Troncones

Dia Uno - Woke with a gasp on the plane with the vivid sensation that all was at a standstill, the moment before the fall, suspended. My beautiful prima prepared us with samplers, which we poured over bloody mary mixes & Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Spacial lux. Deposited in Zihuatanejo in early afternoon, the air like brushing against freshly kilned clay. Calor color. Customs. Neil's madre, Connie, picks us up in a white car covered in crust, dust & flecked metal.

Zihuatanejo is fun in the mouth, "water of the yellow mountain" or, "place of women," in the state of Guerrero. A sleepy fishing village with clapboard houses, rim after rim shops and dotted in white pleated schoolgirls. We stopped for groceries: 4-6 cases of Victoria, bottles of tequila y cointreau, bags of limes, avocados, mangoes, platanos, pineapple, cilantro, sparkling agua, queso oaxaca, tubs of salsa verde y pico de gallo, mulling over clay pots of mole decorated in mosaics of spices, at the concha chocolates y amarillas, kariocas, nidos de bizcochos, the banderillas, flor de feites, rosca apasteladas, palomas, orejas, y abanicos.

Tres Victorias open, queso oaxaca strips to mouth, windows down, brown slopes of the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains, palms, the sides of the road edged in ash, the clam clasp of cattle ribs, on our way to Troncones where Connie lives, 20 miles nw of Zihua. Troncones is relatively undeveloped, host to only a couple hundred people & truly sleepy.

I've been feeling this insatiable welling of Do. Which hinges on, Before. Though I can't be sure what "Before" is, so I toss it beneath the veil of getting older. Or, I've found I'm happiest when life is not just work, not about it, but about people & places. And so I spend all my money on experiences & set aside big projects like house or marriage, so that I can be a full filling me, and can fall into settled once restlessness quiets or the money does. Only then can I come back to work with an appreciation of what it affords me, outside of it.

Through downtown Troncones, with its sleepy shops half-closed, parks of ash and withered trees, everyone in a hammock. To our clay orange home with thatch roof, shaded by palms, at the foot of the ocean. Our room: up the winding stairwell to an open air enormity, two beds beneath mosquito nets, a balcony of ocean. Immediately clothes-less. Pool. Beach. Someone is juicing the limes to the detriment of their palms, a pitcher of margaritas on the veranda, carried along to our first cena. The walk scoops Taco, an old weiner with sad inverted hips, who swivels as the sun sets coral against variations of cloud. He joins us for dinner at Brisas Del Mar, a large group of retired whitey's y Louis, Connie's man and a local. Prima y yo share courses of seared yellowfin tuna con risotto y green beans y mushrooms sauteed in white wine y parmesan and grilled mahi-mahi over fine herbs, carrots, squash, cauliflower, spinach, passion fruit y habanero, y mas margaritas. Our long table set before the ocean, a musician played whitey requests the likes of Whitney Houston and Patsy Cline with a voice so honeyed, it felt you were falling asleep to her vocals running their fingers through your hair.

Sprinting to the beach, kicking bioilluminescence in sparkled sand against the black; back at home we shed clothes & jump in the pool, floating pantsless, a proper introduction.

Dia Dos - Primero desayuno: soft brown banana, halved mango & iced coffee made on the stove. Mango juice dripping sticky from all fingers, the flavor like Only & Ever & Cure-All. Segundo desayuno: Connie makes us quesadillas con salsa verde y avocado. Tercero desayuno: chilaquiles (another beautiful word for the mouth) verde con huevos y queso y pina coladas a Mi Casa es Su Casa. Por cena, Chile rellenos stuffed in mexican cheeses, savored over mas pitchers of margaritas. Prima moves between Neil y yo's netted beds, keeping the both of us company in the night of waves.

Dia Tres - In the morning before all have risen, Connie preps pie de limon. A masseuse buses in from the ciudad with her table, climbs the stairs to our floor, where she sets up for what will be 6 horas de masajes. Connie hires her to come weekly, brings her in from the city because of the power of her hands. In my masaje I learn myself better through her hands. Where she hesitates, focuses. She doesn't speak english and I'm over a decade removed from espanol, so all we have to communicate with one another is how my body receives her, what we feel. She focuses on my cheeks, right beneath the bones, at the furrow that's grown permanent between my brows, at the cusp collecting my neck. She incorporates cupping, the suck and pull of the small cups. She bends down to my ear, whispers, "Done," and smiles at me as if we've just shared a secret. Cena: chicken mole. Then Connie's pie de limon. Then Mezcal with orange wedges dipped in spices, sipped around a circle of 60 year olds as the sun sets. Across the street for live music beneath green light, we dance on the small square of dirt.

Dia Quatro - After several days off from running y mas pina coladas, margaritas y cervesas, I set out for a mid morning run along the ocean - uno milla. Post - iced stove coffees, frutas con granola y yogurt at Mi Casa es Su Casa de nuevo. Each meal is a beach walk, sweat break, take a towel & a book, eat, dive endless under surf waves, feet tickled by things unknown, forever hopeful they're not stingrays. Post desayuno - we've offered to take Texas, a woman in horn rimmed glasses, to the airport in Zihua, so that we can tour Ixtapa Island.

