Pretty Birds, Petticoats and Tex-Mex Magic

  

At the end of countless winter days without sunshine and multiple windy drama and cold weather tantrums, we are pleased to see the cold scurry back north.  Don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out. Any excuse to be outdoors, even at the site of our city’s former waste management system, Mitchell Lake. The 600-acre site is on the south side of San Antonio, no surprise since stuff rolls downhill. Thankfully, our sewage collection is modern and today Mitchell Lake is no longer used for its previous purpose. The Audubon Society and its volunteers operate the site as a refuge for native and migratory birds and for folks like the four of us who enjoy watching them. 

Years ago, the site’s various lakes were full, but today the drought has dried up most. There are still two large ponds with plenty of water. That’s where we hiked to watch the water birds. Duck, geese and several other interesting birds, such as the black necked stilt and the yellow-rumped warbler were some identified by my friends using binoculars. Myself, I’m a lazy bird watcher, happy just to be outdoors calling out, “Pretty bird!!” when someone points out somebody flashy in a treetop. 

We walked around the pond full of mostly ducks and geese and watched as they bickered with each other, steered on the water like bumper cars at a carnival, and dove underwater, when suddenly -- the sound of our steps-- or maybe it was something internal in the flock, set off an alarm. The entire population airlifted from the water like at the start of a race. Feet paddled and wings batted and a loud, whoosh of wing beats clapped over us in a white thundercloud of feathers. I’ve seen this mass movement of birds before in movies or on TV documentaries set an Africa, but I have never been covered underneath one in real life, nor had I ever heard thousands of rasping, folding, flapping feathers. It was a muffled roar, a crackling wave, much louder than I expected. I craned my neck to follow their collective undulation, a creature the length and width of a football field. All the individual pretty birds became something so big and breathtaking. A whale in flight leaping to a new pond. 

The previous day, on a street corner inside the city loop, the line of patrons outside of a Mexican café extended to about 15 people, waiting in various levels of eye- blinking surprise at the sun’s warmth. No one watched us through binoculars to my knowledge. That afternoon it had showered over San Antonio and the sun peeked through retreating clouds. It was glorious to be outdoors. We were giddy with excitement over the Tex-Mex lunch that we knew would deliver carbs and comfort in generous quantities. 

We met friends there who arrived minutes before we did and held our place in line. We hugged and in the style of people made lonesome by the pandemic’s forced separations, I was approached by a man I didn’t know who stood in line behind me. He appeared to be Anglo, well-groomed and in his mid- seventies. He pointed across the busy street to a young woman on the sidewalk. She walked in a confident stride towards a row restaurants and antique stores. She wore a skirt with, no, I’m not kidding you, multiple petticoats. And she was no square dancer. 

“I haven’t seen petticoats since the 1950s!” the man said with true surprise and pleasure. I told him I hadn’t either. But I didn’t tell him that I had not miss petticoats, remembering only the stiff and prickly material biting my tender underside as a child when my mother could still wrestle me inside of such a cage. The line to the restaurant’s front door inched forward. An African American man, mid-50s wearing a derby hat, ambled out of the restaurant onto the sidewalk. 

“I regret to inform you that I have eaten all the enchiladas and flour tortillas! There are none left,” he announced, in a lively, theatrical voice.

 I raised my eyebrows at him in amused disbelief. 

“Oh, is that so?” 

In his formal voice he announced, “I’m afraid I ate them all.” 

He paused for effect. “There are none left. “ 

“You’re a storyteller, huh?” I asked. 

“A raconteur,” he said. I nodded in agreement. 

“You know that’s a storyteller!” His partner, a Mexican American like me rolled her eyes. She, and a teenaged girl waited patiently behind him. This is what a raconteur does, and his family was used to it. ‘We are not amused’ described their expressions.

The Derby hatted gentleman relished having a curbside audience and turned his attention to a pair standing beside us in line, a slender, fit Anglo couple in their mid 60s. 

“Haven’t we met before?” the derby hat wearing raconteur asked. The couple stood still. 

“Wasn’t it Paris, in ’88? “asked the raconteur.  The slender man jumped in feet first. “Why, yes! It was Paris! I was with the CIA then. Deep cover! “

Wife and child gently and expertly pulled the raconteur away.

