Saturday, January 28, 2012

Sort of a day of Rest —

This marks the half way point in my visit this year to Oaxaca. I'd be hard put to quantify the results of my efforts to improve my Spanish language skills. For sure there has been some improvement. I do find myself constructing longer and longer sentences in my mind as I walk from place to place. And I know from my time of learning to speak Danish that this is a promising step forward. The only problem at this stage is that you become even more acutely aware of how much you have yet to learn. Oh well — When in doubt, retreat to the old "One foot in front of the other" and just not worry too much about it.

I walked to the Zocolo to purchase my ticket for a full day trip to Mitla and other locations tomorrow. As I was leaving the northernmost square, lightning began popping in an up close and serious way. The rain followed, harder during each block but I stopped at the 100% Natural for a bite to eat and was reasonably dried out by the time I left there.

Back to my trip to the Zocolo just after noon. I met several friends on the way and one woman I met recently in the cooking class joined me at my table after I had eaten lunch. Before she sat down I enjoyed the sweet sounds of an older man playing the saxophone beautifully and with so much soul. How this culture enjoys music of all kinds. I was ready with some pesos as he walked by and held out his hat.

I seem to be working my way backward during my description of this day. This morning several of us did a self conducted tour of our rooms here at Las Mariposas. As we worked our way back to several of the rooms, I was astonished at how large this "cozy" hotel actually is. A whole labyrinth of corridors wanders between unexpected, surprisingly open courtyards. Garden plantings everywhere. No wonder so many people reserve a whole year in advance. I'm feeling lucky to have been able to get in this year at all. I am scheduled to move to a single tiny room sometime next week because this second floor little gem I'm in with the Matrimonial (full) bed is booked for the last part of my stay. Fine — a chance to see one more of the options and save some money at the same time.

A new friend here gave me a short Face Book orientation this morning. It seems to me Face Book just keeps getting more and more complicated. One happy thing I discovered though. The picture Jeffie had put on my page featuring me sprawled over our porch steps is gone. Thank you Jeffie or whoever expedited that little change. I'm afraid I may never be completely comfortable with FB, but it is a reality of the times so I'll keep trying.

Thursday a woman in the cooking class mentioned that she wanted to buy a book for her intercombio partner and had tried to buy Lolita for her but it was just too expensive. That brought to mind that I hadn't read that book since some time in the sixties. I brought it up on my Kindle and discovered that there is a marvelous new annotated edition of Lolita and I purchased it for my account. So all of you who share this account can find it on your archive reached in the menu section. I haven't gotten past the forward notes into the actual book, but the intro essay contains fascinating notes on Nabokov. Kathy, as a writer, I think you'll find it very provacative. Hope you all enjoy it.

Moving Back and forth, one more word about this last week. Yesterday I revisited the Textile Museum because I had an appointment to meet Eric Chavez. It seems almost for sure that he, his sister, brother and, possibly, his father, will visit California in the spring. The Mendocino County Museum asked me to inquire about holding an exhibition of Zapotec weaving there in the future. I invited the Chavez family to join us for this year's Taurus party. He seems pleased with the idea and they will plan to bring lots of rugs for displaying and selling. Could I have a better birthday gift than to have weavers from Teotitlán del Valle there to celebrate with us? The Oaxaca Textile Museum has a lovely feeling of sharing, enthusing, educating and appreciating in a gentle, flexible, low key manner. So much of this, I suspect, has to do with their director's and Eric's passion for all the subjects that are dealt with there, from yarn dyeing to the many ways that weaving is accomplished. I'm quite thrilled that some of you might be meeting this lovely family in May.