travel

It’s That Time Again … (Es eso tiempo otra vez … )

/ R. Newell Searle / 3 Comments

We all have our habits and rhythms. As much a part of us as the color of our eyes and the timbre of our voices. It’s January and time to pack for Mexico. It’s part of my annual rhythm. Friends and acquaintances are asking, ‘When are you leaving?’ I say, ‘Friday.’

Todos nosotros tenemos nuestros hábitos y ritmos anuales. Tanta una parte de nosotros mismos como el color de nuestros ojos y el timbre de nuestras voces. Es enero y para mí, es tiempo para empacar para México. Lo es una parte de mi ritmo anual. Amigos y conocidos me piden ‘¿Cuándo te vas?’ Digo, ‘viernes.’

Some parts of Mexico are as familiar as my North Woods cabin, Minneapolis and the farm where I grew up. I return to certain places annually, like a monarch butterfly or migratory warbler. Each year, I’m met with something new—a place, a friend an experience. Why return there if they’re familiar? Why not strike out in new directions?

All paths lead to adventures. Todos caminos guiarte a una aventura.

Hay algunas partes de México que están tan conocido a mí como mi cabaña de bosque, Minneapolis y la finca donde crecí. Vuelvo a ciertos lugares de México anualmente como una mariposa monarca o un pájaro migratorio. Cada año, me encuentro con algo nuevo—un sitio, un amigo, una experiencia. ¿Por qué regreso a estos lugares cuando están tan conocidos? ¿Por qué no lanzo yo mismo hacía unos nuevos rumbos?

It’s a good question and I’ve considered it many times but I return because I haven’t yet experienced everything possible in those places. They are like good friends, there is always a new revelation, an aspect that expands my sense of them and my sense of self.

Es una buena pregunta y muchas veces en la he pensado. Regreso porque no he visto ni experimentado aún todo lo que es posible en estos lugares. Ellos son como amigos buenos, hay siempre una nueva revelación, un aspecto de les que expanda mi sentido de ellos y de yo mismo.

I am most satisfied going deep.
Estoy el más contento cuando buceando profundamente.

With limited time, my choices are to spread myself thin across the country or dive deep in a few places. Both are legitimate ways to travel. A deep dive limits some options but expands others. As in most things, I’m most satisfied going deep.

Con tiempo limitado, mis opciones son entre extiende yo mismo delgado de través el país o buceo profundamente en pocos lugares. Los dos son legítimas maneras de viajar. Ir profundo me limite en ciertas maneras, pero la profundidad me expandirá en otras maneras. Estoy el más contento cuando buceando profundamente.

Ruminate–chewing the cud of history

/ R. Newell Searle / Leave a comment

via Daily Prompt: Ruminate

Ruminating. Growing up on a Minnesota farm, I spent boyhood hours tending to our herd of dairy and beef cattle. They were a peaceful lot for the most part and, on hot afternoons, they lay in the shade and chewed their cuds as casually as kids chewed bubble gum. Cattle and other animals are ruminants, they chew their cuds of partially digested forage. Ruminating, chewing a cud, is what all thoughtful people need to do at this moment in time. In the U.S., we value swift decisions more than taking the time to ruminate or think about the consequences of our actions. Living in Mexico, with access to Mexican and U.S. newspapers, I have an opportunity to ruminate, to think about the current course of U.S. events.

Freize 2017 015Taking the long view—four millennia in the Museo Amparo. An afternoon in Puebla’s anthropological museum is a good place to thing amid its outstanding artifacts from Mesoamerican civilizations. I go often, and my four hours there (this time) passed through 4,000 years of human experience. The objects showed me other ways to view the cosmos, human fertility, divinities, writing, art, household utensils and political organizations. The variety of objects reflected amazing styles, some formal and realistic, others loose and abstract, still others as fresh as contemporary forms. Without writing, they used clay funereal figures with symbolic heads, noses, mouths and tongues to symbolize the virtues and accomplishments of the deceased—an obituary in ceramics. A video gallery of contemporary oral histories recounts cultural ideas and beliefs in Náhuatl, Mixe, Mixteca, Zapoteca, Chichimeca, and Maya—ancient languages still alive and necessary to meet human needs now as in the past.