We giggled at the impromptu performance brought to us courtesy of the warm sun, a break from our collective isolation, or maybe it was just the enchiladas. Beside us two elder hippies, with loads of gray hair, each in hastily made ponytails, their noses deep in yellowed paperback books, did not glance up during this entire intercontinental exchange. Such is the power of a good plot. Or their ability to tune out the world. 

We were called into the café. Soon we were ushered by a trainee waiter to our table where we ordered enchiladas and fideo loco. The bookish couple were seated by the wall near us. They ate enchiladas and continued reading. The Anglo couple who might or might not have been in Paris in ‘88 sat beside us and chatted quietly. The spell cast upon the sidewalk players in the sunshine was over. I keep hoping that it won’t be the last time I fall like a dime down a sidewalk grill into an alternative reality. 

The next day, after birdwatching, I kept thinking about that cloud of feathers above me and how the flock followed a signal to move to a new pond, acting in unison. They, like we, the sidewalk players, stopped in our tracks, noticed the petticoats, laughed at corny jokes, ate our lunches and did what people do who want to be done with a pandemic. We followed a signal, trusted our instincts, our companions, and their chatter. Our identities and histories were set aside, if only for a short time, for the collective comfort of each other’s company.

Batteries Not Included

"Batteries Not Included" is the annoying tag line for battery operated toys advertised on TV. Don't expect batteries to be included with the purchase of your toy. Without batteries, the toy won't work. 

I wonder if modifying the phrase can help us improve our communication. "Attention Not Included" may be a way to rethink how we use technology and how we communicate.  Without directing our attention, communication doesn't work, either. 

About ten years ago, I first noticed the radical change in student behavior in the hallways of my college when smart phones were first adopted.

For decades, college hallways were noisy. While waiting for instructors to unlock classrooms, hallways were filled with students walking by, chatting, standing, sharing notes, making friends and flirting. When smartphones and social media joined the mix, the silence in the usually buzzing hallways was surprising. Instead of interacting, students stood alone, staring at screens in silence. It was spooky. Even spookier is wondering how many lost friendships or romances resulted, or how many drops in grade point averages from notes not shared and study groups not formed? 

Inside the classroom, I noticed the number of engaged, attentive faces drop. To the screens in their hands where TikTok or some other shiny and bright site competed with my students’ flash-resistant teacher for their attention. 

Over the years I noticed more and more students divide their attention between their smartphones and engagement with class materials or the faces of their fellow students in assigned group activities. As a teacher, I had less to work with, and unbeknownst to them, so did the students. 

I missed walking to class in hallways filled with the excitement of the semester's seasons. The shiny beginnings, the friendships formed, the obstacles with schedules, challenging material, work and family overcome. 

When they brought their whole selves to the work at hand, it was not uncommon to see students visibly mature in the space of a semester.  Some students traveled light years across sixteen weeks, cultivating curiosity, the ability to weather difficulties, conflict and sometimes failure with resilience and an appreciation for learning. When they brought their smart phone tethered to them, there was less of them present.

Technology isn't a good or bad thing. It is only a thing, a tool. What we do with it is what matters. I saw many, me included, adopt smartphones without examining the impact on learning or relationships. The importance of communication that is directed and careful was recently brought home to me by reading a book co-written by the guru of gab, Oprah Winfrey.

Check out this excerpt from the book, What Happened To You?

All of us have had the experience of having a conversation with somebody and feeling dismissed when they disengage to look at their phone. And even though we’re adults and we have developed brains and we understand how the world works, it still feels disrespectful.. It’s bad enough to get that message from someone when you are an adult, just imagine if this is a constant message the baby gets when they are creating their “worldview”: I’m not important. The infant’s capability to be empathic and nurturing—their capacity to love—depends upon the nature, quality, and number of loving interactions they experience early in life. A dismissive, disengaged interaction is not building the foundation for a loving person.  

— What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Oprah Winfrey, Bruce D. Perry
https://a.co/6a4xQQB

Interested in changing your unexamined media use? Start by examining your own media habits.Try this. 

Informally test how the presence of technology (such as a smart phone) affects the quality of your conversation with a loved one or work mate. Choose someone whose communication with you could use some recharging of batteries.

Whether they have a smartphone beside them or not, purposefully leave your smartphone in another room. Begin and finish a conversation or activity and then, make note of the engagement levels you perceived in your interactions, both yours and their's. Did you both feel respected and acknowledged? 

