A Glass Garden
A short story set in Mexico
There is a sense of permanence in so much change.
"Travel is like peeling an onion, at least one layer will make you cry."
I don't recall who wrote that line, but it holds true. My trek started in the high mountains of the ancient lands of Mexico. So ancient that a pyramid still stands at the end of my stony street and tiny ceramic faces, like thumb-sized masks, rise up year after year in the cornfields surrounding it. People say they were made to praise the old gods by the tribes of Cholutecas. Little boys find them and bring them to my gate to earn a few pesos for tortillas. Pilgrims have walked for days to see this shrine for 2000 years. The little faces are mysterious souvenirs for all of us.
Another odd thing that crops up in my backyard garden in this place is glass shards. Every day there are more, and I take all I can find to the trashman each Monday and Thursday. Yet I know this only moves the glass to someone else's garden and will be moved again by them. This will continue on forever, for this particular town has had people living in it like a long chain linked hand to hand for 5000 years. It is Cholula, the oldest living city in the Western world. We say the new world but it is not. It is older than Paris, London or Rome.
So, we have an old, glass and clay covered town that has plenty of water. Springs crop up all around but all are covered by bathhouses where a parade of folks arrive on Saturday night to clean away the week's dust for the Sunday services. The dust can be turned to mud, fashioned into loaves and baked into brick. My house here is of adobe brick and parts melt away to be used again like everything here. There is a sense of permanence in so much change. The garden is only mine for a little while so I tend it with care.
In my short time, I have seen and heard some surprising things. Fireworks go off every day for more reasons than one person can know. Even I light some once in an exuberant while. Right in the middle of town is the Square, almost every town has one and it is a fine place by day or night for such doings. If no one can guess the reason, they use the old reasons; to bring clouds or to make them go away. Every day is a holiday for someone and the church bells ring for the Saints every day. Life is short and full of disappointments so one has two days a year to celebrate, one for you and one for your own personal Saint.
A high warbled note hanging on the air first drew my attention on that grassy town square. Another note just like the first answered as the first died out. I know that sound now, it is the balloon man whistling. And nearly every day, if the sun shines, the sound comes through my gate at seven in the morning. It's a wake up call, but who buys a balloon so early? I sometimes open the street door, peer through the barred iron portals to see if a big buyer is out there; so far, never. Just the man, his whistle in his teeth and thirty or so fat balloons painted in patterns or trailing extra tails of thin balloons, floating over his head like a bright idea soon to be forgotten. But on Sunday, well-dressed children carry them in the Square, so I guess the balloon man will survive.
Another truly fabulous creature that has survived in Mexico is wall painting. Murals are everywhere and have been forever. Old and deserted cities are unburied with the paint still vivid on animals and men, squashes and corn, drawn inside and out. The pyramid at the end of my street has one locked inside called "The Drunkards," still a common sight on market days.
Today, Tuesday, is Indian market day. From the countryside comes fresh veggies and flowers stretched out under shade tents on the side streets of town. I'm a buyer, but I met a seller today. Her name is Laura. She called out to me in English from behind piles of bananas, papayas and oranges. She met and married a Cholula man in California. He brought her home to honeymoon and meet his family. That was six months ago and she still is somewhat bewildered.They all took a vacation in Veracruz on the beach last week. That was nice, she said, a vacation from your vacation helps. I now have a new friend, met in a new way!
But don't let's start with people. There are so many and each has a long story and a big family with their own myths and histories. Suffice it to say the land is full of contrasts. A horse tied outside a video store, a skindiver emerging from the river where women wash their clothes on rocks, make a true picture of the different lives being led simultaneously before my confused eyes. I try to spend a lot of time alone in my glass garden to think over what I see but don't always understand.
Once again today is the day the trashmen come and I throw out more glass and now also weeds, as the garden is getting livelier with the rainy season. Tragedy has struck on the trash truck. The man who comes down the street ahead of the truck ringing a cowbell to let us know it is time, was run over by the truck! Now, instead of the man, a loudspeaker on the truck plays a recording of his cow bell. The tradition goes on but I hope he will be well soon and back. It's just not the same.
