On Buying Embroidered Cushion Covers from Chiapas...Mañana

Reed and I are urbanites. When we met and married, we'd both already lived in Manhattan for several years. Our children were born while we lived on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and we walked the six blocks up Broadway first to pre-schools, then to the elementary school run by Bank Street College of Education.

At some point during those years, it dawned on me that we didn't live in a metropolis of eight or nine million people so much as we lived in a neighborhood where we knew the shopkeepers and fruit and vegetable vendors all along Broadway. We knew the guys behind the counters in our favorite delicatessens, the booksellers in our local bookstores, and the waiters in our most-frequented restaurants.

Recently, all this came home to me in a completely new way. At Christmas, my seatmate on the flight to Chicago was a charming art professor from Uruguay who has worked in Mexico for twenty years. Born in Mexico City, her children are thoroughly Mexican. I made sympathetic sounds as she related that her mother had asked her incredulously,

"How can you live in a city of 8.9 million people when you grew up in Montevideo, which has a population of only one million?"

We shared a companionable chuckle when she reported telling her mother,

"But I don't live in a city of 8.9 million people; I live in a neighborhood where I know many people, and many people know me."

We live in Coyoacán at the southern end of Mexico City. We're definitely known in our local neighborhood, but not in Centro ["downtown"] Coyoacán. At least that's what I'd always assumed, but what happened recently is causing me to rethink.

Over a year ago, we were perusing the artisans' stalls at the back of the Casa Cultura Coyoacán when Reed spotted a terrific pillow cover from Chiapas. Embroidered in fall colors on a lovely soft-green fabric, it would complement the colors in our livingroom. When we bought it, I asked if they had another like it. The artesana said that was the only one, but she could get another in two weeks.

We checked back in two weeks ... and the two weeks after that, but the answer remained the same,

"No, señora, todavía no ha llegado" — "No, ma'am, it still hasn't arrived."

Before dinner Reed and I enjoy a glass of wine sitting in front of our picture window. When the air is clear, we watch the reflected sun set against the volcanoes. During the rainy season, we watch storms arrive from the East, directly over the ancient Aztec site, Cerro de la Estrella, Hill of the Star.

My chair is opposite the love seat, so for months the Lone Green Pillow has been directly in my sight line. On occasion, I've been known to remark about it—just ask Reed.

Lone Green Pillow ...
(Photos: Jenny, with consultation from Reed)

So last summer I was quite pleased when during a Sunday stroll in Parque México in the La Condesa neighborhood, we came upon Chiapas artisans selling the same embroidered pillow covers. They didn't have the green-fabric one we were looking for, but they did have one in the same fall colors. We bought it to complement the Lone Green Pillow. I stuffed a cushion in it and put it on Reed's chair.

 One Complementary Pillow Cover,
compliments of Parque México

Months passed. A couple of weeks ago, we decided to go for tea at La Via Seda (The Silk Road). Located at one side of a small plaza walking distance from Centro Coyoacán, the outdoor cafe is a neighborly place—rather like our old neighborhood on Manhattan's Upper West Side. The wait people engage in animated exchanges with customers, whom they clearly enjoy. Their teas and coffees are excellent and, oh, yes, their pasteles, pastries, are superb.

As we sat down, Reed pointed out a car parked across the street. Its hood and trunk were colorfully draped with artisan textiles from Chiapas. After we ordered, I said that I wanted to take a quick look to see what they have.

As I crossed the street and approached the car, the young woman reached into the back seat and pulled out ... the fraternal twin to my Lone Green Pillow!

Impromptu Artisan's Stall in Coyoacán

¡Qué milagro! — What a miracle, I exclaimed. Not only was I delighted but slightly stunned to realize that she remembered me. Apparently, she'd been carrying this pillow cover around with her for months. How long will it take before I really get it that the Mexican sense of time is not at all like the one we Northern Europeans take for granted?

Where time for us is not only linear but precisely measured and tracked in seconds, minutes and hours, time for the people of Mexico is far more fluid, cyclic—everything has its season, including the possibility that I would return mañana—not tomorrow in the Western understanding of twenty-four hours, but mañana in the sense that in the natural course of human events, the season would probably arrive for me to return. And if I didn't?  Cómo sea ... whatever ....

The artesana told me that they're at the Casa Cultura Coyoacán on the weekends and at this corner Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Yes, they work a six-day week, yet another reminder of how hard ordinary Mexicans work in the informal economy (on a cash basis, i.e., without benefits), which supports 60% of Mexico's workforce.

All this went through my mind as I clutched the green pillow cover and selected another to complement it. Now I had four! Such excitement! Of course, now nothing would do but to traipse up to visit Tomás in the artisan's furniture market where we'd had our dining room furniture custom-built. Tomás also made pillows and cushions for us, and he was delighted to make the new pillows for the covers.

Yesterday I picked them up. When I got home, I carefully placed them on the loveseat and side chairs. I love them ... not just because they provide the right accent for the room, but because of the thoroughly Mexican way they came to be part of our lives.

Complements: His and Hers

As I was busy getting the pillows just right, it suddenly occurred to me:

"Why expect that a purchase be made all at once ... all components readily at hand? Why not a months-long search that yields a result not just pleasing to the eye, but to the heart and mind as well?"

Yet one more answer to the oft-asked question, "But what do you do in Mexico ... ?"

Home At Last!