Troncones

Houston Sunday Afternoon: I took a caustic shower and then put makeup on, the act of it impulsive, unthinking and soothing, as if someone else acceded. Gratuitous, however, when, I sat in bed and cried. Opened a previously purchased petit bottle of rosé bubbles, distracted, finally sipping and audibly, to myself, "This is not good." 

Arrived late on Sunday night from Houston to Seattle to Bellingham, then back on Tuesday to Seattle to San Fran to Zihuatanejo to Troncones (laughably self-designed). Not efficient or economical or environmental, but I had put my eggs in the basket of portent positivity - it would be a reset. A celebration. A no-run work-vacation. I slept 7 hours overnight at SFO, by a window, in cold agitation, and woke to a family - "Oh look, she's awake." To Zihua, where I'd arrive a few hours earlier than Cousin & fam. Bided by outside the aeropuerto internacional, trying unsuccessfully to paint the scene in watercolor over margaritas (no bueno), landing on a bueno Victoria con limon (refrescante). 

The family arrived, rosy cheeked, and Connie took us to the mercado de Soriana off Avenida Paseo de la Boquita for cold cervezas, tequila, limes, fried chicken, vino, rum, coconut milk, pineapple juice, yogurt, pan, striated horneados en forma de cerdo, a firetruck, dolarés. At the beginning of each re-entry into Zihua I stand dumbly and ask lamely for Neil to guide me in remembering the conversions, the words, the needs, the right buttons and on refrain for a good few hours, is, "I just need to get reoriented." 

Back in the car we sip Victorias & Neil eats the cold fried chicken. Priority: Troncones by puesta del sol. "Connie go past them." "Connie watch out." Off the highway to the left in that weird jarr of a corner, and as we tried to enter the main street into Troncones, we're met with much military, rifles at side, a gang of motorcycles, a seeming roadblock; they search the windshield flange for illicit contra & wave us forward. 

Puesta del sol - lisps of gauze on a gradation of azul to naranja to oceano profundo, shadows of palm against Connie's mitad veranda & the titian orb swallowed. On a warm black walk to Cenaduría Rufí (un favorito querido de la familia). The Wednesday special: chiles rellenos. A margarita habañero. Upon leaving, barefoot children in the street light fireworks against laser-cut white paper garlands hung low. 

On this trip I was able to work half days. Each day began with an accidental inspection of accumulated picadura de insectopicaduras de insectos, a heavy but happy-footed traipse down the exterior stairwell to the main floor, where, if not immediately greeted, then shortly thereafter greeted by the squinched eyes and open sonreir of principe Henrik. I think being a Tía-Prima, or any other Identity, and waking after salty open-air Mexico sleep and descending upon another's bebe feliz - the recognition or the flirt or the entertaining of en llamas on their face - it a quite restorative and trickling feeling. So anyway, he eats, we eat - usually frutas, bolillos con mermelada y café. I'd walk at each day's morning, along the shoreline, reading, the favorite of such mornings when I woke early enough (as Prima rapped softly at the door, calling in question) to walk with her & Henrik as the salida del sol, and how adoring eyes of the lined ancianos perked & peaked at the quiet soul strapped to Prima's chest. We swung on beach swings & he clenched a singular fist in paralyzed sensation. Then I worked. And waited for that second part of the day to begin. 

On Thursday's there's a mercadito organico y cultural at Tres Mujeres. We looked at fine handmade jewelry (especialmente moonstone y amber) till we went ojos bizcos. Fresh salsas, homemade bug repellant and tinctures of psilocybin & peyote. A variety of tamales and sweets, of which a bagful was purchased & enjoyed for lunch. 

Prima can make a good drink. Any kind. And it would be the most intoxicating and delicious of all drinks made on the trip - a few rondas of piña colada blenders - that really set me up for success and humility on Thursday evening. There was natacion y andante y tocamiento de cangrejo y erizo. The black long-spined sea urchins are quite taking. And then we/I walked with that glossed jovial quick-to-smile and quick-to-hope-make-others, until we deposited ourselves at Orbe's, where the elders were playing dominoes. I ordered a margarita, and I think I ate food, but then I fell asleep leaning back in my chair and startled the lot with a fall & though I feigned the savv to walk myself home, I was encouraged to be driven. I walked down to the ocean to look at the stars, then fell asleep in the sand, a second retrieval, afraid I'd drown. I went to bed dressed in Pacific sand. 

I think I woke fine, which is a wonder. Restored with a healthy, robust brunch at Pacifico: beet juice, a sprout & hummus baguette con ensalada. Each one's dish needed keen admiring. Watercolors beside the pool. Prints of a body in sweat on the cushions. Connie has a special woman come to clean & cook for her, and this special woman made a pot of chicken legs stewing in creamy tomato sauce over a cama of rice. 