It has been the dry season for six months, from November to April, but now in May a little rain comes every few days and the changes of nature have begun. Weeds to pull, seeds to plant and the Indians bringing seedlings to the market. The glass garden has kitchen herbs and flowers. Rather than wait and watch like an expectant Mother, my plan is to travel and return in a week or two to see how the garden has changed. One visit I have planned and can now undertake is to the ruins of Monte Alban - The White Mountain - in Oaxaca State still further to the South. There the Zapotecs built and deserted a mountain-top city, leaving behind in burial mounds, treasures of gold, carved jade and clay. I hope to see some and so pack for the twelve hour bus trip.
Here travel by bus is an adventure, unlike the dreary Greyhound at home. I started out the next day in great spirits. The beginning hours on board are through the land I know. But about three hours later, unexpected hairpin curves put me on the edge of my seat and hanging on. The dry season is still strong here and a burnt look is on the fields waiting for the rain. The cactus stand in family groups, like with like. Some are pipe organs as in the Northern deserts, but new ones appear on hill after brown dry hill. Straight and limbless like a crowded field of telephone poles in Kelly green, they soar to the height of twenty feet or more. Some folks have cleared the crotches of debris inside the giant organ pipe cacti to use the space for storing fodder off the ground. A few bright orange and red ginger lilies startle alongside a funny tree whose leafless limbs hold white flowers like butterflies alit. A gentleman in a nearby seat informs me that their resin is the source of the incense whose odor clings to this old world. It is, in fact, the white flower from which the White Mountain derives its name. Monte Alban is copal incense!
At the border of the States of Oaxaca and Puebla, we round a curve above a dry riverbed with wells dug into it. In these parts, palmetto plants are everywhere, their short grey-green fans line the riverbeds. Dust lies thick, a climate change has been inflicted on this poor land.
In the city of Oaxaca, the capitol, the market where I get off is full of the bright textiles famous here. Fewer people wear the typical clothes of their home - no longer can you tell a birthplace by a hat or a special stripe on a shirt. Still, I find a bright dress to buy. Its flowery yoke over pure white cotton is the picture of comfort.
That evening finds me at the old Spanish church of Saint Francis in the heart of Oaxaca City. The Regional museum fills its halls and rooms with statuary and the faces of Monte Alban. Behind vault doors lies the treasure of tomb #7 for all to see. This one man's store of gold, pearls from the distant sea, worked turquoise, jade, bone and the most precious gifts the earth stores fill me with a greed and hunger to live and work on and on. These are the grave goods of a very productive life. Really, it was a physical jolt like electricity. Some things do last!
The walk up to Monte Alban is steep and long and as spectacular as promised. The old ruin is in the clouds looking down over many valleys. This is the handwork of hundreds of years of cooperation and one will to glorify the gods, a fully realized prayer. Just think, a mountain top smoothed by human hand and foot, for no horses, nor oxen, nor wheel helped these ancestors. Those adaptations in man's work were never here until the Spanish brought them.
Another day, I bus down to Mitla, the second city of the Mixtecs and smaller than the glory of Monte Alban. The famous designs are carved on rock over the doors of the stone temples here. But inside, the small designed areas are formed like rock jigsaw puzzles within rock boxes, complex and varied wonders imagined and frozen in time. Fossilized dreams lie here.
The week I originally gave myself has turned into two and really it is time to go collect glass from my garden and see what has occurred in Cholula. I have decided to take a night bus and sleep through those brown and dusted land swells as best I can. The Indians are so quiet and uncomplaining when traveling. I hope all the children on board are wrapped snugly against Mom within a warm rebozo. It must be comfortable in that sling of fine wool, for they sleep so well and peer out so seriously when awake. Actually, all the Indigenous and the poor may or may not be happy for all I know. It is not one of my abilities to tell if someone is happy, often not even myself.
As I hoped, the ride was uneventful and after one change to the local bus, I am again in the tranquility of Cholula, though exhausted. Two blocks from home I must stop to rest on the restored and deserted right side of the great pyramid. Leaning on my bag, I doze.
