coldhearted scientist وداد

“Mujer andina, te vengo a cantar mis penas y mis dolores,” says the huayno, but for this weekend I wanted to put up Greco-Portuguese and Sephardic music sung by other beautiful women. But video is not embedding for me and anyway I am in Greater Mexico now; in its honor I offer you Mujer ladina, a lovely song by Lucha Reyes.

Greater Mexico is a large place and I love the routes that lead there.  The entry is nearby, but it takes a few days to reach my own patria chica. Sailing past downtown Houston and following the signs leading west, I am really on my way. San Antonio. Kerrville. A long stretch then, and finally a restaurant in Fort Stockton where time passes slowly among nopales, and the bougainvillea air of my soft  homeland wafts.

The next big town is El Paso, where the signs give you a choice between continuing on to México, D. F., or to Los Angeles. The most direct route to Mexico City from the Eastern part of the United States, where I live, is not through El Paso, so I wave happily at the Mexico turnoff and drive underneath the other arrow.

After Las Cruces, after Phoenix, I am at the gates of Eden, talking to the guard. He looks at my license plates and the bags, books, and other miscellany in the car and says, “So you’re moving to California?” I should say no, I am just visiting, but I say, “No, sir, not moving; coming home.”

Axé.