But in Pátzcuaro, during Day of the Dead, it wasn’t about grief. In fact, despite all the images of skulls and skeletons and coffins and bones slapped onto everything from T-shirts to bread, it was life that was being celebrated—the lives of those who were no longer living. And Cynthia had promised a transforming experience. Energy changes, she told me. Things happen.
It feels so good to be able to pull on a sweater, I thought as I headed out from my room into the cool courtyard of Casa Encantada to meet Cynthia for a day of shopping. I found her in the open dining area, surrounded by B&B guests eager for sightseeing and restaurant suggestions. The town was packed with tourists from all over Mexico, and all around the world, judging from the jumble of languages I’d heard swirling around since I’d arrived.
“Ready?” asked Cynthia after she handed a map to a young couple with three kids. I held up one finger in the air and gulped down my coffee as fast as I could. Our first stop was to be Santa Clara del Cobre, an old copper mining town known for its handmade crafts, which these days were completely made from recycled wire and cable.
A light drizzle began to fall as we started to make our way through the mountains, their peaks barely visible through the mist. Though the air was thick with moisture, somehow it felt more like a cozy blanket than the murky mess it really was, judging from the muddy fields and increasingly slick roads. I watched through the window as the scrubby roadside pulsed from color to black-and-white to color again as the sun struggled to break free from the clouds. Even the cattle seemed to have been lulled into a state of blind contentment, as was clear by the look on one surprised cow’s face as she found herself skidding across two lanes of cars on her knees, scrambling frantically to her feet as she safely reached the other side.
We kept our pace to a crawl as we neared the entrance of Santa Clara, much to the delight of the wily children who had strategically positioned themselves on both sides of the speed bumps, thrusting their hollowed-out gourds toward our windows in hopes of scoring some holiday candy or loose change. Once our pockets were empty, we continued down the main street past the low whitewashed buildings, with their tiled roofs and uniform black and red lettering, each façade painted with a broad, horizontal red stripe across its base to camouflage the dirt. If I didn’t know any better, I would have sworn we’d just completed a huge circle ending back at Pátzcuaro, where all the buildings were identical to these. But with the glare bouncing off the copper gazebo in the middle of the town square, and the copper pots, pans, plates, shot glasses, clocks, jewelry, vases, beds, tables, chairs, light switches, counters, sinks, and even bathtubs lining the streets, there was no mistaking where we were.
Cynthia led me into her favorite shop, where I was stopped dead in my tracks, right inside the doorway, by a mound of bright yellow flowers cradling an ornate copper cross. Directly above, on a shelf lined with even more flowers, sat a photo of a rakish-looking guy in jeans, a hand in one pocket. And above that, on yet another flower-lined shelf, was his straw hat, its brim curled upward in a sporty arc.
“Oh my,” I said out loud, suddenly sad for this family for their recent loss.
“Es nuestro padre,” said a woman who had slid in beside me. I looked up, surprised to see her smile.
Cynthia’s laugh tinkled across the room. “It’s okay, Deb. This guy probably died years ago. You’re going to see lots of altars and shrines everywhere this week. Beautiful, eh?”
The workmanship displayed on the shelves of the little shop was stunning. My favorites were the etched copper plates, each depicting a different image related to the Day of the Dead, in a sort of bold, minimalistic style. The woman told us they were designed by her daughter, the most recent member of the family to apprentice in the craft. She then took us to their workshop out back, which, if it weren’t for the still-warm embers in the open fire pit, I would have sworn was a stage set, with its primitive tools and tree-stump benches. I loved imagining this family, like mine, passing down the tricks of their trade from generation to generation, but in a parallel universe on the other side of the world.
I began to notice signs of the approaching holiday all around the lake as we headed back to Pátzcuaro with three of those magnificent copper plates and four copper pedicure tubs tucked safely away in the trunk. Pickup trucks, some practically buried under piles of orange marigolds and purple cockscomb, and others crammed with passengers standing shoulder to shoulder like penned-in livestock in the back, sped past us on their way to who knew where. Near a crossroad leading into one village, we stopped to watch a group of men constructing a huge wooden arch, which Cynthia explained would later be completely covered by flowers and erected over the intersection as a guide for the spirits of loved ones heading back home for their yearly visit, sort of like when you put balloons outside your house to let everyone know where the party is.