My awakening is so confusing. My eyes try to make sense from a yellow, blue, and green world but my mind can not adjust. This must be how a baby sees, or a toddler experiences his first circus tent. Add a bright red to the color swirl when looking down and you will see as I saw - colors moving like a cloud of brilliantly colored parrots.
This scene seems magic and slowly turns into people, banners and finally the steep slope I sit upon is aglow in fresh red paint. The pyramid at the end of the street is alive! Very alive, with this entire side crowded with humanity sweeping like a carpet onto the surrounding grounds where, two weeks ago, I had last seen only dry stalks, bare boned ruins supporting trees, and the litter of a neglected old, old age.
My first thoughts burn as bright as had the first colors. If this is all real, then I must be standing now on the west face, the red side of the Great Pyramid of Tepanapa. Leaping up, I begin to back away from the wild scene that I can not understand. Nothing appears to be menacing or dangerous, but my confusion has to be resolved and soon. I am determined to find a quiet spot a bit more distant to think of what to do. My Oaxaca dress is not out of place. With lowered head and moving against the human tide I pass unnoted and head for home. The street is the same solid ground, maybe smoother than before. The crumbling old adobe facade long known to have been a platform of the pyramid is there, but painted in butterfly and jaguar designs.
It feels nearly normal to find, a block later, a gate, not of barred iron, but of wood. It opens under my pressure and I am able to walk through a courtyard to the garden. What a relief to see marigolds, bluebells, herbs and to lie back in the cool grass. A little fountain bubbles from a stone bowl where no fountain had been before, but I drink the water of Cholula and it is sweet. It has always helped me to sit quietly for a bit when solving problems and this was a big one. Sorting through my pack turned up no big ideas. All I know is that I am in the garden with a few things from a time to come. The language will be strange; a little book on the Aztec calendar stone in my bag reminds me of a few words still used in the market of today. I open it and my notebook to write them out. My thought is to make as little stir as possible and try to fit in when the original owner returns. I pray the hospitality of Mexico is a lingering custom from these times and not a Spanish import. My word list grew and I have saved it.
obsidian dagger
jaguar god
the west
water god/wind
bark/paper
a calendar period
of 52 years
crocodile
house
lizard
serpent
death
deer
rabbit
water
flower
star
This is all I had, but I know hands can say a lot. Looking back, all I could have said wouldn't have done much good unless I wanted to water a flower or stab a deer! But there is nothing more to do but wrap my modern leather bag in the long rebozo from my trip as camouflage, settle down to wait with the flutes and drums lulling me.
Really, it looks very much like it had in my day - or would in my day. No glass or potsherds spring to hand as they had/would, but a few jars along the walls look like a piece grown whole. I recognize the orange and red pottery found in ruins all over Mexico, the pride of Cholutec craftsmanship for two thousand years. It has been found in the households from Tula to Monte Alban. What era had I fallen into? Perhaps I can deduce something, but it seems unlikely. If I could ask a question, what would it be? Is there a city on a lake called Tenochtitlan? Then I would know the date was between the 13th and 16th century when the Aztec ruled. That the Spaniards had not arrived was as obvious as the festival still in full volume just two streets from where I sit, curiously contemplating a new herb.
These thoughts are broken as I hear the gate outside being pushed slowly inward, very slowly. My heart is pounding by the time a tiny figure finally emerges and pushes the gate shut. It is a very old woman, dressed in layers of brown, tan and dust colored cloth. She is bent low from age and leans heavily on a gnarled stick. Her rag wrapped feet shuffle toward my inner sanctum but it is not until she is standing before me that I see she is blind. Rooted to the garden, I sit silent as she reaches a papery hand to my face. She says nothing but draws back her hand to her own waist and releases a small bundle of seeds onto the dirt at my feet. It breaks open and is left there as she grasps my shoulder and leads me out of the garden and into the darkened house. Pointing to a bed of cornhusks, she leaves me for another room. Through the tiny door I see her sink into a similar bed and go to sleep immediately. I feel safe, as exhaustion carries me to sleep.