After several tries with this experiment with different people in your life, ask yourself if you liked the results. If so, move forward with gentle, respectful curiosity for ways to improve your family and work life. Obstacles and challenges that you identify can, over time, be overcome to improve communication. 

Technology has many up-sides, but its downsides must also be considered. Whether in the college classroom, the conference meeting room or at the family breakfast or dinner table, technology (smart phone in use or even within sight) may hurt communication as easily as it may help. 

It's important to remember, in all things media related, we are the product, not the other way around.  It's the job of media to capture and sell our attention. Algorithms and teams of engineers work 24/7 to improve their odds of reaching and reselling our attention. 

Fortunately, the hack for taking back our time and attention or simply tweaking how we direct our attention is easy, free and available at any time to everyone: Build awareness of how technology affects you and others. Sometimes technology is just what we need, other times, it's exactly what we don't need. Learning when, how and why is worth examining, and offers great promise.

Sign up for my twice-monthly newsletter on technology and communication. 

Dancing Queen

 

Any day you dance is a good day was a great philosophy I adopted years ago. 

Best Spanish dicho: Nadie te quita lo bailado. Rough translation is 'no one can take from you what's already been danced.'

A dear friend, who was once a professional dancer, informed me that the 1950's dance, The Twist, was the dance that released women from men. 

Until The Twist, a man's role was to guide and lead a woman in dance. That changed in The Twist, or as my friend put it, "You didn't even need to look at your partner, you were free to dance as you pleased."

Over the years, not looking at your partner graduated to not even needing a partner. Last night at a local dance with the West-side sound pioneering band, The Royal Jesters, another friend reported she watched local dance legend, Teresa Champion, still polishing her steps on the dance floor, dancing without a partner, at the age of 87. The link shares an ARTS segment I wrote and produced for KLRN about Teresa. 

I wanna be just like Teresa!!! More dance, more joy, more good days!!!

Art Makes A Difference in Agustin Gonzalez, Guajajuato

Today I learned that the word “taco” originated from “tlaco” in the Aztec’s Nahuatl language, I also learned that stone meal grinding tools used to make tortillas, the metate and the mano have also been found in ancient Chinese sites, and that my grandmother’s town in Mexico wasn’t the only one to be buried beneath a dam and a reservoir. 

Whew! That’s a lot. 

We are on a tour offered once a week to benefit residents of a farming village outside San Miguel de Allende. We are visiting three homes.  

The village of Agustin Gonzalez is located less than a half hour from San Miguel de Allende.  The town was built to replace the original town inundated to build a nearby reservoir. That was what happened to my mother‘s hometown of Guerrero Viejo, Tamaulipas when Falcon Reservoir and Dam were built 70 years ago 90 miles south of Laredo. I felt an immediate kinship with the residents of Agustin Gonzalez. 

Decades ago in 1973 the population here existed mainly by farming. Villagers also made clay pots and supplemented their income by selling them in the market of San Miguel. When their village was flooded, clay used for their pottery lay underwater and inaccessible. The clay pot making ended.

Twenty five years ago a group of women, mostly retired Americans, who now lived in San Miguel, set out to help another group of women. These women had sewing and embroidery skills and lived in the village of Agustin Gonzalez. The Americans introduced them to the art of hook rug making. 

American expats organized workshops to teach the local women to make hook rugs, a craft invented in Ireland and adopted in the early U.S. colonies.  It was unknown in Mexico. Today, instead of selling clay pots, the villagers supplement their farming income with the sale of hook rug art at the organic market each week in San Miguel, as well as in galleries in the US. The Otomi women sell the hook rug art they make for much more than they could sell their previous sewn goods. The children of the village can now afford to study beyond tuition-free grade school. Some have gone on to attend university. 

American ex-pats conduct a weekly tour to the village with all proceeds going to the village.  They also organize collection of wool clothing to be shipped from the US for use in the rug making. Here is a wonderful video narrated by our tour guide, Charlotte. 

We are eager to see the hook rug work, but our first stop is at an outdoor kitchen of a home in the village where we are to be served some interesting cooking lessons with our lunch. 

We are shown how locally grown corn kernels are softened with ash and water and then ground on a metate into masa for corn tortillas using no additional ingredients. We are shown an intricately carved wooden stamp with a unique-to-the-family design for decorating the tortillas before they are cooked for special holidays. These are family heirlooms passed from one generation to the next.

