La Fantasma

Today, tonight, again, the plaza will be filled up with people- dancing, some of them, the maestro counting “uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete …” for the world. The people are tangling and untangling themselves. Across the street two young men are kissing like they’re starving for it, and an older woman with long black braids weighting her to the world is sitting behind a rusted orange cart steaming with elote. They are the only static figures amidst the blur of people walking either towards the dancing or away, all holding hands, bottles, purses, children, phones, waists, nothing.

I’m sitting on a bench in a quiet part of the square, I have always been mostly happy to just watch. I’m thinking about how I missed the solar eclipse today, woke up late to a photo of the crescent shadows on the cobblestone streets. And now, today, tonight, again, the magic of the world feels like it is just past my fingertips. It is happening all around me in a language I cannot understand, in places that I don’t know of and between people that are not mine to hold. I feel a strange sense of impalpability. What is here to prove that I too am alive?

I walk back to my hostel and when I arrive, the older woman who has been sleeping in the bed next to me motions for me to follow her to the balcony. I am tired from a full day of being alone in a new city, tired from many hours of Spanish classes which often leave me feeling that I am just not the kind of person who can learn another language, tired from waking up every day thinking for a brief moment that I am home and then slowly realizing I am in an unfamiliar place. She begins to talk and as she does, she is using her whole body, arms flying like gnats around her head. I can understand enough to know that she is telling me about her home near Mexico City, her garden, the fruit trees she is grafting. She tells me the name of the plants growing on the balcony; Madreselva, Rosa, she points to the Buganvilla and I try and tell her about the pink ones that grow at my friends house in California, how much I love seeing them here because of that. She tries to pronounce the word in English. I catch words; tomar, vivir, frontera, lluvia. Every now and then, while she’s talking about visiting her sister in the U.S, she slides a finger from one side of her throat to the other and sticks her tongue out and and laughs and laughs, I can’t understand why she does this but all all I know to do is laugh with her.

She must know that I can’t really understand her because every time she pauses and looks at me and speaks to me very slowly, I smile and say “lo siento, no se las palabras”. I think maybe she just likes having someone to talk to, maybe the fact I can’t understand means she can say what she otherwise wouldn’t. When I wake up the next day she’s already gone from her bed, she doesn’t return.

All of this is to say that things here have been alright, thank you for calling, I’m grateful to be in the sun.

Most days I am so happy to be here, and most days I am also questioning if this is where I should be. It is hard to find solidarity or to feel as if I can contribute in a positive way within a community that isn’t mine. As of right now, over two thousand people have been killed in the past week as a result of systemic, US backed, Israeli violence in occupied Palestine. We are witnessing genocide. My communities and others back home are organizing themselves against US weapon manufacturers, oil companies, prisons, and other devices of American imperialism which facilitate and bolster conflicts such as this, and pour resources into manufacturing a narrative of the ‘American Dream’ that continues to enchant. When the students in Mexico that I do language exchange with ask me what the US is like, some of them learning English in hopes of moving there, I always stumble a bit on my words.

I’m realizing that this all sounds a little melancholy, and I think it’s ok that it is. I am coming to know that traveling does not mean I am leaving behind the mundanity, anxiety, and messiness of everyday life, but am just meeting it in new places and ways. While my heart aches for the world in ways that feel impossible to wrap my hands around, I can at least count on the fact that today, tonight, again, the plaza will be filled up with people dancing, tangling and untangling for the world.

xx

Sophie