Xochimilco

Many years ago, about 30, I was visiting family in Detroit, and one night we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Xochimilco. I remember it being on Jefferson at the foot of the Belle Isle bridge but a search for it just now says it's in Mexican Town, a few miles to the northwest (I think). That's what memory will do for you: not much. Anyway, I had no idea what the restaurant's name meant at the time and for years afterward, but last year I learned it's the name of a borough of Mexico City known for its canals and artificial islands. I read about it in a guide book and decided we had to go there when we traveled to Mexico City last December.

HH and I hired a taxi to take us all around the city. There's public transportation but we're lazy travelers and the taxi was so convenient. The driver was bilingual and helped me with Spanish quite a bit. He needed very little help with English; mostly it was help with pronunciation. He was quite fluent. One day we had him take us to the canals of Xochimilco for a gondola (trajinera) ride. It was a beautiful, sun-shiny day and the crowds were out, so there were lines to board one of them. This doesn't look like many people, but there were queues like them in several places.

The canal was full of occupied trajineras, so it looked like it would be a long wait.

Luckily our driver knew a way to cut the line and got us on a boat of our own.

This has to be a hard way to make a living. There are no motors, just long poles used to move the boats along.

Many people come with their families and spend the entire day on a trajinera, bringing their own food and drinks. We may have been the only gringos out there that day, but that was also true for just about everywhere we went. Museums, cultural sites, restaurants, markets, churches - Mexico City and the surrounding areas are a magnet for Mexican tourists. They love their country. On the other hand, America, and other countries for all I know, have done a great job of instilling fear about the dangers of traveling in Mexico, but I believe I have a better chance of getting shot in south Tucson than anywhere I've been in Mexico.

Passengers can buy from vendors on chalupas, a kind of canoe, who get around the same way, using poles. Food, drinks, and souvenirs are all for sale.

Some people bring their own music in the form of boom boxes, but you can also hire mariachis, who travel around the canals, offering their services. Just flag them down and their trajinera will pull alongside for a serenade.

Here are two trajineras, nose to nose, sharing a mariachi band. It looks like the woman at the far right is protecting her hearing - they're loud!

There's a place there called Isla de las Munecas - The Island of the Dolls. Legend has it a girl drowned under mysterious circumstances and the dolls are possessed by her spirit. I've seen some creepy photos of dolls on the island, particularly in shots taken at night, but all I saw were some raggedy-looking toys hanging from trees and bushes.

I imagine that at night things look different indeed. It's possible to get off the boat and explore but, no. I could live without that experience.

As crowded as the canals were, there were still times when we found ourselves nearly alone. It was easy to imagine an earlier time, before it got so commercial, when the boats were used to transport produce from the gardens on the islands to markets in the city, when in early morning all was quiet except for the sounds of water lapping the shore and sides of the boats...

...and then, BOOM, there we were back in the fray, cheek and jowl with the rest of the folks looking for entertainment. It was OK, it was good. It was Mexico and this is what we came for - the sights, the music, the people - the experience of daily life in this marvelous city.

=======

Thought of the day:

The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life. - William Morris

Mexico City, finally

I've been wondering why I don't post here like I used to, when I was on the road, working 32 hours a week, and taking long day trips on my days off. I think I finally figured it out - there was nothing much else to do in the evenings but edit photos of the places HH and I had been and toss them up here.

Since moving to and settling in Green Valley, I've been active beyond imagining. A much more active social life than I've ever had, plus twice-weekly physical therapy for a severed tendon in my thumb, keeps me on the go so much that a day at home with nothing on the calendar is an anomaly. I like it but it does take a toll on this blog, my self-taught Spanish, and other things that used to be higher on my priority list. I've turned into a slacker in certain departments but this morning is one of my empty-calendar days, so I thought I could catch up a little.

