Of Love and Libertad in Mexico

Of Love and Libertad

A lazy cat napping on the sofa in the galeria
A stray dog approaching, head down, tail swaying in an anticipated touch
the rooster that knows not the hands of the clock
the unexpected play of dolphins breaking the skin of the sea
this is the melody of Mexican life

-Wanda St.Hilaire, Of Love, Life and Journeys

This February, I sat writing on the periphery of the plaza in San Miguel de Allende with the stunning La Parroquia church as a backdrop. Percolating under the surface was an emotion that was all too unfamiliar in my Canadian day-to-day life. It was joy. I’d been awarded a grant to attend the annual writers’ conference. I was on my thirty-sixth visit to my beloved Mexico.

Surrounded by like-minded “free range humans”¬–artists, writers, photographers, sculptors, and musicians, my body hummed with 1000 volts of happiness. I was electrified with the energy of people doing what they love in a place they adore.

My first taste of Mexico was at age twenty-two in Acapulco with girlfriends. We rode on the back of motorbikes with Brazilian boys and sailed with Italian clothing designers. Two brilliant new friends from Mexico City challenged us to hop off of the plane on our way home for a visit. Both girlfriends jammed out by the time we landed. I stayed, not wanting the adventure to end.

We spent days climbing the pyramid and investigating Mexico D.F, and enchanting evenings out with a multitude of their welcoming friends. It was Mexican hospitality and culture at its finest. The bliss of being young and ripe with wanderlust was unleashed and I was hooked.

In Oaxaca, the moment I landed I felt a deep love of life. Everyday I sat in the zocolo and chatted with renegade lawyers, curious campesinos, and old Zapotec men who spoke with me in a dialogue I didn’t know, yet understood. Sitting for hours writing in cafés over dark Chiapas coffee, waiters befriended me and we shared stories of our radically differing lives.

There in the lazy afternoons, lovers of all ages congregated. Observing intertwined bodies, kisses, and deep embraces, I voyeuristically yearned to join the uninhibited profusion of love.

Living in small barrios in Puerto Vallarta, fluid days sweetly stretched out with chance meetings on strolls or long, delectable lunches at el fresco cafés. Worth is not determined by the size of your wallet or the busyness of your schedule, but by the richness of your connections with family and friends.

While some visitors find the lack of structure disorienting, I find it wildly liberating. There, my spirit can relax once again from the insidious bombardment of laws, rules, and regulations at home. I don’t want to spend my life worrying about being fined for applying lipstick at a light.

When I need to restore my body, refresh my spirit, or calm my monkey mind, Mexico is the cure. Oceanside, I shed the shackles of heavy clothing and the din of traffic to the delight of walking with the sun on my face, the earth under my feet, and the expansiveness of blue skies over the tropical lushness.

Mexico in not a masculine taskmaster who motivates with heavy-handed will. She is feminine. She is free. She gently inspires. She coaxes you to smile, to dance, to laugh, to play, to create, and to love–deeply.

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