We were lucky to know it while we lived in 1995. We worked at Grand Teton Mainstage in Jackson, WY, and it was the greatest summer! How often do you know in real time that what you’re living is special, one-of-a-kind, unique? We were so fortunate.
Kirt had the idea last summer to throw a 30 year reunion, but it was too late to coordinate, so we delayed a year. So here we are, 31 years later!
partial cast of 1995, Grand Teton Mainstagebackstage, Pirates of Penzancecliff jumping Moose Falls in Teton Parkkayaking Hoback Junction into Snake RiverFiddler on The Roof
Thank you, Jim Bennett, for 36 years of friendship and for opening Grand Teton Mainstage. Jim and I met at Playmill in West Yellowstone, MT, in 1993 and worked together again when Jim operated a new theatre in Jackson.
The cast made friends with river guides, and filled empty seats for a free ride down Hoback River through Hoback Junction into Snake River. Sometimes, they’d leave entire boats empty for us. We sang “Hail Poetry!” an a cappella section of Pirates of Penzance, at the same placid spot in the river, then jumped in, every time.
Another time, they took us canoeing on Jenny and Leigh Lakes. They’re crystal clear. With the right sunlight, you can see huge rainbow trout in Jenny’s deep waters. Leigh Lake is shallow. It feels like you’re floating on air. There’s no color to the water at all. You could see each river rock’s shape and hue speckling at the bottom of the pond. We went the day after a huge storm, when the clouds hung low in The Rockies and sunlight beamed through them, refracting prizmatic shadows that emphasized how deep the crevasses were, so profound and breathtaking.
“Oh! Look at that nook!” I exclaimed to my boatmate.
“God, I love nooks,” he wryly replied. I say it all the time now, apropos of nothing.
We camped, hiked, ate junk food and Haagen-Dazs, decorated our communal living room, and acted out the dramas and triumphs of early adulthood. Everyone else got day jobs. Kim and I went hiking instead. Each day, we chose a short roundtrip jaunt to a water destination, in which we had to swim. In order to qualify as swimming, one’s head must go underwater thrice. Kim strode into every freezing lake and dove right in. I inched my way behind her and kept pace, until the day we arrived at a real live glacial lake, with glacier intact! Sure enough, out tromps Kim, head right in. She gasped several times upon coming up for air, then down she went again. I couldn’t do it. I made it just under the knee, leaned over and dipped my head in three times. I got all but one. Disqualified. I failed.
I’ve learned in my life to fail gloriously. I love the results! My life is delicious and grand. What memories and wonder I enjoy!
I’ve moved into a beautiful studio apartment downtown. It’s so nice to be in the city again! I love Rose Park, but my new location is a mere five minutes extra by bike to work, and infinitely closer to all of my other activities in town by bus.
The move has required the long-overdue and resisted downsize I’ve “meant to get around to” for years. I came across this pic of New Year’s 1999, when I realized… 26 and a half years ago was precisely half a lifetime ago! WOW. This was a fun Girls Night, starting at my friend’s salon, with full hair and makeup, absurdity, sisterhood, laughter and glam, and the only time in my life I’ve ever purchased a gown.
I love that I was young and relevant at the turn of a Millennium! It was HUGE. They thought computers wouldn’t know what to do at the turn of the clock and the entire grid might collapse. We just celebrated. What a thing to experience!
I love that Gen X enjoyed childhood running wild in the 80s, before internet, before immediate access, before that unfathomable pressure. The Totally Awesome 80s truly were! We get the freedom of feral formative years and the year 2000 at the most attractive, promising stage of young adulthood? What fun, lucky timing!
I love this photo. It reconnects me to the girl I used to be. I was in a tailspin of intermittent chaos, and perpetually tortured, but I was also joyful and fun. This young woman had dreams, intelligence, humor, and fear – terror – of what lay ahead. For good reason.
