Alma Luz Villanueva

LA POCHA LOCA

I go to watch
tango in my warm
UGG boots, winter
in San Miguel, to

find they're teaching
tango, a handsome
young man my youngest
son's age- the waitress

talks me into it, I
sit and wait my
turn, it's the
connection, "Es

la conxexion, asi," he
places my hands on
his chest, tells me
to push, used to

play with my sons,
I almost push him
over, we laugh,
we dance the tango,

very basic, first
time for me, then
a bit more complex,
my open hands

pushing on his chest-
I make a circle with
my arms, he ducks
under, "La conexion,"

he laughs, I'm
getting better in my
clunky, warm boots,
he speaks to me in

Spanish, my body
remembers my childhood
words, next my tongue,
he tells me to drink

lots of tequilla, it'll
flow, we laugh as
he leads me backwards,
a la tango, people

are staring, la conexion,
joy and play, the one
I've had with my
sons- someone else's

turn, he tells me I'm
a good dancer, "No,
no," I laugh, "Si, si,"
he smiles, ten minutes

later he returns to
dance with La Pocha
Loca in her clunky
UGG boots, the other

dancers in spiky,
sexy heels, I make
a circle with my
hands, he ducks under,

we laugh, I cross
my left foot over,
shift my weight, dance
backwards a la tango-

Pochita Locita, my bullfighting
cousin, Chula, used to tease me,
she visiting from Mexico, pocha
(discolored, faded), a Mexican born

in the USA. Now, I understand
how I need the rainbow, to dance
backwards a la tango, open hands,
la conexion, I'm thirsty. For color.

Finnegan's Bar- San Miguel de Allende,
December 2004

My 24 year old son, Jules, and I had come to San Miguel together for Christmas- our first visit to San Miguel and we both loved it. When we walked to el Jardin for breakfast, we were greeted by three students from the Instituto, each one with a death mask, and taking turns shouting the poetry of Pablo Neruda. As one exclaimed Neruda's poetry, the other two 'died,' then came to life to continue the poem. I was hooked...the immense Christmas tree in the main plaza, the troubadors singing their hearts out (Jules and I followed as they went door to door, window to window- at one point a woman came to the door with a small dog, one of the singers kissed the dog and the crowd demanded an encore, PERO PERO PERO, he kissed him again)....wandering mariachis, drummers/dancers, mimes, street vendors, families out till midnight. The Indian families sitting on the streets, begging for some pesos- a teen mom with a baby at her breast, two toddlers next to her (she looked like me, I like her, as a teen...me with my daughter at 15)- I stopped to give her pesos. The spectrum is here, the entire rainbow...life unedited, I laugh, I cry only to laugh again. I'll add more daily stories as I continue to live here in these beautiful mountains- the view from my roof top, the church spires lit up at night...and of course, the pre-dawn fireworks when there's a fiesta (almost daily). When I first arrived I thought we were being bombed...Code Red USA...looked out my bedroom window to an explosion of color, firworks...ran up to my roof, watched fireworks for about 30 mins until the sky became violet...then huge flocks of birds began their migration from their night lake to their day lake, their dance of chaos...no leaders, only dancers.
As the Bush Nightmare continues and our world becomes One Planet in the S L O W evolutionary human time line....let me breathe some 'tonglen' with you...in Buddhist practice, you breathe in the pain of the world, then breathe out joy...tonglen, like the trees do for us. TONGLEN