We then enjoyed a delicious vegetarian spread (meat is only for special occasions) of beans, potato cakes, chiles rellenos, guacamole and a Central Mexican salad, Xoconostle, made with a sour cactus fruit, chiles, mint and salt.   

Our next stop was another home compound where several related families lived. We watch as melon water was prepared and served to us for a refreshing dessert. Two grade school children, a sister and brother, sing us the Otomi version of the Mexican national anthem. The dry, stacked stonework of the home is a thing to behold. The men of the village work in the U.S. part of the year, returning home with resources to build onto their homes. 

On the last stop of the tour we arrive past two Holsteins munching on hay to the verdant home of Doña Maria, a 90 year-old Otomi grandmother. We also meet her daughter, Bonifacia has been a hook rug maker since the project’s early years. 

Doña Maria may be in the last generation to speak Otomi fluently. Spanish has been adopted as the principal language by many Otomi. We learned some basic terms from a worksheet that our guide, Charlotte shared. 

Doña Maria and her daughters are proud of their hook rug art.  Charlotte points out the vibrant colors and designs we see today came about over time with the workshops offered to hook rug makers on color theory and design. 

 

I look around at our group and marvel at our group of tourists, of Mexican and American heritages, and at our chance convergence under shade trees at 6500 feet, sharing cooking, languages and stories, all thanks to a group of expat Americans with the will to help lift members of their adopted community, and Mexican farming women willing to learn new skills to help their families’ future.  

Padamojo, Doña Maria.  Thank you, also to to all the hook rug makers of Agustin Gonzalez, and to Charlotte and her team of volunteers who made possible this beautiful and important cross cultural exchange. 

Want to learn more? Visit their website:

www.rughookproject.com

 Rug Hook Project

English: Charlotte US 512 447 2150

Español: Oralia on WhatsApp                   1-52-1-415-101-9966

Trying Triumphs

 Imelda Staunton‘s character in the Netflix series Trying has got more than a bee in her bonnet, she has got a beehive in it. 

She buzzes with such force when she walks into a scene in Trying that to call her a scene stealer is to call Picasso a paint-by numbers-copycat. 

Staunton brings such animation and dimension to the nearly burned-out social worker she plays that I feel sorry for the other actors in the scene, fine and capable though they are. 

A friend recommended the series and compared it to Ted Lasso. She was right. 

I would add Trying is even more compelling because it is not about the power-elite  owners, coaches and superstar players that lead a soccer team. 

Trying’s people are the sweaty fans crowded in the cheap seats cheering their hearts out. 

There are the same intelligent writing,  character deep-dives and storylines that reel you in and slowly peel back in struggles and triumphs of the characters we thought we knew, but didn’t. 

They work at non glamorous, everyday jobs. They, their friends and family are flawed, often funny and, like the rest of us, sometimes clueless. They hang, climb and swing perilously on the relationship-jungle-jim of life. They may or may not be fully prepared, but they aim high anyway. What else is life for, anyhow? 

I stand on the sidelines holding my breath for the characters in Trying, that is when I ‘m not laughing out loud or wiping away tears of painful recognition. 

It’s All About ‘Buenos Dias’

 I looked up from the screen of my cell phone and saw a tall, slender woman with a plate of tacos at the end of my table. 

All the chairs at the table had been moved to other tables at the market. I suspected she was my elder, so I said “Good morning,” and offered her my seat. She declined. In a few moments, a teenaged boy gave up his chair and brought it to her. 

Kathy G. had a mop of tousled white hair and sky blue eyes. She wore a store-bought type peasant blouse and un-bleached cotton slacks over hiking sandals. She came to the organic market this Saturday in San Miguel de Allende to buy a few days’ worth of tacos to eat in the week ahead. “I’m 80 and I don’t cook anymore. I raised two sons!“ The long line of customers at the taco stand, most of them US ex-pats, Canadians and Europeans, meant the tacos there were really popular.

Kathy said that after 16 years of living in Mexico, most of them with her husband, who died two years ago, she was preparing to return to the States. 

As we spoke, I held my cellphone in case Susie texted me from her walk to the art institute nearby.  Kathy pointed at my cell phone. That was the reason she was leaving Mexico. “My cellphone?” I asked .