We traveled to Mexico City at Christmas last year, which was probably the best trip I've ever taken. The Angel of Independence was just down the block from our hotel. It was built in 1910 to commemorate the centennial of the beginning of Mexico's War of Independence. Atop the column is a statue of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, but it is commonly called The Angel. In her right hand she holds a laurel crown above Miguel Hidalgo's head, symbolizing victory, and in her left she holds a broken chain, symbolizing Freedom. The Angel is a landmark, as in "Let's meet at the Angel." I used it a few times when I was wandering on my own and had to ask, "¿Dónde está El Ángel?" If I could find the Angel, I could find the hotel.

One morning I joined a long line snaking away from a food cart to get a real-Mexican-food breakfast. Transactions were fast because offerings were minimal and everyone but me knew what they wanted. Luckily the woman in front of me spoke English and told me what the food was. 

The next few photos are what I took back to the hotel on at least a few mornings: tamales Oaxaqueños (wah ha KEN yos), steamed in banana leaves and so soft they are eaten with a spoon or fork; a couple of churros; cups of what might be champurrado, a hot chocolate drink thickened with corn masa; and fresh cut fruit from the food cart next door. All of this delicious food set me back about $5 US.

Thus fortified, we set off for what was at the top of the long list of places I wanted to see: the Museo Nacional de Antropología, the National Anthropology Museum. Because it isn't an art museum, I thought it would be a quick-ish trip in and out but oh, no. We spent the day there and went back a second time to finish. It's that good.

The entrance with ticket booth ($65 MX pesos each, about $4 US!!!) and fantastic gift shop are in the first building, which leads to a large courtyard and the entrances to the salas - huge galleries that are each dedicated to different anthropological and cultural collections. As a side note, Mexico uses the $ symbol for its money, which kind of freaks you out when you look at a ticket price of $65. Once you get used to it and start dividing it by 17, the rough exchange rate in effect for the three trips we have so far taken to Mexico, nothing seems so bad. Even the hucksters, selling any- and everything, say, "It's almost free!" in very good English.

This waterfall is in the courtyard. Museum policy prohibits playing in it, but people did and security was there to shoo them away. It was stunning, if only for its size.

On to the collections. I took so many photos it was ridiculous and will only show a few things here and not necessarily in chronological order.

Carved shell, Michoacán, 1200-1521 d. C. (después, or after, Christ).

Ceramic teapot, post Classical, 1200-1521 d. C. I don't know where the water and tea leaves go in. Down the spout?

Jester swirl bowl. Cute, huh?

Cut paper figures come from the Nahua, state of Hidalgo. The figures have historically been used in ceremonies, representing gods and nature spirits and used in rituals to ask for rain or cure disease. They're never based on Catholic saints, having come down from pre-Hispanic Mexicans.

This is at the entrance to the gallery.

     

I don't remember what this is from, other than a church in general, but I liked the shapes and lines, so here it is.

There were several figures like this around the museum. Aren't they chill? I loved them.

The caption next to the wood carving/etching below read:

Conca'ac. The People.

There was no earth, there was only the sea, the sky, and the sea animals. To make the earth the animals came together and decided to go to the bottom of the sea to bring the earth. But none could reach the bottom, until it was the turn of the giant turtle, the seven row turtle.

The great turtle took a month to go and come back, but when it reached the surface it had some sand under its nails and thus the earth could be created. That is why when the Seri catch a seven row turtle they do not kill it but take it alive to their village where they hold a festival in its honor to thank it for the feat of its ancestor, and then they return it to the sea.

A frieze fragment mirrored in the top of a shiny display case. Pretty cool, isn't it? From Yucatán, 250-600 d. C.

Mosaic disc from Yucatán, 1000-1250 d. C. 

In addition to artifacts from ancient cultures, the museum also showcases contemporary arts, like this carved wooden figure with its distinctive Oaxacan style. The colors are vibrant, almost neon. There is no mistaking Oaxacan art.

This oversized basket and interesting stand were at the entrance to one of the galleries.

Two painted pots that I did not get any info on. Similar styles but different when you really look at them.

The first thing that sprung to mind was The Queen of Hearts. 

This figure looks distressingly like Hitler.

