Narnia and the North.

the shins new slang
The walls, all four to eight of them seem to be closing in. Also this screen. One wall, mirror, reflecting back at me not myself but noise of selective comfort bits from pop culture. How did it come to this? My real self, fears come up in the night; slices off the face, chased into holes, bayonets. I wake up in the witching hour to check the locks.

For real the house is shaking today. We have mice. Mum sprays in the corners and we fill up crooks with steel wool. I'm nervous. The walls are closing in and winter hasn't even started.

For the traps, mum bought reeses peanut butter cups, my favorite candy. Mice only. I'm old enough to buy my own candy. If only I could walk through the front door. With all the shaking, walls, and checked locks, who knows when that will happen.

I don't want spring though. I want this winter. But not like this, a different winter imagine. Peaks, frothy waves, storms 'blow your cheeks', the high winter sky, and the calm sea then, cold and clear enough to see straight down to the bottom.

I say in the smallest font
not alone.with you.

But its only me who wants this. Alone.

Shooting star

When I was in love with you
I made you a yellow star

red thread green needles
now brown

The Boy Who Could Fly

I was walking home from watching 3 songs at Captain Carlos, 80s night, not having really enjoyed it very much. The energy, or my energy, is low...

The air smells like skunk, flowers, the person walking past smoking a cigarette, fish, but not possibility. It's bright out, during the day, but tonight seems shut up. School starts on Tuesday. Not for me, of course, but for some people.

The Boy Who Could Fly was first of all, super cute. He couldn't speak but he could talk with his eyes. He had been through some serious trauma. I guess he chose not to speak. There was a girl too. I don't think she could fly but maybe she was having home issues. Or maybe she wasn't. She felt a kind of connection with the BWCF. Maybe they fell in love. Because of his quirky antics involving walking on rooftops? Because they were both beautiful? Because they looked into each other's eyes a lot? Anyway, they fell in love and then they flew. And no one really believed that he could fly in the beginning, they just ignored him because he was weird and figuring stuff out.

I really feel like the BWCF tonight. Caved in and crushed, but with wishes to step, foot over foot, on roof peaks.

Swimming with the whale sharks sham.

This was our Hobox island going out adventure and it was freakin´great.

Hobox Island (Hobosh) is famous for the whale sharks. Our guide said that 5,10 years ago there were a lot more but because of the boats, the number has gone down. But still, there are a lot. Just not yesterday, he said, maybe because of the storm, they had all submerged. At any rate, there was just one to be found and about 12 boats trailing it in a circle. In a circle because we were all lining up to take turns jumping in the water to swim next to the whale shark. There´s only supposed to be two people in the water at once with the shark, and you´re supposed to be two meters away, but because of the amusement-park style atmosphere, get in , get on, get out- the people in the water overlapped, so that sometimes 6 or 8 people flanked the shark. I fell on top of him once, the guide pushing at me from the right prevented me from getting some distance between me and the animal. And everyone was pushing to get closer anyway. "Try to keep up with him as long as possible", some people would say. I didn´t understand why swimming right next to his head would make it a better experience, as opposed to a little farther away so you could see everything.



With the press of people, the guide´s pushing and pulling, craning my head to see or to avoid other snorkeler´s flippers, swallowing saltwater when craning my head, I can´t say my mind was completely one with the whale shark´s. His-Her bead eyes didn´t seem to show any recognition of us either. That´s fine. I guess she wasn´t annoyed, visibly- but she was at the surface to look for food. Surely all the boats and people were interfering with that? And we could all barely breath with all the engine fumes. Surely that interfered with her environment as well?

So, I say this is a sham. Invasive and disrespectful. What was I expecting? To observe the biggest fish in the sea in it´s natural environment. To feel the power of the natural world. Something like that. Instead, I see how thoughtless we can be as humans.

Better- Wind, sun, and walking

I take back what I said before...I'm over the Golden Notebook blues. I've just been spending too much time in the house since the accident. But this morning resumed the get-out-of-one's-own-head-into-the-world activity- walking, exploring. So simple. I've been here a month, maybe a bit more already, and haven't really explored. Thankful for being able to walk and for the windy weather and the shrouded sun. Pictures to follow soon- Graffiti, trash dumps,curtains blowing through windows from rooms blasting dancy Mexico music. Iguanas. Vultures. The dusty street butting up against a jungle garden. Smiley face smiley face smiley face.

