Becoming-Beginning (Back to Mexico City)
March 15, 2022
To paraphrase: “Invariably as we go through our lives we will sit and reflect on our personal history/experiences seeking to understand them, and in the case of pain…often attempt to redefine the understanding of what took place so that we can reconcile with our souls. But, most often, this is a fruitless effort…What we can do though is place ourselves in new circumstances with new experiences that will dilute the intensity of the past, and allow for the new beginnings to fulfill our lives….”
(Reference to come)
What Frida Kahlo leads us to understand as ‘the process of becoming’ 😊
I had such an amazing time in Ciudad de Mexico last time! Now, I am back again….Landing in the evening…. Views such as this always inspire such an amazing feeling. Knowing that even though I have been here before, there is so much more….the history, the sights, the food, the stories of the people…beginnings….things to support ‘becoming’…
It is a bit late….heading to the abode quickly to try and make sure food is available. While the neighborhood is quiet, people are still on the move….and while searching…this place caught my eye. Jazz/nice music playing…attractive photos…kind of place that makes you walk over to it just to see what is going on. And, behold…the city of street food. Often you will see a person with a regular table set out on the sidewalk, table cloth, seasonings, cooking, people talking, family….now this woman works three (3) corners on different nights and has been doing this for 40 years. I can’t even imagine!! But, you see so many displays of a powerful work ethic here. While I wouldn’t say the food would of made an Anthony Bourdain episode, it made mine 🙂 starving was the situation, sated was the outcome ❤
This time the neighborhood is Zona Rosa adjacent to La Condesa 🙂 A beautiful terrace, very quiet, quaint, just absolutely lovely…especially at night…always interesting how quiet this part of the city is…regardless to this being the largest city in Norteamerica. Area is full of amazing street food, restaurants, parks, very clean, nice people….I love it!! And, right across the street people gather at the local bicycle shop for breakfast and a cafe….admittedly, I’m not necessarily craving tortilla chips in the morning, but when in Mexico…be a Mexicano….the experience was worth it!! ❤
As mentioned, I am revisiting my first trip to CDMX to feed ‘the becoming’…. a new beginning…. First stop this morning…Coyoacan….La Casa Azul – Museo de Frida Kahlo! This is a place to which I will continue to return.
After getting a taste of Kahlo, walking the Coyoacan, and always always taking advantage of a fresh cut coconut (water and meat)….DELICIOUS!! Off to the local mercado…the freshness, the colors, the variety of items….walking through this just brings out the life…sigh….
Taking it all in, and heading back out for more becoming…. It really is interesting how there is such an emphasis on ‘FRESH’ here. I mean it doesn’t take much to find fresh squeezed orange juice…at a stand, in a market, in a coffee shop….you can definitely tell the difference….this one contained the peel….which was a bit much….but, all the same…I will take it…feel me? 🙂
On the way to revisit something that I really LOVE now….a cooking class with an actual chef (mexicano)….so off to Supermercado Juarez to learn about picking ingredients….
I can’t say enough about the pleasure of having an actual professionally trained Mexican Chef take you to the market, teach you how to pick the items, and then spend the afternoon teaching you how to cook. As they say, “if it isn’t fresh, then it isn’t Mexican” ❤
Making homemade salsa, mole chicken, sweet tamale, squash flower tortillas, Atole (chocolate drink)….this is one of my favorite parts of the trip each time….while I love to cook, not always easy to imagine something this delicious didn’t require an act of God for my part…and always interesting the people who come together…and the stories you learn about life…
This is a place where you can just walk, eat, learn, absorb, and feed your vision on how life can be – the becoming. It can make you wonder about the veracity of our decisions when we allow our world view to be so small. Of course traveling doesn’t guarantee a certain world view, but there is value in at least attempting to have a better understanding of people and the world we live in…
Fountains and Squares Everywhere!!! Coffee Bean Tree, Puppies 🙂 Food, Food, and more Food – Street Food!!!! If nothing else…get a good pair of walking shoes….and…COME EAT!! ❤
Mexico City is full of things to do! In fact, I now know that once I’ve been here several more times…I will still know only a small amount…and I am most pleased about that….I’ve got excellent walking shoes 🙂
Now on to a place a saved specifically for this trip!! Bosque de Chapultepec y Castillo de Chapultepec!! Now without going into a full write-up. This place is absolutely amazing….with the right tour guide…you walk away with a lot of Mexican history that goes through the ages, and are full of fascinating views….again, most humbling that we can be so absent of our history….and yes…all of this comes together.
Former residence of heads of state, immaculate gardens, architecture, views of the city, the ambiance….plan on spending a few hours here…and, it is worth getting the tour guide….so you get the stories of what you are experiencing…
The statues, fountains, the work of artisans….I’ve not done many of these types of tours….castles as such…but, the history that went along with the experience…from what I’ve read previously and then the explanations of the guide made this experience much much more than I had initially expected when first planning on coming here…each one of these pictures has a story and a significant meaning associated with it…captivating…you leave this place feeling much more aware of what takes place in the world and inside yourself….
