Journals

  Texas   I have arrived into the state that must be hotter than the gates of hell. Because I am willing to try about anything to shave even half a degree from the outside temperature, I am wearing my white breezy clothes and still manage to feel like something has definitely gone wrong physiologically, and/or the planet is melting. People are saying how beautiful I look today, that I am positively glowing. Meanwhile I feel like we are all hallucinating our existence, and surely set to die from heat exhaustion.   Even in this insane heat, a flare for the dramatics has not escaped me.   Arriving at the caravan event, just when things seem like they cannot get any more interesting on this expedition, the woo-woo stares commence. It’s emanating from the musicians. I know one of them - the man, Justino - from somewhere but cannot put my finger on it. I also know that look of the woman - Jenna - she reminds me of my friend Alessandra , some years ago. Her eyes carry a look of soul's eternal sadness.   In an attempt to search out Justino’s eyes for some clue about our possible connection, he meets my gaze head on, giving me more of that woo-woo stare all over again. As if on cue, he whips out this wooden flute and starts playing the guitar at the same time. BINGO - out of nowhere, I remember. It was a dream from earlier in the year that he first appeared to me. This wild cosmic dream about a man who came to teach me something very important about my life and my life’s path. When I asked how I would know him in real life he told me, looking into my eyes, “Because I’ll be playing my flute.”   Back in Texas, in the land of the living versus dreaming, I decide it is definitely time to take a break. That there might be a chance that I am having a significant break with reality and the cool, night air will do me good. Yeah. It’s probably just overload from constant chaotic traveling , experiences, personalities and dream recollections. As I step outside, who do you guess is there? Justino - the musician, taking a nap but then waking up at seeing me, and insistently pulling up a chair so that I can take it all in.   As an aside, let me just say: my Spanish is okay. Like really: super mas o menos.    But this conversation in my non-native tongue is way too important for me to fumble around and play dumb. I make an honest attempt at searching for the words, struggling really, but then they come piece by piece and then finally flowing all at once. I tell Justino , “ I’ve dreamt of you and I know you are a teacher of sorts.” Then I just go into a full on ramble without coming up for air, saying “I do not want to scare you and I know I look normal and what I might be saying is not normal and I know this caravan is headed to Cuba and I am stopping in Mexico because I think I am supposed to be in Veracruz because of this interesting place that I have arrived at in my life and the history of connections with all these places and Brasil and I think something or someone is calling me and do you understand me I mean really do you understand what I am saying?” To which, with all the credit due in the entire world for him not informing the nearest mental ward, Justino calmly states, “This is too important to possibly mess up in a translation. Let’s go get Jenna . She will tell you everything I have to say in English. You need to connect with some indigenous people in Mexico who are artist/writers/musicians and on the spiritual path. I come from Veracruz… But before we go - tell me about you - your children, your life, your work…what do you do for diversions? Yes - how do you have fun?”   That was the second time during the caravan that the f-word came up: fun. Wow. Where is the fun in my life and why did it take traveling on a caravan for me to realize it’s not a dirty word, the f-word, but something that always appears on the bottom of my to-do/to-be/to-have list. That’s just it. Fun doesn’t belong on a list.   That night ended with me speaking with Jenna , and for the third time, realizing how much my world is shrinking. That look that I saw in her eyes, the same one that Alessandra had, is the look of loss only a recent widow has. We spoke of sweet warrior men. Those men with whom I met on this caravan and the routes, struggling and embodying community and resilience without succumbing to anger, or oppression or resentment. Somehow staying with the feelings of kindness and love in the midst of fear, anger and ignorance. That is what makes those warriors sweet - their willingness to hold all of that without going permanently insane.   As the conversation continued, I discovered that she studied with one of my professors too, and that we both lived in Chicago during those Harold Washington years.  A time before Barack , when Black and Brown folks dared to believe they could be a part - in all ways - of this country, the United States. Gradually moving back to the world of my next movements, apart from the caravan, she suggested I get in touch with activists who were friends of her late husband. That it would require her going through his things that she has not touched for some months. She did not know where to find the contact information, but as if by magic (and both of us definitely believing in signs) the cards of each person’s names that she had previously spoke, were at the top of a heap of papers, urging me onward.