Amparo 2017 020From museum galleries to artisans’ stalls in the mercado, you can see how creative energy flows from culture to culture, century to millennium. Sometimes the expression takes a new direction, at other times it doubles back on itself. Artifacts and products still throb with the human energy that pulses in our own veins and minds. You need only spend a day at the Amparo to see that primitive and advanced are meaningless ideas about cultures. Their abstract fallacy is the illusion there exists an objective standard by which to measure cultures. Human imagination seems always capable of rising to meet the needs and resources of a time and place. Comparing the artifacts and ruins of the past with the present doesn’t tell us we are more advanced as human beings. ‘Progress’ is a seductive but conceited notion; a false assumption that cultures rise upward through time toward some imaginary finish line. The ruins tell us another story.

The past is never the past in Mexico. The past isn’t behind me but all around me; time is a thin, fluid membrane lacking the harder, linear qualities I know as ‘time’ in Minnesota. The phrase ‘up to the minute’ feels meaningless here. What minute are we talking about? The moment we’re in now, or some other moment that just passed, or the one about to intrude? Today is perhaps yesterday or a century ago in another guise. Time changes its nature just as the mythic creatures of indigenous stories transform humans into jaguars or coyotes into humans. What we think of as the ‘past’ is always visible in a sidelong glance at margin of our peripheral vision. If I turn my head to look …!

I always come away from Amparo humbled about my place in a vaster cosmos. The universe is less complete without me but, at the cosmic level, I am but one speck of creative energy among multitudes that contributes to the flow of something greater than myself and whose significance I may never fathom in my lifetime. And yet, I suspect that grasping the essence of the past is no more difficult than lifting a cup of Mexican coffee to my lips.

Living here and now—noticing the other. I notice that Mexicans acknowledge strangers and each other in the stores and on the street with a nod or an unforced buenas tardes or buen día. The recognition may be small, even subtle, but it’s part of the social ‘grease’ and grace that underlies communal life. It is to say: ‘I don’t know you but I see you, I acknowledge your presence.’ It is a small but essential thing and, because my presence is repeatedly affirmed by others, I never feel alone or isolated in Mexico.

IMG_5428It makes me wonder if, in the rush of modern, urban life in the U.S., we take too little or no time to acknowledge the presence of those we don’t know. We all hunger for connection, for the affirmation of our being, but I fear we may have wrung it out of our culture with our utilitarian focus on work, and our isolation within the bubbles of shared opinions, social class, and race. Still, I believe there is a simple, human path out of our present divisions—to simply and sincerely acknowledge the presence of the ‘other,’ the person you don’t know, the person who thinks differently, or the foreigner you may otherwise fear. A simple acknowledgment of our shared existence as humans makes other connections possible and narrows the distances between us. It isn’t difficult.

 

Reading our way to freedom—literature as a subversive act. Latin American poets and novelists loom larger in the politics and history of their countries than they do in the U.S.—at least until now. Pablo Neruda, Carlos Fuentes, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Octavio Paz and many others were potent political figures in their time. People of all classes and opinions read them, and their works threatened the powerful. Why? Because words matter. Why? Because literature engages a person’s soul in a way that forms convictions.

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Writers and readers are more willing to put themselves on the line for these convictions than those who don’t read. Political novels, like It Can’t Happen Here, 1984, Animal Farm and Fahrenheit 451 are suddenly popular in the U.S. Why? Literature is known to cultivate empathy, buck up courage, and guide public thinking and actions during dark times. Reading literature is subversive. That’s why book banning and burning is no accident. A well-read person knows that ‘alternate facts’ aren’t facts; they are lies. We all have a responsibility to call a lie, a lie. If we fall silent in the face of falsehood, we sanction the lie and make it our own. Reading thoughtful literature is one of the most subversive and revolutionary acts possible. Hence, our Constitution has its First Amendment. Today, it’s just possible that thoughtful reading and rumination may save us from the liars among us.