El viernes fue genial. Cousin, Neil, Hendrik & I went into Zihua so Cousin could see el dentista, so we could stock up on comestibles & so I could see a bit of Zihua-town. The mercado municipal campesino - almost like stepping under & into a circus tent - whose plastic walls trap a must of smoke, meat, herb, dust, quease & death. It is a living breathing dying thing. Life calls out in an infirmary of senile arcade games called Tesoro Azteca y Grand Monarch y Rey de Poker. Breath calls out precios for avocados & in old fans unsettling the thick air. Death calls in the gathered sinew bouquet of tendon & meat flanks hung from hooks and dripping down slanted glassfronts which encase metal platters of other-meats, fly-spiced. There's foot creams and photos of feet in various stages of ailment. Befores but no Afters. And outside, there are tables of pan & panadería tucked beneath thick plastic sheets. 

On our walk to the beachfront, we stopped for a michelada lesbiana: 2 cervezas, sal, límon, salsa inglesa, jugo maggi, salsa tabasco y clamato (delicioso). To the playa principal, playa la madera, playa la ropa, drinking our michelada lesbianas and lambering along the boardwalk. An event - the seat turtle (olive ridley) a hatch & slow scurry to the ocean. It stopped everyone in temor, like babies, puppies or natural disasters. 

With the sun subsiding we headed to a family favorite restaurant, where the owner remembered Neil & Cousin despite years absent. Sopa azteca, tacos de camaron con col, mayonesa c/ chipotle, nopal y queso panela. After our meal we stumbled upon a girls' basketball game, the court an array of bright colors, laid low in a concrete bowl, surrounded by palms and patrons eating & drinking booze. I remember judging their ball skills quite unnecessarily. 

Late the next morning we drove to Tres Palmas, where we could eat & drink & use the Inn's beach access to buck about the waves like children. The margaritas were big but mediocre, the queso dip Americanized, but the poor man's white fish filet & the pulpo roofed in thick shavings of garlic looked bueno. There are a lot of parts to Troncones that arouse this verdadera, this veracious sense of Vida, and one of them is that electric buzz in your fingertips provoked by tequila, and that electric brazen excitement in running to the beach with jellyfish panic, and tasting salt, and catching your body electric in waves willingly and un. See: getting buzzed & jumping in the ocean with abandon. 

That evening we walked from Connie's beach casa to her new secondary property, built higher up & inland for a sort of christening at eventide. Up a short dirt-dusty road, past a seemingly unnamed cemetery whose entranceway are stones & deep pink bougainvillea in curve, the headstones in white granite.

The home's tiled bathrooms & top veranda with expansive mountain & ocean views are its dearest features. It's new neighbor who has built to ocean-blocking height on one side is not. You ascend these steeply curved concrete stairs where the setting light creates yellow geometry between the walls & windows. From the front - the Pacific, wider than wide, and behind, rolling mountains in a general palate of sage. There is not a cloud. And the sun in set as blood orange. Connie has prepared a finger-food veranda christening meal of molding cheddar, rellenas de salmon, smoked oysters, seeded crackers; a weathered plastic chair breaks a leg under body. After, back at the beach casa, Neil fries up pizza in a pan.

The next day Cousin & I walked into town for some groceries. Off the main road is a dusty verdura y fruta y productos enlatados shop. A machete lays on a pile of canned elote, colorful verduras separated by crate. You grab a child's laundry basket and fill it with your wants while cats lounge and braid between. Cousin collects items for homemade salsa. 

For breakfast - a green smoothie with kiwi, blueberries, banana, nuts & seeds. Then fried cheese. Then a pitcher of margaritas, then grilled sausages & onions with cotija, and rice & beans & salsa. But we did go for a walk thankgod, and toes wet, and sunset, concluding at La Mexicana for live music & drinks: mangoe mezcalita with tajin on the rim, salsas y chile oil & thick black artesanal chips.

To Troncones Steak House: chilaquiles verdes con pollo y queso y piña coladas. Spiked iguanas climb the bramble & bougainvillea. A walk to Deb&Dave's, keeping Hendrik cool with chilled Modelos. A swim & sun-bathe in the pretty pool. For cena that evening we went to another fam-friends' restaurant (Thai), walkable, with arte orientado a la comida, outlets drilled into stone, and an exquisite tile-laid pool. Tom Kha Gin (gin, coconut milk, ginger, lemongrass, lime, sesasme) & Bangkok Punch (tequila, black pepper, pineapple, tamarind, cardamom, ginger). And Tom Yum soups, warm salads, pad Thai, stir-fry noodles in oyster sauce, curry. 

More mornings filled with grilled bolillos, petit sweet bananas pulled from the property, thick slices of papaya. 

A massage, which I'd find would be the only thing that truly got me to relajar. We walked to visit Connie at a used jewelry shop where she works once a week. Proceeds go towards funding the local school. Connie, a creative spirit, will take broken or unsold jewelry and revive them into something other. En route to the jewelry shop, we selected some frutas y verduras from a dusty-ricket of a truck selling the produce off the back, an old scale above the bumper. 

Before leaving, Neil took us to Restaurante Los Angeles for grande piña coladas y chilaquiles verdes con huevos. And kindly deposited me back at the airport in Zihua. 

Me siento muy agradecido de que Troncones se sienta como en casa, y que Neil y su familia sean tan generosos. Me siento más yo allí, más expresiva, la vida más simple. Es bastante doloroso que un lugar así no pueda compensar la depresión.