I love this photo. It reminds me how successful, determined, indefatigable, and brave I am. I have cPTSD, and treatment that I’ve committed my life to, with real results. Anxiety disorder notwithstanding, I’m at ease with myself. I’m less afraid. I’ve found communities that nurture my creative pursuits and celebrate showing up imperfectly. I have friends who hold themselves and me accountable, who revel in my arrival and take me as I am, even when I’m struggling.
I love this photo. It’s nice to have a capture of a glamorous night in pristine youth, and to love the woman I see in the mirror today, particularly because I didn’t love her in early life. I was not well-loved when young. Abandoned by my father and hated by my mother, I learned love on my own. I’m loving! It finally came home to include me.
I come to you on this 14th blogiversary in complete neurological shutdown. “Underaccessing,” it’s called in EMDR, when you’re amygdala gets stuck in Freeze and even therapy doesn’t work.
A dear friend died in September in a car accident coming home from a mountain retreat she invited me to. That same day, I found out my Uncle Doug died and my sweet grandmother had fallen and broke her collar bone and seven ribs, puncturing her lung. She suffered agonizing pain for two months before passing on Halloween.
On Dec. 17th, my niece and nephew were almost killed by a HUGE dead tree that fell on them, due to a landlord’s greed and negligence, despite many requests by my brother and sister in-law to remove it. Then that landlord evicted them, in the middle of winter in Idaho, during the holidays, when they’re hours from home at the hospital around the clock hoping their children come out of comas. So before the ball dropped midnight, they shoved their entire lives into storage and are now homeless. He made them fucking homeless.
I agonized over not becoming a mother. When I ultimately didn’t, I never felt a void or lack of any kind. That was answer enough. It was right that I love children who go away when I don’t want responsibility. And I love kids. I love young people. But there’s a lot to love about being childless, and I have. Still, never has the Universe screamed confirmation so loudly. “You did not come to Earth this time to parent.” I’m just an auntie 300 miles away, and this has killed me. How, just how?
In my 20s, when I was more turbulent than I am today, I joked with a friend during a particularly suicidal depressive episode, “At least if I have to cry the tears of the damned, I don’t cry the tears of a mother.” Those were not to be my tears, and thank god. I’m made with strength of a different kind, for different work. Holy shit. How does a mother do it?
When I was young I was Fun Aunt Christie. This second crop from my younger brothers and nieces made me Ol’ Lady Auntie (still shit tons of fun). This callous slumlord has made me Angry Auntie. I want him to suffer. I want his ignominy to run him out of town. I want his generations to change their name for shame, like the Hitlers and Goebbels.
I white-knucked after the accident through grief and rage, and succeeded at performing life until Jan. 4th, when I learned that the landlord had kicked them out. I broke that day, switched off. I am vacant, numb, dead inside.
I’ve been sick with a cold I’ll get a break from for a day or two, then down again, since Christmas, to the point of total laryngitis for eight days, forcing me to cancel an audition yesterday. (“A favorite musical comedy will snap me out of it!”) It was a paying gig, too.
Last week, housemate Penny’s dog Luna died. I adored her, kissing, cuddling, playing the piano and singing to her for 10 months. And I’m suffering under the constant corrections of the other housemate about the noise I make existing in my own home. It’s like water torture that has me deeply triggered. Meanwhile, she’s loud as fuck, something I would never have cared about if she weren’t so ambitiously erasing me. She insults my intelligence, knocking on my door to invade my space and instruct me to “close it like a zen practice.” I continually demonstrate how the door scrapes the frame and requires some heft, and invite her to talk to Penny, the homeowner, about sanding it down.
A fucking zen practice?! Ommmmmmy god, I will kill you!
I never leave my room unless she’s in hers (presumably moving furniture or drumming on our shared wall, every waking minute, for the love of all that’s holy).