However, without a doubt, traveling here is not complete without time in The Metropolitan Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven (Spanish: Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de la Santísima Virgen María a los cielos)….Located adjacent to the center of the Aztec empire…
To read about a place…study it….and then go to see it….well, for me it is very fulfilling…and even though I have been doing this for much of my life….it always humbles me and reminds me that I don’t know a damn thing about nothing…but, it also is illustrative about how many of us have very uninformed opinions. This last picture on the above right…the catholic cross, a snake at the base, and skulls….hmmmm…..there is a story there…..sooooo good 🙂
While I post pictures, there is a much more fulfilling dynamic taking place…as none of these are more significant to me than the human story. Where do our lives come from…and what can we do to grow and bloom responsibly. While this obviously doesn’t resonate with some of us, it is my thing! And, a requirement in my Tribe!!! People…People…why…what….and after all the superficialities of life are dealt with….what is left?
LOVE and how we treat each other…including our own selves!! Even if it takes time to get there!!
And a little something special for you…as we say…those who know won’t say, and for those who don’t know…well… 🙂
Well, to paraphrase a line from ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ which some people hate – but so what!! A person asks god….bless me with winning the lotto…and god said, ‘well you have to buy a ticket first’. Well…I got a bunch of damn tickets – new beginnings of becoming…peace!! 🙂
Casa Azul: Museo Frida Kahlo
November 1, 2021
While here in CDMX, I will see the sites, explore, expand my awareness…try and glean tidbits from the culture. However, if you read between the lines, this post is more about personal life experiences and, as such, some of our own as well.
When I travel, regardless to where, I always want to capture something that reminds me of the human story. Our commonalities!! Sometimes the dynamic of nationality or a general lack of awareness hides the fact that many of us walk a path with the same vicissitudes. Obviously being a citizen of the United States, I can’t help but to have been influenced by the proclamations of ‘American Exceptionalism’!
I do recognize the benefits I receive from that designation; however, one of the benefits of cultural travel is to shed that shade of lens. Every country has its wondrous exceptionalism. Especially when the culture is full of those dynamics that shape identity outside of jobs, money, and other accumulations. Interesting point for me, in certain countries the question always arises quickly….as in “what do you do”? Whereas in others or other nationalities, the question generally does not arise immediately!! Simply put, if we are what we do for a living…then there is a lot to learn about living!! When regardless…we can just be…
So in visiting Casa Azul – the museo for Frida Kahlo…
The museo is rather touristy of course, but only to the uninitiated. The Art is quite interesting! It captures…we see it…But, it also provides an opportunity for us to see what is in her vision….what she experienced….her resolution….
As a friend of mine taught me, we also assess the art based upon our ability to see ourselves in it. And naturally, how we relate to it and that which is around us…hence we can watch a person just stare a piece of Art for an extended time frame…over and over again…figuring…
This post isn’t full of original ideas! In fact, I’m mostly organizing my thoughts around what I have read from “The Diary of Frida Kahlo” forward by Carlos Fuentes and “A Biography of Frida Kahlo” by Hayden Herrera. Pulling back the veil, what is in her…
Some called her the ‘Priestess of the Temple’,
Diego wrote of her, “For what she lives is what she paints. But no human experience, painful as it may be, becomes art by itself. How did Kahlo transform personal suffering into art, not impersonal, but shared.”
The rise and fall of native then Aztec empires, colonization by Spain (Cortes), a dance with the French, the implications of Protestant and Catholic Organizations, various dynamics of Mexican governmental policy (Oligarchs), subjugation to U.S. policy, a dance with the French, Benito Juarez, and the rise of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, but still the dichotomy of Mexican Society…just to name a few…
Prior to her existent, but then bringing her into being with the mixture of European immigration with what is called the Mestizo mix…to her own direct predicaments of a void of loneliness, early polio, impalation from an accident, multiple miscarriages and surgeries, and the piercing all-encompassing dynamic of love…to name a few….yet with those characteristics of her cycle of life, she always found love and returned to it…epitomized it…
Some implied that she was the ‘Mexican of Mexicans’, changing her actual birthdate to coincide with the actual start of the Mexican Revolution…
Carlos Fuentes says, that “Mexico is a country made by its wounds” …. yet, here comes Frida…with the poetry of her life and her understanding expressed through her art….
Fuentes also says, … looking at how Frida saw herself over time…” gives us successive identities of a human being who is not yet, but who is becoming…” who are we? Are we becoming or are we stagnant? How was she able to grow without replicating the pain she experienced and to do as many do…justifying their existence by placing it on others…how did she do this? Up to each of us to get an answer for ourselves…so that we can do the same…If anyone epitomizes in Art…that it isn’t what you see…it is the meaning within what you see…it is dear pato….(ofrenda de dias de los muertos on the left)….
Ahhh Frida Kahlo…quite the person to know….
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