Driving Licenses: Mexico vs. Curaçao (+ The Metaphor of Prison, c/o @ArleeBird )

So. The Mexico trip. Man, that was a fiasco. I mean, it's not easy to travel anywhere from Curaçao. Even direct flights come with delays and cancellations and whatnot. But I've never had as much trouble going to and from Mexico as this time. I'm even down with a weird cold/flu virus since Sunday—and I blame the night I spent on the carpet at the Miami airport.

12:30 am Saturday morning, relaxing with a guilty-pleasure novel on the comfy carpet at MIA International.

Before I go into the gory details, let me tell you I'm over at Tossing It Out today, care of blogosphere's marvelous Arlee Bird, talking about prisons: of the mind, the soul, and the flesh. It's the latest stop for the MIRACLE tour in blogs, after a celebration of the book's quirkiness over at Corinne Rodrigues's place last week, and then the crazy author vs character interview argument that ended with me apologizing and Luis Villalobos in maudlin tears over at The Doglady's Den this past Monday.

#Cherished: If This Teddy Could Talk...

On a bookshelf behind my desk, out of sight unless you know where to look, sits a toy koala bear. He's old, dusty, and faded. The hair on his ears is matted. His eyes are scratched, and the tan felt of one eyelid has peeled off. The plastic pear he wears as a nose needs to be glued back on. Again. And yet his grin remains. A tad sardonic maybe--not surprising, given the degree of abandonment he's put up with. But there's real bonhomie, too. Good-natured patience. I'm here, that grin seems to say. Whenever you remember.

Is there anything as sad as a forgotten once-beloved toy? These cast-offs speak of lost childhoods, changing priorities, the ephemeral nature of our attachments, even the ones that feel, at the time, forged in steel. Most of all, I suppose, these little personalities -- for who can deny them that bit of humanity? -- remind us of the selves we've left behind.

The Meaning of Cuernavaca

The city of memory, the city of nostalgia, of everything that's been lost, and found, forgotten, remembered.

We--my father, my mother, and I--moved from Mexico City to Cuernavaca in December 1975, when I was two months shy of three years old. I have fragmented memories of that December. For instance, walking around the pool wearing corduroy pants and a woolen sweater (yes, winters in the central altiplano of México can be cold), but my parents were wearing swimming suits, and I remember remarking on that, briefly, internally.

View of the house I grew up in, from the carport. The deep end of the pool is just off-frame to the right.
In the back you can see half of the sandbox I played in for hours, the tree where I had my treehouse
(long gone, rotted or something, before this photo was made), and a corner of the tennis court
(you have to look hard).
My father made this photo five months before he died.