That afternoon was when my blood really got pumping. The annual crafts market had been set up in the Plaza Grande. As I strolled those aisles, serenaded by the music of a soft rain falling on the tarps overhead, the experience seemed for me like what spending a long winter’s afternoon in the Louvre must be for some people. But even better, because the artists were right there beside you—the indigenous women with gray braids and long, tiered skirts proudly displaying their elaborately embroidered linens and blouses, and the sturdy, ruddy men with their carved masks and rich, glossy pottery. These people had come from all over Mexico with their creations, with the best of the best vying in a formal competition up in the basilica. One Indian woman handed me a card that described the embroiderers of her town as story-tellers. We tell our stories with needle and thread. And indeed, when I looked closely at their work, I saw amazingly complex tales of love and marriage, of the harvest, of death. It wasn’t long before I was forced to stop and buy one of those giant plastic totes to carry around all my new treasures. There were dishes and hats and purses and scarves, toys and mittens and sweaters and candelabras. And, of course, Catrinas. Rows and rows of Catrinas that, despite their gaping jaws and empty eye sockets, were alive with color and bursting with a whimsy that made the whole gravity of death seem like such a silly notion.
I was in heaven, wandering from booth to booth, admiring the artisans’ work, fingering their wares, bargaining for deals. A friend once told me that my true calling was marketplace ministry. When I first got to Kabul, I’d defy the security restrictions and sneak out by myself to wander around Chicken Street, where the vendors and I got to know each other by name. “Miss Debbie!” they’d call out, inviting me in for some tea and conversation. In fact, I’d made friends with vendors from Addis Ababa to Nepal. Just name a town or mountain village, and I’ll tell you about the shops and the people who own them, how many children they have and what their wives’ names are. Knowing whose hands made what has always made every purchase seem just that much more special to me.
More recently, on a road trip near Oaxaca, I spent a whole afternoon trying to locate the woman who had embroidered a fringed scarf I found in the market. I wanted more, and I wanted to meet the person behind these beautiful creations. We wound up in a teeny town in the pouring rain. Nothing looked open, but when I showed the scarf to the one man on the sidewalk, he motioned for me to follow, leaving me in front of an eight-by-ten countertop in a shop. I could see a woman seated inside, and next to her, on another plastic chair, was a young, pimply kid with the telltale crisp white shirt and skinny black tie of a Mormon missionary. What I didn’t see were any scarves that came close to resembling the one I held in my hand.
“Do you want me to help you?” the boy offered as I stood in the doorway trying to figure out how to make this happen.
“Do you speak Spanish?” I asked hopefully. Before I knew it, despite his language skills, which were barely better than mine, the woman apparently told the boy to watch the store, and was out the door, hopefully to return with more scarves.
“These people are so nice,” the
boy said, gesturing for me to sit. “We’ve baptized quite a lot of them.” Then he eagerly began his spiel on me.
“Thanks, but I’m good,” I interrupted. “I’m not really that into being converted right now.” He slumped his shoulders, lowering his gaze to the ground. “Though I do enjoy watching Big Love,” I added.
It wasn’t until after the last of Cynthia’s guests had settled in for the night that we got a chance to relax. She grabbed a bottle of wine and some chips from the kitchen and the two of us plopped ourselves down on the terrace outside her room.
“So are you feeling it, Deb?” she asked as Señorita and Max sailed onto her lap.
I lifted my feet onto the empty chair facing me and moaned. “Right now I’m feeling something, but I doubt it’s what you’re asking about.”
Cynthia laughed. “You are a champion shopper, eh?” She took a sip of her wine. “Did you know that shopping can be an addiction?”
“Whoa, back off there, missy. Don’t be messing with my shopping.”
“No, seriously, Deb. It can be a coping strategy for people affected by trauma, just like eating disorders, or drug abuse. It’s what some people call dissociative behavior, a way of avoiding whatever’s going on.”
“Thanks a lot, pal. I thought you said I was getting better. Now you tell me I’m suffering from shopping sickness?”
“I’m just saying, Deb. But seriously, shopping can provide a shot of dopamine for some people, which makes them feel happy and satisfied, for however long it lasts. That’s how it becomes an addiction.”
I didn’t want to admit it out loud to Cynthia, but I could remember the rush I used to get from staying up all night shopping online in California, and the withdrawal I went through after moving to Mexico, where the customs hassles I’d have to face and the duty I’d have to pay on anything I ordered forced me to go cold turkey. I had always suspected my weight problems were somehow connected to bigger issues, but shopping? Really?
Cynthia wasn’t through with me yet. “And yes, I do think you are definitely on the road to healing, but I don’t want you to think it’s going to be like getting over a cold, or beating cancer. It’s not going to be like you have it one minute, and then poof, it’s gone.”
“Damn.” I unzipped my boots and kicked them off under the table. “You know, I still don’t quite get it. Unless I’m blocking something, for the life of me I just can’t pinpoint whatever it was or whoever it was that did its number on me.”
“But it’s not always like that. In your case, it could very well be a chain of escalating events; it could be a series of abusive situations throughout your life. And I suspect it probably started when you were a kid.”
“But I’ve told you, my parents weren’t abusive!” I protested. I was all too familiar by now with stories of rough childhoods. Mine was idyllic by comparison.