Never once has she cleaned our shared bathroom. She clogged the toilet and, rather than plunge it, she waited for it to go back down, then covered it with what had to be an entire roll of toilet paper. Dry toilet paper two inches from the top of the privy! I put the plunger in front of the commode and went downstairs to the half bath.
I am not your servant, you middle-aged child!
She only ever washes her own dishes (never puts them away), and tidies her own room. She treats the house like a hostel and can’t be bothered to leave a clean counter when she’s done in the kitchen. She even took some of my decorations from the living room to enjoy in her own, and my cutting board, too, for her lap! She has a desk. She took an item I was happy to share, for FOOD, to her disgusting bed!
Then she mines me for wisdom, like I’m some mage crone born for her personal growth. (She’s older than me.) If I’m too much, go find less.
I can’t even think about the shit state of corruption, exploitation, patriarchy, and authoritarianism that’s killing the very planet we live on and innocent people in the streets. Literally can’t. No bandwidth. All I do is work, therapy, belly dance, and Netflix.
I know that gratitude is the antidote to depression. I was doing the work, but all efforts left me guilty and acrimonious. When I got laryngitis I decided, “Hush, then. You may rest.”
That said, thank you to St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital in Boise, for saving my niece and nephew’s lives. Vivi suffered a crushed eye socket and skull fractures, but her recovery is optimal. She was released after two weeks, on a soft food diet for a six. She’s still in a helmet, restricted from school, dance, and sports, and staying with my sister in Rexburg.
The oldest, Charlie, is finishing the school year and staying with my parents in Twin Falls.
Porter’s entire bottom half was pulverized. The only bones not broken were his left tibia and right foot. In X-rays, his skeleton looks as though it was mashed in a mortar and pestle. Dust. He’s had complication after complication that finally outpaced St. Luke’s ability to meet his medical needs, so thank you to Primary Chrildren’s Hospital in Salt Lake for saving Porter’s left foot with a bone, muscle, and skin graft. They were unable to reattach the nerves, so the foot will always be numb, but he will walk!
I was so relieved to spend a day with him, writing funny haikus and sharing pranks my friend and I would play on his dad when he was a kid, and comics my friend and brothers used to draw of me with stinking fumes, flies hovering, and hairy legs. It was wonderful to hug and kiss him, and to laugh again. I can’t remember the last time I really laughed.
Porter’s back at St. Luke’s to continue his physical therapy and for ongoing surgeries. His internal injuries were ghastly, with an outcome that’s yet TBD.
I’m so grateful for the expert care my family has received, for the outpouring of generosity from friends, relatives, and strangers, for expressions of concern from friends and acquaintances. And thank god for Ronald McDonald House.
I will watch comedies and documentaries until March. I have a big belly dance weekend retreat and a performance coming up. (Both the workshop and the belly are big, so it works. 😉 ) Til then, I detail my costumes, zone out, and rest.
My friends Amber and Ronimo live in Fruitland, UT, past Park City, biking distance from Strawberry Pinnacles and some awesome pictographs. It’s so named for the wild currants that ripen in July. Before Grandma’s party, Galen and I went up to pick berries, soak in Red Creek, which flows through their property, and paddleboard on Strawberry Reservoir.
My beautiful grandma celebrates her 99th birthday today. Last weekend, my family gathered in Pocatello, Idaho, to honor her. I feel so lucky to be 52 years old and still have a living grandparent. She’s beautiful and gentle, and I’m so glad she’s mine!
Before the potluck, I went to Grandma’s to make salsa. She sat in the dining room while I chopped veg, and regaled me with stories of her life. Some I’d heard; others, not. She was positively chatty! I felt as much a friend as beloved granddaughter. I cherish it.
In 2002, Grandma permitted me to conduct and record several interviews over the course of a weekend. Afterwards, I transcribed the interviews verbatim, then deleted myself. What remained was Grandma’s narrative, in her own voice.
