Life at the Verge

This is a different kind of Post. In the last two months, I’ve spent two weeks in the U.S. Part of the time I was in Chicago celebrating my own Big Birthday and playing with our delightful (aren’t they all?) 8-month old grandson, and part of the time tending to complicated dental issues in Connecticut, our old stomping ground.

It’s been a weird experience. After immersing myself in Mexico—especially Mesoamerican culture and the Purhépecha culture in the region around Lake Pátzcuaro—I enjoyed reading Bill Moyers' The Conversation Continues, listening to NPR radio on the car radio and going to Bethel Cinema, our local arts theater, to see Cave of Forgotten Dreams, which memorably documents the recently discovered Chauvet caves in the South of France. These extraordinary cave paintings date back 32,000 years.

As I write what I’ve been doing, it occurs to me that perhaps I’m experiencing daily life on a cultural verge. Reed has written that the verge describes the area where two ecosystems meet. When I mentioned the idea to my Canadian friend, Mary, here's what she wrote back:

I love the image ‘living on the verge’...visions of cliffs, ridge lines, or that glorious place in our high country [Canadian Rockies] just before the alpine zone begins...that place of wildly lush meadows, zebra and halloween rocks, cotton grass, and a million kazillion flowers...all small, tender and beautiful...the verge...that still place between the known and the unknown....

In Mexico we seems find ourselves on a variety of verges practically on a daily basis—traditional and global Mexico, U.S. culture and the many levels of Mexican culture. What is increasingly clear to us is that, in all instances, the verge is precisely the place where known and unknown not only meet, but sometimes collide.

Mexico City

The concept of the verge is particularly apt at this moment because Reed and I are in the process of arranging a move to Mexico City. The move has required us to travel back and forth between Mexico City's post-modern urban environment and our current home in traditional Pátzcuaro.

Our commutes bring to mind a second image—that of the threshold (umbral), the place where two rooms—or two cultures—meet.  At times, we feel as if we're literally standing on the door sill—neither fully in one place nor in the other.

We are discovering life at the verge to be dynamic and full of conflict, both creative and destructive.  In biology, some species are in process of being destroyed even as new species are evolving. Culturally, the same is true: it is at the verge that traditional cultural forms slowly change even as new cultural forms are in process of coming into being.  

Both urban and rural settings occupy special places in our hearts. For forty years, Reed and I have chosen to live either in an urban environment (New York City), or on the verge between suburb and open country, which we found first in Upper Westchester County then later in Danbury, CT.

Why Mexico City? Over the past couple of years, we have become increasingly aware of the negative impact of key U.S. policies on the social fabric of Mexico, our host country. Asked to characterize Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, fuereños (Mexicans living outside Pátzcuaro) respond reflexively, “Pátzcuaro, sí…Pátzcuaro es muy tranquilo.”

And so it is…most of the time. But increasingly the unrest—or as our Mexican friends would say,  el desorden (the disorder)—arising from the activities of the drug cartels has become more frequent and more alarming. Mostly it is confined to blockading the highways by confiscating and setting fire to cars, buses and trucks. Typically, these outbursts are acts of retribution protesting the arrest of one drug kingpin or another. 

But kidnappings are not unknown. Nor is extortion—of the taxistas (taxi drivers), of the puestos (stalls) in the mercado (market) that sell CDs. One of our Purhépecha friends told us about a meeting called openly in a cantina (bar) in nearby Uruápan. In this public setting, the cartel informed the indigenous avocado farmers from our friend's pueblo that they would now be required to pay 5% of their profits to the cartels.

Our friend's response was very campesina (countrywoman),

"The rains are so slow coming this year that the harvest will be next to nothing, so the farmers won't have to pay because they won't have anything to sell."

Her meaning was unambiguous:  if the farmers ignore the threat, it will somehow go away.  Our response is, Vamos a ver que pase (we'll see what might happen). 

What's Next?

Since the summer of 2009 Reed has been maintaining a Blog of Mexico Daily News. His growing involvement with these issues led us to consider a move to Mexico City. 

Jenny's Journal arose from our intent to share with our paisanos in the U.S. our experiences of daily life and travels in Mexico, which deepen our understanding of Mexico's history and multi-layered culture. 

Our intent in making the move is to become even more active and to take advantage of Mexico's transportation hub. ¡Carpe diem! we said to each other.  

If Reed and I needed any encouragement, we certainly found it in Bill Moyers' conversation with Harvard Professor of Sociology Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot. Their discussion of what Sara calls The Third Chapter—or what the Mexicans call la tercera edad (the Third Age, following childhood and adulthood). More specifically, Sara related stories about increasing numbers of seniors (los grandes) who are engaging in projects that capture their passion and their imaginations.  Need I say more?

Mexican poet and activist Javier Sicilia, whose son was gunned down with seven of his friends outside Cuernavaca in April (2011), invited people who have suffered loss of family members to drug violence to join him in speaking out on a Caravan for Peace and Justice. Their stories give poignant, powerful testimony to a tragically misguided government policy.

While on the march, a number of family members were interviewed. One family member is Julian Le Barón from Chihuahua, whose family has suffered the assassination of several close family members. Here are Julian's opening remarks:

"We are here today because we have to be—if we don't participate, if we don't protest, we’re accomplices. There are 40,000 dead in this war against drug trafficking. I, for one, think it’s totally wrong. Everyone with a conscience should join in. If we don’t participate, we are collaborating with crime—we’d be less hypocritical if we were criminals."

As U.S. citizens, we feel it is our responsibility to do what we can to raise awareness among our fellow countrymen and women of the basic facts regarding key issues, including drugs and immigration, facing our two countries—the United States, the cherished land of our birth, and México, our beloved host country.

In August 2011 we moved to Coyoacán, Distrito Federal (Mexico City), where we remain committed to interweaving our lives with the culture and daily life of present-day Mexico. 

Hasta pronto—'til soon.