She nodded and explained people in San Miguel had changed when cell phone use spread like wildfire two years ago. Did she mean how people  in Ireland surprised us 20 years ago when they walked down the street, their arms cocked to their ears, speaking in their outside voices to seemingly no one?

Worse than that. Kathy continued, “Now everyone in San Miguel has one. They all stopped talking to each other. Now they look at their phones all day instead of talking to people. They even do it when they drive.”

Putting the cell phone genie back into its bottle seems unlikely, especially as this genie makes mucho money for its masters by keeping our eyes glued to the next Tik Tok video of a cat or someone who identifies as one.  Resistance to the addictive lure of screens and the next thing to not be missed can seem futile, but I’ll never believe it’s too late.  I’m a teacher, that’s my job.

Years ago, I saw the arrival of the cell phone transform the culture at my college as fast as the arrival of a tiger scatters people off the dance floor.  On my way to class my footsteps echoed in the crowded but hushed hall. Students stood lined up against walls, silent as monks on a retreat, their necks craned forward the better to scan their screens. I missed the usual raucous sounds of chatter and laughter. The pairs and groups of students who talked, shared notes, made friends and flirted as they waited for class to start. Here is where students got to know their classmates and sometimes shared notes, assignments, formed study groups and test -drove ideas about what they learned in our Communication class. 

Now my heels click-clicked noisily past solitary students who wouldn’t notice if someone walked by in their birthday suit. No conversations, be they casual or intentional.  No new friends, no flirting. The corridor felt antiseptic and vaguely sad, like a hospital. 

The cellphone in hand signaled I-am-not-open-to-conversations.   No wonder loneliness is an increasing problem for young people in college today. 

As I walked unnoticed and unacknowledged, I felt my own enthusiasm ebb. Would I be able persuade these students from behind their shields to the necessary task of dropping their guard to play, to risk and to try on new ideas in my class? 

As the use of social media and screen time among us grew, the urgency of teaching media literacy also grew with each new semester. 

Here in Mexico, Kathy was crunched by what cell phones took from the culture. She missed the thing she loved the most about living so long in Mexico, the warmth of its people. To anyone new to Mexico, she offered this advice, which proved she still had hope. “With Mexicans, it’s all about the phrase,  ‘buenos dias,’ ‘good morning.’

Even after the the cell phone body snatchers invaded San Miguel, Kathy believed the local charm is still alive. If you offer anyone in San Miguel a simple ‘buenos dias,’ they will still open up like morning glories in the sun. “It’s all about ‘buenos dias,’ ‘good morning.’ 

Peanut Butter Penny

 Flying to Mexico on a six week vacation, of course meant bringing along our twenty pound dachshund, Penny. 

At airport security, a helpful guard suggested we put a wad of peanut butter on the roof of Penny‘s mouth to distract and help her with ear pain during takeoffs and landings. 

Luckily we found a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while we waited to board for under $30.

Penny’s carrier is a thing of many zippers, straps and handles. She fits in it the way some of us remember fitting into a girdle: just barely. 

We boarded the full flight and were at our seats while Penny sat in her carrier under the seat in front of us at our feet. 

We soon realized we were facing not her face, but her fanny. We would need to turn her carrier to feed her the sticky rooftop treat. 

The net pouch on the back of the seat facing us hung below the seat. Susie began to slide and push the carrier not noticing when the net got caught on a critical zipper on Penny’s carrier.  With each slide and push that Susie gave to turn the carrier, the zipper opened in equal measure. Suddenly the slide and push became a swoosh. The carrier was empty! Penny wriggled out and off she went among her favorite things in the world, feet! She sniffed and shuffled through three rows of sandals, shoes and boots. 

Meanwhile, we sat stunned and securely strapped in our seats three rows behind. 

Susie leapt out to the aisle as quickly as she could, climbing over the traveler beside her to join passengers in various positions of the inelegant dance of lifting carryons where they’re meant to fit but sometimes don’t.  

Susie spotted in a parting of a sea of legs Penny standing still, looking inquisitively around her. 

Susie picked her up and returned her to her place at our feet. Those around us seemed calm.  After the pandemic and all its attendant surprises a loose dog on a plane didn’t seem like very much to get excited about. She was no snake, after all. We were happy there were no complaints, and Penny was quiet for the rest of the flight proving, even at expensive airport prices, the peanut butter worked.