It was Studies in Folklore at the University of Utah. In the course, we were instructed to include “ums,” ellipses, the droppin’ of “g” from the ends of words, in order to capture the subject’s voice. To correct grammar, pretty the pauses, fix idiosyncrasies, or alter expression in any way erases the speaker’s essence (and betrays one’s own bias, frankly).
“What did you think of our book, Grandma?” I asked back then.
“Well,” she confessed. “I didn’t like my accent.”
Success! Even if she is country, and doesn’t like the sound of it. 😉
(“The only way Christie can take herself out of a conversation is after the fact,” they tease me now. That’s right! And if ever you met someone who’ll figure out how to be heard after she’s dead, it’s me! I’ll be loving and playful, but I’m the ghost you’ll hear!)
I bound our booklets at University Press and handed out copies to my family. I titled, or rather mom titled it, “An Unassuming Woman.” Grandma perfectly suited the expectations of women of her generation. She is dutifully mild-mannered. (Grandpa once described her as the perfect embodiment of meekness. The Feminist in me revolts. I often wonder if Grandpa dying relatively young – at 74 – spared me the opportunity to actually disappoint him. I never came back to the Church, never got married, never had kids, and grew only more militant, raging against the Patriarchy ever more loudly into committed spinsterhood.) I think Grandma came by her gentleness naturally. She’s a quiet, humble, even-tempered person. But it’s also the result of choices and behavior. She reads her scriptures every day and goes to church weekly. She prays continually.
Grandma was among the first generation of women to go to college. While the boys were fighting in WWII, she attended BYU. She worked as a courier on Hill Air Force Base, where Italian war prisoners were held. I love her quiet version of Rosie the Riveter, biking all over the base with military paperwork. I love the picture she created of the Italian lads who learned her routine and begged her to be their girl. They had a lot of freedom there, and quite a few were utterly besotted with her, leaving love notes and making overt protestations of devotion. Most were sweet and funny. One jumped out of hiding and scared her to death. She wasn’t on her bike when he caught her alone. She told me in 2002 that she knew if she showed an ounce of fear, he’d hurt her. So she ORDERED HIM to leave, and he did. She said she’s never been so scared before or since. So even Grandma has a Kali Ma, when the time is right to protect herself! Mormons call it the Spirit, but intuition and courage made her strong. I’m so proud of her.
When the time came to take her place behind the men, however, Grandma stepped to it with the rest of her generation. I’m glad it worked for her there. The sexism of it all makes me cringe, even now, but it’s none of my business. My grandmother loves her life. She’s happy. She was gentle, retiring, and modest, yes, but she’s strong, resilient, and powerful, too. She worked, supported my Grandpa through school, and raised eight kids! (She said there was a period of time when she wondered if her name was “Mom.”)
It was so fun to visit alone before the party! I’m glad she outlived our differing personalities. In our big family, surrounded with rambunctious cousins, embodying my own ebullient energy, we were a slow burn. We had time on our side. How lucky I am!
I was favored early by my grandfather. Grandma was quiet, in the background, comfortable making the festivities run, accustomed to the company of her daughters in the machinery working up magic. I’m front of house. It took decades for me to appreciate the quieter members of my family, and find those aspects in myself.
I just feel lucky. My grandma’s extraordinary. My grandma’s special. She’s the best.
Cute, favorite part of the lunch: I brought my old cheerleading pom poms for the nieces and cousins to play with. Vivi, my little niece, was super excited about that.
“You’ll have to make up a cheer for Grandma!” I suggested.
“No!” she objected, suddenly self-conscious.
“How ’bout this? I’ll do the cheer and you can be next to me shaking the pom poms or clapping along.” That sold it.
I threw together a little rhyme and off we went.
“Ready? Okay! Hooray! Hooray! Our Grandma was born today!”
“Hooray! Hooray! Our Grandma was born today!”
She cried instantly. I wish someone got pics or video. It was so sweet. Anyway, I did get some great pics of other joyful moments, so here she is, my beautiful Grandma!
