México... de nuevo

Everything seems at once familiar and foreign.  Returning to a place that you once knew well, that was dear to you... It is not something I'm practised at.  It is strange, walking through streets that were once familiar, remembering isolated places but failing to recall how they interconnect.  A giant and unrelenting case of déjà vu.  Knowing places but not how they are situated in space.  Stumbling over words in a language left dusty.  Seeing phenomena that feels as though you had watched a documentary on it a year or two ago, not as though it were a reality you lived.

That is the unsettledness that has plagued me since returning to Mexico.  And while it is dissipating more and more everyday, it is slightly unnerving that it was ever there: almost two years ago I fell in love with this country.  Shouldn't it feel more natural, being back?

I arrived shortly before Día de muertos, and on going out to celebrate...it was not how I had remembered it.  I had forgotten that Oaxaca, where we had celebrated Día de muertos the year before, was very different to Guadalajara.  Where Oaxaca was indigenous, superstitious and extravagant in its celebrations, Guadalajara seems to treat the occasion as more of a big costume party.  Guadalajara takes the holiday and dresses it up in a cosmopolitan outfit.  Maybe the surprise of this was exaggerated for me because I was still getting used to the idea of being back in Mexico.  I think I had been dreaming of reliving my memories instead of making new ones; that was a mistake.  Nothing stays the same, even less when it is on the other side of the country.  Mexico, I'll give you another chance.  No more biases.  Lo prometo.

The Door To Tomorrow

What is that old saying?  I can just hear Julia Andrews in The Sound of Music - when God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.  So often I find myself stumped, considering the future, laying out all of the possibilities before me.  It is always so hard to decide when there is so much unknown, so much at risk.  So often I find myself pleading internally for the door to just open that I don't think, or can't bring myself, to knock.  Knock and maybe someone will tell you the answer, solve all your problems.

I guess that would be the ideal situation... but in my experience they tend to just open more windows, adding to the array of possibilities already spread out before me, none of them markedly any better from those already there.  And at this point in time, having just finished my studies (for a while), I already have so many options before me... along with an apparent lack of decisiveness...  All I need is one door to open.  Maybe I should just relax, take a break from life, right?

Taking these photos, of course, I was not thinking so philosophically.  In the street in Trinidad, Cuba, I was more worried about standing on the road, in full blast of the sun's rays, and looking like a fool while I waited.  This fear of standing out, of drawing attention to myself, is deeply tied to my desperate want to avoid attracting the jineteros for which Cuba is also sadly famous.  I had already attracted them in Trinidad, being pounced on as soon as I arrived and followed around town for a while.  I waited slightly ill at ease, and after a moment the door to open for the lady, allowing her to enter with her groceries.  A door opened for her, why wouldn't one open for me too?

La Quinceañera del Parque

This photo always makes me giggle.  The quinceañera: Mexico at its most extravagant and ridiculous.  I didn't even know that dresses like this actually existed in real life before I arrived in Mexico.  Walking through the streets of Mexico City, I passed a store that sold quinceañera dresses.  I couldn't help but stare they were so... flamboyant.  Shaking my head, I told myself that it had just been some kind of fancy dress shop.  I managed to go on believing this for about three weeks, until in Guadalajara I found myself walking around "that part of town".  All up, there were about twenty stores selling these outrageous dresses, each one seeming crazier than the last.  There were all kinds of ornamentation: wings, leopard print, sparkles, but mostly there was plenty of poof.  This was when I knew that it was probably not just your average fancy dress.

It turns out the quinceañera is a girl celebrating her fifteenth birthday, when she is seen to go from being a kid to a woman.  Just like that, a flick of the switch.  Of course, this idea in itself is not so strange, after all in Australia we have debutantes.  I just love the idea of the quinceañera so much because it does the typical Mexican; it takes what is a fairly normal custom and then seems to have taken a step back, asking itself - but how can I make it more.... jazzy?  The result is a ritual which combines the church and community with a bursting forth of exuberance that seems to hit you over the head, leaving you wondering where it came from?