This is the famous Aztec calendar that you may have heard about. Technically it's called the Sun Stone, Stone of the Five Eras and dates to the late 14th-early 15th century. It was straight ahead as I walked into the gallery and it stopped me in my tracks.

Here is a closer look, and the last of the museum photos for today. More from here and the rest of the trip to follow.

As we left the museum to forage for food, we came across this vendor selling snacks. All of it was more or less straightforward and I got a bag of pepitas.

However, I passed on this pile of delicacies, grasshoppers. I'd have to be pretty hungry and might like them if I ate one, but that will remain one of life's great unknowns.


I would much rather look at one in stone.


=======

Thought of the day:

If Jesus was a Jew, how come he has a Mexican first name? ~ Billy Connolly

It's been pretty quiet in these here parts

Hoo, boy, a lot has happened since my last post, way back in September.

My experience at Yosemite was not the best, for a lot of reasons. but it was a catalyst for a big move in my life. One day last summer I had my truck at the dealer in Fresno for something or other, and while waiting for it I started looking at real estate in Green Valley, Arizona. Why? I sure don't know, other than I love Arizona. There must have been some subliminal juju going on because I never, ever expected to settle down just two and a half years into my time on the road, yet that's exactly what happened.

When I was volunteering at Tumacácori in southern Arizona in the fall of 2014, HH and I drove by Green Valley on our way to Tucson but never exited the freeway to take a look at it. So it was kind of strange that I started looking in Green Valley and not Tucson, for example, but I found a townhouse in Green Valley that I fell in love with. It had been recently remodeled throughout and was turnkey ready for move-in. It had almost everything I wanted. The only problem was my work at Yosemite was nowhere near being finished to free me up to return to Arizona to make the deal, and the ex-husband and I had our Washington house on the market but no takers.

It was not long after this that HH and I went to San Juan Bautista Mission in California where I lit a candle to the Lady of Guadalupe, asking for help in getting the house sold, and two days later we had an offer. I'm not making any judgments about this kind of cosmic assistance, I'm just telling what happened.

I kept watching the Green Valley house online, sure that every time I looked it would show as Sale Pending, but it was always available. To this day I don't know how it didn't sell but when I finally got back here in late September there it was, waiting for me. After being yanked about by the buyer of the Washington house way too many times, she finally came through and we closed on that property, giving me the money I needed to buy the house HH and I now happily live in.

I had next to nothing to furnish it with and thereby began the mad rush to 1) drive to Wisconsin to pick up what belongings I still had in storage there, with a detour to Minnesota to see the grands, and 2) to start hitting the plentiful and darned good thrift stores around here for furniture, etc., etc. The drive up north was 4016 miles in eight days or something like it, and I had the best, if frantic time, shopping for and refinishing furniture, trying to get it all done before I moved in.

We've been busy to the point of hopping since we moved in in November. It took a good two months to settle down even a little. There's so much to do here that I've had to jettison some activities to make room for those that matter more to me, and we're still discovering new places to go and things to see. It's really the best place I've ever lived, including my house, the neighborhood (a good HOA if you can believe it), my neighbors, and the Green Valley/Tucson area in general. We've done some traveling to Mexico, twice, and have another trip there coming up. We've been to the opera, a concert/ballet with a Latino flavor, another concert by the Green Valley Concert Band, and a performance of instruments called melodicas at Tumacácori (and now that we have, never have to again). These are just the tip of the iceberg of things we've done.

I'm still busy finding furniture to work on. My latest completed piece is this spinning chair I found at a consignment store:

 An overexposed shot of the original, after I gave it a scrub and put it outside to dry.

And the finished piece.

The chair has a stamp on the back. It says it was hand carved at the Studio of Arts and Antiquities in England. I just followed the carving which made it so much easier to paint.

The other two chairs are Goodwill finds, even better because I got a 20% Senior Citizens' Day discount. It's almost a sin to pay full price for most things here.