I awake, as often happens, with all my thoughts on another, past moment. Recalling a dream, I turn my pillow over to recapture it. What pillow? I have no pillow, no bed, no sunlight streams through my glass window on the cobbled street!
Getting up quickly, it is soon obvious that everything in the house is exactly as I had left it. I am relieved, yes, but very unsettled to find no tiny witch of the past, no scantily clad people hurrying by. When I go next door for milk, the neighbor lady asks after my health and smiles as usual. Drinking the coffee, I can only think that either yesterday was crazy or today is. Either way, it is food for thought.
One explanation - I may have eaten something strange in Oaxaca that caused such a phantasm hours later. Not completely absurd, because I had a rather strange meal called typical Oaxaqueña at my hotel. There were mushrooms in it, several types in fact. Could it all have been a dream?
Really, the only differences were on the surface. A pyramid can be painted for some occasion, people can dress for a dance, an old woman may be lost.
No, no, my judgement is better than that.
Out in the garden the glass shards glared back in the morning light. My flowers and herbs are grown larger, some new weeding is needed, two clumps of herbs are new wild ones. Outside, on the street, all is as before. I even take a quick stroll to a spot where the pyramid can be seen in its full beauty, but still in ruins with a Catholic church planted on top. So forget, it.The day before has been the dream. This is reality. Get on with things and make no silly fuss. The only real change is the two new herbs growing up in my garden where I had sat two weeks before!
Laura comes by to welcome me back. We talk about how quiet Cholula has been and always is. I tell her how beautiful it is in the south and ask if she has ever heard of special mushrooms from Oaxaca. Her sister-in-law might have, she believes. We have a lemon grass tea out in the garden before she has to go.
I stay outdoors to inspect the mysterious plants among my flowers. One type I know, the castor bean. As a child in Missouri, I had a neighbor who always planted a row "to keep out the gophers." They would chew the roots and die. We had always been warned away as the beans were deadly to people. We took the warning to heart and never even tested them on the cat or little brothers. It is poison, that was final. But castor oil is also known to kids of the previous generation. It was forced down the throat with a giant spoon by your Granny as a cure-all.
I decide to research the lowly castor plant. As far as I'm concerned, a tiny blind woman left it in my garden for me, for some reason, over 500 years ago.
My paperback library does include a pretty good bunch of books on herbs. Some are just parts copied from really rare books; the ancient Pentsao Chin from China, Edgar Cayce's trance writing from the 1930s, Antiguo Medicinales Azteca, Herbs and Plants of the Americas. Sure enough, there are many references to castor packs in the Edgar Cayce and more in the Chinese. I may be the only person who doesn't know about my "new" herb. Apparently, the suspicion of present day researchers is that the application of warmed castor oil on a cloth to the abdominal area boosts the production of T-cells in the bone marrow and thymus gland. These are the critters that first notice and kill such bodily invaders as virus, fungi and bacteria. The Salk Institute in La Jolla, California has even asserted that the protein found in castor can absorb cancer cells preventing their spread. My spirits soar but a knock on the gate brings me down to earth. It is Laura with her sister-in-law Juana.
Juana looks at me with concern as Laura translates for us through the open street window. "You should be resting, Señora," she announces. "You have had a terrible experience if you ate the Teonanacatl. Even the indios pray hard when they give it for their visions."
"Please tell her that I feel fine, Laura. Should I eat anything special or have a tea, Señora?"
Laura talks at length to her husband's sister who continues to stare at me as if expecting me to collapse before her eyes. At last she waves and grumbles down the street leaving Laura to explain.
"It means the meat of the gods in the Nahuatl language. They don't use it here, but I guess in the South it's all part of growing up. The young men take it to see how it will be when they are grown and responsible. I guess that is pretty scary! She says to drink liquids to wash it all the way out." Laura giggles before turning to go. "I hope you know your responsibilities now," she says.
In a way I think I do. I believe I'll plan a trip even further south and see if any plant down there looks like my other little friend in the glass garden. A mission of the gods is better than any plan I have now.
But first, I must finish a few tasks, see the garden through the wet season, take notes and write - always writing.
Photos by R. Meyer © R. Meyer 2004
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