That's the kind of validation every teenager could use.

Essential to every altar are four elements:

• An image of the person honored
• candles for light and aroma
• fresh flowers to remind us of the impermanence of physical life no matter how beautiful it seems
• water to symbolize purity and renewal

I don't believe in spirits other than the sense we carry around of who someone was. Goodness, that could apply to those whose warm skin we can still touch! It's our own sense of who our mother or dad was -- or is -- that may affect the way we conduct ourselves now. My mom lives in Lubbock, Texas, but I swear she spends a lot of time inside my head. There are ghosts to deal with, living or dead. If building an altar and revising our mortal history can expunge a few hurts and misunderstandings, I say, "lift those altars high!" Let's honor the good and let go of the not so good. That way Dia de Los Muertos becomes a celebration of life, the way it was meant to be!

"Take notes. Everything is copy."

That's counsel from Nora Ephron – or at least from her mom to her. It's advice for those times when Life with a capital L for LIVING, LOVING, and LAUGHING, seems to diminish into life -- little, limited, frightening, painful, and frankly depressing. As much as I would love to stay in the mental space where I see myself as a dancing column of light, there are times when dust motes invade, tears come, and waddaya got? Mud.

But the light is breaking through and it's time for Plan B – or C, D, or XYZ. Whatever. I'm not giving up. Those dust motes are turning into grit.

When you start writing a book, it's nice to know where you're headed with it – what the ending is going to be, how the story will resolve. Getting there is what makes the story. It's like the road from Guayabitos up to Tepic, the capital of the State of Nayarit, where we live. It is a windy two-lane asphalt ribbon that holds surprises at every turn. During the journey the compass on Hummercita literally goes full circle. But I know we're headed to Tepic, no matter what direction we seem to be going at one particular moment.

I kept that in mind last week as Larry and I drove there, and I checked into the San Rafael Center for Surgery. I'd gone there for "a study." I ended up staying several days and having some "serious" surgery. The anesthesiologist was named Filiberto, and he called me "Susanita la Bonita." He comforted me as the surgeons around me prepared, telling me about his home in the mountains and showing me photos of his two Huichol wives on an iPhone. "I've slipped a little peyote into the magic serum," he winked at me. "You will have beautiful, colorful dreams." I think he was joking. But whatever, the events of the last two months are receding into dream like status, maybe not beautiful nor colorful yet, but at least not frightening.

I'm back. I took notes. And Virgin Territory is going to be a great story.

Back at the Keyboard Again.

After two weeks in Texas and Oklahoma visiting friends and family (90 showed up for the reunion), I'm happy to be back in hot and humid Mexico, with a good excuse to stay sequestered. Working, working, working -- after a brief almost disastrous flirtation with Bejeweled. Acchh! Run away from that game! It's seductive and addictive!

Looks like there's interest building in our friend Mary and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Here are a couple "signs of the times."
New movie about Virgin of Guadalupe
New move titled Mary, Mother of Christ

Did you get that, that I said AND the Virgin of Guadalupe? They are not necessarily one and the same! Want to know more? Read the book!

Mission ALMOST Accomplished

The weather has cooperated. It's so blistery hot no one dares stick their nose outside. So I've been cloistered away writing, writing writing on Virgin Territory. It's close enough to finished to say almost done. I'll get the big working document printed off once more and in a binder to carry with me to Texas and Oklahoma these next two weeks. I leave tomorrow to see Mom and family. But that manuscript will be my constant companion as I edit, edit, edit.

So I'm going to stick my neck out once more and make my plans public: I want to get this into print so I can introduce it at the Guadalajara International Book Fair, November 28 - December 6. There! Hold me to it, Friends. Your support has been SOOO helpful. The guest of honor this year is the City of Los Angeles. This is such a natural! Read more about the fair here at Wikipedia.

So that's me celebrating a little early last Saturday night. Eddie and Roberto are opening Xaltemba for two Saturday nights, to give their new chef a little try out. There were nineteen reservations this past Saturday, and forty people showed up. Whew! Talk about crunch time! Check out their menu for this coming Saturday and eat your hearts out, you fair weather amigos who have fled north!

