The first week here is strange.
The first week here is strange. Who am I away from all the familiar things in my life?
For the first time in 25 years, I don’t have a studio, just my acoustic guitar. I don’t have my notebooks, just a fancy new Kindle I can write in. I feel lost. At sea.
On vacation I have an agenda and a ticking clock, counting down the days before I go back to regular life. But here there is no clock, no agenda, no regular life, just a sense of floating inquiry and an emerging process of discovery.
The first night we head down to pay tribute to the goddess of maize. Her temple is not our favorite restaurant, but it’s close.
Lavadura de Olla is a shrine to lost ancestral Oaxacan dishes, and everything here begins with corn. The maestra making the tortillas sits at a clay skillet near the center of the restaurant. My mouth and my eyes water in anticipation of the black mole.
I am here to take risks, so instead of mezcal I start with a kalanca, described by the waiter as a traditional medicinal liqueur. We wait in the candlelight and the kalanca arrives with an intense bouquet of herbs and licorice. The first sip traces a warm arc down my throat into my belly, and I feel the chi spread outward filling my chest, flowing through my arms and out into the room. I am suddenly present and deeply alive.
Afterwards we sit on our rooftop deck overlooking the city. The dogs are going strong as is the cannon fire from the fireworks in anticipation of Día de los Muertos. The whole place seems to be welcoming us and celebrating our new life.
Later we will lie in bed and ask each other aloud — “what the fuck have we done?” — but here and now the thousands of seemingly impulsive decisions that have led to this moment feel right.
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PS, I’ll be posting images from #oaxaca daily in my Instagram stories so follow me over there if you don’t ~