Grandma and meAug. 5, 1926 – Aug. 5, 2025My mom looks like her mom. I look like mine. So does my sister… yet we look nothing alike.nieces and cousinsDivine Message: You are being called to embrace the closing chapters of your life with grace, knowing that every ending is a bridge to new beginnings filled with purpose and light.
I asked Grandma if she was afraid to die.
“No,” she answered without hesitation. “I’m ready to go. I’ve had a good life. I’m happy to be here, and I’ll be happy to be there.”
Grandpa died 26 years ago. (What?! That’s half my life!) I asked if she still misses him.
“Yes,” she replied. No hesitation.
“Do you still feel him?”
“Every day.” Wow.
I shared that Grandpa’s presence, for me, has waned. I felt him after he died, unmistakably, a number of times when I felt so unloveable and worthless I was scared I wouldn’t make it. Desperate, I begged the only person who loved me unconditionally, “Grandpa! Please!” And he came, as though walking through the door. More than once.
I’m glad their relationship is current. They loved each other. They were happy.
When Grandpa got sick, I happened to be the one waiting with Grandma. I’d gone to the hospital after work. All the aunties had made the trip to support their parents, and sat in the hallway with Grandma. The doctor was in with Grandpa just then. My aunts stepped away when I arrived, to check in back home.
I was meant to be a place holder, that’s all, until the real support returned. The doctor returned, instead. It was cancer. It was inoperable. It would take him in two to six months.
I was the wrong person! I was just supposed to sit there! Grandma needed someone else! Someone she felt close to. She needed her girls. She needed presence, stability, safety, comfort, calm, anything but me!
A strange, involuntary spasm erupted from me like laughter. I heard it more than … did it, but it was awful. I laughed!
(“I can’t do this! I’m all wrong! I can’t do this!”)
Numb, I followed Grandma into Grandpa’s room.
“You talked to the doctor?” she asked him.
“Yeah,” he marveled. “Wow.”
“And you understood?” she probed. (Cancer metastasized to his brain, pinching processing and the finding of words, to his great frustration. “Come on, Brenchley!” he said often before passing.)
“Yeah,” he replied, stunned. “Wow.” Then, with perfect clarity, he turned to me. “You were always my favorite.”
“I know.”
I had that initial impulse to dismiss, but self-corrected, thank god. Grandpa schooled me when I was young in a very stern letter about accepting a compliment. He taught me to honor others’ lived experience. I still have the letter.
I’m glad I resisted the urge to deny him. It was bigger than me, outside of me, not to. (“Oh, you loved us all.”) It was a true, momentary absence of ego, my first. I don’t have many of those. False modesty is vanity, as surely as is arrogance. (He gently schooled hubris once, too, when a British castmate nursed a generations-old grudge against Americans, and targeted me for blame, complaints, and venom. I vented to Grandpa, who urged me to temper my temper with humility.)
I’m so grateful for that shared moment with my beloved Grandpa. I did know. He was my favorite, too.
My Grandpa was the only experience of unconditional love I had in childhood. He loved me for me, walking and wandering together for hours in the wilds of Idaho. He liked me!
“I love how her brain works!” he said more than once.
I do, too, though curiosity, from my perspective, is more costly and difficult than faith.
That’s why I’m glad my grandma lived so long. No, we weren’t naturally suited to one another. That’s family. Some resonate effortlessly. Some don’t. Grandma’s yin; I’m yang. She’s quiet; I’m loud. She’s Intro; I’m Extra. 😉 We had time to grow into fondness and, now, she’s my sole source of unconditional love in adulthood (other than feline).
Grandpa and I were instant, seamless. Soulmates. Grandma and I needed time. And we had it! How lucky am I? Truly, I’m so blessed and grateful. We had time.
I love her. Can you imagine a century of life?!
