Mirrorcles

Read while listening to Keith Jarret's “Someone To Watch Over Me.”

Take the bus, but let Derek Walcott move you.

Brain massage: If you've got an annoying song stuck in your mind, fall asleep with your head against the bus window.

I really like long bus rides. I told Aaron that after so many long and sweaty bus rides, road trips back home will be a cheese of cake. I have always loved car trips, but I think these bus trips have improved my car-tripping stamina. Then he told me we might take one to Yellowstone to do some fishing when I get back. And I guess my parents are coming out to visit in September. Andale pues.

We went to the capital this past weekend to visit the temple and so Andy could visit a ward he served in. It was a good trip. We stayed in a big Holiday Inn so we would have nice beds and a good shower, etc., for a change. We sat down for a bit in the room to take a break before heading out and Andy turned on the TV and started flipping through channels. I asked him to stop for a minute on one called “The Concert Channel,” because there was a band playing some good jazz. I think it said it was Charles Mingus. We watched a few minutes of the band members taking turns rocking impromptu solos. Very impressive. I remembered a comment Julie had made on my wall about jazz being like poetry, and I thought, if we're going to compare it to poetry, it would have to be a renga.

We visited the temple, which is very beautiful. After dinner we wandered down to this mall close to our hotel, “Oakland Mall,” because we heard it had a movie theater. It's a gigantic mall with seven floors, a huge theater, a really big merry-go-round (It hit me how strange a name that is when I said it out loud in the mall, and got me wondering who comes up with names for things like that; “Someone's got that job.”), and tons of very nice stores. We randomly strolled into a couple of stores to look around. One of them was called Saul y Mendez. The name stood out to me for some reason so we walked in. As part of the decoration for the store, they had old books arranged on a glass shelf, so of course I started looking at the books instead of the clothes. I wasn't sure if I could pick them up, but I did anyway. I leafed through a few on one side of the shelf, and then moved over to the other side, and the first book I picked up was an ancient copy, in English, of The Grapes of Wrath. It was in great condition but still worn enough to look beautifully old, and the pages smelled great as well. There was a note on one of the first pages written in pencil signed “Hector y Margot, 1944.” I asked the manager if there was anyway they would sell the book and she assured me very firmly that there was no way she could sell any of the books. So I left disappointed, but still thinking, I need that book. We went up and got our tickets at the theater (we found out after we got our tickets that we could have bought VIP tickets, which puts you in a theater with big leather lazy boy chairs, a waiter, etc. for about $8 US), and the whole time I was thinking, man I want that book. So we decided to go back. I walked in and found her and asked if she was sure she couldn't sell it. She said they were the owner's and just there for decoration so she couldn't sell them. Then she asked me which one. So we walked over and I showed her. I explained that I study literature and was really interested in the book. We talked a bit about who we were and what we were doing in Guatemala. She looked at the date the message was signed and said, “Wow, look at the date.” I said, “Si, es viejo.” She paused, looked at it for a long minute, and then said, “Bueno . . .” like she was ready to make some kind of deal, but then she said, “Te lo regalo,” which means I'll gift it to you. It was one of those Amelie moments when something strikes the “inner resonant frequency” of one of the characters, like when Nino finds himself face to face with the mystery man in the photo booth and starts to glow while background music hums/reverberates, like he's going to explode. I couldn't believe it. I'm sure she could see how I felt on my face. She smiled. I asked if she was sure and she was. She told me, “So that when you come back to visit Gautemala you'll come see us again.” I glided out of the store, back up to the movie theater on cloud nine, and in complete shock. The only movie showing that wasn't dubbed and seemed somewhat interesting was “Angels and Demons.” (Their theaters only show American films. I would have loved to see an original Guatemalan movie.)Funny enough, in the movie there's a running theme of him wanting a certain ancient book by Galileo that the church won't let him see, but then, in the end, “gifts” to him. Haha.

It also reminds me of a story I read in Pablo Neruda's memoirs. One time he was visiting another town to do a reading and went out for a walk with his wife Matilde Urrutia. In the window of a shoe shop he spotted this really big, old shoe that for whatever reason caught his eye. I think it was carved out of wood or something like that. It wasn't a normal shoe. He was an eclectic collector and knew he wanted the shoe even after just one distant look through a window. He asked the owner if he could buy it and the man refused to sell it. Neruda gave the man a ticket to his reading that night and walked away thinking that he needed that shoe, and was going to have to find someway to convince the guy. But the guy ended up coming to the reading and was so moved by it he gifted Neruda the shoe.

Sometimes Andy and I get confused about what the other means when we say, “home,” or, “family,” not sure if I/he mean/means home and real family, or here and host family. Like when we're in the capital and he says, “I have that back home.” The other day he shot me this really confused look when I told him “my family” is starting to understand when I'm making a joke and now they think I'm pretty funny.

Read while listening to Keren Ann's “les rivieres de janvier,” and if you're taking your time, “Ailleurs,” too, and if you're really taking it slow, the whole album, Nolita.

So Andy and I went with Tat Lu after lunch up to the mirador (lookout) so he could check on his horse he had left grazing up there. It has been raining for the past two days but let up for a few hours today in the afternoon. So we went out to enjoy it. Andy says there is a tropical storm over by Mexico that is causing all the rain. It just happens to be called tropical storm Andy. It was a good trip to the lookout with all kinds of stories told by the master, Tat Lu. I love the corn fields. So green and amazing. And their stalks are a deep, almost purple, red. I could only compare Guatemala's breathtaking green to Tennessee green. On the way home from the lookout I started realizing how often the girls around here wear bandannas on their heads. I don't know why I just realized that after almost two months. We passed a bunch of girls walking home in the light rain, some balancing baskets and buckets on their heads, others just helping their younger sisters down the road. There were also lots of men walking their big black bulls up the road. But when I had this realization about the bandannas, I had a flashback to a couple of semesters ago, when a girl in my ward asked me to go with her to see one of the movies at the Sundance Film Festival. We saw Smart People. She was a very nice girl, with long red hair. Now that I think about it, she let me borrow some of her cowboy “equipment” to dress up for the cowboys-and-Indians murder mystery dinner we had that year for Halloween. And she was really good at basketball. After the movie we went to a restaurant whose name I can't remember now, but it had some seriously tasty mole (a kind of Mexican salsa, not the animalito) enchiladas. And up on the wall by our table was a painting with people wearing bandannas. We were trying to figure out the setting of the painting, which country exactly, and the bandannas kept us very confused, because they didn't quite go with the rest of the setting or the look of the people. I think last I heard she was engaged, so she's probably married by now. I don't know where I heard that though.

I was walking up the road one morning and met up with an elderly lady who was headed in the same direction. We tried talking to each other, but she didn't speak much Spanish. We did our best though. At one point another old lady came walking by headed the other way, and this is how they greeted each other:

Other lady: “eeeyyyyy.”

My lady: “aaahhhhh.”