The Golden Notebook and the BFG

Just finished reading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, taking time out yesterday to reread the BFG by Roald Dahl. Chloe had just finished it when the U.S. was losing their last World Cup game. The best part of the game was watching their sad faces at the end- not because I felt triumphant or any kind of schadenfreude, but because their close-up teary faces were easy to relate to.

The BFG is, as always, a pleasure, great medicine for the rolicking disasterous previous night's antics. I found myself empathizing more for the carnivorous giants, Bonecruncher, Fleshlumpeater, Manhugger, and the like, more so than in times past. At the end, when three drunken men wander over the fence and into their pit after imbibing their lunch of beer, I felt happy for the poor giants forced to eat snozzcumbers everyday. So the BFG has switched to bacon and they've become vegetarians? Hardly fair.

The Golden Notebook has left me feeling empty, hopeless. Maybe I'm too like the character of Tommy (not too too much though) self righteous and rebelling against the limitless boundaries of his parents, or perhaps their varying strict philosophies. He becomes happier as a blind person, having imposed his own very literal boundary on his life. His dissatisfaction as a young person who can do anything, have anything, any kind of job, form a future from his parents' capitalist or communist connections, leaves him immobile, indecisive. Now I feel similar, freefloating, without real aim or purpose or the vision of such thing, when I try to form it, remains blurry in my mind's eye- only snippets of what others do or have said rain down in detritus. Mexico, OK. Korea, whatever. Another place- fine. No food, weather, company, architecture entices. And the exhausting demolition of love offers no enticement either.

Get the hell out, Out of Africa

Nat rented this on our movie night (Tuesdays because Blockbusters has a 15 peso per movie dealio) because it won 7 academy awards. It's set in Kenya in the early part of the 20th century and based on a book by nom de plum Isaak Dinesen, a Danish woman who wrote this as a memoir. I can remember when it came out- I was 9 years old in 1985 and alert of cultural shifts- we had a TV at that time and I'm sure I watched more than my fair share. I remember being aware that it was a romance, a woman's movie, and feeling somewhat repulsed by the connotations that went along with that. So it has stayed in my memory ever since and I've never had the urge to see it.

But all's fair game on movie night.

We watched the whole thing, not being charmed or impressed by Kurt Russel at all, but definitely impressed by Meryl Streep's gorgeous nearly 1920s wardrobe- sparkly hats, loosely hanging suits,nightdresses with hoods, neutral-colored work pants and flowy work dresses. What a relief the new fashion must have been in those days, corsetless?

Nat said the next day, "I've been thinking about that movie, and I think its so sad."
I was thinking that I agreed. As we were watching it, we were both rolling our eyes a bit at the airplane scene and what was supposed to be romantic camping and hunting outings. Wondering, is this what passes or passed for romantic? Who is this supposed to be pleasing? What are we supposed to think of Kurt Russel's free-wheeling, non-commital rejection of poor Meryl Streep's everyday life, everyday duties on the farm? And his rejection of her wanting some kind of commitment.

I would like to read the book because I think the movie was manipulative in the typical Hollywood way and I wonder if people shed tears at this one and at what point. I remember watching Titanic and crying when the band played and the ship went down and feeling so angry at the director for manipulating me in this way, at this moment. Telling me what was sad or what was romantic or what was tragic. Is this movie similar? It just seemed weirdly dated. And sad because she was constantly portrayed as being alone, abandoned, and cheated on.

I suppose it's interesting in a way because of how the issue of marriage is treated. This was in the 1920s and 30s and we hear criticism of the institution, "who do you know who is in a happy marriage?" and now I'm reading The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing which is set in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, with some similar tropes. The marriages and relationships there are dissected in their entirety and none of them fall flush with whatever illusions of marriage we see in advertisements or on TV sitcoms.

But I think women needed marriage much more in those times than now. The pressure on one of not being kept, not being married must have been enormous, scary, possibly dangerous.

How is it different now?