In the Bible, the number Nine is used to convey the meaning of finality, and represents the fruits of the Holy Spirit. According to Galatians 5:22-23, the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit are self-control, gentleness, faithfulness, peace, joy, goodness, kindness, and long-suffering.The old fence and swingset Grandpa built are gone, but the garden remains unchanged.
Grandpa was a woodworker by avocation. For high school graduation, we each received a handmade cedar chest with our names on the lid, and two pennies, for the year we were born (1973) and the year of commencement (1991). It was his signature.
Hence, the name of my kitty. I felt like she was a gift from Grandpa, my penny from heaven. I hesitated to give her the name. I hoped, still, to have a daughter someday. I wanted her to be Penny, but when that fury baby woke me nibbling on my nose, I knew who she was. (I teased that her moniker was short for Repentance.)
“Be very naughty while I’m gone!” I told them. “I’ll never know!” >^..^<
When Grandpa died, we added corn leaves to all of his floral arrangements.It’s been there at the base of the tree all my life.Mural in Pocatello’s Old Town
I’m stunned Grandpa died 26 years ago. That’s half my life! I didn’t realize, before writing this. I understood some time ago that he died “young.” To a girl, 74 is old, and old people die. Years later, working in hospice, I learned how relatively young he was. Our oldest patient was the oldest person in Utah. At 104, she lived three decades later than Grandpa.
I was angry. It was so nonsensical, and out of nowhere. I was so mad! I was robbed!
I’m glad Grandma still feels his presence. It won’t be long now before they reunite. I do hope she sees us to her 100th next year. She healthy and strong, living at home. My Uncle Tom lives there and cares for her, but she doesn’t need much. She moves slowly, but she’s patient. She’s deaf as a doornail, and I’m loud.
She has full command of her mind and faculties, and enjoys her life. My Grandma’s happy.
I’ve been home in The SLC for over five weeks and I’m barely beginning to reboot. I was asleep for a solid month (except for emptying my storage unit with the help of my big brother – in less than four hours – then going to the opera with him and his wife that night).
I finally started waking up last weekend and getting shit done. This week, I started to feel again. Since I got home, Mexico has felt like an unreal dream, like a giant blur that didn’t really happen. This week, I’ve been emotional and homesick for… something, I don’t know what. Not here, not there, not really anywhere, just… I miss Mexico. I don’t know how to describe how I feel, but that comes closest.
So it’s Mexico With An Asterisk. In the strictest sense, I failed. I went there to come home fluent. I’m nowhere near that. I can’t truly call it failure, though, because I did what I’ve wanted to do since I was nine years old. Move to *Spanish-speaking country* and learn Spanish. I did that. It was so scary and brave and bigger than me, and I DID THAT. How can I feel like I failed?
Because I did, and it feels like that, a little. It feels like that a lot.
In equal dose, I feel like I climbed the biggest mountain atop the most exciting life. Really? I’m that girl? I set crazy goals that come from god-knows-where in my brainhole, and then I accomplish them? I see the coolest shit! I do the coolest things! I get everything I want!
Mexico With An Asterisk * because life isn’t just checking boxes. LIFE IS ABOUT FAILING GLORIOUSLY and celebrating the courage it took to try.
That was awesome! And awful, humbling, hard, empowering, painful, awkward, amazing, beautiful, challenging, bold, triumphant. I did that!
I’m not dead yet. I risked my ass in Mexico and came home with my ass to risk another day. (You’re welcome. 🙂 ) I live to try again. l WILL GO BACK.
* Oh, Mexico! What a delicious surprise you were. When I chose you to save a buck (already been to Bolivia, too expensive to fly there again), I had no idea of falling hopelessly in love with you. ¡Te extraño, te quiero, regresaré! *
I finally went to the Oaxaca temple! Estaca Monte Alban (Monte Alban Stake, a group of neighboring congregations) went to do temple work, and I went along to enjoy the atmosphere outside. Those palm trees in the breeze made my whole heart sing.