“Don’t be offended, Deb. That’s not what I said. All I’m saying is that there are all different kinds of abuse. Some of us grow up with parents who are so caught up in their own drama that they don’t attune to us emotionally, and then we don’t learn to attune to ourselves.”
Cynthia and I had discussed the dynamics between me, my mom, and my dad, and how my mom had used me in a game of two against one. “But I obviously survived my childhood, and that obviously was a long, long time ago.”
“Yes it was, you old lady. But childhood is when we develop our beliefs about how we fit in, what we deserve, how we interact with others.”
“Lots of people grow up in less-than-perfect households, right? So why have I been the one walking around like a ticking bomb?”
“Because people don’t all break the same. In a way, trauma is just part of being human. Most of us have had at least one experience where something was a threat to our security or well-being, but most people manage to cope. Some even use it to their benefit. I heard someone say once that it’s like dropping two glass bottles at the same time. One might crumble and one might break into giant sharp pieces. The same thing that crushes one person might make another stronger.”
“But my parents? Even though they might not have gotten along so well, they were always supportive of my decisions, good or bad.”
“Good people can do harmful things, Deb. Without even realizing it. And like I said, if they are a part of the picture, they’re no doubt just a part of it. But I do believe your heightened arousal level probably started when you were a kid, because you don’t seem to have much of a sense of missing your lower gears.”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just a high-energy person or something.”
Cynthia ignored my theory. “But whatever the root of our trauma, we tend to re-create the sensation by sending ourselves into familiar situations. Look at your own life. You went from one lion’s den to the next, into relationships where you were a victim, where sometimes somebody was intimidating and controlling, where there was emotional abuse. And look at where you’ve put yourself, geographically. Just being at Ground Zero right after 9/11 had to be traumatic. And then Afghanistan? You weren’t just surrounded by danger, it was sitting in your living room having a smoke! It’s like you went from the frying pan into the fire into a roaring blaze. We’re talking cumulative trauma.”
“My friend Karen from Michigan likes to say that in Afghanistan I was like a frog dropped into a pot of cold water put on to boil. The frog just sits there as the water heats up slowly, but it won’t jump out of the pot. It doesn’t even know it’s being boiled to death.”
“But you did jump out. Escaping from Afghanistan was your launching point toward the healing process.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t my choice. It was more like a giant hand came and grabbed me by the collar, and yanked me out.”
Cynthia shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, girl. Even though that brain of yours might not have known how to take charge, your body did, at least once you created enough safety around yourself to free up your natural impulses, to allow yourself to change, to start processing all that shit you’d been thrashing around in for all those years.”
“But I wasn’t looking to create safety. I was way more comfortable in a war zone than I was in the suburbs. Trust me.”
“Still doesn’t matter. Stop going there. As painful as it was, all that sitting out there in Napa is what led you down here. It’s all part of the process.”
“So Mexico is my safe haven.”
“Well, in a way.”
“All I know is that something about this place just feels right.” I stood and leaned over the railing, my gaze resting on the back wall of the empty courtyard below. “You know, when I first arrived in Mexico I felt like I was taking in my first full breath of air. And now, with Tippy Toes and the girls in school, even though my days are crazy busy, I actually feel calmer than I’ve ever felt.”
“It’s called being happy, Debbie.”
“Who knew?” I poured us each a touch more wine and sat back down in my chair.
“Seriously, Deb, it’s a huge shift for you to be able to enjoy that feeling of happiness. People with trauma tend to develop these core beliefs that they’re not worthy, to the point where they don’t think they deserve to have positive feelings.”
“And you know what, Cyn? When I come up here, to Pátzcuaro, everything feels even more right, if that makes any sense to you.”
“Aha, so you are feeling it.” Cynthia sat back and rocked Señorita in her arms. “You’ve found your place, Deb. Not just geographically, but energetically. There are certain places on the planet that feel more like a fit for certain people. There’s a physical reason you feel differently here. Don’t forget about the vortexes. It’s an energetic match for you down here.”
I had to laugh. “Right now I feel like an energetic match for a mausoleum. I’m exhausted.” The truth was, I had barely slept the night before. I didn’t know if it was the place or if it was
Cynthia’s unrelenting poking at my psyche, but Pátzcuaro seemed to bring out the most vivid dreams and graphic memories in me. Last night’s dream was one I had had before. It was clear that it stemmed from Noah’s growing desperation to get the baby her American passport to allow for a visit to Michigan before it was too late, before my mom’s dementia progressed much further, or worse. But in my dream, Italya and my mom finally do get to meet for the first time. My mom’s mind is still all there, and they take to each other as though they have known one another forever. Italya is just old enough to say a few words and hears everyone calling my mom by her first name, Loie. Can you say Nana? Noah asks the baby. Loibella, she answers, clear as a bell, reaching out for my mother’s arms. Loibella. Beautiful Loie.