The rise and fall of civilizations—among the ruins of Yohualichan. I spent Inauguration Day 2017 at the ruins of Yohualichan in the rugged Sierra Norte of Puebla, Mexico. In this forested region of isolated indigenous towns, Spanish is the second language of many. Yohualichan is an aldea or hamlet of perhaps 500 Náhuatl-speaking residents, descendants of those who succeeded the Totonaco people and outlived the Spanish. Here, ancient traditions are passed on informally at home and through the schools. I visited these ruins just as the 45th President of the United States took his oath of office with his promise to ‘make America great again.’ (Not that the United States isn’t great already.)

Cuetzalan 2017 041

The ruins were built more than 1,000 years ago by a once great people who were conquered by the Aztecs in the 1200s, and were in turn defeated by the Spanish in the 1500s.

Wandering among the remains of stone temples and plazas, I ruminated on the elements of a great civilization, a great nation. Do civilizations and nations pass through life cycles of ascent, dominance, and decline? History is filled with empires that rose, dominated, and then fell. Sometimes, there were leaders—usually authoritarians—who attempted to resurrect former greatness by sheer force of will. Resurrection never seemed to be in the cards for the Greeks and Romans. Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin and Mao briefly imposed their visions of greatness on their citizens but their empires fell because of internal contradictions.

I spent a morning wandering among stone temples, ball courts, and plazas erected without machines or draft animals. Their walls are plumb and the corners are square and the stones whispered a secret. Greatness doesn’t depend on priests, politicians or authoritarian leaders. These great structures with stepped temples were erected by a people imbued with a common spirit that bound them together in pursuit of a shared vision—even a vision of heaven on earth. The spirit that led the people to momentary greatness lasted only as long as they held a sense of common purpose. Their civilization flickered and died from internal divisions, political factions, and military conquests.

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Much still isn’t known about the culture of Yohualichan and its larger center at El Tajín in Papantla, Veracruz. The people of El Tajín recorded their history and culture on scrolls called codices. Spanish conquistedores destroyed most of the indigenous records and the accumulated information. That’s what invaders do. They try to destroy the soul of the culture, erase its history, and impose their language as a means of controlling those they defeated or conquered. In the quest to restore American ‘greatness,’ a new presidency seems bent on upending and obliterating the work of previous administrations. Its words and early actions are those of an invader and not of a successor. Like the Spaniards that toppled indigenous temples, the new regime seems set to demolish the social structures it inherited from 240 years of American experience. Already, the national endowments of the arts and humanities are slated for elimination—a de facto destruction of American codices. What else the administration may destroy is yet to be seen.

A slice of hope. Not all is necessarily lost. There are grounds for hope. After a day in the ruins, a friend took me to look at one of a dozen cisterns constructed and maintained by Cuetzalan 2017 067communal effort. Sunset was nearly on us when we slipped through the cattle gate and hiked up the mountainside through the grass. The large tank sat on a concrete pad fed by tubes from springs tapped farther up the slope. A tube at the bottom of the cistern channeled water to a dozen smaller tubes that ran downhill to the houses in the hamlet below. Water is scarce in parts of Mexico, and even scarcer in the midst of a drought. The construction, operation, and maintenance of the simple cistern is a communal project, a shared vision. This small project, multiplied by millions of people, is what makes a great civilization. This is greatness working in an indigenous municipality. We can all learn from the past, if we will.

The art of packing—What to leave behind?

/ R. Newell Searle / 1 Comment

One suitcase of possibilities.

One suitcase of possibilities.

It’s deep January. Minnesota is locked in the coldest weather of the winter with the mercury at -21°F with a wind chill nearing -40°F. Snow squeals in protest under foot; darkness still falls too early and sleeps in too late. Upstairs in my study, a reddish suitcase lies open on the floor, half-packed. A  hopeful sign.