Under two weeks later, my sister and niece visited. We took a trip to Puebla and visited the temple grounds there. My favorite thing about the Puebla temple was the huge colony of grackles living in the trees and on the roof. They have my favorite bird call of them all. And the architecture. I really loved those curves and corners on the steeple tower, and the soft hue of the locally-quarried… limestone? It had a gentleness that made me smile. And a grackle colony. Did I mention it? I love grackles!
March 22, 2025
After a dizzying three days in Puebla, we overnighted in Mexico City before Melanie and Natalie flew home. We had time after our arrival to take a cab to the temple. My sister astutely observed that Moroni was holding scriptures, and we learned from the sister missionaries that it’s one of five such temple toppers in the world. I loved the Visitor Center in Mexico City, and I liked the Meso-American inspired architecture, but it didn’t hold a candle to the Puebla and Oaxaca temples, in my view. My whole body rejoiced on their grounds. Oaxaca was the smallest, and utilitarian in comparison to Puebla’s artful design, but those palm trees took my breath away. I could have stayed for hours. Hearing them in memory makes me emotional now. It’s a beautiful place.
March 24, 2025
***
Puebla in Pictures:
Santuario de la Virgen del los Remedios We happened upon an Aztec ritual on the first day of Spring! It was awe inspiring.Tlachihaultepetel, Nahuatl meaning man-made mountains, is the largest pyramid in the world.Spanish colonists built a Sanctuary atop the mountain before it was discovered to be an ancient ruin.Capilla del Rosario inside Templo de Santo Domingo, nicknamed Casa de Oro “House of Gold”climbing my first pyramid stairs, finally!Paroquia de San Jose
I spent six weeks in the home of a new friend who went home for Christmas, then to Brazil for New Year’s and the entire month of January. It was so fun to live with a dog and a cat, and borrow a rustic authentic Mexican house. (My neighborhood has all the charm of a local vecindario, but my apartment is brand new and pretty deluxe, by Mexican standards.)
Merlina is so named because her little ears resemble wizard hats, and little Lavanda is Lavender. I loved being a dog mom, though Naughty Merli’s jealousy scarcely permitted a moment’s cuddle with the softest kitten on earth. I love and miss them both!
Naughty Merli, Wizard Pup, and Little Vandita Bandita
In January, my Nathan came for a visit! Nathan played my Nathan in 2017’s Guys & Dolls, and has since divorced and left the Mormon church. Naturally, he wanted to go the nude beach. I actually let my electric fuzz fly in the sun at Playa Zipolite… in the evening. In high daylight it’s entirely too much press, so I was suited the rest of the time, but I do love skinny-dipping and there was something so effortless about all those regular bodies, every age, shape, and size, just… being. Don’t make it a thing and it’s not a thing.
I especially loved the babies. They were just so sweet. I’m so glad I’m a girl. No one bats an eye at a woman staring wistfully at a nudey toddler squealing in delight.
I loved our hostel. Nathan “wouldn’t have chosen it,” but I like low prices, and the 75 yr-old owner, Antonio, was perhaps the best flirt I’ve ever met. He was wonderfully wicked and hilarious, and imminent departure freed me to wholeheartedly participate.
There’s an unrivaled family feeling at Lo Cosmico. Antonio’s daughter, Violeta, ran the cafe with her husband, and their squishy ten month-old baby, Naim, was in attendance, too! To date, I had yet to experience that easy exchange between guests that casual comforts seem to imply, but at Lo Cosmico, long-time lodgers and locals hung out every day.
Cosmicat on the cliffside
Nathan and I enjoyed a sunrise boat tour, where we were chased by a school of dolphins who leapt from the sea as if performing at Sea World! We also found bioluminescence, very different from the stars I swam with on Isla Holbox. These were ten times the size, and blue! I was swishing the water to stir up their gleam when a warning was issued:
“Watch out for the sea serpent.”
