Take his body over where?

For some reason the phrase 'Lleva su cuerpo alli (take his body over there)' keeps repeating itself in my head. I think it unlikely that I've heard the phrase out loud, so I have no idea why it would lodge itself in there. I say it, rolling the phrases over my tongue.
Ye-ba su cuer-po ayi.

It wound its way around in there for quite a while before I noticed, listened properly, translated it word for word. Came out shocked at the result. The nuances of perception within it - is it talking about taking a man home or moving a cadaver? Why on earth would that phrase be in my head?

I have no doubt that if I analysed most of my thoughts in this way I'd come out just as confused. There rarely seems to be much of a pattern. This morning, for example, I woke up feeling somehow dislodged from the day. My dreams were powerful and left lingering tentacles around me long after I woke, drawing me back in, dulling my waking world until I sought solitude.

And so I search for treasure in the cracks between the stones, fingering crumbling wood and bleached white bones, zoning in on my surroundings and healing this strange turn of emotion in the way I know best.

Endless horizon over curling sea.
Frothy white parallels expanding towards me.
Watercolour sky arching in pale yellow greys.
First tint of the sunset creeps.

Water colliding with rock.
Pulsing rhythms in an ocean with a sheen like fine chocolate.
The land swallowed up by the sea or the sea, resisted advance by land?

And me, like a snake on warm stone, writhing as I comb the rubble for driftwood and broken mother of pearl.

I am alone other than the surfers, the burnished, dark-eyed Salvadorenses and the honey-coloured extranjeros, all seeking a few second's thrill on those shining tubes of water. From my throne they are helpless insects, steering their way through hills and valleys of shifting power in the name of hedonism.

I hear the waves calling me. But I put off that moment in favour of this warm wind.

I stare at the sea for a long time, breathing in time with the waves.

Inhale,
water rears in expectation,
Exhale,
waves curl and crash before me.

In front of me, duality of wave.
Within me, duality of breathing.

Noise filling everything, the crashing sizzle of the waves and the ribbons of wind through the palms all fizzing into one dizzying hum.

I come unspun.

Reel myself in again and roll back down the beach. Sea rolls inside and waves just there are breathing and its me again, just me. The cadaver has been removed.

Flowers, clouds and clues

San Jose del Pacifico. Dogs are barking.

The sign on the door at Casa de Doña Catalina is peeling. I wonder if Catalina herself is dead.

In the garden her geraniums nod happily. I long to meet the carer of this paintbox of plants.

Sometimes we end the day in a cloud, an explosion through which the sun stretches dying fingers. We float away in our wooden boat in a wispy flood of white.

It feels as if we are lost.

Once again, a vortex of energy has sucked us in to a slow whirlpool of routine.

Over the last few weeks we have watched the sinking slopes of the valley ahead of us emerging and disappearing into clouds of a hundred different variations. We have explored the mountain trails through the pine forests, neon lichen and huge cacti like great, tentacled aliens, resting on the red carpet of the forest in surreal colour clashes.

We have continued to function without running water, pouring buckets of dirty dishwater down the toilet bowl and washing from a bowl of rainwater. Like so much of Mexico, Oaxaca state is not so far from seasonal abandonment for lack of water. Prophecies echo from state to state: the next world war will surely be over water.

Night rushes in, velvet skirts rustling and star-splattered. We retreat from the terrace to the cosy, low ceilings of Catalina's living room, walled in on all sides by psychadelic murals, bookshelves, musical instruments and brightly woven cushions. The lightshade is a carefully-arranged plastic bag. Against the window is a wide ledge filled with soft things for sleeping in.

In the other corner stands a bookshelf, with titles in a handful of languages, ranging from Carlos Castaneda to Madame Bovary.


The spine that grabs me belongs to a small notebook. I open it. The first thing I see is a piece of paper dated 1958. It is someone's Mayan horoscope. Whoever owns this book has the same energy as me: in modern Mayan interpretation, Yellow Sun, representing the Enlightener. In ancient readings, Kame, representing the beginning, harmony, vision, cunning.


The next page is a list of diseases.

It takes me a moment to realise that besides each of the diseases is a cure, encoded in Spanish. I wonder whether this belongs to Catalina. The looping script shows me my place and I feel I am prying.


I snap the book shut, but fail to forget.

After about a week we consider leaving and play cards for the decision. The cards tell us to stay.


That afternoon, Catalina herself arrives home from a month at the coast.