Packing  for travel is an art. What I take is less important than what I leave behind.

I’ll be in México for 10 weeks and I want to take only one suitcase, as small as possible. This one weighs only 33 pounds when packed and I’ll take only the things I’m certain to wear or use or use up. Everything must be versatile to meet changing weathers and social circumstances. I start in Puebla at 7,500 feet near the foot of El Popo where it’s cool, then to tropical Cuetzalán and Huehuetla near the Gulf Coast, and then to hotter, semi-arid mountain valleys of Oaxaca State. My packing list is shorter, now; past trips have showed me what I don’t need. No more packing this or that, “just in case.”

My packing list comes from the experience of previous trips—what I wore and didn’t wear, what conformed to the clothing Mexican men wear every day. My wardrobe is simple and chosen so I blend in as much as possible and avoid attracting attention.

Everything is rolled tightly, and packed in plastic bags squeezed empty of air. I start with three chino slacks, four short-sleeved shirts, two long-sleeved shirts, six briefs, four tee-shirts, PJ’s, a sweater, a windbreaker, sandals, walking shoes, two pairs of socks, a pleated guayabera for formal occasions, a bandana, a battered Panama hat, Tylenol, eye drops, six energy bars, a sunblock, shaving kit, deodorant, a washcloth (never saw one in México). My camera, laptop, notebooks, pens, watercolors and Kindle go in my daypack.

I’m leaving behind things that mark me as an obvious foreigner: white athletic shoes, tee-shirts with company logos, charitable causes, favorite sport teams or U.S. national parks; no baggy shorts with cargo pockets or polyester hats with mesh ventilation and floppy brims. How I appear to Mexicans will affect how they interact with me. I want as few barriers or presumptions as possible.

The contents of my suitcase reflect my aspirations. Does yours?

What I take reflects what I want to do, and my ideas of the social reality I expect to encounter. I will visit my Mexican friends but spend most of my days teaching English in a small, indigenous town near Oaxaca. I don’t expect to have the same level of material comfort I enjoy at home and I won’t bring things to compensate for that. My measure of comfort is Mexican , not Minnesotan.  

As I fold and pack my clothes, I am also packing my mind and heart. What aspirations and hopes will I take with me? And what expectations will I leave behind? I want to be emotionally and spiritually present every moment I’m in México, otherwise, why travel? Preparing my heart and mind is even more important than the clothing I choose.

My journeys are as much interior as they are geographical and, in the end I discover myself anew. Being present in the moment is the key.To stay present in the moment, I’m leaving behind my anxieties about two manuscripts awaiting the acceptance or rejection of an agent and an editor. These things are important to me but I can’t control the decisions and judgments of others. As Mexican friends tell me, these are in God’s hands and the results will be as they are meant to be. There is no value fretting about them in México and miss the moment.

Next to my worry and preoccupations, I leave behind the credentials of my public identity in Minnesota: Positions once held, academic degrees earned, publications written, and awards received. They are irrelevant in México. No one cares about them. It’s liberating to leave my credentials behind, it’s like shucking off a shell and finding some new part of me hidden underneath. 

Travel without personal credentials. See if it’s liberating.

For identity (besides a passport), I’ll take photos of my daughters, wife, granddaughter and the extended family. In my heart and soul, I’ll take with curiosity, humor, openness, compassion and, if possible, humility. That will be enough for any encounter.

After a decade of annual trips to México, I’ve learned the art of packing isn’t about what I put into the suitcase; the art comes from knowing what to leave out.

What’s in your suitcase? What are you leaving behind?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Memorias – Lugares en el corazón Memories – Places in the heart

/ R. Newell Searle / Leave a comment

[Este es un puesto bilingue – This is a bilingual post. English is below.]

¿Hay un lugar en el mundo, diferente de tu hogar o residencia actual, que ha enraizado en tu corazón? ¿Qué es el lugar y cómo te ha afectado? Creo que todos nosotros llevan en nuestros corazones un lugar especial donde no podemos vivir sino sólo visitar de vez en cuando o tristemente una vez en nuestras vidas. Para mí, lo es Puebla, México. ¿Qué es tuyos?

