on the walls

Today our cousins left to return to Baja and we changed hotels. (We didn’t need a 2 bedroom suite any longer though we immediately regretted leaving Jorge who brought our breakfasts, cooked by Maria, to the table on the rooftop deck where the little pool was.) This hotel is lovely, the rooms centred around an inner courtyard green with trees, cactus, and bougainvillea. Its pool is long enough to allow for true laps while doves wait for you to pass before they drink from the edge. After we checked in and had a swim, we headed out to the photographic museum. Yesterday, at the museum of contemporary Art, a woman stopped to ask if I was Canadian. She was from Toronto. We quickly established that we had similar interests (she was wearing a dress dyed with indigo) and she recommended the exhibit of Gary Goldberg’s photographs: Encontrando El Universo En Oaxaca. John and I were completely taken by the images of landscapes, weather events, and geographical representations found in the textures of flaking ancient walls. I walked through each room, and then I walked through again. And because we are only a block and a half away, I intend to return over the next week. Several of the images were interpreted by textiles artists using needled felt. I felt the old excitement rise inside me, a good sign.

What will I make of this time? The colours, the dappled shade on hot afternoons in the Zocalo, the swims under intense blue skies, the February heat? I don’t know. But I feel full of possibilities after a long sad year. I want to dye with cochineal, sew lines of bright saffron thread over deep blue cloth. I want to make stars out of whatever comes to hand. Coming back from dinner tonight in a deep yellow room, I saw our rosy hotel with the church dome across the road and thought, Can you remember this moment?

Can I?

ps I took both photographs on Porfirio Diaz this evening.