The quinceañeras are one of my favourite parts of Mexico; they pop up from nowhere when you least expect it.  For instance, this photo was taken on a casual picnic in the park; but I've also seen the girls posing in front of fountains and even once on a roundabout.  That they can just appear, so unexpectedly, is what I love about Mexico.  It takes the extreme, the extraordinary, the ridiculous and makes it the everyday.  Life in Mexico is really quite dream-like: dramatic, colourful, startling and sometimes scary things happen, but no one misses a beat, everything just keeps going on.  - Did you see the girl in the giant purple dress lying on the grass with people attending her skirts?  - Oh, what? The quinceañera? Yeah, I think so.

Stillness

Serenity.  That's all I can think of when I see this photo, everything seems still.  We reached this lake in the Peruvian Amazon by canoe.  The jungle had been dense either side of the river, giving a sense of being boxed in by walls made of plants.  Casting shadows on the dark water, the morning sun stretched to touch the far side of the watercourse.  As we steered into the lake the world seemed to open up, leaving me with the conflicted feelings of being liberated from the confines of the jungle while also being very aware of how exposed I was.

We had made the trip to the lake in the hope of seeing some wildlife.  Sadly, no one was home.  While there was a far-off sloth, he didn't seem very enthusiastic about seeing us.  We paddled further around the edge of the lake, following its banks.  A loud holler erupted from our guide, shattering the silence and stillness of the lake.  He was calling out to the monkeys that were often around the lake.  They answered him, a distant call ringing back through the trees.  He offered to lure them down to the bank for us, coaxing them with offers of bread or some other treats.  We barely considered this before declining it: we were in the Amazon, not a petting zoo.  Bribing wild animals would sap all of the magic out of a place so unknown and so mystical.  Better to leave the place with some of its power.

The Clouds of Change

Clouds always make me think about time and change.  They're so fleeting.  By the time you've pointed it out to your friend you can't even be sure that what you saw in it is still there, and by the time you explain it to them it probably won't be.  Isn't it strange how quickly things pass before you when you're not paying attention, but as soon as you have a goal, something to look forward to, time seems to slow.  Instead of seeing sand pour through your fingers, you can see it pass through grain by grain.  Maybe time isn't as objective as they say.  Maybe time is spiteful.  Maybe time slows down because it thinks at those times we are most interesting.  I don't know... maybe I just feel the need to blame someone.

In other news: what strange weather we've being having in Melbourne!

An End Of The Silence

I know that I've left this page abandoned for sometime now.  I took this picture at my university at the start of the year, having in mind at the time that I would be spending a lot of time amongst the shelves in the coming months; nervous, excited, not quite sure if that was a good thing or not.  In a few weeks the academic year will be over for me, thesis polished and submitted.  With the end in sight I can say that the year wasn't nearly as hard or tortuous as I had been led to expect; in fact, it was almost the opposite, although there were definitely moments throughout.  It leaves me with a swelling up of emotion, of excitement for the possibilities of the future, and of dread of facing the job hunt which seems to beat so many graduates.  But either way, or any way in between: there will be change and opportunities.  It also means I should be around here a bit more.

Wish me luck!

That Feeling

Do you know that feeling, where everything has been chaotic or distracted or disorderly, or just not good in some way, but then something happens.  Or rather, nothing happens, there is no change, just subtle shifts that aren't really noticeable.  Everything slows down, time seems idle but the best thing  is that everything matches.  Everything seems to fall in place: to coordinate, to just be right.  Everything is where it needs to be.  And suddenly you realise how perfect everything is.  No matter how much you may have strived to achieve such cohesion, such sync-ing previously, you would never have been able to attain it.  It is not the kind of feeling that you can work towards, it is more like a moment where everything in the universe aligns, and it is just that you are there to recognise it.  Or like your breath catches and time stops for a second. You are completely at peace with yourself and everything makes sense.

I imagine a lot of people get this feeling from drugs and alcohol, or at least it is what they are striving for.  I would like to believe this: who can be blamed for trying to feel such perfection?  Drugs, sex and music - the triple combo - maybe that is all you need to feel it.  Maybe that is all you need; but it wouldn't be the same.  It wouldn't be pure.  And if you can get that feeling sober, well, what need do you have for drugs?