Cuando era estudiante de español, viví con una familia en un barrio de Puebla. Viví con la misma familia cada vez, una pareja casada de muchos años, llenada con el fuego de vida. Siempre, viví con ellos durante el fin de abril y el principio de mayo. Durante el período de cuatro breves inmersiones en español, me enamoraba con la gente de la ciudad.

Juntos visitamos sus amigos en el campo, compramos vegetales en los abastos, disfrutamos visitas con los vecinos, celebramos Cinco de Mayo y el Día de la Madre. Ellos me introdujeron a sus amigos y vecinos así que, después cuatro años, ellos vinieron a ser mis amigos, también.

Nosotros formamos los lazos de amistades que lo hacían imposible olvidarles. Mientras, ellos me ayudaron aprender español y las costumbres de la cultura. En tiempo, me sentía como un habitante de Puebla.

Puebla es una ciudad de una primavera perpetua igual una chica que no llegar a ser vieja. Los árboles de jacaranda florezcan y sus ramas produzcan las nubes de flores lavandas. Cada día, cuando caminaba yo a lo largo las calles residenciales hacia el Centro histórico, pase los arbustos podan en las formas de conejos, espirales, canastas y – increíblemente – uno como una casa de pájaros

Hay un gran Zocalo – una plaza central – donde comienzan las calles y avenidas principales según al plan de los españoles. Aquí está donde la ciudad – la gente poblana – encontrarse para negocios, conciertos, protestas, entretenimientos, amores y diversiones. Un domingo, con mi familia anfitriona, pasamos una tarde en los sombras de los árboles mirando la escena y leyendo La Reforma. Aquí está donde me siento como poblano.

Al lado el Zocalo está la Catedral de la Concepción Inmaculada, un edificio masivo de piedras grises. La piedra primera estuvo puesto en 1575 y la última en 1690. Los torres de campanas son los más altos en todo de México. A pesar de la apariencia severa, la interior es un espacio de luz – no solo la luz del sol pero un sentido de luz espiritual, también, que afecta cada persona que visita.

Una vez, con un amigo – un sacerdote y estudiante de español – paramos en la catedral para orar en la interior tranquila. Mientras me arrodillé en el banco, mi compañero endecha propensa en el piso en una acción de mucha humildad. Después pocos minutos, una docente me tocó en el hombro.

“¿Está el hombre enfermo?” ella pidió.

“No. Él es un sacerdote y él ora en esta manera,” contesté.

Ella se encogió sus hombros y salió.

Tenía muchas experiencias simples, mundanas pero memorables como esto. Ellas son eventos pequeñísimos, ordinarios y comunes que formaron la fábrica rica de mi cariño para Puebla.

A pesar de los grandes edificios de Puebla, los museos, ruinas e iglesias, en el fin lo es la gente que viva en mi corazón. Ahora, cuando voy a México, mi ruta pasa por Puebla. Es el sueño del viajero tener la libertad sin cualquier obligación y compromiso. Para mí, es difícil sino imposible amar un lugar sin amando primera la gente que viva ahí.

¿Qué es tu experiencia?

Memories – Places in the heart

Is there a place in the world, different from your home or your current residence that has sunk roots in your heart? What is that place and how has it affected you? I think that we all carry in our hearts a special place where we can’t live but can only visit now and then or, sadly, only once in our lives. For me, that place is Puebla, México. Why do you have a special place in your heart? What is it?

When I was a student of Spanish, I lived with a family in a Puebla neighborhood, an older married couple filled with the fire of life. I always lived with them during the end of April and the beginning of May. During four, brief Spanish immersions, I fell in love with the people of the city.

Together we visited their friends in the country, bought vegetables at the huge outdoor market, visited with the neighbors, celebrated Cinco de Mayo and the Mexican Mother’s Day. They introduced me to their friends and neighbors so that, after four years, they came to be my friends, too.

