Gate 63
The etymology of relaxation provides great solace to me. Laxare—meaning to loosen—and re—meaning back—as if to lax is something that must be done again as a practice, and that in relaxing, we are returning to our intended state of constant.
I feel relaxed as sunlight dances on the nape of my neck. This is perhaps my most cherished state. There are few competing feelings I would dare challenge to this one. I am at a coffee shop with a book I’ve just started and an iced coffee the day before my travels. I feel the corners of my mouth pull up slightly when I read over certain words like “all-fire” and feel gratitude down to the tips of my toes as the sun graces me with yet another kiss. We are embraced in the all-fire of the world at all times, even when we choose not to see it.
It is in the banal and mundane exercises of life that I find evidence of this most. As my taxi weaves through the busy and narrowed streets of Mexico City to my apartment, I am caught with curiosity. I watch a grandmother and young boy snack on tacos on chairs on the side of the road and, though routine for them, I ache for their being there. And I do not know them, but I see the features of my grandmother etched into the nose of this woman, and the care in the eyes with which the boy mirrors his caretaker finds great solace in my heart.
Then the car takes off again and we pass a store dedicated to brooms, another for automotive parts, and the next, belts and bras, which earns a silent chuckle from me. Each store, not a monopolistic reflection of capitalism, but standing with a curated purpose. Whether to clean, to keep your car running, or to secure your body within your clothing, life is wrought with purpose at every turn.
Purpose I seemingly forget after a night of too much mezcal and dancing. I land in bed with a hangover for 24 hours and pray to God that I will never drink again. That this has done me in and I am done drinking. I swear it up and down like a sinner on Sunday.
Then hope, amongst the dreariest, rises with the sun the next morning. I sit in Parque España and read the last few pages of my book that I am now racing through, and a grey-headed woman passes me. Her dog walks next to her, and in the cart she pushes is a dog with hair grayer than hers, eyes steadied on her face. And she walks the park alone with her two companions, and I say a quick prayer to age into as pleasant a story as hers.
Later, I hunt for a cozy place to finish my book before my flight home at the airport and find a spot at Gate 63. I weep in the embrace of the last few pages and stand on all ten of my toes to board my flight. There I am, planted like the tree my father sewed in the backyard of my childhood, which now provides shade to the insects that call its branches home. And I hear the ladybugs whisper luck into my ear as I stand to go home, rooting and cheering for me. Reminding me that life is a daily practice, where I choose presence, and find it in small, tear-stifled moments like these.
Where I choose again and again to see the purpose amongst the excess.
