You Make Beautiful Things

Our Mexican Thanksgiving Part 1

My end of the year reflections tend to start when the holidays start. The weather changes us from summer into fall and with the change, and awareness of holiday and the sacred, I contemplate my past year. The new year is coming soon after all. How can I embrace the new year without pondering where I’ve been in 2011?

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all(*)

Every five years the immediate side of my family takes a big vacation, all 10 of us together. In both 2001 & 2006 we vacationed in Hawaii. This year my mom made the suggestion we make a change and visit Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. It felt like the right time for change. Hawaii, incidentally, is at the same latitude on the globe as Cabo, so in terms of both warm weather and water temp we could expect pretty much the same climate. Both pretty darn close to paradise if you ask me.

So we scheduled our time away, packed up the kids and headed off for vacation during this past Thanksgiving week.

On the plane just before we landed I asked my sister what she hoped to accomplish on her trip. She shared a couple of deeply moving goals she had as she continues on her own personal journey. She asked me about my goals. Without missing a beat I answered: “Sit and stare.” Insert hilarious banter between Jerry (Seinfeld) & Elaine:

I spent a lot of time that week sitting and staring. Me and my thoughts. Long breaks from books, magazines, conversation and most importantly my phone and social media. To say it was glorious is an understatement.

All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all

I’d visited Mexico only a handful of times prior to this trip, always youth mission trips to Ensenada or Tijuana (just a smidge south of San Diego), but nothing ever as south as the most southern point of Baja California. When you get off the plane (about a 1/2 hour from where we’d stay in Cabo, a short drive to the actual beach) you immediately see beautiful desert mountains. Just stepping off the plane I felt the welcomed rush of different scenery, culture and people and it made me instantly happy.

My mom is a second generation Mexican-American. Her maiden name was Vasquez and her maternal family are Lopez. Even though my mom was raised by a Spanish speaking mother she grew up in the 50s & 60s when (some) Mexican-American children weren’t taught the language of their parents. They were essentially encouraged to be “white”. Not to mention, my grandmother and her sisters gossiped in Spanish, they didn’t want the little kids to know what they were saying or who they were talking about. And so my mom never learned Spanish, which to this day makes her sad. And because she didn’t learn neither did my sisters nor I. Which I wasn’t that sad about…until Cabo.

In Cabo we quickly discovered everyone speaks Spanish (I know that sounds obvious, doesn’t it?). What I mean is they don’t necessarily cater to the American tourists and speak only English. No, in general they speak only Spanish. And you know what? Spanish is beautiful.

About 4 years of high school Spanish y yo puedo hablar un poco Espanol. I was able to speak a little bit of Spanish, but not much. After our week in Cabo I added learning this beautiful language to my bucket list. My sisters and I joke: “So we can speak to our people!” But in all seriousness, after spending a week in Mexico and being immersed in the language I was changed, awakened, and challenged.

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

(To be continued…)

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