Chapter Two from Mexico: Pilgrimage to Europa

In San Miguel de Allende, my mom who was seventy-nine, did not have to organize or cook for Christmas. She was the queen, la reigna. My dad bought a pair of white tennis shoes for the cobblestone streets, and with Mom in the shoes she used for walking to the gym, they were a beautiful pair.

Our first excursion upon their arrival was a mass pilgrimage to the liquor store off the Jardin. We decided that, with a full range of Spanish and Chilean wines and the name Europa, it had to be open on Sunday. So it was that at midday, some twenty-four Tatums descended upon the liquor store, which was indeed open. Ten minutes later we emerged with a cashe that required flagging down a cab, and two able bodies to lift the box of liquor. This Sunday outing proved that in our family, the cocktail hour was a religion bordering on fanatacism.

The Tatum family dynamic was wonderful and, like most families, consuming. I had insomnia starting the night before they arrived. At home I went to yoga classes and did plenty of surfing in order to ensure a full night’s sleep, but I couldn’t do that in San Miguel. Thank God for Blue. Crawling into bed with him was like climbing from swirling water onto a rock that had been warmed by a full day’s sun.

From the bedroom window of our palacio, we looked out on the hillside of cactus and sagebrush. Two men in cowboy hats walked down the trail to get to work. The hill was covered in trails which, when Carly and I moved, I started running. The trails all lead to the same place, as if people couldn’t go the same way twice. There was trash everywhere, even human excrement. Los pobres walking into town, I supposed. In town there was work, and the stray dogs wandering in the Jardin were well fed.

As Christmas approached, I had a conversation with my six-year-old nephew Ben:

B: “I wonder why they call it San Miguel de Allende.”

T: “Well, a lot of people in Mexico are Catholic, which means they believe in God, and Catholics have lots of saints, which are people who are close to God. San Miguel was a saint.”

B: “Hmmmm.... There’s this one guy, I think his name is a bad word? ‘Friggin’’ or something?”

T: “Hmmm....”

B: “I think they hung him on the cross?”

T: “Oh you mean, Jesus!”

The celebration of Jesus's biuth culminated but did not end on the twenty-fourth. It was the night of the last Posada, with a pinata and bags of goodies for the kids, followed by ten and eleven o’clock mass. In the moment that all the Tatums gathered for Christmas eve on the patio of our palacio, everything came together. The sun was setting, the cousins were breaking Carly’s pinatas, and the adults were drinking margaritas. All the women were taking pictures, not because they couldn’t be in the moment but because they recognized it as that.

The people of Mexico know how to be in the moment. Long after we had gone to bed, the fireworks and festivities went on. From our bedroom I could see the lights in the window of a church on the hillside, flashing like fire against the adobe walls.

On Christmas day, I walked down the hill and through the Jardin, where there was a life size creche and a pen full of goats. I ducked into the Templo in the middle of mass. The altar was lit with blinking Christmas lights, which had a cheesy effect. The church was full, but I found a seat on the side.

The sermon and prayers were about the redemptive power of Jesus and its ability to transcend poverty, powerlessness, hopelessness, joblessness. Knowing I was closer in San Miguel to more poverty, more powerlessness, than surrounded me in my home town, I got down on my knees and prayed.