For the second time in a decade, I am going home for Christmas. An unexpected event in many ways but none more so than my current state of disconnection from this day that was such a source of unbridled joy in my childhood. Those Christmases glow in my memory and radiate. The tribe of children we were, the uncles dressed as Santa Claus, the lights, the tree, the presents. But it was the 80´s after all. And times, they have changed. Or have they. But still in my current state of dissatisfaction I wonder if I’m stealing joy from this year´s children, a new age Grinch in spiritualist’s clothing.
But I’m in Oaxaca, the aching prehistoric beauty of the tropics, where rock faces drop into the raging tumult of the sea, where parabolas of pelicans and birds like pterodactyls arc through the sky and the jungle encroaches on the narrow alleys where I step lightly over lizards and ants and the shadows of scorpions. Never so incongruous has been the sight of a family Christmas tree in a house whose patron holds the village’s monthly temazcals. So markedly out of place, this fake fir in the tropics with the blue horizon line it’s backdrop. This replica of a plant that could never, would never have grown here dressed in reflective baubles with a nativity of woven palm leaves laid out at its foot. And suddenly I’m consumed with filling a sack with trinkets to bring home to drop into the awaiting outstretched palms. Looking to the girls who sweat along the beach in wide hats and black blouses and skirts that extend to wrist and ankles, piled with arrays of bags and bracelets, who speak a quiet timid spanish and must trust me to add the total of 80 and 50 for them, leaving me wondering at their retreating backs who they are, where they have come from, what language they speak.
Tonight there was a candlelight procession along the narrow village street, carrying the icon of a saint from one home to another, where it will be visited, worshipped and adored. On the 12th day of Christmas the baby Jesus will make a similar pilgrimage through the village; a quiet candlelight caravan slowly singing its way gravely past the sea. (A seven year old girl died in the custody of my government this week.It’s a popular meme on the internet.I shouldn’t have to say it.What difference could my saying it possibly make.I’m exaggerating.I’m getting emotional.It’s true.Who am I to say it anyway but.)This holiday, that we fly miles for, that we drench our homes in light for, that we go into debt and drown in oceans of paper for, is about the poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed, the unwelcome, struggling over miles through deserts with only the luxury of an aged mule and blistered feet to find safe haven for their child. A child that would die to make the world a better place and in a few short days i will fly over an imaginary line in the earth where a con artist who capitalizes on fear to create the distraction of hate to protect an ocean of greed is threatening to shut down his puppet show if he can’t build a wall to dissuade parents from walking for weeks on blistered feet to make a better life for their children and I’m asking for “un mejor precio por fa” from a 15 year old girl who is sweating through another day in the name of….what is it? I can’t remember. I wonder if Jesus, that master teacher of love, compassion and service for all beings is rolling over in his grave. I wonder, if he were here, grassroots organizer that we was, civil disobedient that he was, middle finger to the powers that be shit disturber that he was, if he’d be preaching for us all to boycott his motherfucking birthday.
I’m trudging through town to find a room in a village where the prices have exploded in the space of a season as airbnb shows locals who still get internet from a dingy windowless concrete convenient store, what their cuartos near the sea can actually command. Where the “comfortable” (which is to say pretty) rooms are all owned by foreigners and the locals sell beds in concrete boxes still halfway through construction. And I’m wondering, can it still be “fun” to travel while the world closes its doors on those who move for survival. Is it “fun” to visit when you know you hosts could not dream of returning the favour. Could I show that sweet faced girl New York City or the Grand Canyon or the Great Plains, Would she weep, or stare or simply look at the trinkets in the gift shops labelled “Made In China” and turn her sad eyes to me and ask “Signora, mejor precio?”
monologomy 