The prior piece I finished was a cherry cabinet that belonged to HH. We tried to send it home with his son and daughter-in-law when they visited a few months ago but they didn't want it. I finally got the idea to paint it in this design from a book of Mexican motif patterns, and just love it. It's in the office, storing supplies. Again, not a good photo and it has the cat in it. There's also an oval mirror that hangs above it, painted with the same kind of wavy line that's on the cabinet.

Mexico photos will follow. We returned from Mexico City, a fabulous place, with more than 1600 photos and I'm in the process of exerting some sanity on them. I'll try not to wait another seven months to post again.

-------

Thought of the day:

My goal is to create a life I don't need a vacation from. - Anon (good old Pinterest)

Finding community

In late July HH and I flew to Boston to attend his grandson's wedding. The wedding was in New London, Connecticut, but we had the morning of the day before the wedding to ourselves in Boston, which I immediately commandeered for a trip to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. This is what I miss about not living on the east coast, when I could take Amtrak from D.C. to New York for a long weekend of museum-hopping and theater-going. I miss art museums a lot. The photos from the Boston museum are still in the works and would probably bore the socks off just about anyone, but I enjoy photographing the art even though I rarely look at it again.

That afternoon HH's son picked us up at the museum to drive us to New London to the bride's parents' house for a clambake. It was an amazing meal and I wonder why there are no photos of it - oh, right! I was too busy eating lobster, clams, mussels, and corn on the cob. The caterer did a fantastic job in an outdoor cook space, plating meals ahead of time so all we had to do was pass through the line and grab a plate. I refused to wear a lobster bib and came through, by sheer grace, without a drop of goo on me.

The following morning, the day of the wedding, we again had to ourselves because the wedding wasn't until 2:00. I had spied a church spire a few blocks away and wandered over to see if I could get in. I was testing doors, finding them locked, until a man drove into the parking lot and led me into the church, St. James Episcopal. He is an active, long-time member there and told me about its history and mission. There's a lot of information between his narration and the church brochure he gave me.

The original church building opened in 1732. It operated as Church of England, a break from the Congregationalists that had been the established church of the colonies. Ironically, this original "church of England" was accidentally burned, along with the city of New London, by British troops under the command of Benedict Arnold in 1781. Not only were the parishioners displaced, they were divided by split loyalties to the old and new governments. Also, Bishops, the only source for ordaining clergy, were all back in England, by then foreign and enemy soil.

Three years after New London burned, a new church building was being planned. It, too, no longer exists. They still needed a Bishop, though, and found one in Samuel Seabury. He had been elected Bishop in Connecticut in 1783 but of course had to go to England to be consecrated by the Bishops of the English church. A loyalty oath to the crown was required for ordination, but as he was a son of the New Country that was not possible, so he traveled to Aberdeen, Scotland and was consecrated there instead. He returned to the colonies as the first and only Bishop in America.

Seabury was an ardent rebuilder of the local congregation, traveling through New England confirming congregants and ordaining priests, working with them to found the Episcopal Church in America.

By the middle of the 19th century, New London had become the country's second-most important whaling port, with corresponding increasing fortunes, and this church became one of the beneficiaries. English architect Richard Upjohn, who had already built Trinity Church in New York, developed an early version of Gothic Revival design, and the church was eventually filled with medieval symbolism and elements such as crosses, candles, vested choirs, divided chancel, and stained glass.

The building became home to a "procession of memorials," as the brochure puts it, including an assortment of stained glass representing the craft's development in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It is said to to include the largest number of Tiffany windows in any single New England building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Once again, I had to shoot handheld and kind of on the fly, as the nice gentleman who gave me the tour had other things he had to do, so these are not up to the standards I prefer for churches. They do, however, give a glimpse of this beautiful structure built with love and devotion by its parishioners. When it was dedicated in 1850, it even, already, contained a shrine. The body of Bishop Seabury was interred in a burial chamber beneath the high altar. 


Some years later, the body of Rector Robert Hallam, the man who led the challenge to erect this building and who was one of the largest contributors to the cause, was interred in the same crypt as Bishop Seabury. The space is used for worship and is known as Hallam Chapel.