Through Playa Linda to Ixtapa Island we wind nourished grasses before enclaves of fenced in mansions. A gardener sharpening his shovel with a machete. Toured the potent bog of cocodrilos, tortugas, iguanas y pink spoonbill birds. Walked a rock wall to the boat launch beside parachutes led by speedboats and the smell of grilling. Paid our fare to get to Ixtapa Island with its sheltered bay, coves y golden sands. Out of the boat, workers clasping your wrists, to give something, anything, a touch for pesos. Muttering under their breath when you don't buy in. Black rabbits bounding through the sand. Massages for sale. Pina coladas for sale. Snorkling gear for sale. We sit at the white beach's edge, sifting the shells, drinking Victoria's before we do, finally, buy in: margaritas y Indios y snacks at a shaded beachfront bar, laying out as a boombox beats our bones, and to the squealing of the snorklers as fish tickle their skin and the coral cuts their feet.

In returning, pelicans and boobie birds divecrash off the rock jetty, a fisherman throws his net over the bridge, his net teeming with little fish in vibration. Toasted, roasted. I wave goodbye to a little boy, pot-bellied, steely-eyed, he doesn't wave back.

Back in downtown Troncones, we stop for mas avocados y mangoes from the back of a truck. For hot tamales pulled from a cooler off the side of the road. Walk the sunset to Cenaduria Rufi, where the laminated menu is water-stained and the prices are increased one on top of another in marker. For the especialidades de alambre con pollo y margaritas y Indios. Served on old china, with a blanket of queso thickened over peekaboo fajitas. Connie's soulful friend, a jeweler-teacher reads my aura: I am fire rising, host of earth, fire y water and missing air. I have dos in the casa of death, meaning deep mystery, old soul with interests in philosophy, learning, teaching. Tres in the house of self-expression. That I need to become more of myself. Turn my dials towards the sun. Be more Leo, more of a leader, self express mas. She explains, over a drawing of a dial she meditated on in the top floor of her Troncones habitacion.

Dia Cinco - Coffee y mangoes. 3 mile run in the sand, back and forth, tits a jumble in expedite of sag. Almuerzo at Seven Mars for shrimp cocktail, guacamole y dos pina coladas con whipped cream y chocolate drizz. Flavor layers. Bodyboarding, broken boards, salt enemas. Laughter that escapes you, like a child's, the most honest kind.

All week we've been talking about fresh cocos, Connie's property host to many. Neil proclaims that its time, tells me to grab the stick with the curved blade from the ground: two bamboo poles gathered end to end with rope & a hook. I go for the shorter palm, but am encouraged towards the taller, which hosts the riper, more yellowed, stand on my toes to reach, to hook in, and with a snag bring my prized coco to the ground, trip on a plant and fall, the coco retriever falling, rock-gouged, laughter.

Neil places the coco on a slab of wood and with a machete removes the round, cuts the lip, and from the blade feeds me the flesh of my catch, pristine white coco meat. We put a couple cocos in the freezer to chill, to pour liquor within later. 

Por cena a big group of us walked to Chenchos, further inland. A long table, stagnant heat. Mas margaritas y quesadillas con camaron y champinon. Tequila shots at Roberto's, then dancing, on the raised wooden floor, perros roaming.

Dia Seis - Mas quesadillas cone salsa verde. We walked the whole town long - 3 miles on the white sand, baking heat, with packs of perros bounding with the passion of vampire pack. Through sloping red dusted trails enclosed in bramble, to the furthest reaches of a private beach where the sea anemones held cemetery on the edges of everything, or danced purple-toed in the salty water. Our feet sore and swollen, mas pina coladas a Maria Jetzabel Palapa Resaurante. Moka smoothies a Cafe Sol.

A drive to El Toro Del Mar Restuarante Johnny, where Neil insisted my last meal should take place: michelada con Victoria, Especial del dia (20 camarones, 1 kg. de langosta, ajo, mantequilla, rice y roasted plantains) por 700 pesos. We had to roll ourselves to the beach's edge, dip our fingertips in the water to rinse the grease of butter-garlic lobster meat, rolled back. The drive home, all these homes and plots for sale, daydreaming property purchases. We meet a friend for Victoria's at Pretentious Moments, an overpriced yoga retreat center, the band plays Marc Anthony's, "I need to know," as all the bands played, religiously. A walk along the black sky, white salt, kicking the sand for its bioilluminescent sparkle once more, breathing deeply, coatless, perfectly tempered, in mourning para el fin.

Dia Siete - The sadness that follows an end that comes too soon. Tres millas, sweat collecting along the spine, eyes wide open. Chewy, Connie, Neil, Prima y yo walk to our heavily frequented Mi Casa es Su Casa for huevos rancheros y pina coladas. Then back through downtown Troncones to sift through the Mexican treats for a gift for Red. For our home: a carved cross nailed with limbs y a dia de los muertos magnet for the vino refrigerador. Reading, "Let the Great World Spin," by Colum McCann in the pool. Bags packed, siestas, coche back to Zihuatanejo, to the aeropuerto, a jug of frozen water between my legs to keep cool, arm out the window, memorizing. Mi prima y Neil drop me, and though I miss Red, all I want is to stay, buy a square of land, feel as full and dizzy in self care as I did when I was there, in Troncones.