We formed bonds of friendship that make it impossible to forget them. Meanwhile, they helped me learn Spanish and the customs of the culture. In time, I felt like a resident of Puebla.

Puebla is a city of perpetual spring like a girl who never grows old. The jacaranda trees bloom and their branches produce clouds of lavender flowers. Each day, I used to walk along the residential streets toward the historic center, passing bushes pruned into the form of rabbits, spirals, baskets and – incredibly – a birdhouse.

There is a large Zocalo – the central plaza – where the streets begin according to the Spaniards’ plan. Here is where the city – the people of Puebla – meet for business, concerts, protests, entertainment, love affairs, and diversions. One Sunday my host family and I passed the afternoon in the shade of the trees watching the scene and reading La Reforma. Here is where I feel like a poblano – a person of Puebla.

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is next to the Zocalo, a massive building of gray stones. The first stone was laid in 1575 and the last in 1690. The bell towers are the tallest in all of Mexico. Despite its severe appearance, the interior is a place of light – not only the light of the sun but a feeling of spiritual light, also, that affects every person who visits.

Once, with a friend – a priest and Spanish student – we stopped in the Cathedral to pray in the tranquil interior. While I knelt in the pew, my companion lay prone on the floor in an act of great humility. After a few minutes, a docent tapped me on the shoulder.

“Is the man ill?” she asked.

“No. He is a priest and he prays this way,” I answered.

She shrugged and left.

I had many simple, mundane but memorable experiences like this. They are small, ordinary, and common events that make up the rich fabric of my affection for Puebla.

Despite the great buildings in Puebla, the museums, ruins, and churches, in the end the people stay in my heart. Now, when I go to Mexico, my route of travel passes through Puebla. The traveler’s dream is liberty without any obligations or commitments. For me it is difficult if not impossible to love a place without loving the people who live there.

What is your experience?

¿Hay un lugar en el mundo, diferente de tu hogar o residencia actual, que ha enraizado en tu corazón? ¿Qué es el lugar y cómo te ha afectado? Creo que todos nosotros llevan en nuestros corazones un lugar especial donde no podemos vivir sino sólo visitar de vez en cuando o tristemente una vez en nuestras vidas. Para mí, lo es Puebla, México. ¿Qué es tuyos?

Cuando era estudiante de español, viví con una familia en un barrio de Puebla. Viví con la misma familia cada vez, una pareja casada de muchos años, llenada con el fuego de vida. Siempre, viví con ellos durante el fin de abril y el principio de mayo. Durante el período de cuatro breves inmersiones en español, me enamoraba con la gente de la ciudad.

Juntos visitamos sus amigos en el campo, compramos vegetales en los abastos, disfrutamos visitas con los vecinos, celebramos Cinco de Mayo y el Día de la Madre. Ellos me introdujeron a sus amigos y vecinos así que, después cuatro años, ellos vinieron a ser mis amigos, también.

Nosotros formamos los lazos de amistades que lo hacían imposible olvidarles. Mientras, ellos me ayudaron aprender español y las costumbres de la cultura. En tiempo, me sentía como un habitante de Puebla.

Puebla es una ciudad de una primavera perpetua igual una chica que no llegar a ser vieja. Los árboles de jacaranda florezcan y sus ramas produzcan las nubes de flores lavandas. Cada día, cuando caminaba yo a lo largo las calles residenciales hacia el Centro histórico, pase los arbustos podan en las formas de conejos, espirales, canastas y – increíblemente – uno como una casa de pájaros

Hay un gran Zocalo – una plaza central – donde comienzan las calles y avenidas principales según al plan de los españoles. Aquí está donde la ciudad – la gente poblana – encontrarse para negocios, conciertos, protestas, entretenimientos, amores y diversiones. Un domingo, con mi familia anfitriona, pasamos una tarde en los sombras de los árboles mirando la escena y leyendo La Reforma. Aquí está donde me siento como poblano.

