Restlessness

One week in, I´m starting to get restless.

I miss having a regular schedule, somewhere to be, something to do everyday. It´s nice for a few days, but i get tired of it very fast. Of all the things I miss about my other homes, i miss my alarm clock the most! I need to go buy myself a travel alarm clock... somehow, just being able to wake up at the same time everyday helps me feel more in rhythm, something as small as that will probably take away some of this restlessness I feel. Actually, everything about adjusting to the days here has thrown me off a little. Breakfast at 10, Lunch at 4 PM! My body is weirded out. I expect to get used to it in another week or so, then there will be the task of re-accustoming myself to New York timings in a few weeks. Similarly for the language, i already find myself starting to think in spanish more and more, but at the same time, it´s a little frustrating and a little stressful not to be around any English speaking people (although when I did bump into some Americans at the artesania market yesterday, i distanced myself from their English-speaking-ness as fast as I could!) Ah well, therein lies the joy and the challenge of travel no?

And then of course there´s the fact that Y is in Argentina this week and L has classes 8AM- 8PM this week. I wouldnt exactly say that I´m lonely-- thats not it--´but figuring out what to do with myself, all by myself, all day is proving a challenge! I think I´m going to head out to Xochimilco today, not so much to the museum (I´m not in a touristy mood) as just to sit by the water and read, perhaps. That´s something to be thankful for, the fact that I am comfortable enough in this city and this neighborhood to feel like I can get around by myself.

The plus side remains the writing I have been able to do over the last couple of days. That long poem is coming along in very interesting ways, almost all the sections have by now been rewritten several times, and i am going to start typing it up today... it´s hard to edit and move around sections on paper! Maybe it´ll become one of my first poems to go up on this blog; many of you have asked me why none of my poetry makes its way into this space, and the truth is I´m not sure. So maybe it will.

Also found some very interesting reads on L´s bookshelf. One book about popular education movements in Central America caught my attention in particular. And yssel lent me a book about indigenous populations in Mexico, a very interesting read, trying to look at the ways in which there seems to be a separation in the understanding of indigenous identity and mainstream Mexican identity, problematizing this divide and suggesting that we look at a multicultural society instead of locating these two aspects of Mexico in different time periods. More on that as I read further (although, I really should go buy myself a Spanish-English dictionary if I want to be reading these fairly complex texts in Spanish!). Between all that reading and my own writing and the 3 novels I bought at the airport, I should be able to keep busy until we head into the mountains. So yeah, J, you were right, I´m ending up doing more research here than I had expected, what can I say, you know me too well! :P

Ah well. Zochimilco today, perhaps el Zocalo tomorrow (I want to go look at Diego´s "El hombre y la ciencia" again). And Thursday, I´m going to head out to Tepoztlan because I want to wake up in the mountains on Friday, my birthday! Saturday L celebrates her birthday early because we will be in the mountains on the actual date, so I guess we´ll end up celebrating together with her friends! Then a couple more days here before heading into the Sierra... we seem to have found a place to stay in Cuetzalan, still to confirm it, but looking like it will work out, which will be fantastic (as compared to arriving there with our backpacks and hoping for a room to rent!). Well, this entry is really going nowhere, is it? So more later.