The "marble" below is in memory of Bishop Seabury. It is somewhat subdued, more so than what you might expect for this father of the Episcopal Church in America. I show it here because I love the fifth line from the bottom, which says, "[he] was translated from Earth to Heaven..."

I look now at the brochure I got when I was leaving the church that describes its different features like the baptistry, a painting attributed to Bellini, and the Seabury and Hallam cenotaphs, and I see that I missed so much because of the necessary quickness of my visit. 

The description of the windows in the brochure says most of the windows use larger pieces of glass and less leading than traditional styles. Some of its shading is achieved by varying the thickness of the glass, or building up various colors. Tiffany windows are translucent and when light shines through, the picture is illuminated like glass slides. Even when not illuminated, the picture is visible, albeit quite different from when it is lit. If no light passes through ordinary stained glass, the picture is dark with nothing really visible. 

So now, forthwith, the windows, the crowning glory of this special place.

The Lawrence Memorial Window, commemorating Joseph and his two sons, Francis and Sebastian Lawrence. It shows St. Sebastian, St. Joseph holding Jesus, and St. Francis. Tiffany, installed 1910.

The Lyman Allyn Window, depicting the Holy Family. Tiffany, installed 1910.

Betsay Ingram Whittlesey Window, Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Tiffany, installed 1910.

I don't know what window this is, other than it being about the Resurrection. And I also can't seem to get it centered.

George W. Whittlesey Window, depicting the Angel's appearance to the shepherds, announcing the nativity of Jesus. Tiffany, installed 1910.

The Stark Window, depicting the Resurrection. Cox and Sons, London. Installed in 1881-2 in memory of Robert Hallam; donated by Benjamin Stark. I wasn't allowed to close the open window.

Ironside Window, Appearance of Christ on the Sea of Galilee after the Resurrection. Tiffany, installed 1911. Not my best work, but the color is magnificent.

Mansfield Window, depicting two friends who died in action in World War 1. J&R Lamb Studios, installed 1922.

Hilliar Window, Angels singing and praising God. Susan K. Van Heukelom, installed 1993.

The organ is an Ernest M. Skinner from 1914. It has four manuals and sixty-five ranks of pipes.

There are other windows there that I could not get at because of the angle or light fixtures hanging in the way.

This final window is behind the altar. What I like to do when I have a tripod is to take three to five shots in sequence at different exposures, then blend them into one when I process so I get all the lights and all the darks. I didn't have that luxury so this window, believed to be by the Henry E. Sharp studio in New York, is not at its best.

Being a true community church, St. James has an active ministry with other organizations in New London. It co-founded a shelter for homeless men, women, and families. It provides a monthly community meal for anyone who wants one, which was going on when I was there. There were more than a dozen workers in the parish hall, preparing hot meals, boxing them up, and handing them out with a bottle of water to whoever walked through the door needing a meal. They participate in a grass roots volunteer organization for the development of New London's commercial district, which is not the booming center of commerce it used to be. They work with Habitat for Humanity. The parish lends space to Head Start, AA groups, A Moveable Feast, and other faith-based and non-profit community groups, and in the past opened its doors to other Christian organizations which did not have a home. They organize an annual concert series and host other musical groups for concerts and recitals. And every other year, they send a group to Guatemala to build or renovate schools and churches.

I am no longer a church-goer. A Catholic born and raised with twelve years of Catholic education under my belt and the scars to prove it, I find organized religion leaves a bad taste in my mouth. However, I will say that if I were looking for an organization to call home, it would be a community like St. James. They are Christians - humans - in the most caring sense of the word.

The man who gave me the tour talked openly with me about his upbringing as a Catholic and not feeling accepted because of his lifestyle as a gay man, but had found a home here. I can understand why. As I left, I shook his hand, thanked him, and said, "You're a prince." He said, without pausing for breath, "No, I'm a queen." Now that's a guy I like.

=======

Thought of the day:

I think tolerance and acceptance and love is something that feeds every community. - Lady Gaga