Al lado el Zocalo está la Catedral de la Concepción Inmaculada, un edificio masivo de piedras grises. La piedra primera estuvo puesto en 1575 y la última en 1690. Los torres de campanas son los más altos en todo de México. A pesar de la apariencia severa, la interior es un espacio de luz – no solo la luz del sol pero un sentido de luz espiritual, también, que afecta cada persona que visita.

Una vez, con un amigo – un sacerdote y estudiante de español – paramos en la catedral para orar en la interior tranquila. Mientras me arrodillé en el banco, mi compañero endecha propensa en el piso en una acción de mucha humildad. Después pocos minutos, una docente me tocó en el hombro.

“¿Está el hombre enfermo?” ella pidió.

“No. Él es un sacerdote y él ora en esta manera,” contesté.

Ella se encogió sus hombros y salió.

Tenía muchas experiencias simples, mundanas pero memorables como esto. Ellas son eventos pequeñísimos, ordinarios y comunes que formaron la fábrica rica de mi cariño para Puebla.

A pesar de los grandes edificios de Puebla, los museos, ruinas e iglesias, en el fin lo es la gente que viva en mi corazón. Ahora, cuando voy a México, mi ruta pasa por Puebla. Es el sueño del viajero tener la libertad sin cualquier obligación y compromiso. Para mí, es difícil sino imposible amar un lugar sin amando primera la gente que viva ahí.

¿Qué es tu experiencia?

Memories – Places in the heart

Is there a place in the world, different from your home or your current residence that has sunk roots in your heart? What is that place and how has it affected you? I think that we all carry in our hearts a special place where we can’t live but can only visit now and then or, sadly, only once in our lives. For me, that place is Puebla, México. Why do you have a special place in your heart? What is it?

When I was a student of Spanish, I lived with a family in a Puebla neighborhood, an older married couple filled with the fire of life. I always lived with them during the end of April and the beginning of May. During four, brief Spanish immersions, I fell in love with the people of the city.

Together we visited their friends in the country, bought vegetables at the huge outdoor market, visited with the neighbors, celebrated Cinco de Mayo and the Mexican Mother’s Day. They introduced me to their friends and neighbors so that, after four years, they came to be my friends, too.

We formed bonds of friendship that make it impossible to forget them. Meanwhile, they helped me learn Spanish and the customs of the culture. In time, I felt like a resident of Puebla.

Puebla is a city of perpetual spring like a girl who never grows old. The jacaranda trees bloom and their branches produce clouds of lavender flowers. Each day, I used to walk along the residential streets toward the historic center, passing bushes pruned into the form of rabbits, spirals, baskets and – incredibly – a birdhouse.

There is a large Zocalo – the central plaza – where the streets begin according to the Spaniards’ plan. Here is where the city – the people of Puebla – meet for business, concerts, protests, entertainment, love affairs, and diversions. One Sunday my host family and I passed the afternoon in the shade of the trees watching the scene and reading La Reforma. Here is where I feel like a poblano – a person of Puebla.

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception is next to the Zocalo, a massive building of gray stones. The first stone was laid in 1575 and the last in 1690. The bell towers are the tallest in all of Mexico. Despite its severe appearance, the interior is a place of light – not only the light of the sun but a feeling of spiritual light, also, that affects every person who visits.

Once, with a friend – a priest and Spanish student – we stopped in the Cathedral to pray in the tranquil interior. While I knelt in the pew, my companion lay prone on the floor in an act of great humility. After a few minutes, a docent tapped me on the shoulder.

“Is the man ill?” she asked.

“No. He is a priest and he prays this way,” I answered.

She shrugged and left.

I had many simple, mundane but memorable experiences like this. They are small, ordinary, and common events that make up the rich fabric of my affection for Puebla.

Despite the great buildings in Puebla, the museums, ruins, and churches, in the end the people stay in my heart. Now, when I go to Mexico, my route of travel passes through Puebla. The traveler’s dream is liberty without any obligations or commitments. For me it is difficult if not impossible to love a place without loving the people who live there.

What is your experience?