Not five feet away, slithering on the surface, was, apparently, one of the most venomous snakes on Earth! Awesome!
We found two turtles along the way, and hung out for the bulk of our tour with three humpback whales. Finally, we stopped at an inlet of crystal water. Nathan snorkeled. I tried to convince myself to jump in, but it was early morning and the water was… Oh, for heaven’s sake, it would have been perfectly refreshing after the first gasp, but I didn’t wanna. I was getting cranky. We rose before dawn and spent hours without coffee. I pretty much wanted the fuck off the boat by then, but Nate saw many colorful things, including Dori. I was content to admire the volcanic seabed, and actively stay calm.
“How long are we going to sit here?” Yeah, prolly shoulda joined in, but meh.
Super cool marine life notwithstanding, one of my favorite things about the tour was the transportation. They shoved the later pick-ups in the bed of a pick up, and off we drove down dirt roads to the port. It was so Mexican!
sunset on ZipolitePuerto Angel at predawn
Nathan’s flight had been delayed by a day, so we were unable to tour Monte Alban, but we went to the museum at Templo de Santo Domingo, where many of her treasures are displayed, including this crown jewel:
the most amazing artifact I’ve ever seen! 650-800 A.D. The monastery’s architecture alone was worth the visit!The cloister at El Templo de Santo Domingo de GuzmanNathan and Adelaide, 2017
The day before Nathan left, my cousin Jon arrived with his wife Jenny, the coolest political activist in Salt Lake, and a group of Lucky 13 of her family members. Jen’s immediate family and spouses take an international trip every year. What are the odds that this year they’d chosen Oaxaca? Crazier still, their Air bnb was up the stairs from the house I was staying at. Literally, my stairs were directly across the street from their gorgeous bungalow!
Without a random visit from family, I’d never have stepped inside this amazing place!
I joined the group on their tour of Monte Alban. In truth, I expected it to be lackluster, since I’d seen the citadel in the peak of rainy season, but I was wrong! Features buried in the lush green of abundance were visible this time, and there was something evocative and ancient about the starkness of the place. Normally, I’m too cheap to spring for a guide, but paid in, just to spend a day with family. Lesson learned: Pay extra for the guide! It was so illuminating and cool, and Emilio was hilarious. I understand now why Mexico chooses never to win the World Cup. Apparently, in Zapotec sport, the victorious team was sacrificed. Best not to anger the gods!
with Cousin Jen and her family (minus four, who went to the beach instead) Castration Corner ~ They’re all prisoners and slaves, and eunuchs, apparently.I love the plain visibility of ancient ruins reused again and again through centuries.
Another day, Jon and Jenny and I (the only non-Mormons), took our own afternoon side trip to my favorite neighborhood, Jalatlaco, where I forced an awkward photo at Kissing Corner, and we sampled and purchased Mezcal from a boutique tienda.
En Oaxaca, los tiliches son el símbolo de la celebración de la clase trabajadora y sus orígenes étnicos.“Oh, you meant ‘Life-sized’?” They planted giant agave around this thing! There was an elephant.Pretty sure a 4 yr-old child could fit inside those giant ornaments. This is so Mexican!Basilica de Nuestra Señora de La Soledad Christmas Cuetlaxochitl adorned el Zócalo.I’ve enjoyed patio poinsettia of my own, right outside my kitchen window.
For this festival, artists carve sculptures out of radishes the day before Christmas Eve in one of Oaxaca’s most celebrated traditions. I should have gone earlier, but I waited for Didi, who had plans during the day and got stuck in traffic. If I had it to do again, I’d go in daytime by myself to get a close-up view of these elaborate constructions, and return later to peek again. Definitely worth detailed scrutiny and a second look!
She was humble by comparison, but I liked the Curandera. She heals the sick with herbs and plant medicine. Women were later maligned as witches for this very expertise with the fruits of the Earth. They are yet revered in Mexico and Latin America.
I Am Worthy 