Larry surprised me that evening with a banner wishing me "Feliz Cumpleanos," and a chocolate birthday cake, which we parcelled out among all the people present. My friend Ann painted me a birthday card, bought me a crown (Ann, I'm still waiting for those photos!), and wrapped everything up in Quincianera packaging. She just put a great big "X 4" in front of all those number 15's. Every girl should get a crown sometime in life, and I say, better late than never!

But the real crown in a woman's life is a group of special friends wherever she finds them, and mine were at breakfast this morning. Our Tuesday morning ladies' breakfast club at Irma's La Casita has not dwindled with the heat. The group has grown larger and more devoted to getting together than ever. It may be a hot weather thing, but for some of us, this is the highlight of the week! So thanks Piedad, Lupita, Elizabeth, Melanie, Sarah, Jane, Linda, and Trish, for your birthday greetings and goodies this morning. And Jeanie, Barb, Marilyn, Lin, and Ann, we missed your smiling faces.

I'm off to pack up and go. Hasta pronto, ya'll.

A 17th Century Feminist

I've been spending today with Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz. I can't believe I carried away a degree in Spanish and Latin American Area Studies and never got to know her better. The textbooks I studied described her briefly as a nun who wrote a lot. That says something about the state of university curricula prior to the emergence of women's studies.

Juana Ines de Asbaje y Ramirez was born in New Spain (now Mexico) around 1651. She learned to read when she was three years old and wrote her first play at the age of eight. She mastered Latin in twenty lessons before becoming a teenager. When she was fourteen, she became a maid of honor to the wife of the Spanish Viceroy in Mexico City, and delighted the court with her erudition and learning. But at twenty-one she entered a convent because in order to continue her life of writing, musical composition, scientific and mathematical studies and vast correspondence with the other literary lights of the day, that was the only option available to her. That's when she became Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.

For the next twenty years she wrote prodigiously on theology, mathematics, and philosophy, which brought down the anger of the church hierarchy for dealing with subjects outside of the purview of women. But she also wrote about love, rapturous, passionate works of poetry and prose. Her most famous work was a response to the bishop at Puebla who was supposed to be her friend. He had written in subterfuge, disguising himself as one of her sisters in the convent, and advising her to leave off her studies, not to meddle in the affairs of men, and to devote herself to the religious life. Her Respuesta is a classic text in defense of woman's intelligence and the right to education.

She died in 1695 during a cholera epidemic. Shortly before her death, she had sold her library of over 4,000 volumes and given the proceeds to charity. What remains of her writings is contained in three large volumes, though it is agreed that the majority of her prose work, aside from her Respuesta, was lost or destroyed. Her image is perhaps in greater circulation than that of Guadalupe, as it is imprinted on the 200 peso note. Before the last devaluation, she was on the 1,000 peso note. Sor Juana is definitely a trail blazer in Virgin Territory.

Santa Maria del Oro

On Friday last week, Larry, our houseguest Patricia, and I escaped from the coastal heat to a little corner of paradise tucked up in the mountains between Tepic and Guadalajara. Santa Maria del Oro looked like an interesting little town, but not interesting enough to keep us from forging on through it to the lake beyond and below. First we stopped to look at it from above, then we drove down the narrow winding road to the lake itself. The drive around the lake is something I'm glad we did, but happy we don't have to do again. The road is pretty rough, and sometimes practically disappears. Maybe people get to those big pretty houses by boat rather than car.

We settled in for lunch at one of the shore-side restaurants.

It wasn't exactly crowded.

But there was a floor show -- one lone water skier who made pass after pass doing a flying flip on a wake board to our applause and cheers.

The temperature said 85, but with the humidity down in the 30% range it felt cool and pleasant. Santa Maria del Oro is just 40 minutes east of Tepic, even on the free road. I would think there would be a lot of visitors from there, but on that day we had the place practically to ourselves.

Here are a couple of links that have more photos and info.

Santa Maria del Oro Resort

See Map

The Virgin is NOT the only universal icon

The air is so heavy you need to drink it rather than breathe it. But, hey it's cloud cover. I headed for the market just to get out of the house and to buy some ceviche for lunch. On the way out, I saw the caretaker, Regino, applying herbicide to the sidewalks. (Never mind the streets. They're green already). He had a face mask, a hoodie, and a big glove on the hand that held the bottle of poison. "Pareces como Michael Jackson!" I called to him from the window. He waved back and did a little jerky dance. "Mas o menos!" he agreed. Ah, Michael, You're everywhere.